Astonishing X-Men #35

[flint_marko]

This is from Astonishing X-Men #35 by Warren Ellis and Phil Jimenez

Comments

[nezchan]

Actually, the bulk of his points come down to "you're pretty and I'm not and I'm jealous". So I'm not all that sympathetic.

[crinos]

Seriously, There are ugly mutants too (or there were before M day)

Anyone remember the Morlocks?

[espanolbot]

I know Gambit certainly does.

[shadowpsykie]

oh snap!

[proteus_lives]

Correction: Oh snap, mon ami!

[nezchan]

I wonder how he would have reacted if they sent, say, Anole.

[shadowpsykie]

Anole: You think i'm pretty? *turns to the x-men* later! i'm going to the Castro!

If they sent Anole

[nefrekeptah]

"Even Dr. Mocoy here is a handsome beast."

I don't think he'd react any different.

Re: If they sent Anole

[nezchan]

Neither would Agent Brand.

[darkknightjrk]

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.

[espanolbot]

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.

[crinos]

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.

[espanolbot]

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.

[flint_marko]

Yeah, but Spider-Man can take off his costume and go back to being Peter.

[icon_uk]

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)

[nezchan]

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.

[darkknightjrk]

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.

[crinos]

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.

[icon_uk]

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.

[shadowpsykie]

hmm although as intelligent as he is one could assume that he derived his intelligence from his mutation.he seems smarter than your average Morlock

[jlbarnett]

he talks about his medical patents and new technologies at very youg ages. There are people who've had super intelligence as a power I believe.

And anyway, he's better looking than Masque.

[stig]

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."

[flint_marko]

Except they only have their own island because they were kicked out of SF. And most of the team was angry when they found out about X-Force.

[nezchan]

To be fair, it took a LONG time and a lot of dead mutants to get there. To just see the end result is to ignore a hell of a lot of their history.

[stig]

...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?