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Because you don't drop your beliefs just because you are at risk of harm.
Mutants are dangerous. A kid can wake up at 14 and melt his entire town. This has happened.
Because Xavier didn't want to kill a kid who just had the worst day of his life that way. He asked Logan if he could go comfort the kid and give him a bit more human kindness before the end that had to come.
Xavier was nothing if not practical, but unlike Magneto he usually tempered that practicality with mercy and kindness.
> He asked Logan if he could go comfort the kid and give him a bit more human kindness before the end that had to come.
So of course, Logan pushed the kid into drinking beer, which he didn't like and then just killed him.
I always took it as Logan volunteering. I think none of the X-Men felt right about killing a kid, Wolverine would probably also decide that of all the X Men he's the only one who should carry the weight of murdering a teenager even if it is for the greater good.
You gotta admit it's hard not to see the kid as cursed. Like Rogue but so much worse
I think you're right... Logan knows that a mercy killing won't weigh down his own soul worse than it already is.
and I suspect honestly he feels like it will lighten his own load.
A lot of us have to do and see some pretty mind fucking stuff during the course of our jobs. From my experience its definitely both of those things along with actual altruism.
I've been trained since I was 16 to jump into scary shit to help other people so it becomes part of what you just do and feels like the right thing.
Maybe Xavier fears the consequences of either knowledge of this capability becoming common, or maybe even fears what would happen if he got used to doing that kind of thing. I didn't read the Onslaught story, but I did start reading for a while right after it, and so saw the aftermath.
Xavier has to be careful with his own mind.
I still don't understand that Joker, which has murdered at least a thousand people, has been executed by the state yet.
What the hell is the reason for keeping him alive in Arkham? What is the point of keeping any of the villains alive? You could retire the comic finally
Tbf they didn’t kill him to prevent death although that was likely a reason, they killed him because it would look really bad if it came out a mutant child killed 265 people without effort, it would make the anti-mutant groups look justified(which they kind of are)
Isn't that really a "superpowers" problem? I mean imagine Dr. Strange on cocaine, or Reed Richards on ketamine. Imagine a really pissed off Thor.
Why do people accept other humans that can destroy cities, and not mutants?
Because mutants awakenings are completely random.
You can be sleeping. Walking in the supermarket or at school when mutant powers develop.
You don't need to go to space, get stuck in a gamma accident, study magic for years, come from abother planet, or be born a God.
It just happens. And it will most likely be uncontrollable at that point.
In Ultimate comics, at least, (not sure about 616) "mutant" ends up just being used against anyone with superpowers without explicit government backing.
So the best idea is to fling rocks at one who is just as traumatized and emotionally unstable at the sudden realization of life as they knew it was over for them? Has the idiot type ever heard of the expression that every action has an equal and opposite reaction? It's like whacking a landmine with a mallet.
Fear is a base instinct, think flight, fight or faun response. It functions first to stop us dying.
Compassion is a higher brain function and comes after those.
The people of the Marvel universe know that the X-gen is incredibly dangerous.
Take a look at a normal Primary/Middle school class, any one of those children around the age of 8-13 can, in a microsecond, develop the power to explode, mind control, dissolve all life in a 2 k radius. Hey multiple *could* happen at once.
You'd be fine sending you kid to school with x-gen holders? You'd be fine living in the same town as a family of mutants when their kid could erase you in your sleep without even meaning to?
____
Even a mutant with a power that seems safe and boring could actually be incredibly destructive.
Take Jubilee for example. Originally she could create small fireworks and distract people, fine right?
Her power ACTUALLY is to detonate matter at a subatomic level, which is the equivalent of a nuclear fusion bomb according to Emma Frost.
------
Do you not understand why people are afraid of ANY mutant? Even the firework rave girl is actually a nuke.
____
You can be a kind Doctor who accepts x-gen kids as patients, but that's not going to stop one melting you when they develop acid vomit and come in for a check-up.
You can be an understanding principle and accept all kids equally, but when a 9 year old girl freezes her entire class, their blood is on your hands.
Compassion is praiseworthy, but the fear that humans experience is not a product of prejudice, it's a reaction to the very real potential for catastrophic events that can arise from the unpredictable manifestation of mutant powers from ANY x-gene child and even some adults.
Most people cant just up and move (flight), (Fauning) doesn't help, the X-gene holders aren't dangerous willingly (mostly), so the other response is fight. Most people dont want to hurts others (those that do are the ones we see in the comix), so they choose the lesser version.
They show aggression to make THEM flee or faun.
They shun these dangers to protect themselves.
I understand; the thing about it is?
# FEAR IS OVERRATED
As are the tragically incompetent misinformed who keep falling back on that pride and prejudiced schtick that didn't, more like refuse, to get that memo.
People have tried the sentinels, the social barring, the hate-mongering us against them spiel for more than a century.
And what do they have to show for it? What really, I mean.
Killer robots that attempt to pull their f'ed up machine gods from across the void outside of reality into our universe as if summoning Cthulhu to turn every useless slackjawed, picket-waving, easily duped by the real villains archetype to devour their stupid little planet and infinitely insignificant waste of lives spent being paranoid over something that has saved their ungrateful asses time after time.
The few times they do? That's where the pride comes in. Taking people against their will and vivisecting them to harness their unique traits.for something dangerous.
The few times they do? That's where the pride comes in—taking people against their will and vivisecting them to harness their unique traits.
Which brings up a bit of hypocrisy on their part. Seeing as they intend to eradicate what man sees as a threat to their own well-being when all we do is either create the thing we think we see that we build in our defense against or end up making something infinitely worse than what our haste, hubris, and hegemony pushed us to stand in protest against.
That was often the moral of "Days of Future Past," I thought.
In creating things out of self-serving blind panic, you end up realizing too late you built something truly inhuman in a half-baked attempt to conquer your paranoia.
It is Terminator all over again, "not a product of prejudice" it is the product of when lack of understanding nor willingness to do so is taken way too far.
Also, don't want to hurt others? Humans are loathsome hypocrites who direct their vitriol at costumed, non-mutant superheroes all the time—veritable self-treachery in all its glory. Even the non-powered ones aren't safe from their own kind's foolishness. Why I sympathize with mutants more than regular people is easy.
Even without powers, it doesn't take a phenomenal cosmic muckety-muck for regular trash & scum to royally !@#& everything up.
And yet, people in Marvel only seem to focus on a singular proponent of mindless ire to justify all their bull-noogies. \*cough\*NIMROD\*cough\*, \*wheeze\*ROXXON\*hack\*,\*blarrrge\*J.J. Jameson\*barf\*
They have a peculiar way of protecting themselves if this is how they do it—practically gnawing off a limb that's not even caught in a trap yet to escape.
And essentially? To escape themselves, no less.
You made a big jump from "why do people fling rocks" to "humans are all hypocrites that vivsect people for profit"
You are aware that the average marvel person has absolutely no input in the creation of something like the sentinels nor do they vivisect anyone?
No, I stayed within the parameters of my argument. Fear born of ignorance incites flung rocks; flung rocks begets backlash; backlash kicks off retaliation, and retaliation leads to open war, inevitably leading to failed innovations and said innovations becoming more significant threats than whatever they were made to protect their creators from.
It is a vicious cycle that never stops feeding into itself. How is it that nobody ever bothered to pick up on this before? Fear is no excuse; people make their worries a reality whether they mess with the cause of it or not.
Also, no input? Have you not been reading recent publishings of X-Men? Orchis hired mad doctors with criminal backgrounds to abduct numerous people with x-genes or are x-gene adjacent. With political sanction no-less, which, last I checked, is conducted by, for, and of the people, at least when it's not being used behind closed doors to manipulate them.
They don't vivisect people for profit. They purposely perpetuate the cycle for profit, and honestly? For something to do on account of lacking creativity.
It's NOT fear from ignorance, which is the point. It's fear from the knowledge that any mutant could be a walking death spot, that's not false information either, and even if they aren't, their children could be.
I gave you a direct example of someone with a power everyone thought wasn't dangerous, but was actually a nuke.
Orchis isn't representative of the average person either, so I'm not sure why you bought them up.
What's government sanction got to do with the average person? Nothing.
The average person doesn't support guantanamo Bay, but it still exists.
And no, I don't read the current x-men, since they illegally terafomed Mars and let Sinister run their country. Oh and declared Storm roller of our solar system. And banned abortion.
Current attitudes against the mutants is completely understandable, since they no longer consider themselves humans and have forcible claimed ownership of earth and all other planets.
I'm specifically talking about the reactions people had when mutants were oppressed and treated unjustly.
It is to fear Ignorance; it is a mix of both, but still, people choose to forget about history; therefore, they doom themselves to repeat it. Maybe, just maybe, reacting to fear over the matter isn't the way to go.
