He should be going after the Hulk, too, and all the other gamma-irradiated folks who got neato superpowers instead of, well, ending up like him. Or dead, for that matter.
In a way, he's the strange one, expecting biology to work in the way it does in our world, instead of the way it clearly does in 616.
got your order a bit wrong though. He didn't decide it was okay to kill in a fight was after their enemies shows that they'd kill them even after they were rendered non-mutants.
Seriously, the X-men's enemies had deserved death for years, I've really got no problem with that storyline.
It's a shame that they put that point into the mouth of the villain, making it yet another "ugly mutant = evil" story, just like the ten million other such stories in the X-Men's history.
Hell, that was one of the main parts of Morrison's X-Men--to show the ugly side of the X-gene, and how the X-Men protect them as they learn how to accept and, if possible, use their mutation to help others.
Well if you think about it, he has more reason to be bitter than the regular X-Men do.
He had horrible deformities and had to work up to success without any superpowers, while they have both good looks AND superpowers but STILL whine about how people pick on them.
The fact that even the likes of Beast and Nightcrawler, who aren't conventionally good looking but aren't going into the uncanny valley or whatever seems to have made him bitter as well.
Yeah, and yet he isn't the one having giant robots sicced on him, or people designing viruses specifically to wipe out his entire race.
Seriously, Good looks and super powers aside, it still kind of sucks to be a mutant in the Marvel Universe.
Personally, I like how the Wild Card universe handles it: We have Aces, who are more or less loved by the public as instant celebrities, then we have Jokers, the guys like this dude who are disfigured with no powers and treated like Mutants are in the MU.
I'd put that down to the human population of the Marvel universe's urge to make it into a hellish death planet than something specificially just for the mutants.
Spider-man's had people badmouthing him and spiccing robots on him as well.
And the majority of the X-Men can pass for regular folk if they wanted to as well, and those who can't are either dead (Kurt) or Hank, whose mutant status doesn't appear to cause that many problems due to him looking like a kitty and being independantly smart on his own terms.
Keep in mind that the giant robots and demons and stuff attacking the X-men also kill mutants pretending to be normal folk. Being an X-man is safer than trying to pass.
And the Deuces, who are not deformed and have some form of power, but one which has no particular superhuman uses, like the ability to heat a bucket of water 10 degrees in a half hour, or to alter your skin pigmentation to solid colours like blue or green.
The X-Men had the Morlocks for the ugly mutants, and the Heartbreak Hotel for those with fundamentally useless powers (like the power to make flowers bloom)
Given that he was inventing medical technology in his mid-teens, I'd say he came out pretty well on the brains side, so it's not like he doesn't have advantages. I can see being bitter, but that doesn't really add much weight to his arguments.
Aside from this, most if not all the people standing there have been literally tortured, imprisoned, kicked out of families, set upon by mobs, damn near killed (and I'm pretty sure actually killed) many times over since their early teens, so you can't really say they've had entirely cushy lives.
Yeah--I know at least Storm, Scott, and Logan have DEFINITELY been hounded down and tortured for being who they are. I'm sure the others have as well, but I can't really think of any story or facet that confirms it.
I also like how the Whateley universe handles it; basically every person has a body image template, an idealized version of what they look like, so when you become a mutant you shift physically to resemble that form.
That's why most super heroes look like super models or body builders, and while some look like monsters.
The New Universe described it as the "Pinnochio effect", people tended to get a power that conformed to some sort of inner desire or mindset.
The DCU metagene works in the same way, with the nature of the triggering catalyst and the mindset of the metagene carrier influencing the powers that manifest.
That's one way of interpreting them, yes. Of course, there's also the fact that they're celebrities, and had their own island, and got benefits such as healing factors and public appraisal and the ability to act above the law (see also: X-Force).
It's sort of like if there were a scene in Avatar in which an impoverished third-generation Native American saw the news about Pandora and said "They're cutesy and shiny and coloured in a flashy blue, so the white guy saves their asses. Figures."
...And yet people don't often work that way. The end result is often how people are going to judge. We see the Christian church as a force for good despite the Spanish inquisition, history of anti-Semitism, constraint of the rights of women, poor people and non-Christians, etc. We see the economy of the West by its end result of bounteous prosperity, forgetting that that end result is due in a large part to centuries of slavery and colonialism. We see the telephone as a marvellous tool of communication and remain blissfully unaware of the patent battles over it that Elisha Grey had to suffer.
The point of the story is that even if the argument is put badly, it's still valid. If there's ugly or oppressed mutants out there, then...why aren't they being trained for the team?
Mutant is biologically an inaccurate term, as basically everyone is a mutant in one way or another? Why thank you Warren Ellis, I never would have noticed that!
Seriously, a better way to have done this would have been to have Beast make a joke about how much he hates the term mutant as a scientist.
I've wanted Beast to go on a chatshow and clear these things up forever. Cus that's the sort of thing he'd do. For instance he could mention that the term Homo Sapiens Superior was coined by the terrorist Magneto* and that they're all human in the end. Sigh. As of Endangered Species mutants are a separate species though.
