Marvel clarifies their Mutant Classification system...

[icon_uk]

For years Marvel Mutants have been bandying classifications around, but it's a little confusing as to which end was the upper limit, was it Alpha, or Omega....

Newsarama has a handy field guide up...

ALPHA LEVEL

An Alpha level mutant is someone who looks no different from any other human being, and whose powers are pretty effective in combat. Likewise, they have no limitation placed on them as a result of their X-gene.

Examples - Colossus, Dazzler, Kitty Pryde

BETA LEVEL

Beta level mutants are just like Alphas, but with a catch. While at first glance they can pass for a human being, careful scrutiny reveals they have some strange trait that sets them apart, like an eye color that doesn't generally appear in humans. A Beta mutant can also be someone who passes for human but has some limitation imposed on them because of their power, such as not being able to make skin-to-skin contact (which describes Rogue's condition for many years).

Examples - Cyclops (eyes), Gambit (eyes), Wolverine (via his bone claws), Northstar/Aurora (pointy ears), pre-furry Beast (disproportionately large hands and feet) perhaps, Annalee of the Morlocks (looked human, but couldn't switch her broadcast empathic powers off)

GAMMA LEVEL

Like Alphas and Betas, Gamma level mutants are pretty handy in combat situations. But as a result of their X-gene, they cannot pass for human without the use of a disguise of some sort.

Examples - Nightcrawler, Blink, post-furry Beast.

DELTA LEVEL

Delta Level mutants are those who, like Alphas and Betas, can pass for human at first glance. But unlike Alphas or Betas, their power is not something that is obvious and automatically combative. Their abilities are more subtle, enough so that an outside observer can't actually see the power in use. Delta mutants may go for years not realizing that they are, in fact, mutants, due to the nature of their abilities.

Examples - Domino, Forge, Cypher

EPSILON LEVEL

Epsilon level mutants either have a non-combative power or no real powers at all, but are like Gamma level mutants in that they cannot hide what they are. Many examples of such mutants can be found among the Morlocks, a community that chose to live in the sewers rather than among humanity.

Examples - Artie Maddicks, Tar Baby

OMEGA LEVEL

These are the people who truly make normal human beings and government agencies afraid. These are mutants whose power levels are such that they are considered the most serious threats, capable of wide-scale destruction and proving very difficult to take down, contain or kill.

Examples - Magneto, Iceman (now)

So your thoughts? Where does your own favourite fit in? Would YOU put them there?

Reminds me a bit of the informal classifications used in the Wild Card books; The mutagenic, alien-originated Wild Card virus has differing effects on those wo caught it, and the names used were appropriate to the card motif.. 990/1000 died horribly (Drawing the Black Queen),  9/1000 survived by only gained deformities (Drawing the Joker) and 1/1000 ganied superpowers of some sort (Drawing the Ace... though many powers weren't actually that useful, and such people rather bitterly referred to themselves as having "drawn the Deuce")

For legality, Doug proves that just because you're a Delta level mutant, it doesn't mean you can't cause some SERIOUS damage in the right circumstances... As the future Sentinel MCP is about to find out.

Comments

[eyz]

Blame that on Sinister :P
2 times outta 3, he's responsible for creating these "anomalies", mutant legacy familes, etc.. XD

[hyperactivator]

Exactly my point. A mad scientist from the Victorian era was able to treat mutants as just another thing to study and shape to his liking and he succeded. If anything he should assume that he is the next step in evolution becuse his kind actually did manage to take over the world in a way.

Mutants have a small set of limited superpowers that do not often work correctly or prove usefull. Mad scientists are just an enormous advancment on the skills humanity has already used to take over the world. Intelligence capable of manipulating the enviroment. In the end it's not going to be the one guy who can fire beams out of his eyes its the guy that builds a thousand death rays of similar power and arms a thousand trained loyal soldiers.

[eyz]

Yeah, they're well too specialized to be any sort of evolution. I mean, they're all cleary designed for combat and each so radically different one from another...

[icon_uk]

they're all cleary designed for combat

Not quite fair methinks, the ones we've met have mostly been on teams where combat was an inevitability. There are doubtless many other mutants with passive or subtle powers we never saw.

Doug might well have lived a normal life unaware that he was a mutant (Just assuming he was a savant at computer languages), and there are probably many others, with more sensory based powers (like seeing 15 new colours, seeing radio waves, being able to sense earthquakes through their two extra toes) or low key powers (like being able to fly, but only 2mm ff the ground, at 1 mile per hour, and for uncertain lengths of time) who we never met and who just never remotely figured in mutant fight scenarios.

[eyz]

Well I meant, like, making energy outta your eyes or whole body or charging object to explode, or having durability/regeneration/additional claws on your fist, or taking bones out of your body and regenerating them immediately,.. That's the principal mutants you see around at the end of the day :P

Though I like the more simpler and out-of-the-ordinary mutants like you're mentioning (which is why I hated the end of house of M/Decimation so much!...)