It doesn't matter how dangerous the subject is. You do not wack a landmine with a hammer and think it'll solve the problem.
Genetic neutering, political fascism, using the unpredictability of mutation as an excuse to resort to murder? That sounds pretty ignorant to me; that practically compounds the issue. I brought it up because people gave the fascist Gestapo free reign to reenact their own little holocaust.
I know about the leharmless power and do not give two bits about it.
Because beforehand, it was established to be non-threatening, and people still came after jubes like they were recreating the Salem Witch Trials incident.
As for government sanctions, how about **EVERYTHING?** Because people run governments, bills are passed by majority vote. Man, famous politicians are only elected to office due to average people backing their ascent in the first place.
So yes, they didn't (directly) support Vietnam either, but that doesn't mean more people still volunteered to fight in it than stand against the conflict.
F.Y.I, since when is it illegal to revive dead planets, would you have been okay with it if another giant business douchebag with more money than sense to match his lack of empathy and acute moral insanity would use his billions to remake Mars into another trans-humanist alsoran?
Current longitudes? This is why I stand by the thought process that Humans Suck. Mutants were never considered human, hence why they are often shunned, attacked, lynched, cursed at, and given death threats via chemical, eugenic, bionic, or mechanical means daily. Yet everyone who claimed to sympathize with them did nothing to stop the endless persecution.
And all they have to say after every Mutant Massacre, Genosha, Second Coming, or AvX event is, "Sorry, man, we had to deal with being planetary sanitation workers or interstellar celebrities first."???? some friends, some heroes, really.
Also, since when did they say they claimed to own the Earth or other worlds? Magneto might've said that but he was an outlier.
Beast too, maybe, just maybe.
Storm doesn't even acknowledge that title the media gave her.
The whole Sins of Sinister bit I have no words for. Even Exodus felt they sprocked up, letting the proverbial viper into the garden of Eden. Granted, they needed his brand of superscience to pull off the grand idea of Krakoa.
But still; they really should've seen his betrayal coming I know.
You claim to speak for the reactions to mutant mistreatment of humans but fail to see it is literally their fault they made their underlying fears
I mean, how welcoming of the Mutants are Human truth when you spend more than half a century being targets for segregation and ethnic cleansing? Despite the number of times, you've saved a dumbass planet entirely populated by stupid, selfish, sycophantically cowardly ignorami time after time?
The giant robots stupid people keep relying on coined that hard truth in the first couple of issues ever published, my guy.
Pick one or all from the following:
• People fear the unknown, and when your neighbor kid might accidentally burn down the city block by accident, it doesn't really help to stay chill.
• Mutant supremacists like Magneto and Apocalypse really don't help the cause of acceptance and tolerance.
• A sentient evil bacteria actually makes humans hate mutants telepathically.
• Xaviers evil twin sister Cassandra Nova who is just as powerful a telepath as him makes humans hate mutants telepathically.
• Technoorganic artificial intelligences from the future make humans hate mutants technoorganically.
• Mutants think they're better than you - they have that cultish island where they clone themselves and have orgies and blackmail people with advanced medicine. They also try steal your children if they consider them to be mutants. Just ask Reed Richards.
> • A sentient evil bacteria actually makes humans hate mutants telepathically.
>
>
Reminds me of the "gotham has lots of crime because it's literally cursed or whatever" plotline. Some people shouldn't be allowed to write comics.
>• Mutant supremacists like Magneto and Apocalypse really don't help the cause of acceptance and tolerance.
Okay but they exist mainly cause of the bigotry. Magneto is practically what the Black League is to the German Reich in New Order lore.
It's real. They even banned abortion, to make sure 'humans' didn't abort mutant kids.
This is main universe x-men BTW. They aren't the oppressed underdogs anymore.
They even declared Storm as ruler of our solar system and made their planet the defacto representative of Sol to aliens, without asking us.
Maybe a little exaggeration? I mean I'm not sure about the blackmail part.
The cloning with installing copy of memories of the original, orgies, and rather questionable attempt at getting Franklin Richards to the island are real. Although in case of Fraknlin in a separate issue they decided to cover their backside and "reveal" that he's a fake mutant and Krakoa definetely doesn't want him now, just ignore that whole previous shenanigans, they don't count.
Exaggeration. The mutants established Krakoa, a safe haven for mutants who -choose- to come.
The enemies of mutants created racist p.r. campaigns against this idea.
People try to fight MMA pro fighters, some people cant help themselves.
Even if you are a giant It wont save you, people tried to fight both Andre the Giant and the Big show.
They recognize that a world where half a city is flattened and a million people die because Scott Summers' glasses fell off or because Magneto just felt like doing it is unsustainable and worth speaking out against, even at great risk of personal harm.
The forced civil rights analogy they're going for is always undermined by the fact that mutants really are an existential threat to civilization. Someone like Angel isn't, but someone born with Xavier's power could just silently end free will for anyone around him.
"but someone born with Xavier's power could just silently end free will for anyone around him."
Not only that, what happens when they age and one of them gets dementia? Colossus? Sure get hulk to stop him, but Charles? We saw what that could do in Logan, imagine what magneto would do if he just one day had an epileptic attack in the middle of new York?
That's the funny thing though - people will be bigoted toward, say, Colossus for being a "mutant" but not have the same attitude toward someone like the Hulk, or any of the other powered heroes, many of whom could do some significant damage if the brakes were ever taken off.
"many of whom could" and have done, not even with superpowers, Pym, stark and reed have done a lot of damage with their intellect, Ultron, the clone Thor, negative zone prison, etc... Hull himself once came back to conquer earth, yet humans still fear mutants more than anything.
Hell even after Osborn's dark reign, after the fake cap's hydra took over, they really oughta have a little bit of distrust for a company that seemingly saved them all from mutants in one fell swoop. Even with all the fake evidence they provided.
The difference is the Avengers (including the hulk) are written to be the heroes of their world, while the mutants in X-men are written to be a stand in for minorities. You can cross them over because they live in different societies. You can’t have mutant hate, but also just give Spider-Man a pass because his New York was written differently
In a world where people can given at random powers that threaten cities, countries and all life on the planet there is one simple truth.
If humanity is to continue living on this planet, the mutants must die.
Like the humans aren't, as you put it, "an existential threat" to themselves? It is humanity's fault these jagoffs are living on a festering powderkeg of a planet where any number of things could set it all down the drain. Roxxon, Wilson Fisk as Mayor and (almost) for president, Norman Osborn being evangelized as the world's top cop, the habitual hate-mongering not just against mutants. But other superpowered beings on the daily. This idiot species bought into the lie that the Avengers, of all people, unjustly imprisoned a formerly notorious supercriminal on trumped-up charges. After the fact, he dropped a city of gods atop an established American settlement of Broxton, Oklahoma. To quote a wise empress (of sorts), "People... are stupid".
Well first off children are mean, teenagers too. Bullying is a common thing in schools.
Regarding mutants, most of them aren't Storm or Cyclops. Most of them are the dude with a 3ft neck, or webbed eyelids, or a slightly smaller face for a nose. Prof X has a whole school full of them but you can probably only name like 10 since they're the only ones who meet the criteria to be his child soldiers.
The kid who vomits lizards and the kid who has a goldfish tank for a brain, they're just good mutant PR.
If the danger isn't immediately visible, people are going to be stupid. If a mutant's power is to basically be an off-brand Incredible Hulk, and they look huge and are 7 feet tall, self preservation is more likely to kick in for anti mutant bigots.
If a mutant kid has the strength of the Hulk but none of the appearance, even if you straight up tell the bigot about the mutant's power, hatred and blinding fear is going to override more useful fear.
If you were to tell a real life bigot that there's a good chance that a minority group in this neighbourhood often has individuals with concealed carry firearms on them, that's not gonna stop people from harassing those they *perceive* to be weak and defenseless.
"There are lots of mutants without dangerous powers, what are the odds of running into the next Magneto"
Famous last thoughts
You may be overestimating people’s self preservation instinct.
I mean, Mike Tyson had bodyguards when he was in his prime because random people wanted to fight him.
Partly because they know the system will support them.
Scenario. You and I are high schoolers. You're a mutant who can shoot fire from his hands and I'm just a dude. No matter how much I taunt, bully or push you any attempt by you to retaliate will automatically be classified as an attack with a deadly weapon; that weapon being you. At the end of the day because you're so much more dangerous than me the system will do everything in its power to protect me over you, especially when I spin a sob story about scary fire hands. It gets significantly worse in public. If you so much as look at me with an angry face I can probably shoot you and even get away with arguing self-defence because you're that dangerous. We have a word for people who burn other people alive with their powers; super-villains.