*Term possibly retconned to be older by now I guess.
Yes, bringing a darker, grittier, more "realistic" interpretation of what a mutant is face-to-face with the pretty and colourful X-Men is a very, very good story device, and I'm glad it's being done.
...But all I can hear here is Ellis making a point, Ellis saying something Ellis has always wanted to say. Ellis CAN be a good writer, but I like him least when he grandstands. Yes, he's got some valid and witty things to say-- but all the fun drains out of a story when any given character can become a glove-puppet with the rhetorical Hand Of Ellis unavoidably visible up its arse.
That's the thing. There are conventions in superhero comics, and the X-Men have had to fit into those conventions over the years. In the same way that a realistic face looks awful on a cartoon body, dark-and-gritty doesn't really work in a colourful hero book like this one.
I don't really see any grandstanding due to author's intent--that's more because the actual character needed to rant. If it was author's intent, I think they would have felt his point, or something, but Emma puts the guy down (and if any character is Ellis' voice, it's her) and Scott decides to kill him with kindness.
And the particular message here is that Ellis thinks that his audience is stupendously ignorant, and doesn't know what real-life mutants are like, or needs reminding--as if there isn't a massive nationwide fundraising campaign for birth defects (the March of Dimes) every year, or those ads with the cleft-palate kids.
I don't blame Ellis in particular here in that I swear I've heard a thousand different versions of this speech crammed in the mouths of various X-characters.
Although this is the most annoying version, in that putting it in the mouth of the villain undermines whatever point there was supposed to be, because it just becomes another story about an ugly villain who is ugly and villainous because ugly = villainous.
While we're at it, when is Marvel going to stop pushing it that Mutants are a 'species'? The criteria per se are vague, of course, but I'm pretty sure that they don't pass all of them. If anything, they're a series of mutations of the human genome.
Crucially, I don't think they're a species until it's demonstrable that a large population of them have the same physiological/morphological and/or behavioural differences from humans. Like, for instance, if there were lots of large blue cat-people. Or if the children of Beak & Angel in "New X-Men" had themselves produced offspring which only looked like fly-winged bird-people.
That's one of the things that kind of bothers me about people's "OMG! SCARLET WITCH COMMITTED GENOCIDE!!!" reaction to M-Day. Well, no, she turned the vast majority of mutants into living normal people who are probably better off now than they were before, and the few handfuls of mutants who are on super teams in Marvel titles into infertile mutants who are otherwise the same as before. I suppose it sucks to some degree that those folks aren't going to be making more mutant babies, but considering the way such offspring tend to get killed horribly or spirited away into alternate futures to be raised by enemies or retconned out of existence I don't think the whole thing is necessarily resulting in more trauma than continued fertility would have.
considering the way such offspring tend to get killed horribly or spirited away into alternate futures to be raised by enemies or retconned out of existence
Oh, no free pass for Wanda. I know she killed a number of people during her meltdown, some of whom didn't magically get better when everything snapped back to normal. And there are about 6 billion people who had their minds and lives tampered with and would have every right to be calling for her head on a platter if they remembered anything about it.
But I guess the moaning about mutant extinction rubs me the wrong way because if mutants viewed themselves as human beings first and foremost, there wouldn't be any worries about extinction. The loss of mutant powers among future generations would just be like any other given characteristic fading out of the gene pool, just a bit faster and because of one specific event rather than natural selection over time.
But if it's a part of how a person identifies themselves then surely M-Day is a big deal.
Your point further down about how if mutants viewed themselves as being humans (homo sapiens) rather than mutants (homo superior) then they'd be OK.
People do not identify as being part of the human race. They have their own distinct cultures. Mutantkind is a culture and a race in the Marvel universe.
I know that it's an iffy comparison, but considering that they began as a civil rights analog I feel better in using it, but replace Mutant with Black up there. See if you still agree with what you're saying.
I think it would be a valid comparison for people who were raised within a mutant culture, but present day mutants were almost unanimously raised to think of themselves as human beings by non-powered parents. I've never bought how easily so many X-men foes (and X-men) suddenly start considering themselves a completely separate species apart from humanity as soon as they discover the ability to make dining room furniture explode or whatever.
All that and this is the payoff? Hmm... at first I was upset at how shallow it was but, actually, from a sociological standpoint, I get it and I'm okay with it. A little bit knock you over the head though, the writers critiquing the comics industry itself is nice. Really, would we read a comic with sub-par looking characters? No, pretty sells and he has a point. Mutants do seem to have a tendency to look good.
Still, this villain, with all his genius and money at NO point decided to study a way to make himself look good or, maybe, just see a damn plastic surgeon? Maybe live with the Morlocks, and have Masque fix him up? I dunno...
This is true, there's enough super-science (some of which he's apparently invented) that could go a long way towards fixing him up just dandy. And he's certainly got the smarts to be a big success himself.
I think that's kinda the point--anyone who goes into the art of Murder Science is probably just looking for an excuse to murder, so he probably wouldn't want to be fixed.
