X-Men/Fantastic Four #4: Welcome to the New World

[superboyprime]

"This may be the first time I’ve worked on something that has BIG CAPITAL-R REPERCUSSIONS FOR THE MARVEL UNIVERSE (WHICH ISN’T REAL), so that’s a thing." - Chip Zdarsky

Comments

[shadur]

... Oh fuck you, Charles.

A limiter that restricts mutant abilities and can be put on and removed at will, and has literally no other discernable effects?

Do you have any IDEA how much Rogue or other mutants like her would give for one of those, perhaps in wristwatch form, coded to her own genome so she and only she can decide when it's switched of and on?

How about that kid whose mutant power was to cause every human in a five mile radius to hemorrhage to death? You know, the one you sent Logan to kill because you couldn't afford the story to get out?

Fuck. You.

[chalicother]

"How about that kid whose mutant power was to cause every human in a five mile radius to hemorrhage to death? You know, the one you sent Logan to kill because you couldn't afford the story to get out?"

Isn't that story only in Ultimate Marvel ?


"A limiter that restricts mutant abilities and can be put on and removed at will, and has literally no other discernable effects?"

For Franklin, we have no idea how it work for other mutants. Also if the government took advantage of it , it could be used to take advantage of future movements.

[armycat23]

The point still stands, if given the opportunity a yon of mutants would have taken it. Just off the top of my mind, Hazmat would have taken it before you could even finish the sentence. Assuming her metal boyfriend hasnt come back, she will never be sblevto not harm something or somebody by being outside her suit.

What Charles did was essentially dictorial. The fact that hes trying to scold Doom about not giving mutants a free choice is hypocritical in the highest order.

I hate this version of Professor X.

[deh_tommy]

Hazmat’s not a mutant. Still dislike this Professor X, though. Whatever he was in the past, he wasn’t... this.

[draganoche]

Yeah, I'm sure no evil marvel governments would ever try and use a technology that can take away mutant powers without that mutant's explicit permission.

[donnblake]

If someone had casually invented a device that could remove what I considered an inherent part of my identity, that would certainly make me uncomfortable- and preemptive unilateral action on issues of mutant safety seems to be Krakoa's entire raison d'etre.

(Well, that and making sure that the machine intelligences that live in black holes don't absorb Earth, I guess, but we don't seem to have seen much on that lately, and that's still broadly an issue of mutant safety).

I do wonder what the Krakoan view mutants who don't like their power is. There's the classic example of Rogue, of course, and that kid whose power was to release bursts of energy, without being able to control it, and also it eventually killed him (that was during the Austen run, though, so perhaps we're just ignoring it) but also, there's all the people who suddenly experience radical bodily transformation- and at least some of them have to be dealing with some dysmorphia.

What if one of them goes "I don't want to be a twelve foot tall sabretoothed green tiger-person?" My first suspicion is that they would be strongly encouraged to embrace their new form as their rightful genetic heritage which... would create some friction with the trans* parallels some readers have pointed out.

But maybe I'm wrong- Krakoa's far enough on it's way to Fully Automated Luxury Queer Space Communism that maybe you can just make an appointment with Masque or the Sugar Man to get your body reshaped just the way you like it.

Has anyone who's read more than just the scans on here seen anything like that addressed in the books, one way or the other?

[armycat23]

But lets try to not help at least half of the mutant population because of a hypothetical, right? A remedy always has its risks, but to deny it being available because of what others might try to do will always leave you two steps backward.

[zerocaloriecola]

There is a misunderstanding of how this device works.

It cloaks the mutant gene, and has the potential to erase it completely.

As far as mutant inhibitors go, Rogue is already using one. They don't need that.

I still disagree with how he handled it, but its potential applications are more in cloaking mutants from mutant detection devices.

[mazway_75]

I do recall when Beast gave her the inhibitor, Rogue asks why he didn't cook it up long ago and he replied "yes, why would I not devote my time to figuring out ways to suppress mutant abilities which can easily be worked into taking them away completely" and she conceded the point.