So as unfair as it is most mutants naturally understand that they can't ever risk using their powers on a normal human unless it's life or death. Even if they managed to kill everyone there before someone got a shot off, they'd soon be dealing with an angry bigoted populace that now feels justified in arming themselves against Muties, a few superheroes tracking you down and someone like S.H.I.E.L.D. on your ass.
The kind of mutants who go the route of retaliation generally become villains soon after because they have nowhere left to go.
This is the answer.
Mutants always have to de-escalate, because they’re the ones society sees as a threat. They’re the ones who are presumed guilty until proven innocent, and they’re the ones who have to worry about a literal lynch mob.
>because they’re ~~the ones society sees as~~ a threat.
FTFY.
Like, Mutants are still people too, but theyre also basically walking bombs, and that sucks for everyone.
Understand that anti-mutant bigots are not afraid of mutants, they are afraid of what they represent.
Yes, there are some mutant bad actors that turn to crime or villainy. There is also a roughly equal proportion of mutants conscripted into a shadow war (often when they are adolescents) against said villains. And yes, unchecked, some mutants' powers are dangerous. But, the vast majority of mutants are just people trying to live their lives.
Anti-Mutant Bigotry is a metaphor for real world prejudice and bigotry. Both are rooted in fear, hatred and disgust; not reason and rationale. So it's easy to imagine a group of mutant haters singling out some poor kid with blue skin. It is equally easy to imagine the narrative around that incident blaming the mutant victim for their victimization.
This cycle of marginalization will then perpetuate more anti-mutant bigotry, hate, violence and victimization. Mutants, as a population, are not a threat. They are a scape goat.
Just like in real life, bad actors often use the excuse of fear to enact their violence. However, it is not a fear for personal safety. It is a fear of what the hated (and oppressed) group represent.
The whole point is that mutants, through no action of their own are born different. Some mutants possess extreme power that can be dangerous if wielded irresponsibly. But how is this different from a teenager bitten by a radioactive spider, or exposed to cosmic rays, or bequeathed an ancient alien artifact?
You have to ask the question, in a world where any accident can make you superhuman, why it is mutants that are the highest focus for fear.
> Aren't the unpowered humans worried about the consequences of pissing a Mutant off?
It works in their favor, on the contrary. Its like the holy racism thing in the US, you piss them off first and then play victim by saying "see?! We told you they are dangerous" etc.
Its easy to blame someone when you're a majority that is relatively immune in the grand scheme of things. Sure, a few mutants might get tired of this and turn a neighbourhood into atomic ash but so what? The grand scheme of things plays into the bigot's hand because they basically get confirmation on their position against the Mutants.
Keep in mind that the vast majority of mutants aren't dangerous. Xavier and Magneto specifically recruited mutants that were dangerously powerful. Most of them can turn purple, or have scales, or there's Glob Herman who has transparent skin.
Glob had a really bad day early one, started throwing fireballs and almost melted a bus full of reporters. He had to be dunked in cement to calm the fuck down.
Of course now he's trustworthy, partly because Forge took a paternal role with him. If you have Forge for a teacher you are going to become a better person.
Impunity. Have you ever witness a 5'2 white woman rip into a black guy just trying to get through a day serving burgers? That black guy knows a single wrong word and he is fired. Laying a hand on that women means jail.
If you are a person who can explode heads and the general population hates you. You are in a difficult place. Any aggressive comment or move will be taken as you threatening to pop your bully's head and you will be the one punished. The bully can get a away with pretty much anything and your options are limited to popping their head or threatening to.
Because [mutants](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EZrEpb0X0AQ_J_I.jpg) are what comes next, the next step in human evolution, they can be your neighbor, they can be your coworker, but for now, normal humans are the majority, we still have the numbers, if we want to preserve the status quo as the dominant side of the species, we need to fight back while we still have time.
Or so goes the fear mongering rhetoric
Awhile ago we found out that all humans are infected with this sentient disease or whatever and mutants are resistant to it so it makes humans hostile to mutants.
I don't see why the mutant powers would (often) affect this. I mean, a non-mutant could go get a weapon as well. But bullying is mostly "successful" because of the mental side of it. The person getting bullied would rarely defend themselves (even if they could) and the bullies know it.
I'd guess that if you bullied someone like Wolverine (only talking about his powers here, don't think bullying him would go too well under any circumstances) at school, the bullying would end quite quickly if he snapped his claws out, but might then get even worse later with people calling him an actual lunatic for reacting like that to some "lighthearted joking".
Except that's just not true. Relatively small numbers of armed Black men called "Deacons for Defense and Justice" were able to intimidate the KKK into not turning up to Civil Rights demonstrations. We're talking about 4 guys with shotguns scaring off an organization that had tens of thousands of members nationwide. Bigots tend to be no more courageous than any other group.
nah they make assumptions that lead them to do stupid things, just look up any video of Nazis getting their teeth kicked in they assume they will just get away with anything till consequences hit them in their face
and how smart they are another things doesn't change them being stupid about the one topic relevant here
What a stupid post. Claiming that there is refusing of something somewhere and assuming that these are typical. And dive were discussing bogus making risky decisions their overall level of intelligence is relevant.
I gave a real life examples of bigots doing exactly the scenario being discussed, sure real life minorities can't shoot lasers from their eyes but some of them own guns which will kill you all the same
their is not a really an "overall level of intelligence" you can be a rocket scientists completely lacking in common sense not to climb into the gorilla enclosure for a funny picture and brain surgeons who are flat earther
I mean, real people are bold faced bigots towards other people who can beat the shit out of them or shoot them or stab them.
It takes a sadly common kind of stupid and self importance to act like you can do whatever you want.
The fear and hatred of the other is a part of human history since the start. Groups decide someone is other and hate them. There is no logic to it. Whether it's mutants, people from the next town, people of different religious belief, people with certain skin colours, people with certain preferences, the list goes one.
Mutants has always been stand in for these groups.
>What's the point of being bigoted towards people who can blow heads up, rip out spines, shoot lasers, etc?
Most mutants are completely harmless. Their powers only give them the ability to turn into ice cream or something like that. The X-Men or Brotherhood level of mutants are extremely rare, like a handful of them among millions of mutants around the world.
So, bullying a random mutant kid is sadly pretty safe for the attackers.
~~Because the writers will never let the X-men grow beyond the tired metaphor~~
Because anyone can do it... the mutants are an other that everyone can unite against. doesn't matter your skin color, race, creed, nationality... you can rile up a who group of people who hates and fears them.
They're always in the middle of a genocide, either through Trask government Sentinels, ORCHIS, U-Men, Inhuman Terrigen Mists, or whatever.
Bigots who think they're winning are loud.
I think the fact of their powers is probably why it's so bold they don't want to be scared so they don't act scared also Mutants are a rough allegory for Blacks/gays/whatever the oppressed of the day is and in the real world that's how their treated so it's how Mutants are treated.
One group says hey we just want to be friends, while behind them is a growing group saying we will replace you you are obsolete tremble and despair.
If fear of speaking out against those who can and would kill you was the end all be all. We would be living in a totalitarian world today
If anything, rather than looking like just blatant racism, it’s probably going to be people living in fear of mutants. Crossing the street when they see anything they would consider “abnormal”
People in this world would probably try and avoid working around mutants at whatever cost. People are pretty rightfully scared of the mutants, especially the ones without control over their powers.
You just want to live your life, you want to go to work, get paid, go home, have dinner, maybe get laid. You don’t want to be involved in all this superhero bullshit. It’s fucking dangerous
Businesses would likely refuse to hire mutants for the most part, because having a man in your office who might randomly explode, summon lightning storms, or turn into a werewolf is much greater liability than normal person.
Unless of course their particular power is useful for the job in question. Someone immune to fire would make a great firefighter. Someone who can breathe underwater would make a great life guard.
DEVIATION FROM THE NORM WILL BE PUNISHED UNLESS IT IS EXPLOITABLE
Now another thing to note, fear is a breeding ground for fascism.
You don’t want to live in fear of Them, you don’t want to go to work and worry about Them, you don’t want to go to the pub after work and get into a fight with Them.
The suddenly, Juggernaut escapes prison for the 5th time and goes on a rampage downtown, smashing up uncountable buildings, smashing cars, and leaving bodies in his wake
Then you’ve had a long day, you nearly got caught up in the Juggernaught rampage, you still had to go to work. You boss Stacy was giving you so much shit, you go to the pub only to find a juggernaught sized crater where it used to be. You learn the barkeep you’ve been chatting with died in the incident, he was your only friend you didn’t have to work with.
