I think the main difference between how mutants are shown to be more discriminated against comes from the fact that X-men comics are about discrimination, while other marvel comics aren't really.

Pretty much every marvel character or group known to the public has been hated by the public at some point; it's just that with the X-men, that's a big part of what they (as a concept) are about. But pretty much every public figure in the MU has had a taste of it, really.

I suppose one could say that mutants, as an identifiable group, make an easier target for discrimination than the few random individuals on the Avengers who aren't either mutants or baseline humans, but really I think it just comes down to that not really being what most Avengers (or FF, Spiderman, DD, etc..) stories are about.

I think Ultimate Marvel handled it well with everyone being hated. Except for Captain America, everyone loved Cap.

Thats the problem with mutant bias, its the only race hated the most shouldn't hate vary? Why not a hate group on aliens, A.I's and god races. Why do mutants get so much focus in discriminating story's. Another problem I have with the X-men in the Marvel U. the constant guest roles the Avengers are placed in their book to make them look like the guilty party with the constant we blame you for Genosha. I'd like to see the Avengers for once blame them for where were you in the Kang Dynasty? The constant barrage from Marvel making us think Genosha is the greatest tragedy yet ignoring the other far greater events of countries being destroyed by Ultron and worlds being razed in fire by Kang really annoys me at how Marvel likes portraying the X-men as constant victims. To me the X-men mythos would be better off in its own separate universe like DC did to its Golden Age Heroes place them in Earth 2 like. Just look at the X-men animated and the movies it showed the X-men capable of living outside the Marvel U.

There's still logic about being heavily biased toward mutants though. Hulk and such were created by freak accidents and whatnot that have slim chances of happening. Your next door neighbor could wake up, sneeze, and cause an earthquake that kills your entire family because he hit puberty.

Mutants pop up with a frequency far greater than your average superhuman mutate, which is why it's possible for it to kind of make sense that people hate mutants as a whole. Takes a bit of a stretch, but it's better than what Marvel tries to pull off most of the time.

I always preferred the Avengers and X-men hating each other and AvsX showed me just how these two should not get into each other's realm. To me the hate between the two should stay like Green Arrow and Flash both heroes yet thy hate each other and it works. That's why the Avengers and X-men need to create a pac similar to the Asgardians and Celestial. X-men deal with mutant related issues while staying away from superhuman issues and the Avengers stay away from mutant related issues. That way no more cross overs and no more pointless VS battles. Now the villains on both side they can do whatever they want because hey, their villains they can do whatever they want.

It makes sense- why be biased just towards mutants like the X-Men(who after all were born with their powers- note the similarity to skin colour or sexual orientation in the real world) when you can go after all superhumans(irrespective of the provenance of their powers). In the early days(and still even nowadays), people were uneasy with metahumans like the FF(esp the Thing), Daredevil, Spider-Man , the Hulk or Thor( with theception of the last were born as "normal" humans)- one hero( the Blue Marvel) was even pressured to resign wihen he was outed as being also African American), so why play favoruites. My only question is where does this war on "superhumans" leave supernaturally based races like vampires or werewolves( surely the US Govt -also not the general public is aware of their existence?).

Terry

@One_Eye said:

Very interesting article! I was just talking to my friend about this last night. With Mutant Community and the Avengers joining forces the villains are most certainly going to up the ante and the creation of Red Skulls' S-Men is proof of that. For some reason I don't see Marvel NOW! being another Heroic Age though I can see someone concluding that 'Supers" as a whole are a threat and start taking measures against the new union properly.

We'll have ti see how this develops.

Will be fun to read lol

@DATNIGGA

ah,I see what you mean now,then I agree,apart from some exceptions mutants are overall more powerful.

@Kellar21 said:

@DATNIGGA

superhumans are more

super strength, durability, energy projection, speed...

mutants are more

reality warping, weather manipulation(Thor and he's better a it), time travel(Who?), molecular control(Molecular Man,Silver Surfer)... shutting thousands of minds down with a single thought type abiltys...

That's a very biased comparison, there are heroes on both sides that can do all of these and more,and as you said few mutants have those,most of them have more "normal" powers.

of course he is & Im referring to superhumans not Gods or cosmics so Thor & Silver surfer aren't in this

Time travel, Cable, Nate grey, Legion, Rachel grey, Trevor Fitzroy & a many others go into time manipulation like Sway, Eva, Velocidad ect

Most superhumans have powers like that though enhanced human abiltys & yes there are plenty of mutants that have normal but majority of them do have powerful/weird/different ability's they call em Homo superior for a reason you know

@DATNIGGA

superhumans are more

super strength, durability, energy projection, speed...

mutants are more

reality warping, weather manipulation(Thor and he's better a it), time travel(Who?), molecular control(Molecular Man,Silver Surfer)... shutting thousands of minds down with a single thought type abiltys...

