Your Unpopular/Controversial Opinions on the X-Universe

[Doom'nGloom]

My unpopular, or perhaps popular since I think it's pretty sensible but I can never know with these forums, is that if I was in MU I'd 100% support mutants being registered in some government database. Their identities shouldn't be made public but at least at some level it should be known who is a mutant and who is not. That way if an accident involving a mutant happens, whether through voluntary use of powers or not, the source of the problem will be more easily identifiable. If it is an individual with malicious intent then prison, if not then he/she/they should be helped with their powers so it doesn't happen again. However comics usually go to the extreme and rather than having a nuanced take we have comically caricaturized hateful bigots sending death robots and whole government agencies hunting down mutants. And yes, I know we have comically caricaturized hateful bigots in real life too but it seems in MU there is no middle point between the recent CotA and the likes of William Stryker.

Edit: I really liked Gillen's 6 human characters in Judgment Day since those showed varying views on mutants ranging from sympathy to indifference to hate.

[cranger]

And given how many mutants canonically have experience with being called freaks and actively treated as abominations and INFERIOR because of what they are, is it possibly unreasonable to act like this aspect of things exists in a vacuum and mutants just naturally come out of the womb with superiority complexes vs many of them who DO use language like 'we are homo superior' are in their own ways just overcompensating or pushing back against years or even entire lifetimes of being treated like they're subhuman?

"Homo Superior" was what Magneto called mutants when he was trying to conquer the world with his Brotherhood of Evil Mutants.

I think the point is more about how Marvel should be portraying the views in the comics. How long has 'mutant' been a thing in the public eye comics time? 15-20 years tops? In the publishing history we have gone through periods when everyone loved mutants to everyone hated mutants and mostly where there was no strong public opinion. Most of the current mutants should only have experiences going back a few years to the end of AvX. Sure, the post AvX era was probably the worst in terms of Marvel running with extinction story after extinction story, but it is super simple to move the line beyond that.

[anyajenkins]

It seems to have become to official, scientific name, at least I don’t think I’ve heard them referred to as anything else.

"The mutant metaphor doesn't make sense" is not an unpopular opinion. It's something else nobody wants to actually call out. We have been over this about 50,000 times, the difference between mutants and other superheroes is that they are born with powers as a random genetic anomaly, which is why humans hate and fear them. Oh no, they're the next step in evolution? What about us? Oh no, what if my child is one? It's really not that hard to understand unless you're going out of your way to try to invalidate it for...reasons. Sometimes the reason is just unintelligence, but not always.

This is the same era of US History that's seen right-wing white men marching around towns with tiki torches screaming "You will not replace us," but the mutant metaphor is hard to understand. Ok.

Speaking of nuance, there were actually more counter protesters there than there were tiki torch protesters, something that could be shown in marvel ‘protests’. But speaking of ‘metaphor’, the ‘you will not replace us’ has been a reoccurring theme in d-men stories, and there it’s actually ‘true’, the mutants are/were replacing ‘normal’ humans because they are ‘the next step in evolution’ (which is social Darwinist nonsense, BTW.) There was even an extinction gene at point that would really wipe out the humans, but that seems to have been abandoned at this point.

Just like the insert-whatever-group-you don’t-like, is dangerous to the children, which is used in the comics as well, but the comics also have several stories where mutants have accidentally hurt people and destroyed a bunch of stuff when they can’t control their powers. That’s where the metaphor breaks down…

[marhawkman]

My unpopular, or perhaps popular since I think it's pretty sensible but I can never know with these forums, is that if I was in MU I'd 100% support mutants being registered in some government database. Their identities shouldn't be made public but at least at some level it should be known who is a mutant and who is not. That way if an accident involving a mutant happens, whether through voluntary use of powers or not, the source of the problem will be more easily identifiable. If it is an individual with malicious intent then prison, if not then he/she/they should be helped with their powers so it doesn't happen again. However comics usually go to the extreme and rather than having a nuanced take we have comically caricaturized hateful bigots sending death robots and whole government agencies hunting down mutants. And yes, I know we have comically caricaturized hateful bigots in real life too but it seems in MU there is no middle point between the recent CotA and the likes of William Stryker.

Edit: I really liked Gillen's 6 human characters in Judgment Day since those showed varying views on mutants ranging from sympathy to indifference to hate.

See, as-is IRL, databases exist with names, pictures physical descriptions, medical histories, and so on....

It seems like an easy extension to that to add known Mutant powers to it? Or well, super-powers in general, not just Mutants. Oh, wait, S.H.I.E.L.D. already did that! Is it 100% complete? enh, probably not. But they already have it.

