WAS Magneto right?

[Zontar]

That said, I could never understand how Mutant hate is a thing among the Marvel Civilians, but they're okay with Captain America.

I think the narrator of "Marvels" summed it up best: "While the Marvels where the light in this new age, they where the darkness. They where stronger then us, they where faster then us. They where better then us.

And they where here to replace us.

And they didn't have to do anything at all, they only had to wait."

I'm paraphrasing since it's been too long, but basically it gets down to "people who have gained powers and protect us with them" (Marvels) and "people born with powers who claim they will replace humanity and even go so far as to call themselves 'homo-superior'" (Mutants). It also doesn't help that the X-Men, the heroes of the Mutants, keep harbouring terrorists and criminals who turn back to their old ways within a year, which doesn't improve their image on the East Coast (aka 90% of the Marvel Universe). The reaction seems to be more positive in the West Coast and Japan though, and unsurprisingly it's very negative in Canada (can't believe how few people understand that Marvel's Canada is the Nazi Germany of their world, going so far as to have Alpha Flight introduced as Villains and having their history retconed to having mutants gassed. And heroes actually escaped to there after Civil War because "freedom"?)

I just remember in the 90s cartoon, Juggernaut having to explain several times as he rampaged that he wasn't a mutant. That his super powers were magical.

But it's still just like, how could you tell a Mutant from a Normie /w powers? Are they just okay with Capt/Thor/Hulk running around? Fucking Hulk?

And Spiderman gets called a menace all the time, but you'd think in reality Jonah Jameson would be working the mutant pretty hard.

Well the thing is, people are still afraid of the Hulk, even if they do sympathize with him at times. And I hate to keep brining up "Marvels" (though it is one of the best dame things Marvel ever made and really makes the world feel alive) but there is general distrust among the public towards even the heroes, with their constantly shifting allegiances, imposters taking their names while they do their evil deeds, and the general terror of living in a world filled with eldritch abominations that could end everything in an instant which have come to Earth time and again along with the annual alien invasion, the first and second coming of Galactus, the Atlantian invasion of New York and the terror which comes from the fact that for all you know your neighbour could be a Mutant, or an Inhuman, or a Vampire, or worst.

And this all happened in the time frame of 1964-1973 (back when comics from Marvel stayed up to date AND aged the characters instead of just staying up to date). Sure the Marvels has been around since 1938, but apart from a tittle wave that hit New York nothing much came of it outside of the war.

Simply put, the normal humans of the Marvel universe are scared, and rightly so. Any day could be the day that invasion actually works, or that mad scientist doesn't lose, or that Galactus returns again. In a world like that, where even having powers still leaves you with a high casualty rate (the Inhumans and C-list heroes are very unlikely to live long once they are introduced), wouldn't you be afraid? I know I would. Maybe even enough to run a mutant out of town.

Maybe enough to round them up to keep them away from civilized society.

Maybe even enough to look the other way from those chambers.

And Maybe even enough to be the one flipping the switch.

They might not have done anything to me, but I can't take that chance, not in this universe.

 

[Little Woodsman]

I'm Team Xaiver.

You gotta understand, Racists, homophobes, misogynist, are just really fucking ignorant people, To stamp out the hate you don't need more hate, more violence, what you need is proper Education. You gotten enlighten these people.

At the same time, you gotta make sure your fellow Mutants are doing shit thats going to stir the pot. If they're getting arrested by the police or going on Ricki Lake talk shows (is that a dated reference?) then they're doing nothing but ruining the Mutant reputation to the normies.

That said, I could never understand how Mutant hate is a thing among the Marvel Civilians, but they're okay with Captain America.

In general the "normal" people of the Marvel Universe have less of a problem with Captain America because he didn't just wake up one day with powers, he was carefully selected, vetted and trained before being given his powers.

