Marvel comics Mutants...who'd be justified in getting "cured"?

Cafe Society
1

As fans of Marvel comics know, an issue that comes up in-story now and again is the controversy of “curing” Mutants—removing their mutant powers and abilities, whether through a medical procedure, or technological “power dampening” devices. Bringing up fights over whether mutation is even a “disorder” to be treated, the rights or obligations of individuals to refuse or seek such treatment, etc. etc. The real-world parallels are obvious enough to draw.

On the other hand, timeless metaphor for real world bigotry aside, I can’t help but say that some Mutants probably have a compelling case for getting their gift removed. People in the real world don’t accidentally fire death rays out of their ears, after all.

So, I’m finally compiling a list: What Mutants would be completely justified in getting their powers nullified, or controlled artificially?

Right now, I’m limiting* it to Mutants who’s power…

•Is dangerous to themselves or others, and is uncontrollable.
Dangerous powers that can be controlled, however, don’t count. If said control requires great, constant effort, and a lapse is catastrophic, that’d probably be a pass.

And/or

•Diminishes their quality of life as a direct side-effect.
Having an otherwise “good” power but losing your sense of touch, or being bombarded with psychic background noise, or being left only able to digest molten sulfur—stuff like that. Just “suffering from being discriminated against” wouldn’t cut it.

Marvel Mutants who’d be very jusified in getting “cured”?
So far, I’ve got…

•Rogue
In various incarnations. Sometimes her power—to absorb abilities and memories by touch—is not only uncontrollable and potentially dangerous, but it’s too weak to even be useful in combat.
•Lucien
From an alternate Earth, absorbed all of the Legacy Virus. Left as a (living) glowing green skeleton, sealed in a containment chamber. Worked on model airplanes while he waited for a cure.
•Unnamed kid from Ultimate X-Men #41
Manifested the ability to destroy all living tissue within a wide radius. Involuntarily. He’d killed hundreds in his hometown, including his family, before he even knew what was happening. Dang.

There’s got to be more than that, though. Anyone got any suggestions?
*I’ve left out “useless” powers (like having the ability to tell if Beer is chilled, or make your left arm fall off and grow back), or ones that are purely cosmetic (like having green skin, or a set of tiny, completely nonfunctional wings) for the time being.

2

Rogue and the poor SOB from UltXM are the first two who came to mind.

Cyclops’s issues are relatively easily kept in check…but that check is also relatively easy to lose - anything from an accident, deliberate sabotage, or his powers getting ramped up can knock his glasses off, either causing him to blast everything around him, or effectively blinding him as he keeps his eyes closed - so, despite being one of the more adamant about NOT doing it, he’d also be one of the more justified in getting cured.

Gentle of the New X-Men is literally going to be killed by his powers, eventually (they’re kept in check by vibranium tattoos, but they’ll eventually get too strong for that)…so, yeah, he’d definitely be justified.

Everyone else I can think of whose powers are significant issues, losing them would be worse (or theoretically should be…Chamber shouldn’t have survived losing his powers after M-Day).

3

Beast. I’d say walking around looking like a furry’s wet dream counts as his mutation diminishing the quality of his life. It isn’t simply about being discriminated against it makes it impossible for him to fit into a normal life.

4

Interestingly, his original mutation just made him look like a broad-shouldered guy with big feet. Nightcrawler, though? DEVIL BABY! KILL IT WITH FIRE!

5

That kid in the cave that you already listed was who came to mind.

6

There was a mutant in New X Men that had the power of looking like a bird. That’s it.

Except it wasn’t. I had a bad feeling about making any sort of claim about a movie or comic book without verifying it, so I looked him up. He was called Beak, he could glide a little and peck you with his namesake. Seems like New X Men had a lot of unfortunately mutants (like an electric skeleton guy) but it’s been years since I read it.

7

I don’t know his name, but he’s a walking skeleton embedded in a pink translucent body with eyeballs floating weirdly out of his skull. One of the current team of kids backing up Wolverine. That guy.

Also, Blob. (Fred Dukes.)

Nightcrawler might have considered it: he enjoyed the advantages, but they tended to set him apart from society, and that hurt a lot.

The Toad? Oh, that tongue…

Ilyana Rasputin (Magik?) Her power has led to a lot of misery. She’s (literally) lost her soul because of it.

8

Beast brought some of it on himself, so, no cure for him. Rogue breaks my heart though. Cure her!

9

A young Havok would have been first in line for the cure.

10

I’m assuming you’re talking about forced cures? The “poor SOB” angle where they would willingly be cured shouldn’t even be an issue. What, is the government going to deny the cure to non-dangerous, willing recipients and only have it open to noncompliant overpowered psychopaths?

11

Leech, from the Morlocks.

12

Every single Morlock who wasn’t Callisto.

13

Glob Herman.

I think that depowering Magick gets you a soulless demon sorceress with an even more tenuous grip on the helldimension she’s supposed to rule over. Not sure that is an improvement.

Wither, from the old Academy X series had one of those touch-and-kill powers that also dissolved other organic matter. Probably good to cure.

And I think Unus the Untouchable’s power actually killed him. Although he might’ve gotten better…

14

Rogue has been able to control her abilities for a few years now.

15

Think of it as being analogous to “curing” gay people or deaf people. It’s not so much the government refusing as it is that a lot of people, particularly within that community, would consider it morally repugnant to be seen as someone who needs to be “cured.”

That said, I nominate the kid with a reactor in his chest who blew off half his own face.

16

I can imagine that there are quite a lot of mutants who could benefit from the cure, simply so they could have a normal life. Sure, there are plenty of mutants who can pass for human, but it seems that if you go to the Xavier school, you only actually have one career path open to you, which is Paramilitary. Pretty much every student ends up fighting in some X-group or another.

I can’t think of a single mutant who has gone on to have any kind of normal career, but there are plenty who would never have picked that life if it wasn’t forced upon them by Xavier.

17

What’s wrong with the Blob?

18

Chamber. Who, by rights, should not have survived being depowered, since he was missing most of his chest and face, and only living because of his mutation. But, he did. (Fixed up by Beast, apparently, but I haven’t read a book featuring him in a long-ass time.)

Most of the other mutants whose powers cause them significant problems fall into the same group - without their powers, they’d be missing significant portions of their body, or otherwise unable to survive. I’m sure some of them would consider that acceptable, but not most.

19

IIRC, the only reason Cyclops survived to do anything else is because his power surprised him by first manifesting right when he needed it most.

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Rogue

[QUOTE=Ranchoth]
In various incarnations. Sometimes her power—to absorb abilities and memories by touch—is not only uncontrollable and potentially dangerous, but it’s too weak to even be useful in combat.
[/QUOTE]

So far I’ve only read up to late 90s (plus current X-factor, Wolverine and the X-Men) so I might be missing something, but Rogue has used her ability absorbing powers during combat. Once she absorbed all of the X-men at once to fight off a villain and they got really pissed off at her.

But I would still agree with your choice of Rogue. Potential danger aside, she can’t touch people. Human touch is so important to leading a healthy and fulfilling life.

Would Eye-Boy be a contender? He’s a regular dude completely covered with eyes. I personally love his mutation, but it hasn’t been terribly useful so far, and it does serve to make him a freak. I’d nominate Skin, whose mutant power is that he has six feet of extra skin. Yep.

What about Marrow, at least in her original form? Painful and uncontrollable bone growths… no thanks.