[HeartofTheStoriesWeTell]

See, as-is IRL, databases exist with names, pictures physical descriptions, medical histories, and so on....

It seems like an easy extension to that to add known Mutant powers to it? Or well, super-powers in general, not just Mutants. Oh, wait, S.H.I.E.L.D. already did that! Is it 100% complete? enh, probably not. But they already have it.

yeah in the real world I would be 100% for mutant rights... but still pro registration

[Alan2099]

It seems to have become to official, scientific name, at least I don’t think I’ve heard them referred to as anything else.

Strong Guy popularized GeeCees for a while. (G.C. being "genetically challenged.")

[Kitty&Piotr<3]

It seems to have become to official, scientific name, at least I don’t think I’ve heard them referred to as anything else.


Speaking of nuance, there were actually more counter protesters there than there were tiki torch protesters, something that could be shown in marvel ‘protests’. But speaking of ‘metaphor’, the ‘you will not replace us’ has been a reoccurring theme in d-men stories, and there it’s actually ‘true’, the mutants are/were replacing ‘normal’ humans because they are ‘the next step in evolution’ (which is social Darwinist nonsense, BTW.) There was even an extinction gene at point that would really wipe out the humans, but that seems to have been abandoned at this point.

Just like the insert-whatever-group-you don’t-like, is dangerous to the children, which is used in the comics as well, but the comics also have several stories where mutants have accidentally hurt people and destroyed a bunch of stuff when they can’t control their powers. That’s where the metaphor breaks down…

lol that's not a breakdown

People in real life have damaging experiences with folks who happen to be of a certain group and then extrapolate that to, "certain group is bad," and then political figures with something to gain from hate maximize that into a narrative to drive more people to hate that certain group.

The metaphor really is pretty much apt. The "break-down" is only that some people identify with the tiki torch bros, but also like costume comics.

[bat22]

My unpopular, or perhaps popular since I think it's pretty sensible but I can never know with these forums, is that if I was in MU I'd 100% support mutants being registered in some government database. Their identities shouldn't be made public but at least at some level it should be known who is a mutant and who is not. That way if an accident involving a mutant happens, whether through voluntary use of powers or not, the source of the problem will be more easily identifiable. If it is an individual with malicious intent then prison, if not then he/she/they should be helped with their powers so it doesn't happen again. However comics usually go to the extreme and rather than having a nuanced take we have comically caricaturized hateful bigots sending death robots and whole government agencies hunting down mutants. And yes, I know we have comically caricaturized hateful bigots in real life too but it seems in MU there is no middle point between the recent CotA and the likes of William Stryker.

Edit: I really liked Gillen's 6 human characters in Judgment Day since those showed varying views on mutants ranging from sympathy to indifference to hate.

Sounds to me like a parallel to California gun owners. Mutants treated less as a responsible people by and large and more like volatile killers just waiting to go off, with the majority of flatscans voting for ineffective, increasingly oppressive laws affecting their daily lives. But such legalized injustice could then challenge the X-Men to acts of criminality.

[Grunty]

My unpopular, or perhaps popular since I think it's pretty sensible but I can never know with these forums, is that if I was in MU I'd 100% support mutants being registered in some government database. Their identities shouldn't be made public but at least at some level it should be known who is a mutant and who is not. That way if an accident involving a mutant happens, whether through voluntary use of powers or not, the source of the problem will be more easily identifiable. If it is an individual with malicious intent then prison, if not then he/she/they should be helped with their powers so it doesn't happen again. However comics usually go to the extreme and rather than having a nuanced take we have comically caricaturized hateful bigots sending death robots and whole government agencies hunting down mutants. And yes, I know we have comically caricaturized hateful bigots in real life too but it seems in MU there is no middle point between the recent CotA and the likes of William Stryker.

Edit: I really liked Gillen's 6 human characters in Judgment Day since those showed varying views on mutants ranging from sympathy to indifference to hate.

The overall problem seems to be that because the X-gene mutants have been so often compared to minority groups and the discrimination they suffer from, it tends to dominate the discourse about them and therefor constantly draws negative parallels when such reasonable considerations about people randomly gaining widely different and often potentialy highly dangerous super powers are brought up.

So with that in mind it's no suprise that the idea of mutants being by law required to register themself in a governmental database and forbidden from using their powers as they like, will not primarily be compared to something like laws regarding posession and usage of weapons or vehicles or handling of dangerous tools and substances, but the negative treatments of minorities by governments.