[jlbarnett]

I am glad I am not the only one who feels that way. I want a sequel miniseries where five minutes after they leave Reed reaches out to his alternate universe selves to fix the problem, recreate the device, and protect himself from Xavier in the future.

Bonus points if the fix involves the alternate reality Charles Xavier to tell of this one

[mindsweeper]

This mini was ... not good and will hopefully be ignored, however ...

Xavier already knows that Reed’s scientific irresponsibility and self-absorption are 50% responsible for the creation of Omega Sentinels that eventually wipe out Mutants, so I get his issues with trusting the guy.

[agent8]

Hey, I just invented this gadget that makes gay people straight. It has no other discernible effects.
Let me let the world know of it.
I'm sure no unethical gov't or private organization will ever misuse it. I'm sure no homophobic parent will ever pressure their gay child to use it.

I'm with Charles here. You don't get to blithely invent weapons that could destroy my entire people (and only my people - since it has no other use) without some repercussions.

[chalicother]

I think that's how we are suppose to see this.
That's why I don't see Charles and Xavier in the wrong completely. Just a very understandable shade of dark grey.

[agharta75]

Xavier and Magneto vs ... Reed Richards?

Uh, Reed could whip up an ability restorer in about an hour. And that would be without help from Val. With her, five minutes.

[donnblake]

Weird that, as long as Reed's been in this line, he doesn't have any psychic defenses. I mean, not that they'd probably work against Xavier at point blank range wearing a Cerebro helmet (except, wait, he takes it off for that? What's that helmet doing for him these days anyways? Is it just a fashion statement?), but I'd expect at least a line about them being brushed aside.

Krakoa's ongoing efforts to... I dunno, reclaim the dehumanization of mutants, continues to be odd, but if I spend all my time shouting "That's not how evolution works," at that aspect of the story, my voice'll be hoarse by the time I get to Doom and Valeria.

(That's not how evolution works! I mean, Doom was almost on the right track with "a response to environment," but evolution was too slow so nature provided... unless, wait, "Nature," isn't an abstract force in the Marvel Universe- Gaia's, like, Thor's mom, right? Is *she* responsible for mutants?)

[mistersandman]

Cerebro is constantly backing up the "anima" of every mutant nowadays. For redundancy purposes, those backups are saved to different hidden databases every seven days. If a mutant dies, a telepath can use Cerebro to bring that mutant back with their personality and memories intact.

Maybe Xavier took it off because he wanted to have Reed look him in the eyes as he messed with his mind and really make it personal.

[donnblake]

Ahh, that's an independent function of Cerebro? I thought it was something that Xavier was doing using Cerebro to boost his abilities.

[gnarll]

Marvel Universe mutants are the result of genetic tampering by the Celestials. Said tampering also has levels and switches to it.

[donnblake]

Yes, but unless the Celestials feature prominently in Nightcrawler's new mutant religion, I award them no points on that basis.

[mazway_75]

"You crossed a line, you don't get to do whatever you want" says Xavier as he goes ahead and messes with someone's mind as Magneto destroys his research.

The weird thing is, I can totally see Reed unprepared for mental assault despite all the times it's been pulled on him as he's a classic case of someone who's so busy being ten or twenty steps ahead, he misses what's in front of him.

[lilacsigil]

Well, he did say *you* don't get to do what you want, not *I* don't get to do what I want!

[deh_tommy]

Yeesh, the “Mutants aren’t people” jokes just write themselves.

[nyadnar17]

Whats this? Is this? Is this a messed up situation where both sides position is actually understandable?

Reed randomly invented a device that could(and if history is indication 100% would) be used to completely invalidate all of a nation state's military and geopolitical advantages.

Xavier and Magneto brain damage him in retaliation.

Its interesting and I like.

side note: Anyone else notice how Doom is talking out of both sides of his mouth? On one hand he mocks mutants for being born with powers while he "worked" for his power and then latter admits that being born with an absurdly high IQ is an entirely "unearned" genetic trait.