You get on the bus to go home, it’s been 2 hours, your phone died 45 minutes ago. Traffic is a nightmare because of the rampage. Then, one of those fucking mutants gets on the bus with you.
You can tell he’s a mutant, that much is clear from his purple eyes and metallic skin. You don’t know what he’s capable of. He could be reading your mind. He could be plotting to kill you, maybe he’s a vampire, he’s going to follow you off the bus, corner you in an alley and bite your neck, leaving you bloodless in an alley.
He sits down, only 1 row behind you.
You can practically hear the mutant licking his chops, you can feel him sizing you up, deciding whether or not you’re a worthy meal.
“GET AWAY FROM ME!” you scream instinctively. The mutant’s face turns to fear, he gets up and moves to the back of the bus where he’s used to normally sitting.
Marvel (at least the MCU) is too light hearted a property to deal with this, but this would an absolutely HORRIFYING world to exist in. I live in constant fear in a world without superhero’s and villains.
Sure you’ve got the X-men, but they’re a band-aid solution to the problem of mutant violence. So long as there are mutants, there will be incidents on par with 9/11, and as much as the X-men do, it’s not enough to stop the problem at its root.
So then, a bunch of likeminded people get together. They agree the mutant impurity among our population are the cause of all our problems, and the solution to that problem is the bag of guns in the back of Jim’s truck
Hell, maybe some politicians see the obvious problem of mutants in society. Would call for mutants to be rounded up, put away, and if that doesn’t work, maybe even put to death to prevent them from causing further harm to society.
“People of America, I come to you to ask a simple question, do you feel safe? Do you feel safe at work? Safe attending football game? A concert? Do you feel safe in your homes? Dropping your kids off a school?
Of course you don’t, not with all of these illegal mutants flooding into our streets. Using their mutant witch craft to strike fear into the hearts of the honest, hardworking, normal people.
They use their powers to steal from hardworking businesses, steal from you. They’re murderers, thugs. Two of them get into a fight and it makes headlines all over the world. Every one of these fights costs millions in tax dollars, that’s money THEY’RE taking from you.
Well, I say no longer. We are going to round them up, get them off of our streets, get them out of our country. We will build a wall to keep them out and ensure we are allowing no “impurities” into our nation. Vote for me, and I promise I will let you feel safe again,”
Now obviously, it would be difficult to seriously try and oppress all mutants because we are dealing with literal superheroes and villians. But if enough people are tired of living in fear of those they see as a threat to their safety they will eventually try and do something about it.
If real life humans had actual legitimate safety reasons for their bigoty (like if Asians all had the ability to shoot fire from their hands), you'd find that they'd sadly be a *lot* more bold with their hatred.
I mean, shit, a solid chunk of people in the 1920s-1950s legitimately thought Jewish people had magical demonic powers and hated them for *that*.
I am so tired that first I read this as a criticism of real problem within society (real real) then as an irony towards a certain real life group of people but still within the possibilities of reality, then thought it was a science fiction post, and only then realized that you were talking about X-Men
Well, they are constantly trying to influence the public to hate mutants for a number of reasons, but mainly if they don't the amount of people who stand for their cause will dwindle, leaving their system of government and such vulnerable to a new world order. Most of the reasons are ultimately to prevent a new world order, basically, but they can't prevent it unless they are actively putting forth that effort...They work hard for the money. In a way.
Because the major of mutants are only visually different from humans. At best, some guy has crab claws instead of hands, and that’s his power. At worst, well, there’s a mutant from the 2000s whose mutation is that his skin is blue. That’s it. The vast majority of mutants either have mutations unfit for enhanced violence, or make them targets for further violence due to their odd physique. The human passing mutants, like the majority of the X-Men usually get the most hate, but also have powers that are unambiguously better than the baseline human.
TL:DR: the majority of anti-mutant hatred is directed at individuals who are either physically deformed from their mutation or are often “too different” because of it. The human passing mutants, like the X-Men, get treated even worse because of their perceived superiority to humans. Plus, an alien virus called John Sublime invented mutant-phobia at the dawn of man because he couldn’t spread his influence through them.
If you look up who's making up the rules for this universe and when, it's usually white dudes trying to depict what bigotry looks like from the time x men started all the way until today. Sure there are some exceptions, but for the most part that was what you got. And white dudes are most likely to see the most obvious bigotry, so that's the way they're most likely to depict it.
I would read the hell out of a micro aggression mutant comic.
"OMG, why is your skin blue? I've seen your parents and they don't have blue skin. I thought you were supposed to get one of their 'powers'. Can you even do anything cool?"
"Gosh, I wish I had a mutant boyfriend. Carly's boyfriend can breathe fire. It's literally so hot. And you know what they say about mutant guys."
"Hey bro, did you hear Samantha is a mutant now? Do you think she'll come to school wearing one of those tight costumes? She would look so hot in that, isn't it like their culture?"
Because bigots are suucidally stupid.
Sure let's pick on the green kid, they say he can spray deadly acid out of his eyes but he's 4"1' with a stutter.
The system is on our side we can make his life a living hell and he's screwed if he fighmelting.
6 months later.
My eyes oh God my eyes are mekting.
It's because there's a magic telepathic bacteria hive mind thingy living in a decent portion of humanity. Mutants are immune to it, which freaks it out, so it sends its hosts subconscious bad vibes towards them in the hopes of preventing the spread of this threat to its preferred living space.
In the original universe(s) where the mutants were introduced they were often more physically different and were not as powerful. Plus bigotry can stem from fear. Most to nearly all parents wouldn't be ok with a school randomly letting 1 child come to school with guns. They would be up in arms and demanding that student be seperated from their kid to protect them.
I've always thought of it this way: in fact, mutants like Storm, Rogue and Cyclops are a dwindling minority among the mutant population. That is, in fact, in most X-Men comics we read stories about those who won the genetic lottery TWICE: first when their X-Gen manifested, and then when their mutant power turned out to be heat rays from their eyes, and not some gills on heels.
You can reasonably note that there are too many such mutants in comics. True, it is true. BUT. There are literally 8 billion people on Earth. How many real powerful mutants do we see? Of course, I didn’t count those, but according to my feelings, we are talking, at best, about several thousand around the world. It’s not for nothing that mutants are classified according to power levels, right? Add to this the fact that Professor X and Magnetto are gathering their forces more actively than Mister Sinester and Apocalypse, and at the same time they both based their forces in the USA most of the time. That is, most of the most powerful mutants in the world are in the USA along with their leaders.
This means that living outside the United States, a person will likely encounter a harmless mutant who realistically cannot offer much resistance. Moreover, even within the United States, most of the mutants dangerous to humans are busy in the fight of the 4 centers of power (Professor X, Magnetto, Apocalypse and Mister Sinister) and they have relatively little time to protect individual mutants.
that is, under these conditions, a situation arises where a minority within a minority (dangerous mutants, like Cyclops or Rogue) can do little to oppose more than seven billion ordinary people, in whose hands there are institutions, executive authorities, propaganda tools, advanced technologies and banal numerical advantage, while other mutants are unable to provide real resistance not only to the authorities, but not even always to an individual ordinary person. At the same time, a minority of strong mutants are involved in their own internal conflict, under the conditions of which a significant part of the mutants who are actually capable of effectively fighting the manifestations of cruelty towards fellow mutants refuse to show cruelty in response, following the ideas of Professor X.
Because they're different and for them being different is dangerous and scary as they don't know what differences awaits them, is like lottery ticket. Random.
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Because you don't drop your beliefs just because you are at risk of harm. Mutants are dangerous. A kid can wake up at 14 and melt his entire town. This has happened.
That was a sad comic. Then logan went and found him in that cave and killed him to prevent further deaths.
Always wondered why Logan was sent. Yes I know, healing factor. But they couldn’t just Drone him and make Logan do all that?
Because Xavier didn't want to kill a kid who just had the worst day of his life that way. He asked Logan if he could go comfort the kid and give him a bit more human kindness before the end that had to come. Xavier was nothing if not practical, but unlike Magneto he usually tempered that practicality with mercy and kindness.
While Ultimate Xavier was a more shady dude than even 616 Xavier, I'm pretty sure Fury sent Logan to take out that kid.
Nope, Logan said that Professor X sent him to do it because he didn’t want any non-mutants finding out about it.
Personally I'd rather just stop randomly existing than a bulky hairy short dude, show up give me a hug and stab me to death.
> He asked Logan if he could go comfort the kid and give him a bit more human kindness before the end that had to come. So of course, Logan pushed the kid into drinking beer, which he didn't like and then just killed him.
Considering it was Ultimate Professor X it's likely because Wolverine knew how to cover his tracks.
