one thing i never understood about the MU

[GoldenAgeHero]

Why the hate on mutants? why does'nt the population hate on regular heroes too,those who aren't mutants, but got in other accidents to get thier powers?

spiderman,captain marvel,Ms.Marvel,Ares,wonderman, the FF, and a **** load of other non-mutant superheroes.

you think the world would be pissed not by the fact that one day,maybe that mutants will replace them, but that regular superpowered folks might rule over them as well.

something that i would never understand.

 

[Kitsune]

Why the hate on mutants? why does'nt the population hate on regular heroes too,those who aren't mutants, but got in other accidents to get thier powers?

spiderman,captain marvel,Ms.Marvel,Ares,wonderman, the FF, and a **** load of other non-mutant superheroes.

you think the world would be pissed not by the fact that one day,maybe that mutants will replace them, but that regular superpowered folks might rule over them as well.

something that i would never understand.

Because they could be anywhere. Anyone could be born a mutant. I think there is an under current of mistrust of superhuman in Marvel, Mutants just catch the brunt of it because they are (or were before Wanda was the victim of crappy characterization) more numerous than any other type of Superhuman (Alien, altered human, or magician)

 

[The Question]

It's also really, really hard to get powers through accidents, and really dificult and/or expensive to do it on purpose through either magick or science. Accidental supers are considered anomalies (and are often greeted with a certain level of distrust themselves, an obvious example of this being Spider-Man), and intentional ones are either criminals or some kind with a lot of bank behind them, foreign agents, or representatives of the Government or corperate America. The later are easier to trut for the general public, even though there are obviously groups that are distrustful of them by the nature of their employment, and the former are disliked by their very nature.

 

[3dman27]

when stan lee created the x-men he wanted the mutants to be a minority it was intened as an alligory on racism

 

[Arkady Rossovich]

That's right,that idea had actually started to fade out.But Chris Claremont revisioned mutants being hated in the Marvel Universe,to this day..that idea echos in the X-Men Universe.

 

[Phaedrus45]

Plus, mutants have become more and more dangerous as their powers have developed in their teen years. A teen can destroy an entire town with the onset of their powers. Or, like with Rogue, kill with just one kiss.

 

[BrianWilly]

Hmm, we tend to get at least one of these threads at least once every few months.

Well, first of all, it should be noted that like most forms of discrimination, at some point it all just simply doesn't make sense. At some point, there isn't going to be a reason for why people hate Iceman but not She-Hulk. At some point, you just have to realize that it's illogical and, dur, prejudiced.

With all that said, however, Busiek's MARVELS explains it very well.

With non-mutant heroes, at least you see them out there being heroes and being pseudocelebrities about their powers. With a name and a face and a purpose behind a persona, there's a lot less fear and mistrust about it. He's not "the guy with fire powers," he's the Human Torch. And she's not "shrinking bee woman," she's The Wasp.

Despite the efforts of the X-Men, mutants just don't have that. The individual mutant collective are not heroes or celebrities; the individual mutant is a completely average child in school, the random co-worker who you've never talked to, or the old woman raking leaves in the park. You don't know them, you don't know what they can do, and yet it feels like they're everywhere. To top it all off, the prevailing scientific opinion is that at some point we're all going to be replaced by them...which of course translates in most minds into "they're trying to replace us." It's very different than the persona you'd get from "a superhero."

It's the sort of social objectivity that Grant Morrison addressed flawlessly, until Marvel decided to piss all over his work.

 

[RockSP]

Why the hate on mutants? why does'nt the population hate on regular heroes too,those who aren't mutants, but got in other accidents to get thier powers?

spiderman,captain marvel,Ms.Marvel,Ares,wonderman, the FF, and a **** load of other non-mutant superheroes.

you think the world would be pissed not by the fact that one day,maybe that mutants will replace them, but that regular superpowered folks might rule over them as well.

something that i would never understand.

Yeah it's one of those things that's just never going to make any sense. Like no one being able to figure out the Superman/Clark Kent thing. Or villains putting on technicolor costumes and announcing themselves to the world and getting beaten up over and over and over.

