Question for those who read Marvel Comics (or at least X-Men comics)

[Misterian]

Okay, here's a question that's been floating around my head for a while.

You know how Mutant prejudice is one of the central themes in X-Men?

Well, since Mutant powers are genetic in nature, I noticed what seems to a double-standard in the Marvel Universe with super-powered beings whose powers are genetic in nature, how mutants tend to suffer prejudice at the hands of humans while most other superheroes who got powers through altered genes in a different way don't suffer the same kind of prejudice.

For example, the X-Men, a group mutant superheroes deal with prejudice on a daily basis, while the Fantastic Four, in contrast are usually publicly adored by the people they protect.

Don't get me wrong, other Marvel superheroes powered by altered genetics like Spider-Man and the Hulk also tend to suffer bad publicity, but there's usually some explanation that goes beyond simple prejudice (heck, the Hulk at least does enough mass destruction to have earned people's fear of him).

My point is, why does it seem like mutants like the X-Men tend to face prejudice from most normal humans while most other Marvel superheroes with altered genes (like the Fantastic Four) do not?

 

[Silentpony_v1legacy]

Because prejudice is the central point of the X-Men. It originally was meant to represent being gay, ie its something you're born with, people hat you for it, your parents ask if you could just stop being it, you have to come out to your friends, yadda yadda. These days it could be extrapolated to represent any genetic disorder or quirk or anything that has some sort of social stigma(Note: I am not saying being gay is a disorder.)

Its kinda' like asking why is Batman always so sad when he has all the money and all the bitches he wants. Its just kinda' his thing.

And the Civil War arc, as dumb as it was, was all about us muggles finally getting fed up of Gamma ray spandex wearing psychopaths blowing the fuck out of everything they find. And then the whole registry thing, and Captain punches Iron Man in the dick, and yadda yadda.

Is it totally consistent within the Marvel universe? Well, no, not really. But each comic series, Avengers, X-Men, Fantastic 4, Ghostrider, etc... are all really their own little world. There is crossover, sure, but they're all pretty much central and singular to itself.

 

[Saelune]

To be fair, this is a point usually portrayed mostly in X-Men focused media, as opposed to whenever the X-Men interact with the Marvel Universe at large.

DC has a similar issue with Batman. Batman solo and Justice League Batman are basically separate characters in alternate worlds.

 

[Silentpony_v1legacy]

DC has a similar issue with Batman. Batman solo and Justice League Batman are basically separate characters in alternate worlds.

I always thought that was weird too. JL Batman is snarky and sarcastic, even a little romantic with Wonder woman, brooding sure, but he really does seem to care about the founders at least. Hell, I think there's a moment where Batman admits he wishes he was as good a superhero as the Flash, because he just admires the fuck out of how Flash has gotten to know, personally, not just his enemies, but everyone in Central City and can actually talk his enemies out of violence rather than simply punching all of them all the time.

Then solo comic Batman comes along, impregnates Barbara Godron while her fiance, Dick, Batman's adopted son and sidekick, is on assignment and then broods so hard even the Goth kids from South Park think he's insufferable.

And I'm like...thems the same dude?

 

[Roguebubble]

The best answer I can think of is that the Fantastic Four powers came from an external source so there's a limited number of those with powers and everyone knows who they are, whereas with mutants anyone could be mutant as it is an internal source which leads to paranoia I guess. But honestly marvel writers haven't really sorted this thing out yet so there is no solid answer.

 

[Queen Michael]

One theory is that the mutants are born with powers, while people like the Fantastic Four got them artificially. They weren't born different. There's a very real risk that mutants will replace humans as the dominant species, since they just keep being born. But people like Spidey don't appear naturally, so they pose no evolutionary threat to the human species. That's the difference.

 

[DeimosMasque]

Queen Michael is mostly correct, but it needs some clarification.

In 616 Marvel Universe mutants have been a recognized thing since WW2. Namor and Toro were both mutants in the public light and lauded as heroes (or in Namor's case, an ally.)

After that the first exposure to mutants the public received was Magneto taking over a military base full of ICBMs and threatening to destroy all the humans in the name of Mutants. Why? Because mutants (aka Homo Sapiens Superior a recognized species thought to be the next step in human evolution) should rule the planet instead of the inferior human race. Even though the first team of X-Men stopped him, that was not public knowledge to the point that even government agent Captain America thought that the X-Men were terrorists in a similar vein as Magneto.