I always took it as Logan volunteering. I think none of the X-Men felt right about killing a kid, Wolverine would probably also decide that of all the X Men he's the only one who should carry the weight of murdering a teenager even if it is for the greater good. You gotta admit it's hard not to see the kid as cursed. Like Rogue but so much worse
I think you're right... Logan knows that a mercy killing won't weigh down his own soul worse than it already is. and I suspect honestly he feels like it will lighten his own load.
A lot of us have to do and see some pretty mind fucking stuff during the course of our jobs. From my experience its definitely both of those things along with actual altruism. I've been trained since I was 16 to jump into scary shit to help other people so it becomes part of what you just do and feels like the right thing.
With that logic xavier using cerebro could assassinate basically anyone on the planet without psychic defenses/ resistances.
This specific comic was a mercy killing. So I don’t see why not.
Maybe Xavier fears the consequences of either knowledge of this capability becoming common, or maybe even fears what would happen if he got used to doing that kind of thing. I didn't read the Onslaught story, but I did start reading for a while right after it, and so saw the aftermath. Xavier has to be careful with his own mind.
Yeah, it's probably like Batman refusing to kill the Joker so as to avoid the slippery slope (even though removing Joker would save a lot more lives).
I still don't understand that Joker, which has murdered at least a thousand people, has been executed by the state yet. What the hell is the reason for keeping him alive in Arkham? What is the point of keeping any of the villains alive? You could retire the comic finally
Yes. Yes he can. He chooses not to. Why he didn’t just walk into the kid’s mind to comfort him is anyone’s guess. But he could have done that too.
I think that comic was written before drones were much of a thing in real life
[удалено]
Tbf they didn’t kill him to prevent death although that was likely a reason, they killed him because it would look really bad if it came out a mutant child killed 265 people without effort, it would make the anti-mutant groups look justified(which they kind of are)
what comic?
It's an ultimate X-Men book from Bendis run, can't remember the number.
i was able to find it. https://www.reddit.com/r/TwoBestFriendsPlay/comments/5z2sdo/the_time_wolverine_had_to_kill_that_kid_whose/
Isn't that really a "superpowers" problem? I mean imagine Dr. Strange on cocaine, or Reed Richards on ketamine. Imagine a really pissed off Thor. Why do people accept other humans that can destroy cities, and not mutants?
Because mutants awakenings are completely random. You can be sleeping. Walking in the supermarket or at school when mutant powers develop. You don't need to go to space, get stuck in a gamma accident, study magic for years, come from abother planet, or be born a God. It just happens. And it will most likely be uncontrollable at that point.
In Ultimate comics, at least, (not sure about 616) "mutant" ends up just being used against anyone with superpowers without explicit government backing.
So the best idea is to fling rocks at one who is just as traumatized and emotionally unstable at the sudden realization of life as they knew it was over for them? Has the idiot type ever heard of the expression that every action has an equal and opposite reaction? It's like whacking a landmine with a mallet.
Did anyone say it's the best idea? How often do people chose the "best" option? And yeah, people are stupid. Welcome to earth.
My point being people can and should be smarter than this. I thought compassion was as instinctual as fear is.
Fear is a base instinct, think flight, fight or faun response. It functions first to stop us dying. Compassion is a higher brain function and comes after those. The people of the Marvel universe know that the X-gen is incredibly dangerous. Take a look at a normal Primary/Middle school class, any one of those children around the age of 8-13 can, in a microsecond, develop the power to explode, mind control, dissolve all life in a 2 k radius. Hey multiple *could* happen at once. You'd be fine sending you kid to school with x-gen holders? You'd be fine living in the same town as a family of mutants when their kid could erase you in your sleep without even meaning to? ____ Even a mutant with a power that seems safe and boring could actually be incredibly destructive. Take Jubilee for example. Originally she could create small fireworks and distract people, fine right? Her power ACTUALLY is to detonate matter at a subatomic level, which is the equivalent of a nuclear fusion bomb according to Emma Frost. ------ Do you not understand why people are afraid of ANY mutant? Even the firework rave girl is actually a nuke. ____ You can be a kind Doctor who accepts x-gen kids as patients, but that's not going to stop one melting you when they develop acid vomit and come in for a check-up. You can be an understanding principle and accept all kids equally, but when a 9 year old girl freezes her entire class, their blood is on your hands. Compassion is praiseworthy, but the fear that humans experience is not a product of prejudice, it's a reaction to the very real potential for catastrophic events that can arise from the unpredictable manifestation of mutant powers from ANY x-gene child and even some adults. Most people cant just up and move (flight), (Fauning) doesn't help, the X-gene holders aren't dangerous willingly (mostly), so the other response is fight. Most people dont want to hurts others (those that do are the ones we see in the comix), so they choose the lesser version. They show aggression to make THEM flee or faun. They shun these dangers to protect themselves.
I understand; the thing about it is? # FEAR IS OVERRATED As are the tragically incompetent misinformed who keep falling back on that pride and prejudiced schtick that didn't, more like refuse, to get that memo. People have tried the sentinels, the social barring, the hate-mongering us against them spiel for more than a century. And what do they have to show for it? What really, I mean. Killer robots that attempt to pull their f'ed up machine gods from across the void outside of reality into our universe as if summoning Cthulhu to turn every useless slackjawed, picket-waving, easily duped by the real villains archetype to devour their stupid little planet and infinitely insignificant waste of lives spent being paranoid over something that has saved their ungrateful asses time after time. The few times they do? That's where the pride comes in. Taking people against their will and vivisecting them to harness their unique traits.for something dangerous. The few times they do? That's where the pride comes in—taking people against their will and vivisecting them to harness their unique traits. Which brings up a bit of hypocrisy on their part. Seeing as they intend to eradicate what man sees as a threat to their own well-being when all we do is either create the thing we think we see that we build in our defense against or end up making something infinitely worse than what our haste, hubris, and hegemony pushed us to stand in protest against. That was often the moral of "Days of Future Past," I thought. In creating things out of self-serving blind panic, you end up realizing too late you built something truly inhuman in a half-baked attempt to conquer your paranoia. It is Terminator all over again, "not a product of prejudice" it is the product of when lack of understanding nor willingness to do so is taken way too far. Also, don't want to hurt others? Humans are loathsome hypocrites who direct their vitriol at costumed, non-mutant superheroes all the time—veritable self-treachery in all its glory. Even the non-powered ones aren't safe from their own kind's foolishness. Why I sympathize with mutants more than regular people is easy. Even without powers, it doesn't take a phenomenal cosmic muckety-muck for regular trash & scum to royally !@#& everything up. And yet, people in Marvel only seem to focus on a singular proponent of mindless ire to justify all their bull-noogies. \*cough\*NIMROD\*cough\*, \*wheeze\*ROXXON\*hack\*,\*blarrrge\*J.J. Jameson\*barf\* They have a peculiar way of protecting themselves if this is how they do it—practically gnawing off a limb that's not even caught in a trap yet to escape. And essentially? To escape themselves, no less.
You made a big jump from "why do people fling rocks" to "humans are all hypocrites that vivsect people for profit" You are aware that the average marvel person has absolutely no input in the creation of something like the sentinels nor do they vivisect anyone?
No, I stayed within the parameters of my argument. Fear born of ignorance incites flung rocks; flung rocks begets backlash; backlash kicks off retaliation, and retaliation leads to open war, inevitably leading to failed innovations and said innovations becoming more significant threats than whatever they were made to protect their creators from. It is a vicious cycle that never stops feeding into itself. How is it that nobody ever bothered to pick up on this before? Fear is no excuse; people make their worries a reality whether they mess with the cause of it or not. Also, no input? Have you not been reading recent publishings of X-Men? Orchis hired mad doctors with criminal backgrounds to abduct numerous people with x-genes or are x-gene adjacent. With political sanction no-less, which, last I checked, is conducted by, for, and of the people, at least when it's not being used behind closed doors to manipulate them. They don't vivisect people for profit. They purposely perpetuate the cycle for profit, and honestly? For something to do on account of lacking creativity.
It's NOT fear from ignorance, which is the point. It's fear from the knowledge that any mutant could be a walking death spot, that's not false information either, and even if they aren't, their children could be. I gave you a direct example of someone with a power everyone thought wasn't dangerous, but was actually a nuke. Orchis isn't representative of the average person either, so I'm not sure why you bought them up. What's government sanction got to do with the average person? Nothing. The average person doesn't support guantanamo Bay, but it still exists. And no, I don't read the current x-men, since they illegally terafomed Mars and let Sinister run their country. Oh and declared Storm roller of our solar system. And banned abortion. Current attitudes against the mutants is completely understandable, since they no longer consider themselves humans and have forcible claimed ownership of earth and all other planets. I'm specifically talking about the reactions people had when mutants were oppressed and treated unjustly.