I'd say MODOK but he hates people because he's designed for hating people, and by hating people, I mean killing people, and by killing people, I mean ONLY killing people.
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scans_daily2010-08-26 08:31
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In a way, he's the strange one, expecting biology to work in the way it does in our world, instead of the way it clearly does in 616.
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But yeah, it's a bizarre thing for Ellis to mix in real-world medicine and Marvel's brand of bat-science.
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Seriously, the X-men's enemies had deserved death for years, I've really got no problem with that storyline.
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Anyone remember the Morlocks?
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If they sent Anole
I don't think he'd react any different.
Re: If they sent Anole
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He had horrible deformities and had to work up to success without any superpowers, while they have both good looks AND superpowers but STILL whine about how people pick on them.
The fact that even the likes of Beast and Nightcrawler, who aren't conventionally good looking but aren't going into the uncanny valley or whatever seems to have made him bitter as well.
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Seriously, Good looks and super powers aside, it still kind of sucks to be a mutant in the Marvel Universe.
Personally, I like how the Wild Card universe handles it: We have Aces, who are more or less loved by the public as instant celebrities, then we have Jokers, the guys like this dude who are disfigured with no powers and treated like Mutants are in the MU.
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Spider-man's had people badmouthing him and spiccing robots on him as well.
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Mutants are still persecuted for who they are, whereas Spidey is persecuted for being a masked vigilante.
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And those people have also said that he's probably a Mutant.
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The X-Men had the Morlocks for the ugly mutants, and the Heartbreak Hotel for those with fundamentally useless powers (like the power to make flowers bloom)
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Aside from this, most if not all the people standing there have been literally tortured, imprisoned, kicked out of families, set upon by mobs, damn near killed (and I'm pretty sure actually killed) many times over since their early teens, so you can't really say they've had entirely cushy lives.
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That's why most super heroes look like super models or body builders, and while some look like monsters.
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The DCU metagene works in the same way, with the nature of the triggering catalyst and the mindset of the metagene carrier influencing the powers that manifest.
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And anyway, he's better looking than Masque.
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It's sort of like if there were a scene in Avatar in which an impoverished third-generation Native American saw the news about Pandora and said "They're cutesy and shiny and coloured in a flashy blue, so the white guy saves their asses. Figures."
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The point of the story is that even if the argument is put badly, it's still valid. If there's ugly or oppressed mutants out there, then...why aren't they being trained for the team?
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And who's this "we" in the third sentence there?
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Seriously, a better way to have done this would have been to have Beast make a joke about how much he hates the term mutant as a scientist.
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Science is awesome that way.
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*Term possibly retconned to be older by now I guess.
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Yes, bringing a darker, grittier, more "realistic" interpretation of what a mutant is face-to-face with the pretty and colourful X-Men is a very, very good story device, and I'm glad it's being done.
...But all I can hear here is Ellis making a point, Ellis saying something Ellis has always wanted to say. Ellis CAN be a good writer, but I like him least when he grandstands. Yes, he's got some valid and witty things to say-- but all the fun drains out of a story when any given character can become a glove-puppet with the rhetorical Hand Of Ellis unavoidably visible up its arse.
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Hell, the 90's should have taught us that.
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Although this is the most annoying version, in that putting it in the mouth of the villain undermines whatever point there was supposed to be, because it just becomes another story about an ugly villain who is ugly and villainous because ugly = villainous.
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Also, some fans and creator have been trying to justify "Everyone loves the Fantastic Four but hates the X-Men" for decades.
A play in one act.
*exeunt*
Re: A play in one act.
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Crucially, I don't think they're a species until it's demonstrable that a large population of them have the same physiological/morphological and/or behavioural differences from humans. Like, for instance, if there were lots of large blue cat-people. Or if the children of Beak & Angel in "New X-Men" had themselves produced offspring which only looked like fly-winged bird-people.
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Because that only happens to mutants?
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But I guess the moaning about mutant extinction rubs me the wrong way because if mutants viewed themselves as human beings first and foremost, there wouldn't be any worries about extinction. The loss of mutant powers among future generations would just be like any other given characteristic fading out of the gene pool, just a bit faster and because of one specific event rather than natural selection over time.
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Your point further down about how if mutants viewed themselves as being humans (homo sapiens) rather than mutants (homo superior) then they'd be OK.
People do not identify as being part of the human race. They have their own distinct cultures. Mutantkind is a culture and a race in the Marvel universe.
I know that it's an iffy comparison, but considering that they began as a civil rights analog I feel better in using it, but replace Mutant with Black up there. See if you still agree with what you're saying.
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Still, this villain, with all his genius and money at NO point decided to study a way to make himself look good or, maybe, just see a damn plastic surgeon? Maybe live with the Morlocks, and have Masque fix him up? I dunno...
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And for that matter this guy was just sick. Mole Man is healthy as a horse and twice as ugly and bitter.
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But whatever.
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sounds like someone's got a case of superhuman intelligence.
(or drive.)
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No tears here.