Basically, the modern public's introduction to mutants was a terrorist (who actually refered to himself as Evil) claiming that Humanity's time was over. Say what you want about the Soviet Union, or to put in modern terms ISIL. At least we all share the same species.

To put it another way: Superheros like the Fantastic Four, Spider-Man, the Hulk, Luke Cage and Captain America... to the public eye they are there to save you.

Mutants... even the good ones, by thier very existence are there to replace you. Even alien superheroes aren't on this planet to supplant use as the dominant species of our world. Mutants are.

There was a whole arc a few years ago where the X-Men moved thier base of operations out of New York State and to San Francisco. They had to hire a PR specialist in order to help people recognize them as the heroes they were, rather than the genetic terrorists they were perceived to be. A story arc made more difficult because the cause of that feeling, Magneto, was actually a member of their team at the time.

 

[bastardofmelbourne]

My point is, why does it seem like mutants like the X-Men tend to face prejudice from most normal humans while most other Marvel superheroes with altered genes (like the Fantastic Four) do not?

This is pretty much a core problem with the X-Men as a concept. Unlike the Doom Patrol [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doom_Patrol] (their DC counterparts), the X-Men pursued the "discrimination against mutants as a race" theme instead of "discrimination against superheroes whose powers aren't very photogenic." That leads to the logical problem you've just stated; the only real difference between mutants and other Marvel superhumans is that one is naturally occurring and the other is man-made. (This got really dumb in the Ultimate universe.)

Because the discrimination theme is such a core element of the X-Men's popularity, Marvel can't divest themselves of it. Neither can they put the X-Men in their own universe, after three or four decades of using a cameo from Wolverine to boost the popularity of any title that was underperforming. So they're stuck in this weird situation where the writers and the readers agree to politely ignore the hypocrisy of being afraid of the guy who was born with eye-lasers, but not the guy who built a pair of glasses that shoot lasers. If it's addressed, it usually gets swept under the "racism is irrational" rug. If you want to rationalise it, you can assume that mutants are less trusted in the 616 universe mainly because of Magneto, which is deliciously ironic.

The best way to deal with the problem is to do what the X-Men films did, and keep the X-Men in their own universe; one where mutants are a secretive, hidden underclass with a few violent extremists. In the mainstream MCU, superheroes are open about their identities and mostly respected, partly because their introduction was fighting off an alien invasion, and partly because their two figureheads are a) a charismatic playboy and media darling and b) a guy literally wearing the American flag. By contrast, the X-Men film universe first met mutants as terrorists or - in the best case - as a cult-like paramilitary group that uses a prep school as a cover.

Admittedly, this only happened because Fox held onto the X-Men license after the Avengers became super-popular, but honestly it's a good creative decision for precisely the reasons you've identified.

 

[Scarim Coral]

Yeah that one of the glaring logic in the Marvel Universe but to be fair they didn't think that deep about it during their first release other than the Mutant are a metaphor for prejudice.

I guess this could be one of the reason why we haven't sen to kuch of the mutants in the cinematic universe yet other than going by the term "enhance"

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

As someone who doesn't really know comics much at all, mutants are evolved humans with great powers and there's lots of them so humans being concerned with no longer being top of the food chain so-to-speak is quite a big issue. The other superheroes are sorta like one in a million shots and there's much much fewer of them. I'm guessing that when all these comics started, each was sorta their own world to where the X-Men world didn't have Spider-man and in Spider-man's world, it was just him. Obviously, crossovers and shared universes all happened later after the core themes of each comic were already ingrained.

 

[Bob_McMillan]

Honestly, this is why I never got into the X-men. They might have had powerful themes before, but now every new arc is basically a variation on them getting discriminated and I think its just dumb.

Discrimination against Inhumans makes way more sense, seeing as the Inhumans can be pretty specieist (?) too.

 

[WhiteFangofWhoa]

Because most of the non-mutant superheroes you mentioned gained their powers in some kind of science-related accident (Fantastic 4, Spider-Man, Hulk). They weren't born with the X gene, which in most iterations of X-Men is viewed as a genetic strand that will become more and more common in children as the years go by ('evolution leaps forward'). People are terrified by this future, particularly since a number of mutants have distinctively monstrous looks, such as Beast, Mystique, Toad and Nightcrawler.