One of the big factors in people (and governments) in the Marvel universe being afraid of mutants is that *anybody* can pop up with mutant powers. If I've got a next-door neighbor who's a pretty good guy and then it turns out that he has the powers of--let's say Iceman--that's perfectly OK, in fact he'll be great to have around during the summer. But what if the kid next door who's a juvenile delinquent and is always assaulting people and breaking things pops up with the same powers? What if the creepy guy up the street who is always leering at all the women in the neighborhood had those powers? It really is kind of frightening. (Though I *really* don't think creating giant robots to indiscriminately hunt them down would be justified.....)

Many non-mutant metahumans in the Marvel universe actually have problems that stem from ordinary people assuming that they are mutants. It's been a problem for Tigra (her origin is mostly magical but anyone seeing her would assume she's a mutant)as well as Spider Man. There are probably countless other examples but I'm too tired to think of them right now.

 

[Vegosiux]

Or, you know, you could show enough intelligence to recognize that a mutant who suffered actual oppression from authority and sees his race demonized and fought against by those currently in control of the power and influence over humanity and felt that a war of domination to settle who was the superior side was the only realistic way to prevent further oppression of his race, as has been demonstrated throughout millennia of human history as the single most effective way to do so, is fundamentally different from a single self-entitled young man who was enraged at the fact that blacks and Mexicans could somehow manage to have sex with beautiful blonde haired white women but he could not and felt that murdering a couple random people and then himself would somehow show the world who was really boss.

I'm sorry, what? Not sure where you got the idea I was making that comparison. I mean, history's full of "freedom fighters" who fought for "freedom" by pretty much killing and torturing the "oppressors". I mean, take for example the Syrian rebels what with the heart-eating stuff and all of you want a recent case. Or look at South America a few decades ago. Or modern-day Ukraine.

But no, I was obviously talking about that one deranged individual. *sigh*

But, no, you really had a totally valid and worthwhile point with your comparison, I'm sure.

And I am sure you had one too and didn't make this post just to throw some verbal poison at me.

 

[Casual Shinji]

as much as people can debate it humans and mutants aren't really that different, mutants are only humans who can do weird/awsome parlor tricks

This is actually a thing that gets brought up in the series, when the A.I. behind the Sentinals starts to go after humans as well. The guy behind the program is like "What the hell are you doing - You're supposed to be going after mutants." To which Master Mold (the A.I.) replies that this doesn't makes sense, since mutants are humans.

 

[Trueflame]

Magneto is a pragmatist, while Xavier is an idealist. To an extent, Magneto is right. If mutants are revealed and humans know about them, they'll want to capture them, dissect them, come to fear them, and so on. On the other hand, Xavier is right too, because without Magneto antagonizing the humans, the humans would be much friendlier to mutants - hell, they might not even know about the mutants, who could be happily hiding.

I think ultimately, I come down on Xavier's side. Not for any of the idealistic reasons he spouts, because I think mostly he is full of nonsense and simply hoping for the best. Magneto is willing to make the tough decisions to ensure the future is what he thinks it should be. But motivations aside, if you look at their plans there is simply one key difference. Magneto wants mutants to take charge now, violently overcoming human opposition. While Xavier wants humans to lay low and side with the humans, and eventually the mutants will be too large in number or too invaluable for their place in society to be challenged. Since mutants are apparently the next step on the evolutionary ladder, that basically means that Xavier sees fate as being on his side. They just need to bide their time, and if they hold out long enough, they'll win, once a critical mass of mutants in society is attained, and every human either knows or has a relative who is a mutant. That seems more feasible and pleasant to me than a bitter war where mutants take over everything and keep humans down with an iron fist.

But ultimately, I think either of their approaches would work. It's just that the two sides spend so much time fighting each other than neither course of action is actually chosen, and all the mutants lose instead. Although this is my view of things based solely on X-men First Class and Days of Future Past, and the bit of X-men lore I have picked up from here and there. If I'm off on something, don't pillory me for it.

 

[Little Woodsman]

But it's still just like, how could you tell a Mutant from a Normie /w powers? Are they just okay with Capt/Thor/Hulk running around? Fucking Hulk?

And Spiderman gets called a menace all the time, but you'd think in reality Jonah Jameson would be working the mutant pretty hard.