Just one of those comic book things you just kinda have to accept.

 

[fifthfiend]

Just one of those comic book things you just kinda have to accept.

I think it's partly a comic book thing but partly it's just a life thing. Like BW indicates, it's not much different from asking "Why all the hate for black people / jews / arabs / mexicans?" The answer is that no it doesn't make sense, because racism is a stupid and crazy and doesn't make any sense.

Non-mutants would probably get slotted into the mindset as the socially acceptable minority who 'know their place' or whatever such thing, like house negros or "model minority" Asians.

 

[RockSP]

I think it's partly a comic book thing but partly it's just a life thing. Like BW indicates, it's not much different from asking "Why all the hate for black people / jews / arabs / mexicans?" The answer is that no it doesn't make sense, because racism is a stupid and crazy and doesn't make any sense.

That's true but if you see one weirdo in spandex who isn't a mutant and one weirdo in spandex who is...how do you know who to hate? How would you know either was a mutant unless they told you?

 

[Anubis]

Which is usually what they do. Everybody knows the FF are mutated/not mutants. It's in their wikipedia entry. Everybody knows Cap is a Super Soldier from WWII. Everybody knows Thor is supposed to be the Asgardian God of Legend. Same for Herc. The ones they don't know about, like SPidey, or most of the New Warriors, they hate. So there isn't any real distrust or anything for the former, because most of these heroes are up front and public. But theres plenty of hate for the latter. It's been this way even before the initiative. That's why nobody really hates Wonder Man, cuz they know his story. He's an effin' movie star. Guess what? They still hated Wanda and Quicksilver and Beast, even though they were Avengers. There really is no double standard. Never really was.

 

[RockSP]

Cap had a secret identity for the longest. As did Iron Man and most other superheroes. That's not "upfront and public". Why are they trustworthy? And people just automatically believe Thor and Hercules are really "gods" who are thousands of years old? Even his teammates didn't believe that for the longest.

Like I said earlier, it's just comic book logic and you just roll with it.

 

[Anubis]

Iron Man was a guy with some advanced weaponry who worked for a Billionaire. What the public knew of him was that he was just a pilot/bodyguard, not a stinking mutie. Cap is Captain Freaking America. A guy who the world knew as one of it's greatest heroes. He was officially sanctioned by the U.S. government, which was really good enough for the public. Hell, the people didn't even trust the Avengers until Cap showed up. There's your proof of a lack of a doubled standard right there. The people of the MU have never really trusted the guys in tights in general. But a guy who is just a regular human or at least at some point was just a regular human is apparently better to the public than someone who is supposed to replace them on the evolutionary ladder.

As far as Herc and Thor, told people they were Gods/Demigods. Most people just thought they were crazy guys with powers, and maybe they should have been scared of em because of that. But they didn't wear masks. They didn't hide in the shadows. You'd be surprised how far that can go for the public's trust to see a guys face, not hiding behind a mask. I mean, look at Superman.

 

[GoldenAgeHero]

yeah but the *****ing in the MU seems to be that everyone is afraid of mutants taking over society..why aren't these same folks scared that gods like thor,hercules, and other err superhumans like iron-man(now seeing hows he a facist),namor might take over the MU?

 

[BrianWilly]

Just one of those comic book things you just kinda have to accept.

I love how you just rolled right by like six legitimate, logical responses to the thing you "just kinda have to accept."

Again; you're treating the persona of a mutant in the MU as virtually identical to the persona of a superhero, when the fact is that in reality they are anything but alike. The only thing that they have similar is their powers. A "superhero" has a face, a name, a personality, and often an origin right out there for anyone who cares about it to find out. A mutant does not have that. A mutant is just a random individual in a race of millions. The way that someone would perceive Ms. Marvel the SHIELD Agent and the way that the same person would perceive Sammy the Squid Boy from Random City, USA is completely different.