See, as-is IRL, databases exist with names, pictures physical descriptions, medical histories, and so on....

It seems like an easy extension to that to add known Mutant powers to it? Or well, super-powers in general, not just Mutants. Oh, wait, S.H.I.E.L.D. already did that! Is it 100% complete? enh, probably not. But they already have it.

It's interesting that the mutants of Arrako openly call powers which are usefull for direct combat "weapons", which their martial culture aside, makes sense since many mutants get powers akin to someone suddently having a weapon fused to their body which can range from a pocket knife, over an artillery cannon to fantastic concepts like mind control rays or weather machines.

Which in turn raises the question if there has been a debate in the USA of the Marvel universe on what ever posessing mutant powers is supported by "the right to bear arms"?

[marhawkman]

yeah in the real world I would be 100% for mutant rights... but still pro registration

Yeah, having your name listed in a govt database doesn't mean the govt is planning to steal your rights. I mean they might be, but the database is kinda inevitable either way.

The overall problem seems to be that because the X-gene mutants have been so often compared to minority groups and the discrimination they suffer from, it tends to dominate the discourse about them and therefor constantly draws negative parallels when such reasonable considerations about people randomly gaining widely different and often potentialy highly dangerous super powers are brought up.

So with that in mind it's no suprise that the idea of mutants being by law required to register themself in a governmental database and forbidden from using their powers as they like, will not primarily be compared to something like laws regarding posession and usage of weapons or vehicles or handling of dangerous tools and substances, but the negative treatments of minorities by governments.

Well, a certain amount of that is an inevitable requirement of following existing laws. like you know, murder is murder whatever the method or the victim.

It's interesting that the mutants of Arrako openly call powers which are usefull for direct combat "weapons", which their martial culture aside, makes sense since many mutants get powers akin to someone suddently having a weapon fused to their body which can range from a pocket knife, over an artillery cannon to fantastic concepts like mind control rays or weather machines.

Which in turn raises the question if there has been a debate in the USA of the Marvel universe on what ever posessing mutant powers is supported by "the right to bear arms"?

Well a lot of this could be extrapolated in a sensible way.... Yes, I know we're talking about politicians where are ethically questionable at best and outright evil at worst. so a real set of laws would have weird exceptions that make no sense to most people.

[Lukmendes]

"Homo Superior" was what Magneto called mutants when he was trying to conquer the world with his Brotherhood of Evil Mutants.

The X-Men also called themselves that, and back in Lee/Kirby's run they sounded really condescending and even prejudiced a few times too:



(X-Men#5).

I think the point is more about how Marvel should be portraying the views in the comics. How long has 'mutant' been a thing in the public eye comics time? 15-20 years tops? In the publishing history we have gone through periods when everyone loved mutants to everyone hated mutants and mostly where there was no strong public opinion. Most of the current mutants should only have experiences going back a few years to the end of AvX. Sure, the post AvX era was probably the worst in terms of Marvel running with extinction story after extinction story, but it is super simple to move the line beyond that.

Didn't Marvels retcon that Namor did some shit that lowered people's opinion on mutants back in World War II?

Then again, even if it did, I'm not sure if Marvel really uses it.

[Galerion]

Just saw this on Reddit and it completely dismantles the toxic ideology of "Homo Superior". After all claiming that genetics makes you superior to others is the pretty much the same ideology the Nazis had.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Marvel/comm...as_zero_chill/

[marhawkman]

Just saw this on Reddit and it completely dismantles the toxic ideology of "Homo Superior". After all claiming that genetics makes you superior to others is the pretty much the same ideology the Nazis had.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Marvel/comm...as_zero_chill/

Haha, this reminds me of how in X-Men: TAS there's a sub plot about "stabilizing" the Mutant genome. Because that's a major danger to mutants, being born with powers that aren't stable. Which as Kang alludes to tends to get worse over time.... if they can reproduce at all. In the main time line you have guys like Feverpitch who has cool flame manipulation powers... but... it comes at the cost of his entire torso looking like charcoal... charcoal that's only vaguely humanoid and looks kinda like 5th degree burns covering his entire body. He actually goes around naked because most people can't tell the difference. Oh and he died because his powers got pushed into over drive by a variant of the Legacy Virus. He literally burned himself up.

[davetvs]

How is Homo Superior a toxic ideology? Mutants are genetically superior to humans, in-universe it is a scientific fact.

[gonnagiveittoya]

I mean race science is still bad when the "good guys" do it.

Plus I mean it kind of undercuts the mutant metaphor a lot. Mutants can't be hated and oppressed and the Master Race