I few days ago I read a rather interesting SD thread about the X-Men and parallels to real-world racism and bigotry, it got rather side-tracked however when someone pointed out that society treating mutants poorly is rather hypocritical when you have non-mutants with superpowers like Spiderman, The Fantastic Four etc running around and they are lauded as heroes.
I admit I had a ‘Wait, what?!?’ moment when this point came up, I’ve never followed comics and most of what I’ve picked up is from cultural osmosis and late 90’s/early 2000’s cartoons (and some of the recent movies) and while I was vaguely aware of the Marvel Universe I didn’t realise all these characters existed alongside each other at the same time and in the same continuity.
So basically is it really a good idea to have all these different characters and stories squished in together in the same story-universe? Or would it make more sense to have them seperate? It seems needlessly complicated to me!
No. Even in the comics, the X-Men had as a premise from Day One that mutants were feared, hunted, hated, misunderstood, etc. That has never gelled with the existence of conventional superheros.
It’s been well established that “mutates” (i.e. humans who were not born with superpowers but who gained them though radiation or similar environmental exposure) have children who are born with superpowers, so what’s the practical difference? Why would a Sentinel hunt down Nightcrawler but not Spider-Man? Why would Thor be considered a hero but not Colossus? Why would anyone assume Wolverine was a mutant but not Thomas Fireheart, aka Puma?
The movie universes can and should stay separate. The comic universe could be split along those lines without any real problem.
On further reflection, I could see the Fantastic Four fitting easily into the MCU alongside the Avengers, since both seem to be based on science-fiction premises. I’m rather less confident about bringing in Doctor Strange or Ghost Rider - characters whose abilities are based on mysticism. I’d be okay with magic-based characters like Strange and GR to have their own cinematic universe.
The problem with shared universes is always going to be “why wasn’t ____ here”. It’s already weird in the MCU when every hero is out trying to save the world individually in between their big ensemble world saving, the more heroes you add the less sense it makes. And yeah, the way mutants get created compared to everyone else has always been problematic.
“when you have non-mutants with superpowers like Spiderman … running around and they are lauded as heroes.”
You must have never read the “Spider-Man, Threat or Menace?” editorial in the Bugle.
Anyway yes, same universe all the way, I remember a time when Marvel started trying to move everything into their own corners with very little interaction between them, and it was a bad move.
One of the most-used excuses in Marvel comic books is “The Avengers and the Fantastic Four are off fighting other threats: you have to deal with this yourself.”
The movies can happily follow that precedent.
This allows the occasional crossover, guest star, cameo, and so on, which is a perennial fanboy’s favorite.
(I was very young when I saw my first Marvel Comics crossover: Conan the Barbarian walked into a Red Sonja comic book. I was astonished. They can do that?)
It is incongruent…and that’s part of the point.
It’s meant to highlight the hypocrisy of prejudice.
The Fantastic Four got their powers through science, so that makes them okay.
Thor is an alien or something, so that makes him okay.
Mutants… holy shit they were born like that and can be anyone and you don’t even know!
It’s part of the point.
The FF and the X-men could work well in a movie universe together because of that disconnect.
I don’t think it’s that hypocritical to be fair. Mutants are scary because they are a replacement for humans, this is not the case with science experiments or aliens.
I’ve long considered that Xavier’s presentation of mutants is the worst danger to mutants. A lot of the things he took for granted (extrapolating from his own case) turned out to have been wrong quite soon; a lot of the things he harps on Other “his people” in ways which don’t hold biologically speaking and which are bound to piss other people off.
The first person to say “mutants aren’t human” wasn’t William Stryker, it was Charles Francis Messiah. The FF, Spidey or Thor have never said “move aside, inferiors, we’re coming to take over”: they fight people who say things like that.
I think its mostly because I personally find the clear cut distinction between ordinary humans and mutants the most interesting and thought-provoking scenario, when you start to throw in all these other superhero’s, powers, abilities and backgrounds it muddies the water too much. But thats purely a subjective opinion. But then I didn’t like the whole sideline regarding aliens in the early 1990’s cartoon either (I don’t think that was present in the later X-Men: Evolution cartoon series which while it had its flaws was pretty excellent in places).
I used to agree with Bryan Ekers’s take that it never made much sense for mutants to be hated more than other super-powered persons, but a debate on an X-Men board brought me around to the other side. A lot of it comes down to the concept of mutants as a new species (and up until “No More Mutants” one which was definitely going to eventually replace normal humans by sheer numbers alone). When you’ve got people like Magneto and Apocalypse running around espousing the superiority of mutantkind, placing them separate and/or above humanity, it’s a lot more of a perceived threat than “person gets powers from random lab experiment.”
Metaphors are always imperfect but I sorta liken it to the difference between random street violence and the threat of Muslim terrorism. One is random and every case is different; the other seems like a looming, united threat, steadily growing in number and full of extremists trying to organize their side into action.
I’ve seen this ball batted across both sides of the net. I’ve always thought that the “Mutant Menace” meme got pounded into the ground way too much, especially when Chris Claremont was writing the X-books. You’d figure, sooner or later, a large portion of people would get the clue that mutants, like any other super-people, come in all flavors.
That said, in the Marvel Universe, the public have always had a little more stand-offish relationship with the superheroes. The Daily Bugle’s “Spider-Man, Threat or Menace?” headlines aside, he’s always been a controversial figure. The Avengers get painted as government stooges every so often, and even the Fantastic Four get treated as the MU version of the Kardashians.
One of my all-time favorite lines when one of the FF’s enemies are holding them hostage: “Mom, if the FF get croaked, do I have to go to school tomorrow?” Boy, does Superman have to deal with that?? :rolleyes:
If you put on a costume and fought crime with your superpowers, would anyone (well, aside from a Sentinel) know if you’re a mutant if you didn’t announce it?
Of course, one that I think about it, how many Marvel characters are regular crimefighters, in the sense of going on patrols and dealing with regular cops such. Aside from Spider-Man, it seems to me the FF and the Avengers are more likely to fight off alien invasion than, say, coming to the aid of a mugging victim or rescuing someone from a burning building.
I can sort of see that logic. The problem with it, as Bryan Ekers suggests, is that it requires that every ordinary citizen has memorized the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe, and knows the exact origin story of every particular hero. Apart from the fact that the X-Men all hang out together, and are taught by a guy who’s always nattering on about mutant rights, there’s nothing that makes Cyclops obviously a mutant while the Thing obviously isn’t.
Sometimes this has been lampshaded a bit in the comics. I remember an incident late in John Byrne’s run on Fantastic Four, where the Human Torch sees an anti-mutant protest taking place outside Avengers Mansion. He muses to himself, “Since the Scarlet Witch left, the Avengers don’t even have any mutants!” But apart from occasional moments like that, the anti-mutant stuff is mostly confined to the X-books, and rarely seems to spill over into the non-mutant heroes’ series.
I also agree that in many ways, Charles Xavier is his own worst enemy when it comes to mutant PR. I don’t remember if it was he or Magneto who came up with the term, but either way, using “homo superior” to refer to yourself and your friends is just asking for trouble.
That was Magneto. “Since humans keep calling us evil, we will own it!” At the time, he was explicitly advocating taking over the world, so at least he was being honest.