That alone answers at least half the question in itself. Why would people in the MU treat mutants differently than superheroes, you ask? Well, because they are different. It's often just as simple as that. You're comparing the comicbook social equivalent of celebrity law enforcement to an entire race of beings living in your neighborhood and being born from your children. Even if superheroes face persecution -- and we know that they do, constantly -- it's going to be different from the persecution that mutants face because, again I reiterate, they are not the same thing. A hater might accuse Spider-Man of being a crappy hero or even a troublemaker, but even the most dimwitted civilian doesn't think that Spider-Man is going to turn his child into more Spider-Men. Even the most anti-hero crusader like, oh I dunno, Jameson doesn't actually think that one day superheroes are going to mass together and usurp the nation. That's simply not a stigma associated with superheroes.

 

[RockSP]

I love how you just rolled right by like six legitimate, logical responses to the thing you "just kinda have to accept."

Those "legitimate" responses were the opinions of those particular people. I have my own.

Every mutant is not freaky looking. In fact basically none of them were until Nightcrawler.

If the public doesn't know someone is a mutant they are basically just a superhero.

 

[BrianWilly]

See, you're still missing the incredibly sharp divide between being a mutant versus being a superhero. Before M-Day, 99.9999% of mutants weren't superheroes. You're looking at mutants and you're thinking X-Men; flashy, trained individuals in costumes who have awesome powers. And it's understandable because the X-Men are going to be front and center in every story about any mutant.

But in the Marvel universe, numerically speaking there might as well be no mutants superheroes. The idea that people might assume that a superhero is a mutant if they don't know his/her origin is completely an Ultimate universe invention; in the 616, the general assumption is that regular superheroes are just regular superheroes, people who got powers through chance and not birth. Only the X-Men are ever identified as having mutant superheroes, and only because they themselves openly advertise the fact.

What does looking freaky have to do with it? There are many normal superheroes who look freaky just as there are many mutants who don't, but the appearance of mutation is not nearly as much a factor as the stigma of mutation; all that appearance does is give the haters a more convenient excuse to hate. The same people who want to kill Nightcrawler would just as readily kill Jean Grey if they could.

 

[RockSP]

in the 616, the general assumption is that regular superheroes are just regular superheroes, people who got powers through chance and not birth.

And that's what I mean by comic book logic. "Oh, he got his powers from an exploding toilet. That's okay, then. Long as he wasn't born with them I'll let him save my daughter from that fire."

It doesn't really make sense. But Marvel wants the mutants to be outsiders so they are.

 

[TheCorpulent1]

yeah but the *****ing in the MU seems to be that everyone is afraid of mutants taking over society..why aren't these same folks scared that gods like thor,hercules, and other err superhumans like iron-man(now seeing hows he a facist),namor might take over the MU?

Because Thor and Hercules are the only alleged "gods" the public was aware of, because Iron Man presents himself as one man containing and regulating the superhuman populace so their antics don't endanger society, and because, as BW pointed out, science is telling people that mutants will replace them.

 

[RockSP]

because Iron Man presents himself as one man containing and regulating the superhuman populace so their antics don't endanger society,

He's been doing that for a few months. He spent years as just a superhero.

 

[TheCorpulent1]

Yeah, so he fell under the same blanket as other superheroes, where they present themselves openly so that the public doesn't fear them. The public fears mutants because they're paranoid about them, and they fear the X-Men because they're known mutants. They have no reason to believe Iron Man is a mutant unless someone tells them he is, so they're okay with him flying around, saving people.

 

[Varient]

(smile)
I'm kinda surprised some mutant hasn't stepped up and said they got their powers during a smoothie-blender accident,.... that they were "human" before.

Just to be accepted by the marvel public you understand,....

 

[RockSP]

Yeah, so he fell under the same blanket as other superheroes, where they present themselves openly so that the public doesn't fear them.

He was a dude with a secret id. How is that presenting himself openly?

 

[RockSP]

(smile)
I'm kinda surprised some mutant hasn't stepped up and said they got their powers during a smoothie-blender accident,.... that they were "human" before.

Just to be accepted by the marvel public you understand,....

Hey, if the original Thunderbolts were "smart" enough to switch identities...

 

[November Rain]

i guess things like the legacy virus doesn't help

mutants should definitely be able to infect humans somehow, it'll make the stem of their hatred more understandable.