[cainofdreaming]

Hope Xavier and co won't be faced with a hugely powerful mutant any time soon, against whom this device might have helped.

Ra, ra...

[agent8]

As another poster pointed out, Xavier and co already have mutant inhibitors. I think it's more a point of Xavier and co want a monopoly on the control/production/use of mutant inhibitors and decidedly do not want a possible mutant "off-switch" out of their exclusive control.

And given the anti-mutant history of governments and the general population in Marvel's universe I can't blame them one bit for that.

[zachbeacon]

Putting aside the ethics of this (wonder if they had the same talk with Forge), do they not know Reed is only the second smartest member of that family?

Anyone with siblings knows Val has probably considered it.

[agent8]

has it been positively established that Val is that much smarter than Reed?

[zachbeacon]

On the page? Not sure. Hickman was pretty clear about it in interviews though. Something along the lines of her being smarter than her dad but having her uncle's impulse control because of her age.

[lieut_kettch]

He admitted as much when he gave her the "concerned dad" talk about her and that shirtless pointy-eared alien prince Val was gaga over (and whom Sue asked if he reminded Reed of anyone).

[gnarll]

Wasn't expecting that ending. The FF admitting they were in the wrong.

[deepspaceartist]

Really? Xavier and Magneto talking down to someone about 'wild, unchecked actions"? Charles "I will endanger so many child soldiers to achieve my goals and will absolutely mind fuck people and enslave new emergent life forms when things go wrong" Xavier and Erik "fascism is only bad when I'm not the one doing it, and I'll start by stealing nukes and threatening the world with them" Lensherr? I think they've just managed to out-hypocrisy every other member of the Illuminati combined.

[lencannon]

Reed just ended infinite earths so, you know. I'm gonna go with the people ending the gay conversion therapy metaphor.

[jlbarnett]

actually Reed got done helping recreating infinite Earths

[matrix_dragon]

Oh look, Xavier and Magneto are being gigantic assholes again. It's almost enough to make me ignore that Doom is once again doing something stupid that'll probably bite him in the ass.

Reed's in the wrong here...

[roguefankc]

I don't approve of mind tampering, but I have to side with Xavier and Magneto on this one.

If Reed really meant no harm (he even admits he was wrong), he could have gone to Xavier and Magneto and Emma and the mutant council and told them he has something like this so that there's transparency and that he could say "I won't use it myself and I'll ensure that no one else uses it, but since this may potentially hurt mutants, I want to ask your opinion and see if it can be helpful to mutants like Deadpool or Rogue".

At the very least, Xavier and the others would appreciate the honesty and decide amongst themselves what to do with Reed's invention.

Because it's a dick move to create a project like that in secret. And before people say that it's Reed's invention and he's entitled to his privacy, may I remind you of the Thor clone he created during Civil War without letting Thor know or anyone else except Tony know?

If you have problems with the Thor clone in Civil War, you should be just as outraged and mistrustful as this.

[tcampbell1000]

Look, you can have heroes that you can always cheer for, you can have heroes that sometimes fight each other, and you can have thoughtful explorations of what right and wrong is in an unstable and ever-changing world, but you cannot have all three.

By my lights, Zdarsky did a good job here of walking the line between "these are good folk who mostly want to do the right thing" and "their priorities are wildly different and likely to get more so, not less."

Reed is certainly capable of finding ways around this limit Charles has put on him, given time. But Krakoa is likewise capable of taking further measures in response, so doing so wouldn't be just serving his ravenous curiosity: it'd be starting an arms race. And he's not completely deaf to what Charles is saying, either: it wouldn't be the first time he looked up from his idealistic tinkering, confident that he's making life better for everyone, to discover he's created a monster. Consider the problems with Big Tech and the ways it's reinforced certain inequalities.