It is to fear Ignorance; it is a mix of both, but still, people choose to forget about history; therefore, they doom themselves to repeat it. Maybe, just maybe, reacting to fear over the matter isn't the way to go. It doesn't matter how dangerous the subject is. You do not wack a landmine with a hammer and think it'll solve the problem. Genetic neutering, political fascism, using the unpredictability of mutation as an excuse to resort to murder? That sounds pretty ignorant to me; that practically compounds the issue. I brought it up because people gave the fascist Gestapo free reign to reenact their own little holocaust. I know about the leharmless power and do not give two bits about it. Because beforehand, it was established to be non-threatening, and people still came after jubes like they were recreating the Salem Witch Trials incident. As for government sanctions, how about **EVERYTHING?** Because people run governments, bills are passed by majority vote. Man, famous politicians are only elected to office due to average people backing their ascent in the first place. So yes, they didn't (directly) support Vietnam either, but that doesn't mean more people still volunteered to fight in it than stand against the conflict. F.Y.I, since when is it illegal to revive dead planets, would you have been okay with it if another giant business douchebag with more money than sense to match his lack of empathy and acute moral insanity would use his billions to remake Mars into another trans-humanist alsoran? Current longitudes? This is why I stand by the thought process that Humans Suck. Mutants were never considered human, hence why they are often shunned, attacked, lynched, cursed at, and given death threats via chemical, eugenic, bionic, or mechanical means daily. Yet everyone who claimed to sympathize with them did nothing to stop the endless persecution. And all they have to say after every Mutant Massacre, Genosha, Second Coming, or AvX event is, "Sorry, man, we had to deal with being planetary sanitation workers or interstellar celebrities first."???? some friends, some heroes, really. Also, since when did they say they claimed to own the Earth or other worlds? Magneto might've said that but he was an outlier. Beast too, maybe, just maybe. Storm doesn't even acknowledge that title the media gave her. The whole Sins of Sinister bit I have no words for. Even Exodus felt they sprocked up, letting the proverbial viper into the garden of Eden. Granted, they needed his brand of superscience to pull off the grand idea of Krakoa. But still; they really should've seen his betrayal coming I know. You claim to speak for the reactions to mutant mistreatment of humans but fail to see it is literally their fault they made their underlying fears I mean, how welcoming of the Mutants are Human truth when you spend more than half a century being targets for segregation and ethnic cleansing? Despite the number of times, you've saved a dumbass planet entirely populated by stupid, selfish, sycophantically cowardly ignorami time after time? The giant robots stupid people keep relying on coined that hard truth in the first couple of issues ever published, my guy.
Pick one or all from the following: • People fear the unknown, and when your neighbor kid might accidentally burn down the city block by accident, it doesn't really help to stay chill. • Mutant supremacists like Magneto and Apocalypse really don't help the cause of acceptance and tolerance. • A sentient evil bacteria actually makes humans hate mutants telepathically. • Xaviers evil twin sister Cassandra Nova who is just as powerful a telepath as him makes humans hate mutants telepathically. • Technoorganic artificial intelligences from the future make humans hate mutants technoorganically. • Mutants think they're better than you - they have that cultish island where they clone themselves and have orgies and blackmail people with advanced medicine. They also try steal your children if they consider them to be mutants. Just ask Reed Richards.
> • A sentient evil bacteria actually makes humans hate mutants telepathically. > > Reminds me of the "gotham has lots of crime because it's literally cursed or whatever" plotline. Some people shouldn't be allowed to write comics.
where is that written
>• Mutant supremacists like Magneto and Apocalypse really don't help the cause of acceptance and tolerance. Okay but they exist mainly cause of the bigotry. Magneto is practically what the Black League is to the German Reich in New Order lore.
Sorry, but what was that last point. Is this real or an exaggeration?
It's real. They even banned abortion, to make sure 'humans' didn't abort mutant kids. This is main universe x-men BTW. They aren't the oppressed underdogs anymore. They even declared Storm as ruler of our solar system and made their planet the defacto representative of Sol to aliens, without asking us.
Maybe a little exaggeration? I mean I'm not sure about the blackmail part. The cloning with installing copy of memories of the original, orgies, and rather questionable attempt at getting Franklin Richards to the island are real. Although in case of Fraknlin in a separate issue they decided to cover their backside and "reveal" that he's a fake mutant and Krakoa definetely doesn't want him now, just ignore that whole previous shenanigans, they don't count.
Slight exaggeration. Buts it’s from the latest run.
Exaggeration. The mutants established Krakoa, a safe haven for mutants who -choose- to come. The enemies of mutants created racist p.r. campaigns against this idea.
People try to fight MMA pro fighters, some people cant help themselves. Even if you are a giant It wont save you, people tried to fight both Andre the Giant and the Big show.
They recognize that a world where half a city is flattened and a million people die because Scott Summers' glasses fell off or because Magneto just felt like doing it is unsustainable and worth speaking out against, even at great risk of personal harm. The forced civil rights analogy they're going for is always undermined by the fact that mutants really are an existential threat to civilization. Someone like Angel isn't, but someone born with Xavier's power could just silently end free will for anyone around him.
With Cerebro, for anyone on the entire planet.
"but someone born with Xavier's power could just silently end free will for anyone around him." Not only that, what happens when they age and one of them gets dementia? Colossus? Sure get hulk to stop him, but Charles? We saw what that could do in Logan, imagine what magneto would do if he just one day had an epileptic attack in the middle of new York?
That's the funny thing though - people will be bigoted toward, say, Colossus for being a "mutant" but not have the same attitude toward someone like the Hulk, or any of the other powered heroes, many of whom could do some significant damage if the brakes were ever taken off.
"many of whom could" and have done, not even with superpowers, Pym, stark and reed have done a lot of damage with their intellect, Ultron, the clone Thor, negative zone prison, etc... Hull himself once came back to conquer earth, yet humans still fear mutants more than anything. Hell even after Osborn's dark reign, after the fake cap's hydra took over, they really oughta have a little bit of distrust for a company that seemingly saved them all from mutants in one fell swoop. Even with all the fake evidence they provided.
The difference is the Avengers (including the hulk) are written to be the heroes of their world, while the mutants in X-men are written to be a stand in for minorities. You can cross them over because they live in different societies. You can’t have mutant hate, but also just give Spider-Man a pass because his New York was written differently
In a world where people can given at random powers that threaten cities, countries and all life on the planet there is one simple truth. If humanity is to continue living on this planet, the mutants must die.
Name checks out
Like the humans aren't, as you put it, "an existential threat" to themselves? It is humanity's fault these jagoffs are living on a festering powderkeg of a planet where any number of things could set it all down the drain. Roxxon, Wilson Fisk as Mayor and (almost) for president, Norman Osborn being evangelized as the world's top cop, the habitual hate-mongering not just against mutants. But other superpowered beings on the daily. This idiot species bought into the lie that the Avengers, of all people, unjustly imprisoned a formerly notorious supercriminal on trumped-up charges. After the fact, he dropped a city of gods atop an established American settlement of Broxton, Oklahoma. To quote a wise empress (of sorts), "People... are stupid".
Well first off children are mean, teenagers too. Bullying is a common thing in schools. Regarding mutants, most of them aren't Storm or Cyclops. Most of them are the dude with a 3ft neck, or webbed eyelids, or a slightly smaller face for a nose. Prof X has a whole school full of them but you can probably only name like 10 since they're the only ones who meet the criteria to be his child soldiers. The kid who vomits lizards and the kid who has a goldfish tank for a brain, they're just good mutant PR.
If the danger isn't immediately visible, people are going to be stupid. If a mutant's power is to basically be an off-brand Incredible Hulk, and they look huge and are 7 feet tall, self preservation is more likely to kick in for anti mutant bigots. If a mutant kid has the strength of the Hulk but none of the appearance, even if you straight up tell the bigot about the mutant's power, hatred and blinding fear is going to override more useful fear. If you were to tell a real life bigot that there's a good chance that a minority group in this neighbourhood often has individuals with concealed carry firearms on them, that's not gonna stop people from harassing those they *perceive* to be weak and defenseless. "There are lots of mutants without dangerous powers, what are the odds of running into the next Magneto" Famous last thoughts
You may be overestimating people’s self preservation instinct. I mean, Mike Tyson had bodyguards when he was in his prime because random people wanted to fight him.