Actually "mutants" in the marvel universe (and this is old-school it may have changed with any of the reboots that have happened since I stopped reading X-Men in '99) but the so-called "mutants" have a unique psychic/eeg signature. They all have this in common because they aren't really random mutations... before humanity as it is known in that universe existed a super-advanced alien race called the Celestials came and changed the DNA of some of the ancestors of humanity so that their descendants would one day develop the meta-abilities that in the marvel universe are referred to as "mutations". That's why there are so many powerful and beneficial "mutations" and almost no people just being born with flippers instead of hands or similar random and not useful changes.

 

[Little Woodsman]

as much as people can debate it humans and mutants aren't really that different, mutants are only humans who can do weird/awsome parlor tricks

This is actually a thing that gets brought up in the series, when the A.I. behind the Sentinals starts to go after humans as well. The guy behind the program is like "What the hell are you doing - You're supposed to be going after mutants." To which Master Mold (the A.I.) replies that this doesn't makes sense, since mutants are humans.

Nod nod.

There was also a story line in eXcalibur in which the team went to an alternate time-line where the sentinels, with their continual self-upgrades got smart enough to follow the logic path of:
"Why can't we wipe out the mutants like we are programmed to do?"
"It's because more mutants are always being born."
"How do we stop more mutants from being born?"
"We wipe out the source of the mutants."
"What is the source of mutants?"
"Humanity."
So the Sentinels started trying to wipe out the human race.

 

[EternallyBored]

But ultimately, I think either of their approaches would work. It's just that the two sides spend so much time fighting each other than neither course of action is actually chosen, and all the mutants lose instead. Although this is my view of things based solely on X-men First Class and Days of Future Past, and the bit of X-men lore I have picked up from here and there. If I'm off on something, don't pillory me for it.

No, you've got the gist of it pretty well right, the only issue is that Marvel kind of waffles on whether or not mutants actually are the next step in human evolution or their just a genetic dead end or offshoot, further branching away from mainstream humanity or dying off completely.

You've also got offshots like the Ultimate Marvel universe where mutants are just the byproduct of the Weapon X experiments, and despite what Magneto believes, mutants are just people accidentally changed by government super soldier experiments.

In the mainline Marvel universe, the events with Scarlet Witch (a mutant) rewritting reality led to her trying to eliminate all mutants entirely by making them normal humans, there were only a couple dozen mutants left on the whole planet, they held up on their own island for awhile. Then the phoenix force came back and the x-men comic had a kind of stupid crossover where they fought with the Avegers, Cyclops basically took up Magneto's old ideology of mutant supremacy, and they sort of canceled out the scarlet witch eliminating 90% of the mutants on the planet by making it so new mutants started being born again. So worldwide, there are probably a couple hundred mutants known about, and more are being born again, so yeah, mutants have been kind of fucked in the comics for the last couple years, not because of humans, but because they've either been fighting with the other superheroes, or the reality warping mutant decides that most of them should lose their powers.

Honestly, in the mainline Marvel universe, the whole mutant= oppressed minority thing hasn't really been relevant for a couple years now, mutants tend to spend more time fighting each other, and other superheroes than they really spend defending themselves from normal humans that want to kill them. Hell, the sentinels haven't been much of a thing for a long time now.

But it's still just like, how could you tell a Mutant from a Normie /w powers? Are they just okay with Capt/Thor/Hulk running around? Fucking Hulk?

And Spiderman gets called a menace all the time, but you'd think in reality Jonah Jameson would be working the mutant pretty hard.

Actually "mutants" in the marvel universe (and this is old-school it may have changed with any of the reboots that have happened since I stopped reading X-Men in '99) but the so-called "mutants" have a unique psychic/eeg signature. They all have this in common because they aren't really random mutations... before humanity as it is known in that universe existed a super-advanced alien race called the Celestials came and changed the DNA of some of the ancestors of humanity so that their descendants would one day develop the meta-abilities that in the marvel universe are referred to as "mutations". That's why there are so many powerful and beneficial "mutations" and almost no people just being born with flippers instead of hands or similar random and not useful changes.