This version of the X-Men is certainly less cuddly than most, but these aren't very cuddly times for minorities. I can definitely see the Shakespearean flaws seeding Krakoa's collapse (I mean, making every X-villain an X-Man is Probably a Bad Idea), but I can still relate to the pressures that drove them in general and Charles in particular to this point.

[donnblake]

One of the things of interest here is- look, mutants are a metaphor, yeah? Granted, what exactly they're a metaphor *for* isn't set in stone, and how you read the idea of a mutant cure can be fairly different if you're looking at them as a trans* metaphor than if you're looking at them as a racial minority metaphor than if you're looking at them as a disability metaphor. Nevertheless, we're on fairly steady ground if we say that the problems mutants, as a group, deal with are related to the problem various real life oppressed groups deal with, just, often with more giant killer robots. Fairly little has been done to mutants (genocide, enslavement, forced conversion) that hasn't been practiced on some group or other of humans.

So when Xavier objects to a device that can cut mutants off from that which makes them mutants, we have those historical examples to draw on and, whether we think it's more like conversion therapy, or Indian Residential Schools, or forcing deaf people to receive cochlear implants, many of us will wind up on the same page of "Oh, yeah, Reed, don't just leave those laying around. Definitely not without talking to the people it'll affect."

What we don't have a great metaphor for is invading someone's mind and altering the way it works. Traditionally, if nations today are worried about someone developing technology they'd rather not be developed, there are two steps towards getting them to stop.

One: Ask them to stop their, backed up by whatever soft power you can muster.
Two: Cut off the resources necessary for their work.
Three: Explode them and/or their work.

The closest I can think of to what Xavier does here would be something like lobotomizing a scientist to stop them working on WMDs, but I think we're meant to believe that Xavier can indeed do what he says and remove Reed's ability to build this specific device without any other deleterious effects to Reed's cognitive abilities. And that's... not something that we as a culture have really established a basis of ethics on, because it's not a question that comes up in the real world a lot?

How bad is telepathically altering someone's mind? Is it like drugging someone without their consent (although, like, there's a lot of drugs with a lot of different effects, so which one? Giving someone a pot brownie without telling them and shooting them up with heroin are both wrong, but I wouldn't call them morally equivalent acts)?

Is it like a forcible lobotomy, albeit a super-targeted one? Like brainwashing someone without the need to hold them captive for an extended period? Like just having a *really* persuasive conversation with them?

[jlbarnett]

well, anyone who is okay with this has to pretty much remove Xavier from the list of morally questionable heroes, because this is a move done to protect mutant kind, and every telepathic alteration he's ever done has come back to that motivation

[donnblake]

Oh, we can keep him on the list of morally questionable heroes, no problem. There's still Danger, after all. And that time he had an affair with a patient in his care. And all the child endangerment.

I just think that judging his some of his actions would be easier if we had a sense that it was, say, morally equivalent to punching someone in the face (a standard part of superhero disagreements, after all) or to chopping off one of their limbs (which I think everyone except maybe Wolverine agrees is usually excessive in a disagreement between peers).

[jlbarnett]

I hate Danger because her existence basically strips out a run I like, even if it was short, or makes the X-men total idiots

[gnarll]

Its like Charles and Eric does not know that Franklin has psychic powers. He might be upset at this. Of course, neither one has ever given "might upset my student" all that much weight in decision-making.

They know Franklin is powerful, but do they actually know how powerful? Do they think he will be an Omega among other Omegas, rather than something that can take on all the Omegas at Krakoa and win?

Also, and unrelated to the mindwiping; how creepy is this going to be for Rachel?

[jlbarnett]

this is basically why I want them confronted with the multiverse

[bruinsfan]

They've never actually been a party to the circumstances establishing that Franklin's power is Galactus-level, have they? Only Dr. Strange was around when he squashed Mephisto like a bug as a five-year-old, and I don't think there were any non-FF witnesses to him tag-teaming with Galactus to take down four Celestials. The X-Men's info about him probably mostly comes from Rachel and whatever she's told them about the version in that dystopian future she came from.