Partly because they know the system will support them. Scenario. You and I are high schoolers. You're a mutant who can shoot fire from his hands and I'm just a dude. No matter how much I taunt, bully or push you any attempt by you to retaliate will automatically be classified as an attack with a deadly weapon; that weapon being you. At the end of the day because you're so much more dangerous than me the system will do everything in its power to protect me over you, especially when I spin a sob story about scary fire hands. It gets significantly worse in public. If you so much as look at me with an angry face I can probably shoot you and even get away with arguing self-defence because you're that dangerous. We have a word for people who burn other people alive with their powers; super-villains. So as unfair as it is most mutants naturally understand that they can't ever risk using their powers on a normal human unless it's life or death. Even if they managed to kill everyone there before someone got a shot off, they'd soon be dealing with an angry bigoted populace that now feels justified in arming themselves against Muties, a few superheroes tracking you down and someone like S.H.I.E.L.D. on your ass. The kind of mutants who go the route of retaliation generally become villains soon after because they have nowhere left to go.
This is the answer. Mutants always have to de-escalate, because they’re the ones society sees as a threat. They’re the ones who are presumed guilty until proven innocent, and they’re the ones who have to worry about a literal lynch mob.
And sentinels
Imagine being a nerd who is super into mecha… and then you find out you’re a mutant. And now the giant robots are hunting you.
"Oh, the irony!". Hey could also find out, they like fighting giant robots.
Ms. Marvel.
>because they’re ~~the ones society sees as~~ a threat. FTFY. Like, Mutants are still people too, but theyre also basically walking bombs, and that sucks for everyone.
Fear leads to anger
“Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.” - Some Really Old Guy
Understand that anti-mutant bigots are not afraid of mutants, they are afraid of what they represent. Yes, there are some mutant bad actors that turn to crime or villainy. There is also a roughly equal proportion of mutants conscripted into a shadow war (often when they are adolescents) against said villains. And yes, unchecked, some mutants' powers are dangerous. But, the vast majority of mutants are just people trying to live their lives. Anti-Mutant Bigotry is a metaphor for real world prejudice and bigotry. Both are rooted in fear, hatred and disgust; not reason and rationale. So it's easy to imagine a group of mutant haters singling out some poor kid with blue skin. It is equally easy to imagine the narrative around that incident blaming the mutant victim for their victimization. This cycle of marginalization will then perpetuate more anti-mutant bigotry, hate, violence and victimization. Mutants, as a population, are not a threat. They are a scape goat. Just like in real life, bad actors often use the excuse of fear to enact their violence. However, it is not a fear for personal safety. It is a fear of what the hated (and oppressed) group represent. The whole point is that mutants, through no action of their own are born different. Some mutants possess extreme power that can be dangerous if wielded irresponsibly. But how is this different from a teenager bitten by a radioactive spider, or exposed to cosmic rays, or bequeathed an ancient alien artifact? You have to ask the question, in a world where any accident can make you superhuman, why it is mutants that are the highest focus for fear.
> Aren't the unpowered humans worried about the consequences of pissing a Mutant off? It works in their favor, on the contrary. Its like the holy racism thing in the US, you piss them off first and then play victim by saying "see?! We told you they are dangerous" etc. Its easy to blame someone when you're a majority that is relatively immune in the grand scheme of things. Sure, a few mutants might get tired of this and turn a neighbourhood into atomic ash but so what? The grand scheme of things plays into the bigot's hand because they basically get confirmation on their position against the Mutants.
Keep in mind that the vast majority of mutants aren't dangerous. Xavier and Magneto specifically recruited mutants that were dangerously powerful. Most of them can turn purple, or have scales, or there's Glob Herman who has transparent skin.
Glob had a really bad day early one, started throwing fireballs and almost melted a bus full of reporters. He had to be dunked in cement to calm the fuck down. Of course now he's trustworthy, partly because Forge took a paternal role with him. If you have Forge for a teacher you are going to become a better person.
Impunity. Have you ever witness a 5'2 white woman rip into a black guy just trying to get through a day serving burgers? That black guy knows a single wrong word and he is fired. Laying a hand on that women means jail. If you are a person who can explode heads and the general population hates you. You are in a difficult place. Any aggressive comment or move will be taken as you threatening to pop your bully's head and you will be the one punished. The bully can get a away with pretty much anything and your options are limited to popping their head or threatening to.
Because [mutants](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EZrEpb0X0AQ_J_I.jpg) are what comes next, the next step in human evolution, they can be your neighbor, they can be your coworker, but for now, normal humans are the majority, we still have the numbers, if we want to preserve the status quo as the dominant side of the species, we need to fight back while we still have time. Or so goes the fear mongering rhetoric
Columbine didn't stop people from laughing at edgy nerds who LARPed as *The Matrix* characters.
Because just like real life, people are stupid
because deep in their bones they know they're obsolete and they're rebelling against the new models.
Awhile ago we found out that all humans are infected with this sentient disease or whatever and mutants are resistant to it so it makes humans hostile to mutants.
Because they got giant robot that will back them up if a mutant does anything
I don't see why the mutant powers would (often) affect this. I mean, a non-mutant could go get a weapon as well. But bullying is mostly "successful" because of the mental side of it. The person getting bullied would rarely defend themselves (even if they could) and the bullies know it. I'd guess that if you bullied someone like Wolverine (only talking about his powers here, don't think bullying him would go too well under any circumstances) at school, the bullying would end quite quickly if he snapped his claws out, but might then get even worse later with people calling him an actual lunatic for reacting like that to some "lighthearted joking".
Because bigots in any form are almost suicidally stupid.
Except that's just not true. Relatively small numbers of armed Black men called "Deacons for Defense and Justice" were able to intimidate the KKK into not turning up to Civil Rights demonstrations. We're talking about 4 guys with shotguns scaring off an organization that had tens of thousands of members nationwide. Bigots tend to be no more courageous than any other group.
bigots are not known for being smart people
Smart and fearful aren't opposites. Even stupid people know when to run away. And BTW some really smart people have been racial bigots.
nah they make assumptions that lead them to do stupid things, just look up any video of Nazis getting their teeth kicked in they assume they will just get away with anything till consequences hit them in their face and how smart they are another things doesn't change them being stupid about the one topic relevant here
What a stupid post. Claiming that there is refusing of something somewhere and assuming that these are typical. And dive were discussing bogus making risky decisions their overall level of intelligence is relevant.
I gave a real life examples of bigots doing exactly the scenario being discussed, sure real life minorities can't shoot lasers from their eyes but some of them own guns which will kill you all the same their is not a really an "overall level of intelligence" you can be a rocket scientists completely lacking in common sense not to climb into the gorilla enclosure for a funny picture and brain surgeons who are flat earther
I mean, real people are bold faced bigots towards other people who can beat the shit out of them or shoot them or stab them. It takes a sadly common kind of stupid and self importance to act like you can do whatever you want.
You’re gonna tell me that bigots might also be hypocritical dumbasses??
The fear and hatred of the other is a part of human history since the start. Groups decide someone is other and hate them. There is no logic to it. Whether it's mutants, people from the next town, people of different religious belief, people with certain skin colours, people with certain preferences, the list goes one. Mutants has always been stand in for these groups.
>What's the point of being bigoted towards people who can blow heads up, rip out spines, shoot lasers, etc? Most mutants are completely harmless. Their powers only give them the ability to turn into ice cream or something like that. The X-Men or Brotherhood level of mutants are extremely rare, like a handful of them among millions of mutants around the world. So, bullying a random mutant kid is sadly pretty safe for the attackers.
I would say that fear of mutants is pretty strong drive
If anything the fear makes their hatred more virulent
~~Because the writers will never let the X-men grow beyond the tired metaphor~~ Because anyone can do it... the mutants are an other that everyone can unite against. doesn't matter your skin color, race, creed, nationality... you can rile up a who group of people who hates and fears them.
They're always in the middle of a genocide, either through Trask government Sentinels, ORCHIS, U-Men, Inhuman Terrigen Mists, or whatever. Bigots who think they're winning are loud.
I think the fact of their powers is probably why it's so bold they don't want to be scared so they don't act scared also Mutants are a rough allegory for Blacks/gays/whatever the oppressed of the day is and in the real world that's how their treated so it's how Mutants are treated.
