@ageofhurricane:
Have you ever read Supreme Power? If not, I'd highly recommend. Yes, they "copied" the JLA concept, but turned it into a total "real world what if". How so? First of all, a crashed from the sky spaceship was found by a couple of farmers (sounds familiar no?), but right on the next panel a highly alarmed SWAT unit is already at their doorstep. That's how the writer parodies the Superman mythos with which I 100% agree. But that's not the point, even this fallen from the sky godlike boy's adoptive "government agents" parents are not, the point is how intense Government's presence was in forming his "perfect American" self-identity and was not just an attempt to make sure his personality won't move into the wrong direction the second they realize how potentially powerful he is, but with a wish of total control and backup plan if something really goes wrong. And that's all about just ONE super-powered boy.
What do we learn from here? I know 616 Earth is too "old", too traditional to make a huge step into another and new direction (Morrsion tried to, but gladly he did too many mistakes for his legacy to be accepted, but still we got to deal with what we got). You ask me what would I change? I'd turn X-mythos not just into a racial/minority struggles metaphor, I'd turn into the whole flaws of humanity critique. Is it so irrational to fear a super powered being? Hell no, if you ask me, there's no one I'd fear more than a telepath (dirty dirty mind lol), in the same time how can I possibly support an X-gene-positive teen be eliminated by a gigantic robot in the middle of street, more brutally than a rabid dog? Damn, the way humanity is portrayed right there, Magneto isn't right, he is too fu*king humane with them! And why the hell would an average Joe know how to distinguish a mutant from mutate? How are Hulk or Thing beloved heroes while Jean or Havok are menace? That will always be beyond me to comprehend, they all must be geneticists with an actual knowledge that mutants are the next level of human evolution and they all heartless enough to always justify the suffering of sentient beings, just because they'll maybe inherit the Earth? And still I fail to understand, how any of this has to do with minorities? Just because mutants are growing species in numbers, does a term "minority", the way we know it, can be really applied on them? Because if you ask me, there's a notable difference between a homosexual who tries to achieve his rights in the society just because his condition is different, and a living weapon that wants to be treated as normal? Would any of us feel safe among a person that can blow your mind with a thought? Again, everything always revolves around the same term - superpowers. Unlike the times when Claremont actually did everything to feel that they are a minority, these days this term has become a political link in endless games and machinations, too bad, but I cannot rely to this anymore.
In my vision, superpowered people should get controlled/usurped by the Governments, to be studied and used by them, and in the case of mutants, eventually understand they cannot stop their breeding and natural spreading worldwide, so they'll support schools like Xavier's and make anything that's possible for these "living weapons", in their eye, to be perfect citizens and patriots, because unlike Sentinels program that makes things unbalanced and explosive, Governments like order and profit. It doesn't mean there's no place for a well informed fanatics like Purifiers to do what they do, because they believe is a God's way - a really nice demonstration of one of humanity's biggest flaws. Weapon X/the Facility programs, to show how inhuman "so called" geneticists and staff, to make experiments on sentient beings (metaphor for not just humans, but a strong message for animal abuse as well, and if anyone is being offended by this comparison, that must be their own problem). But, the same time, to show how superior beings get treated like unworthy weaklings is just stupid. Of course not all mutants have offensive powers, still most of them are too dangerous to deal with. Magneto's background makes it clear how sequentially reasonable him being alienated from humanity, have his powerset and Messiah Complex, but Havok isn't really wrong, mutants are post-humans, who said all of them do feel so alienated from this humanity? The way Remender made it look was disgusting and self-ashamed, but there is a point in this. And while "all mutants are victims" I totally see a person that gains a pretty impressive powerset and starts to apply his newly gained God complex on regular humans proclaiming himself, let's say, a herald of a Dormant Master of the Universe (Dreaming Celestial), and who said they won't follow? People prayed to a mountain back in the days. The whole concept must be much more multifarious to begin with, so everyone could get his own interpretation.
My perfect "what if?" would be Storm stops a hurricane that could've devastate a country, Magneto repairs Earth's magnetosphere, Elixir travels the world with a wish to heal every sick person in a world. That is an alternative future, an "Utopia-that-could've-been" I'd show, and then we'll see how unachievable it is because in the present, human flaws like greed, fear, corruption and superiority complex are now getting the best from mutantkind as well.
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