As far as I know, that's still the origin of mutants outside of the Ultimates offshoot. They don't bring it up very often so they may just be ignoring it at this point until they get around to retconning it, but until then, yeah, mutants originated when space aliens attempted to experiment on ancient humans, and then let those experiments back into the general population.

Ultimates mutants are still just experiments made by the Canadian Weapon X program. Which is why Magneto had a breakdown when he found that out, and ultimately got killed off after learning the truth.

 

[NoeL]

Oh sure, when a fictional character goes on a rant about how "humanity is keeping us down" and how they "fear us because we're better than them" it's all good and the guy's a fucking hero no matter the kill count, but when a real person grabs a gun and goes and kills a bunch of people because the universe just refused to acknowledge their greatness so they had to take some lives to assert their obvious superiority, it's an entirely different thing, now isn't it? Suddenly it's a megalomaniac with a superiority complex with all kinds of labels attached to them, even if they say they fight for the weak and oppressed!

Not as fun when it hits close to home, but I guess doublethink is a part of the human condition.

To be fair, in Magneto's case the humans actually WERE trying to keep the mutants down.

OT: I would side with Xavier. If mutants were capable of being "the better men/women" and could treat humans with dignity, only taking forceful action against them to prevent hate crimes/wars then I'd go with Magneto, but mutants aren't ethically superior - they still have all the flaws of humans (unless their mutant power is super altruism or what-have-you). A mutant-run society isn't necessarily going to be better than a human-run society, and so it's important to treat both humans and mutants as equals. Cooperation is the key to the future: Charles understands that, Eric doesn't.

 

[Chaos Isaac]

Mn, i'd say Magneto is wrong. All he does is exacerbate the situation then sits around on his high horse all smug like.

Yeah, asshole, you start killing people and telling super powered beings to go to war on T.V. and humans decide they don't like you? Kinda happens.

And, yes, there will always be bigotry, but at least, in time, there could be some kind of accord or simple peaceful co-habitations or way of giving not muties super powers.

 

[Kyrian007]

I'd have to go with Xavier. The very existence of the Xavier Protocols proves that ultimately he (like Magneto) IS prepared to kill if it is necessary. However, actions speak much louder than words to me. And Xavier (even though prepared to kill) almost always does what he can to preserve life, human and mutant. While Magneto has high regard for mutant life (although willing to sacrifice even mutants to achieve his goals) its obvious from his actions he places little value on human life.

Plus, Xavier seems to be better to all of mutantkind than Magneto. Throwing humans aside for a second and just looking from a mutant standpoint; Charles helps mutants learn to control their powers to help mutants and humans alike. Magneto seems most interested in how powerful a mutant can become to help his cause. To Magneto the powers are more important than the person. And even his "strongest prevail" mentality is hypocritical. Even though he IS a very high level powered mutant, there are much stronger mutants. But his "mutants first" dream of utopia... always has himself as the leader as opposed to a stronger or smarter mutant. Factoring those things in... gotta side with Chuck.

 

[marche45]

That said, I could never understand how Mutant hate is a thing among the Marvel Civilians, but they're okay with Captain America.

Thats a pretty bad example considering he is a war hero and his "power" is just being incredibly fit.
Hell the guy who invented the serum also came up with a diet and exercise routine that pretty much gives you the same results.

As to why the hate for x-men and not avengers?Most likely one of the things that was overlooked,or maybe they only exist in x-men books and bugger on down a hole.

 

[Casual Shinji]

I would side with Xavier. If mutants were capable of being "the better men/women" and could treat humans with dignity, only taking forceful action against them to prevent hate crimes/wars then I'd go with Magneto, but mutants aren't ethically superior - they still have all the flaws of humans (unless their mutant power is super altruism or what-have-you). A mutant-run society isn't necessarily going to be better than a human-run society, and so it's important to treat both humans and mutants as equals. Cooperation is the key to the future: Charles understands that, Eric doesn't.

It's also important to remember that let's say mutants wipe out all of humanity, what's to stop more powerful mutants from treating weaker mutants as lesser beings?