That's a very biased comparison, there are heroes on both sides that can do all of these and more,and as you said few mutants have those,most of them have more "normal" powers.

@Kellar21: well to be fair Alot of the fights in avx were bad writing too,

magneto getting beaten by iron man

namor losing to thing (under water)

colossus holding back resulting in rulk owning him

daredevil not getting one shotted by psylocke

hawkeye's bs victory against angel & psylocke

ect... it was horribly off balance not saying the x men should have won all the fights but... they should have won most of them just looking at there ability's of course this was with morals so I suppose that also played a role...

but overall mutants & superhumans have different types of powers

superhumans are more

super strength, durability, energy projection, speed...

mutants are more

reality warping, weather manipulation, time travel, molecular control... shutting thousands of minds down with a single thought type abiltys...

though all of them don't have abiltys like this alot of them do superhumans would be more suited to handle physical situations like dealing with sentential's true but mutants powers by far a more superior

@DATNIGGA

Nimrods are the only class that will give any trouble to top-tier superhumans and they are not, supermhumans have more firepower AvX wasn't a stomp because of Phoenix,most mutants have human level durability and there are only few that can compare to Top-Tier avengers(Magneto,Cyclops,Emma Stone).

The other classes would go down and there are heroes who can solo Earth's military.

@Kellar21: Mutants are alot stronger than superhumans & even they have trouble with sentential's

Nimrods for example

I always thought these governement vs heroes thing was stupid if most of the heroes(like the ones who aren't earthbound) say:You know what,damn it,I am out!And leave planet the next time a villain attacks earth is doomed.

Also Avengers would own Sentinels and those anti-mutant organizations.

@Jonny_Anonymous: I might read that just to see how it is

@cuddles666: they have taken on sentential's before it was during the onslaught saga spiderman owned one by himself. the avengers now would do really good against them the only why i see them making this difficult enough to the point where its an actual fight is if they used nimrod class sentinels

@JohnnyGat said:

@fodigg said:

This has always been the case when discussing dark futures. Look back to Days of Future Past and you'll see that it's not only mutants in prison or in the graveyard. And Civil War made this explicit with the registration act and the cape-killers.

Marvel likes to bounce back and forth between acknowledging that all superhumans are effectively the same regardless of their origins and treating mutants as the exceptional minority that bears the brunt of fear and prejudice.

Don't forget the Age of X example where Spiderman makes his last stand and Doc Strange helping with the underground railroad ordeal acknowledging the fact that after mutants people started looking at the other metahumans.

Edit: Confused myself, that was age of X, not aoa.

I'd love to see the Sentinels become a planet-wide threat, because after Spider-Man spent a year as a street-level hero AND an FF member AND an Avenger, the rest of the Marvel Universe has been split off of the X-Universe (with the exception of Wolverine, who's everywhere). While it's interesting that the X-books are almost their own imprint, they lose credibility when something crazy like Necrosha, or a Shi'ar invasion happens and nobody else in the hero community notices/cares. I'd love to see the Avengers take on Sentinels, and given that the Secret Avengers are about to take on the Descendants, it will probably happen in the next few months.

@fodigg said:

This has always been the case when discussing dark futures. Look back to Days of Future Past and you'll see that it's not only mutants in prison or in the graveyard. And Civil War made this explicit with the registration act and the cape-killers.

Marvel likes to bounce back and forth between acknowledging that all superhumans are effectively the same regardless of their origins and treating mutants as the exceptional minority that bears the brunt of fear and prejudice.

Don't forget the Age of X example where Spiderman makes his last stand and Doc Strange helping with the underground railroad ordeal acknowledging the fact that after mutants people started looking at the other metahumans.

@DATNIGGA: I'm considering getting Cable & X-Force but that depends

@Jonny_Anonymous: I'm not a big fan of it... honestly I could see Cyke & magneto creating a different x men somewhere

The X-Men/Avengers merger (annexation) is one of the reasons I no longer read comics

@lorex: well according to the newest previews the mutants are getting severe amounts of hatred...

mostly due too 3 factors

people naturally hate mutants

the Phoenix 5

& the fact that there are crazy amounts of mutants popping up all over the planet...