Sure, the public aren't normally aware of the exact circumstances that created them, but their costumes create a clear distance between them and the public, as opposed to mutants who could be living right next door to you without you knowing. I suppose that explains the creation of costumes for the X-Men, since unknown faces in costumes are more accepted as heroes by the public consciousness than the boy next door who is still fighting acne and suddenly started shooting fire out of his hands upon hitting puberty.

Then you have the Brotherhood (and various other villainous mutants) going around attacking humans, claiming that humanity is obsolete and should die off now to make way for the superior man. So thanks Magneto, that really helps our case that most mutants are totally sane and have the same values as humans!

As those above me said, at the end of the day it's a metaphor for racial and gender prejudice against LGBT, muslims, African-American, orientals, what have you. It's what's made the combination of action, team/family dramatics and civil rights movement so endearing instead of just being another hero team. If they don't have a Trump expy causing trouble in a story arc in the next few years I will boil and eat all of my Marvel comics.

 

[bastardofmelbourne]

If they don't have a Trump expy causing trouble in a story arc in the next few years I will boil and eat all of my Marvel comics.

They do. It's the Red Skull.

Seriously. [http://i.imgur.com/5x75SuM.jpg]

 

[hermes]

The Watsonian explanation is closer to Queen Micheal. They are feared because they are born that way, and humans are afraid of them devolving into mutants in the next generations. They are fine with individuals that got powers through accidents, mad science or build them themselves. That is the reason why Beast is hated, while The Thing is actually beloved. That has a number of problems, like the logic of a mob having to ask a weird looking person if they are mutant or not to decide whether to cheer for them or beat them to death, the issue of people, corporations or governments with money being able to just buy armies of super powers not being a more concerning issue that a guy with furry skin, or that even beloved not-mutant characters can pass powers to the next generation (see Sue Storm or Peter Parker) making them just as dangerous to the human gene pool.

The Doylist explanation is that they were created in a time when the concept of "shared universe" was in diapers, like many DC characters. So, they have their own set of social and political issues that were not compatible (and not made to be compatible) with other characters settings. It gave them freedom to explore the segregation analogies they wanted. Outside of the ocasional cameo, they didn't wanted to be limited for whatever was happening with Spiderman or Hulk at the time.

 

[Remus]

Doesn't matter much regardless. The mutants are being supplanted by inhumans. The mist cloud that BB released sterilizes and poisons the existing mutant populace. The more radical the powerset is, the faster terrigen kills them. Marvel's way of saying "We don't own the movie rights, so gas chamber." It no longer matters whether the x-men come out of the current arc in some weird form - too many great characters have already been offed. Soon the X-Men will only consist of Storm and maybe Old Man Logan.

Which is strange because post-house of M, stolen terrigen crystals were being huffed like a drug by Quicksilver and passed along to the at the time depowered mutant populace. Nobody died, well except Unus, whose shield kept out even air. He suffocated on his own power.

 

[Elijin]

Another thing that the series flip flops on which makes it difficult to follow is that mutants are everywhere. Super heroes are the elite few (as abundant as they are in Marvel universe), even X-men are the elite few. But mutants? Mutants are everywhere, in significant numbers. With powers of varying levels, and no training (or sometimes understanding) of those powers, in the hands of literally anyone.

They're born that way, and its like 50/50 as to whether that mutation will be violently devastating to anyone around them when it emerges at random (when they hit puberty, typically).

Its one of those metaphors that was always wildly confusing. Its meant to be a stand in for racism and homophobia, they're born this way and they cant help it, why do you fear and hate them? But......in this example, the 'born this way' might include a teenage boy who's mutation drains life from everything around him and wakes up one day to wipe out the population of his home town (actually happened). That.....sounds like some pretty strong basis for being terrified of them.

 

[bastardofmelbourne]

It still amazes me, I hope the Red Skull makes it to presidency and Marvel can outstage DC in stupidest super villain president.

I would actually vote for President Lex Luthor over Donald Trump.

Sure, Luthor is a supervillain. But he's also a genius, and if he puts a moratorium on fossil fuels and shifts us all to clean energy, I can forgive him overdosing on radioactive steroids, jumping into a mech suit, and demolishing the White House in a fistfight with Superman. And who needs California anyway?

[sub]I mean, I'm Australian, so I would never get to vote for either of them, but you get my gist.[/sub]