 

[000Ronald]

I have a great deal of sympathy for Magneto. Knowing that he went through The Holocaust, I even understand his point of view. But I don't agree with it. I can't.

The only way humanity will survive is if it survives together. And when I say 'humanity', I don't just mean 'people', I mean every sentient species. Humans, mutants, robots, purple mollusk things with elephant trunks, ameoba things the size of the ridges on a quarter that live on collapsed neutron stars, sentient shades of blue...all of us. Even if it isn't possible, we still have to do it, or at least try. Separating one another will only end up creating more strife, and should be avoided. It won't ever be gone entirely...but it can be made a little less important in the scheme of things.

Furthermore, when you're talking about people on the scale of Magneto or Nate Grey or Mad Jim Jaspers, you need to especially responsible. Hell, Jimmy was compared to CANCER. REALITY'S CANCER. With that kind of power comes great responsibility. And not to other people, but to yourself; if you don't use it responsibly, you turn into a twenty-story-tall tumor. And that always sucks.

People are right to be afraid of those who posses power beyond anything they could fathom, is what I'm saying. That makes it the responsibility of THOSE people to give them reason not to be afraid.

Oh sure, when a fictional character goes on a rant about how "humanity is keeping us down" and how they "fear us because we're better than them" it's all good and the guy's a fucking hero no matter the kill count, but when a real person grabs a gun and goes and kills a bunch of people because the universe just refused to acknowledge their greatness so they had to take some lives to assert their obvious superiority, it's an entirely different thing, now isn't it? Suddenly it's a megalomaniac with a superiority complex with all kinds of labels attached to them, even if they say they fight for the weak and oppressed!

Not as fun when it hits close to home, but I guess doublethink is a part of the human condition.

I think this may be the most EPIC response I have ever seen to anything. EVER. Props to you, man. ALL the props.

No.

Magneto sees himself as better than humans because of his power. And I'm no expert on the X-Men universe, but I'm sure there are characters out there that are vastly more powerful than him, which I'm certain he'd be just as likely to turn against due to fear. As has been said, he speaks from a position of dominance - You really think he would allow himself to be ruled by someone who is "superior" to him?

...well, yeah, but not a great deal. Magneto could beat Thor if he wanted to. Sure, there are people that could beat him, but we're talking people like The Hulk and The Silver Surfer, the kind of people who can beat anyone.

 

[DudeistBelieve]

That said, I could never understand how Mutant hate is a thing among the Marvel Civilians, but they're okay with Captain America.

I think the narrator of "Marvels" summed it up best: "While the Marvels where the light in this new age, they where the darkness. They where stronger then us, they where faster then us. They where better then us.

And they where here to replace us.

And they didn't have to do anything at all, they only had to wait."

I'm paraphrasing since it's been too long, but basically it gets down to "people who have gained powers and protect us with them" (Marvels) and "people born with powers who claim they will replace humanity and even go so far as to call themselves 'homo-superior'" (Mutants). It also doesn't help that the X-Men, the heroes of the Mutants, keep harbouring terrorists and criminals who turn back to their old ways within a year, which doesn't improve their image on the East Coast (aka 90% of the Marvel Universe). The reaction seems to be more positive in the West Coast and Japan though, and unsurprisingly it's very negative in Canada (can't believe how few people understand that Marvel's Canada is the Nazi Germany of their world, going so far as to have Alpha Flight introduced as Villains and having their history retconed to having mutants gassed. And heroes actually escaped to there after Civil War because "freedom"?)

I just remember in the 90s cartoon, Juggernaut having to explain several times as he rampaged that he wasn't a mutant. That his super powers were magical.

But it's still just like, how could you tell a Mutant from a Normie /w powers? Are they just okay with Capt/Thor/Hulk running around? Fucking Hulk?

And Spiderman gets called a menace all the time, but you'd think in reality Jonah Jameson would be working the mutant pretty hard.

The comics have played with this a few times in the past, with things like Spiderman being considered a mutant in order to drum up hate against him, and a few occasions where Sentinels have attacked non-mutant superheroes in the past by mistaking them for mutants. There have been mistakes in the past, with mutants posing as normal superheroes, and non-mutants being mistaken for mutants.