Dunno if you can see the dialog but.. all that is angry news stations & people hating mutants... & since the whole AvX war was cap & the avengers fault anyway... the avengers now have to watch over mutant kind as well...

thus they must stand up against the hate groups & giant machine solders as well...

this should be interesting...

Great article, very interesting. I would like this to be true because I always though it was odd that all the fear and hate got dumped on the mutants but the Avengers, Fantastic Four and other super powered beings seemed to get a pass. While I would like this to happen somehow I don't see Marvel having the guts to have the Purifiers attacking the Avengers Academy or the FF and killing several of the kids there. Also I have been reading Avengers Academy and I look how the main characteres bitch and moan about how bad their lives are. Yes some bad things have happened to them but compared to some of the younger X-Men they have nothing to complain about. Mercury had her skin flayed from her body to be a component of the Predator X mutant killing machine. X-23 was creatd to be a killing maching and has been tortured and mutilated many times. Hellion had his hands blasted off fighting several Nimrod type sentinels. I could name many more but I dont feel the need to. I think this idea is needed but in the aftermath of Avengers vs X-Men and there being more mutants in the world and Marvel could be lazy here just pile th hatred back on the mutants.

@DATNIGGA: Depends on the mutation. I wish it was universally like how you describe it for mutants, though. Some X-Men redesigns go this route, making the original x-men embrace the "freak" aspect of mutation.

Anjin Anhut's proposed redesign is a good example of this:

That said, there are lots of freakish non-human superhumans. Especially villains. I just feel like it should be more consistent if they want to push the mutant vs. superhuman angle.

@fodigg: superhumans with the exception of villains are mostly superhero's / popular celebrity's/ or some world renowned scientist/

so when people look at them they see OH LOOK A SUPERHERO

but when you see the regular boy at school that looks like this

they think monster!!!! is you aren't saving anyone people will call you monster & attack you

if your saving people or healing the sick they'll call you hero or worship you as a god of some sort

just like Nate grey people saw him & said OH LOOK ITS MUTIE!!!!

when he became an amazing hero people started say OMG ITS NATE HES AMAZING LET ME GET YOUR AUTOGRAPH!

smh... its just the way the public is

very interseting

@Dernman: the general public of marvel u should be tired with all the wars, alien invasions, giant robots & villains hijacking national tv with there various ultimatum's. the citizens & the government are going to reach there breaking point eventually.

This has always been the case when discussing dark futures. Look back to Days of Future Past and you'll see that it's not only mutants in prison or in the graveyard. And Civil War made this explicit with the registration act and the cape-killers.

Marvel likes to bounce back and forth between acknowledging that all superhumans are effectively the same regardless of their origins and treating mutants as the exceptional minority that bears the brunt of fear and prejudice.

@Dernman: the general public of marvel u should be tired with all the wars, alien invasions, giant robots & villains hijacking national tv with there various ultimatum's. the citizens & the government are going to reach there breaking point eventually.

This is very interesting I look forward to the events that will transpire.

@acer51: how is this fan fiction? I'm using facts from comics to back up my theory of future events

@acer51: how is this fan fiction? I'm using facts from comics to back up my theory of future events

Wait is this the fan fiction area?

good article anyway.

@kid Apollo: thats what its coming down really. the average person is scared of a mutant for 2 reasons

there power

& there appearance

there are Metahumans aliens, & gods that could fit in there as well. after all they didn't like spiderman & hulk for quite sometime I think people still don't like them they view parker as a menace & view hulk as a monster. its only a matter of time until they start building up super sentential again & declare war on all who are different

great article, early on it reminded me of when Captain America came and told Cyclops he wanted to help mutants get rid of their bad reputation and then proceeded to give Cyke a medal, then show up in force to the guys island. i fully agree with you on where the marvel u is heading towards. if you recall some scenes in the Days of the Future past, there's a graveyard scene where not only are the X-men there, but so are the Fantastic 4 and Avenger members. in my life ive found that racism comes in broad strokes like a paint brush, its rarely cut down to just one race. So it makes total sense that eventually it wont be humans vs mutants, with other meta-humans just forgotten about. I think it'll eventually come down to humans vs metas.

@One_Eye: Thanks I wanna see it develop as well but I'm not familiar Red skulls S - Men who are they?

Very interesting article! I was just talking to my friend about this last night. With Mutant Community and the Avengers joining forces the villains are most certainly going to up the ante and the creation of Red Skulls' S-Men is proof of that. For some reason I don't see Marvel NOW! being another Heroic Age though I can see someone concluding that 'Supers" as a whole are a threat and start taking measures against the new union properly.

We'll have ti see how this develops.