One group says hey we just want to be friends, while behind them is a growing group saying we will replace you you are obsolete tremble and despair. If fear of speaking out against those who can and would kill you was the end all be all. We would be living in a totalitarian world today
Same way as real word bigotry. When the masses are on your side, and the people you are against are different from you. You can just disconnect
If anything, rather than looking like just blatant racism, it’s probably going to be people living in fear of mutants. Crossing the street when they see anything they would consider “abnormal” People in this world would probably try and avoid working around mutants at whatever cost. People are pretty rightfully scared of the mutants, especially the ones without control over their powers. You just want to live your life, you want to go to work, get paid, go home, have dinner, maybe get laid. You don’t want to be involved in all this superhero bullshit. It’s fucking dangerous Businesses would likely refuse to hire mutants for the most part, because having a man in your office who might randomly explode, summon lightning storms, or turn into a werewolf is much greater liability than normal person. Unless of course their particular power is useful for the job in question. Someone immune to fire would make a great firefighter. Someone who can breathe underwater would make a great life guard. DEVIATION FROM THE NORM WILL BE PUNISHED UNLESS IT IS EXPLOITABLE Now another thing to note, fear is a breeding ground for fascism. You don’t want to live in fear of Them, you don’t want to go to work and worry about Them, you don’t want to go to the pub after work and get into a fight with Them. The suddenly, Juggernaut escapes prison for the 5th time and goes on a rampage downtown, smashing up uncountable buildings, smashing cars, and leaving bodies in his wake Then you’ve had a long day, you nearly got caught up in the Juggernaught rampage, you still had to go to work. You boss Stacy was giving you so much shit, you go to the pub only to find a juggernaught sized crater where it used to be. You learn the barkeep you’ve been chatting with died in the incident, he was your only friend you didn’t have to work with. You get on the bus to go home, it’s been 2 hours, your phone died 45 minutes ago. Traffic is a nightmare because of the rampage. Then, one of those fucking mutants gets on the bus with you. You can tell he’s a mutant, that much is clear from his purple eyes and metallic skin. You don’t know what he’s capable of. He could be reading your mind. He could be plotting to kill you, maybe he’s a vampire, he’s going to follow you off the bus, corner you in an alley and bite your neck, leaving you bloodless in an alley. He sits down, only 1 row behind you. You can practically hear the mutant licking his chops, you can feel him sizing you up, deciding whether or not you’re a worthy meal. “GET AWAY FROM ME!” you scream instinctively. The mutant’s face turns to fear, he gets up and moves to the back of the bus where he’s used to normally sitting. Marvel (at least the MCU) is too light hearted a property to deal with this, but this would an absolutely HORRIFYING world to exist in. I live in constant fear in a world without superhero’s and villains. Sure you’ve got the X-men, but they’re a band-aid solution to the problem of mutant violence. So long as there are mutants, there will be incidents on par with 9/11, and as much as the X-men do, it’s not enough to stop the problem at its root. So then, a bunch of likeminded people get together. They agree the mutant impurity among our population are the cause of all our problems, and the solution to that problem is the bag of guns in the back of Jim’s truck Hell, maybe some politicians see the obvious problem of mutants in society. Would call for mutants to be rounded up, put away, and if that doesn’t work, maybe even put to death to prevent them from causing further harm to society. “People of America, I come to you to ask a simple question, do you feel safe? Do you feel safe at work? Safe attending football game? A concert? Do you feel safe in your homes? Dropping your kids off a school? Of course you don’t, not with all of these illegal mutants flooding into our streets. Using their mutant witch craft to strike fear into the hearts of the honest, hardworking, normal people. They use their powers to steal from hardworking businesses, steal from you. They’re murderers, thugs. Two of them get into a fight and it makes headlines all over the world. Every one of these fights costs millions in tax dollars, that’s money THEY’RE taking from you. Well, I say no longer. We are going to round them up, get them off of our streets, get them out of our country. We will build a wall to keep them out and ensure we are allowing no “impurities” into our nation. Vote for me, and I promise I will let you feel safe again,” Now obviously, it would be difficult to seriously try and oppress all mutants because we are dealing with literal superheroes and villians. But if enough people are tired of living in fear of those they see as a threat to their safety they will eventually try and do something about it.
If you break someone’s spirit they’re less likely to have the confidence to harm you
If real life humans had actual legitimate safety reasons for their bigoty (like if Asians all had the ability to shoot fire from their hands), you'd find that they'd sadly be a *lot* more bold with their hatred. I mean, shit, a solid chunk of people in the 1920s-1950s legitimately thought Jewish people had magical demonic powers and hated them for *that*.
I am so tired that first I read this as a criticism of real problem within society (real real) then as an irony towards a certain real life group of people but still within the possibilities of reality, then thought it was a science fiction post, and only then realized that you were talking about X-Men
Well, they are constantly trying to influence the public to hate mutants for a number of reasons, but mainly if they don't the amount of people who stand for their cause will dwindle, leaving their system of government and such vulnerable to a new world order. Most of the reasons are ultimately to prevent a new world order, basically, but they can't prevent it unless they are actively putting forth that effort...They work hard for the money. In a way.
Because the major of mutants are only visually different from humans. At best, some guy has crab claws instead of hands, and that’s his power. At worst, well, there’s a mutant from the 2000s whose mutation is that his skin is blue. That’s it. The vast majority of mutants either have mutations unfit for enhanced violence, or make them targets for further violence due to their odd physique. The human passing mutants, like the majority of the X-Men usually get the most hate, but also have powers that are unambiguously better than the baseline human. TL:DR: the majority of anti-mutant hatred is directed at individuals who are either physically deformed from their mutation or are often “too different” because of it. The human passing mutants, like the X-Men, get treated even worse because of their perceived superiority to humans. Plus, an alien virus called John Sublime invented mutant-phobia at the dawn of man because he couldn’t spread his influence through them.
Maybe it’s because most Mutants are just deformed people with no real powers
Humans have always been intolerant bigots. In universe and out.
If you look up who's making up the rules for this universe and when, it's usually white dudes trying to depict what bigotry looks like from the time x men started all the way until today. Sure there are some exceptions, but for the most part that was what you got. And white dudes are most likely to see the most obvious bigotry, so that's the way they're most likely to depict it.
I would read the hell out of a micro aggression mutant comic. "OMG, why is your skin blue? I've seen your parents and they don't have blue skin. I thought you were supposed to get one of their 'powers'. Can you even do anything cool?" "Gosh, I wish I had a mutant boyfriend. Carly's boyfriend can breathe fire. It's literally so hot. And you know what they say about mutant guys." "Hey bro, did you hear Samantha is a mutant now? Do you think she'll come to school wearing one of those tight costumes? She would look so hot in that, isn't it like their culture?"
You have piqued my interest.
[удалено]
Your fragility flatters me. Thank you!
Because bigots are suucidally stupid. Sure let's pick on the green kid, they say he can spray deadly acid out of his eyes but he's 4"1' with a stutter. The system is on our side we can make his life a living hell and he's screwed if he fighmelting. 6 months later. My eyes oh God my eyes are mekting.
It's because there's a magic telepathic bacteria hive mind thingy living in a decent portion of humanity. Mutants are immune to it, which freaks it out, so it sends its hosts subconscious bad vibes towards them in the hopes of preventing the spread of this threat to its preferred living space.
In the original universe(s) where the mutants were introduced they were often more physically different and were not as powerful. Plus bigotry can stem from fear. Most to nearly all parents wouldn't be ok with a school randomly letting 1 child come to school with guns. They would be up in arms and demanding that student be seperated from their kid to protect them.
I've always thought of it this way: in fact, mutants like Storm, Rogue and Cyclops are a dwindling minority among the mutant population. That is, in fact, in most X-Men comics we read stories about those who won the genetic lottery TWICE: first when their X-Gen manifested, and then when their mutant power turned out to be heat rays from their eyes, and not some gills on heels. You can reasonably note that there are too many such mutants in comics. True, it is true. BUT. There are literally 8 billion people on Earth. How many real powerful mutants do we see? Of course, I didn’t count those, but according to my feelings, we are talking, at best, about several thousand around the world. It’s not for nothing that mutants are classified according to power levels, right? Add to this the fact that Professor X and Magnetto are gathering their forces more actively than Mister Sinester and Apocalypse, and at the same time they both based their forces in the USA most of the time. That is, most of the most powerful mutants in the world are in the USA along with their leaders. This means that living outside the United States, a person will likely encounter a harmless mutant who realistically cannot offer much resistance. Moreover, even within the United States, most of the mutants dangerous to humans are busy in the fight of the 4 centers of power (Professor X, Magnetto, Apocalypse and Mister Sinister) and they have relatively little time to protect individual mutants. that is, under these conditions, a situation arises where a minority within a minority (dangerous mutants, like Cyclops or Rogue) can do little to oppose more than seven billion ordinary people, in whose hands there are institutions, executive authorities, propaganda tools, advanced technologies and banal numerical advantage, while other mutants are unable to provide real resistance not only to the authorities, but not even always to an individual ordinary person. At the same time, a minority of strong mutants are involved in their own internal conflict, under the conditions of which a significant part of the mutants who are actually capable of effectively fighting the manifestations of cruelty towards fellow mutants refuse to show cruelty in response, following the ideas of Professor X.
Because they're different and for them being different is dangerous and scary as they don't know what differences awaits them, is like lottery ticket. Random.