But this all goes back to the basic point of Marvel Earth civilians, and that's that they are all retarded. Regular people in Marvel are generally just dumb as fuck, doing things like attacking mutants with melee weapons, when said mutant can basically explode city blocks, or trying to kill Jubilee who at one point was both a mutant and a vampire (don't ask), or thinking that they could harass Magneto with metal robots. Basically, not being a superhero on Marvel Earth means there's a good chance that you have a 60 IQ and/or a death wish.

Sounds to me Marvel could use a comic about the civilians. Just average people living their lives around all this chaos.

I would have to think at a certain point you'd just get numb to it all.

 

[DevilWithaHalo]

I stand behind what I wrote there. You don't like it, fine. But I'm not going to edit it out just because people got annoyed that I see one of their favorite badasses in a more cynical light.

I was annoyed by your post merely because you took a philosophical discussion on a work of fiction, and made it a political statement. No different than someone discussing the outcome of violence by referencing God of War. It's poor form, and unwelcome.

He does whatever he can to not be on the receiving end of the next one. He's quite okay with another one happening, as long as it happens to someone else. He, in fact, attempts his own holocaust at the end of X-men 2.

That's kind of what makes the character so interesting for me. Is it a matter of a hypocritical stance? Or is he merely removing the world of the intolerant? And where do we personally draw the line between the two? Say for example, murdering someone for political reasons, and murdering someone who's going to murder others for political reasons? Is one any better than the other? Can we combat this level of intolerance with tolerance?

It also makes it more compelling as his counterpart is someone with the ability to control minds, who seemingly doesn't do it because it interferes with free will, yet willfully does so when it serves his interests. I found it laughable that in the end, Charles still controlled an entire group of people while pontificating the notions of control with Mystique. So what makes Charles any better than Eric in that regard? What's to say that Charles wouldn't have stopped Eric from killing Shaw at the end of the first movie if we was able to, exerting his will onto other human beings because he thought it was the right thing to do?

if were talking about actual evolution it really shouldn't matter

1. aint gonna happnen in anyones life time

2. as much as people can debate it humans and mutants aren't really that different, mutants are only humans who can do weird/awsome parlor tricks

It does within the context of the story line it's presented, especially when the argument for the Sentinels was framed in the evolutionary argument that Charles presented for his thesis. But your second point eludes to the problem; people fear what it beyond their control, what they don't understand and they fear change. Mutants were the embodiment of all of the above. It was quite natural for their to be opposition to mutant kind. After all, Mutants are an allegory for the Gay rights movement, and a few people often (hilariously) argue against them because they don't want to turn others gay or be infected with "gayness".

To be fair, "I'm afraid and distrustful of you because you could make my head explode with a sneeze" is a lot more valid a reason for oppression then "I'm afraid and distrustful of you because you look different to me" (which pretty much gives away my position on the issue).

I know the comics and movies play up the homosexual analogy to show how evil the anti-mutant side is, but as far as I know, gays don't have the power to level entire towns if they lose their temper from stubbing their toe.

Now you're touching on the other side of the allegory coin; the gun debate. If I were armed with a gun, would that prevent you from shooting pool with me? The Mutant registration act was merely a ploy for control, because the government (and it's people) didn't trust another part of it's own people to live in peace merely because they had the *ability* to do something, not necessarily the *will* to do it. It's a common argument against owning firearms of any kind, because it puts the *ability* to do great harm in the hands of people we don't want to extend our trust to, because we're fearful of the unknown.

Is it a *valid* reason? I mean... I trust you not to run into a crowded sidewalk with your car when you get a little road rage now don't I? Or are you suggesting I should revoke your license to be on the safe side?

 

[DaWaffledude]

He does whatever he can to not be on the receiving end of the next one. He's quite okay with another one happening, as long as it happens to someone else. He, in fact, attempts his own holocaust at the end of X-men 2.

That's kind of what makes the character so interesting for me. Is it a matter of a hypocritical stance? Or is he merely removing the world of the intolerant? And where do we personally draw the line between the two? Say for example, murdering someone for political reasons, and murdering someone who's going to murder others for political reasons? Is one any better than the other? Can we combat this level of intolerance with tolerance?

He's a hypocrite. He thinks he's battling intolerance, but his efforts only foster more intolerance and violence, something he remains willfully blind to. In his eyes, the fight is between mutants and non-mutants. In reality, it's between pro-human racists, pro-mutant racists, and those who actually want equality.

Really, it depends on what said political reasons are. Are lives at stake? Will this murder actually change anything? For the better? Is the murderer willing to face consequences for their actions? How easy would the goal be to achieve without murder? I feel the question doesn't really have to do with tolerance all that much, at least without more context.

It also makes it more compelling as his counterpart is someone with the ability to control minds, who seemingly doesn't do it because it interferes with free will, yet willfully does so when it serves his interests. I found it laughable that in the end, Charles still controlled an entire group of people while pontificating the notions of control with Mystique. So what makes Charles any better than Eric in that regard? What's to say that Charles wouldn't have stopped Eric from killing Shaw at the end of the first movie if we was able to, exerting his will onto other human beings because he thought it was the right thing to do?

Really, what's the difference between restraining someone with your mind and restraining them physically? Apart from the ease with which it can be done? Are you honestly saying that if Charles had physically been in that room, he shouldn't have prevented Erik from committing murder?

Erik wants control to kill people. Charles wants control to save their lives.

 

[Zontar]

Sounds to me Marvel could use a comic about the civilians. Just average people living their lives around all this chaos.

I would have to think at a certain point you'd just get numb to it all.

I hate the keep brining up "Marvels", but that's pretty much what the 4 parter is: showing the crazy, crazy world from the perspective of a normal everyman.

Plus there are the 4 Damage Control miniseries, a group of (mostly) normal people whose job is to search, rescue and rebuild after the weekly battles.

 

[briankoontz]

A while back, MovieBob posted an episode of "The Big Picture" in which he discussed how some people held onto the notion that the reason society looked down on them was because they were somehow better than them, and that bullies and others kept them down because they feared their intelligence, skills etc.

This was summed up in his liking the issue to the general division between Magneto and Xavier in the X-Men stories, how those with special abilities should either become in charge of everything or work to help those who once oppressed them, with Bob ultimately falling on Magneto's side.

As for me personally, I think I'm with Bob on this one, but I would like to know where you all stand on this particular debate.

It's a fictional debate based on false elitist notions of intelligence.

Humans are nearly equal in intelligence, assuming no brain damage or maldevelopment. The conditions under which different humans can be *trained* varies greatly, but ability to be trained is not intelligence, it's obedience.

There's no such thing as mutants, superheroes, or supermutants, EXCEPT in fiction. There are humans who have some insight into some aspect of reality, and if they can communicate that insight they are sometimes called geniuses. This is not an account of their intelligence, however - rather a combination of insight and articulation, and having a life context that enabled them both of those things.

There are tribes of humans who consider themselves distinct from others and superior to others. So the Jocks for example unify under a banner of physical capability. The Nerds, now more commonly called the Geeks, unify under a banner of arcane technology, cultural awareness, and intelligence. And many other tribes exist, none of which are legitimate.

Geeks are bullied because they think they are better than everyone else. Douchebag jocks are shunned for exactly the same reason.

The elitist Bob Chipman's attitude, similar to that of many other tribal geeks, is precisely the problem. It's difficult to see clearly when your head's stuck so far up your own ass.

 

[renegade7]

You run into the problem that EVERYONE thinks they're special and unique, or at least a lot more people than actually are.

Though, US culture does have an aspect of anti-elitism. That is, there is a tendency to look with some hostility towards those who are exceptional. People who are smart and studious are "nerds", academics are "ivory tower intellectual snobs", athletes are dumb jocks, people with many friends are shallow, artists are pretentious and snooty, engineers are unstable and eccentric, medical doctors have god complexes, businessmen are corporate tyrants, and politicians are humanoid leech creatures in sharp suits (may actually be true).