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Marvel nerds, explain the public reception discrepancy between mutants & Avengers

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The Avengers and Fantastic Four are humans. Hell, in the Marvel Universe Captain America was the first instance of a superhero. He was honorable, fought in the side of good during WWII, and continues that in the present day. That's a really good first impression for superheroes.

Mutants are another species altogether (canonically), and the public was introduced to mutants in one of the worst possible ways: Magneto, a mutant supremacist, attempting to kill and subjugate humanity. It doesn't help that mutants gain their powers in an unstable fashion during puberty, which leads to a lot of innocent lives lost and lots of property damage.

It's definitely a theme that deserves further attention in the books themselves.

PastorofMuppets said:
Why would the average Joe in the Marvel Universe fear Xavier over the Thing?
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I'd be terrified of a man who can shut off my mind, erase who I am, make me commit murder, etc... while looking perfectly normal.
 
Mutants are the next step in evolution is why. Imagine if Dinosaurs knew we were coming. They would of targeted the apes and killed us early.

But more of a metaphor of ANY and ALL minority group.

Still.... where is my asexual hero?
 
I was going to flippantly answer "because Stan Lee wrote it that way", but then I remembered that the X-Men were not like that, at least at first (Angel had groupies, for example), but I guess the more evil mutants popped up, the more society turned on them.

It didn't really become the over-arching theme though until Claremont right and Days of Future Past, right?
 
Slayven said:
Thing can only kill you. Xavier can make you kill your family and make you continually orgasm as you do it. Which has bigger implications?
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Doc Strange uses his powers to sleep with women all the time

but hey, he guards our realm very well so...
 
Slayven said:
Ben Franklin rawdogged Strange's girl, so he is bitter as hell.
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IBlDrAJ.jpg
 
The topic has been touched on before in-continuity and the following bits are important:

- Reed Richards specifically made the F4 a high profile public group to make people comfortable with them. They are, essentially, a brand. Millar's run iirc went into this pretty heavily.

- The Avengers have been, at various times and ways, government/SHIELD/Stark sanctioned (Dark Avengers for a particular example).

- The X-Men tend to more often than other groups have cosmic-level powers on top of the traditional themes associated with the series. Cosmic-level Avengers are also typically eventually treated with suspicion if they stick around on Earth (Sentry) or have caveat upon caveat piled on them (Strange). Basically the Avengers tend to not be as much of an existential threat to humanity (Dark Phoenix, AvX, AoA, the list goes on).
 
I always thought the mutant/superhuman dichotomy in Marvel universe actually worked really well for highlighting the irrationality of prejudice.

There was one story arc where the core X-Men team in the 80s went "undercover" as a super powered team and to explain their powers they just changed into new costumes and used a few props. Like a random fake-science gadget. And the public was fine with them, they weren't strange or scary even though they flew, shot eye beams, and so forth.

Basically, many of the superheroes in Marvel are basically mutants - they have biological abilities and some gained them explicitly by being mutated by radiation, chemicals, or other accidents.

But all it takes to incite anti-mutant bigotry is for a person to be slapped with the label of a "natural born" mutant. Then they become one of the Others, rather than one of Us who was just lucky enough to gain superhuman abilities.
 
Deified Data said:
There isn't a good reason, OP. X-Men has always needed to operate in its own little bubble. When it crosses paths with 616 proper it usually requires a significant suspension of disbelief. Just a poorly thought-out aspect of Marvel canon.
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I agree with this. Mutants should be popping up in most of the stories, a majority of villains should be mutants in every book, etc.
 
Its pretty silly since people are fine with many heroes who have crazy fantastic powers. The public has no idea if they are mutants or not, since most heroes have secret origins and identities. For all anyone knows, Spiderman is a mutant yet hes not treated as one by the public.

It worked in the early days of X-Men and some story lines, but for them to still be using the exact same mutant vs everyone else nonsense in current day marvel is just silly.
 
there's also the fact that there used to be WAY MORE mutants (unless they've undone House of M)

and not all mutations have to be positive. look at Rogue, she used to hurt everyone she touched

there was this one kid in Ultimate X-Men who killed his whole town in one morning as soon as his X-gene manifested because he produced some sort of gas that dissolved human tissue
 
WonkersTHEWatilla said:
I grew up on DC comics and didn't start reading Marvel (semi) seriously until somewhat recently. I have enough experience with X-Men, The Avengers and some other Marvel superheroes to know that, in the larger Marvel universe, regular humans hate mutants but love The Avengers and The Fantastic Four. Why is that? The only difference is that most of the latter weren't born with their powers, whereas mutants are.
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Generally superheroes were kinda rare until the mutant genes started to kick in. When that happened you had a bunch of random people manifesting incredibly dangerous powers at puberty.

Quite a few of them were jerks and thus...
 
A lot of great, reasonable perspectives in this thread. Keep 'em comin.

richiek said:
Which is why I'm fine with Fox owning the film rights to the X-Men and being separate from the Marvel Cinematic Universe (Quicksilver & Scarlet Witch aside).
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On the contrary, I actually would have liked the MCU to tackle the issue, especially because Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch are now a part of The Avengers 2. Hopefully Whedon doesn't completely brush their mutant origins aside.

Kai Dracon said:
I always thought the mutant/superhuman dichotomy in Marvel universe actually worked really well for highlighting the irrationality of prejudice.

There was one story arc where the core X-Men team in the 80s went "undercover" as a super powered team and to explain their powers they just changed into new costumes and used a few props. Like a random fake-science gadget. And the public was fine with them, they weren't strange or scary even though they flew, shot eye beams, and so forth.

Basically, many of the superheroes in Marvel are basically mutants - they have biological abilities and some gained them explicitly by being mutated by radiation, chemicals, or other accidents.

But all it takes to incite anti-mutant bigotry is for a person to be slapped with the label of a "natural born" mutant. Then they become one of the Others, rather than one of Us who was just lucky enough to gain superhuman abilities.
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Do you happen to know the name of this story arc?
 
BattleMonkey said:
Its pretty silly since people are fine with many heroes who have crazy fantastic powers. The public has no idea if they are mutants or not, since most heroes have secret origins and identities. For all anyone knows, Spiderman is a mutant yet hes not treated as one by the public.

It worked in the early days of X-Men and some story lines, but for them to still be using the exact same mutant vs everyone else nonsense in current day marvel is just silly.
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The Spider-Man example doesn't really work because everyone sort of hates him anyway, due to JJJ's decades long crusade against him. They'll like him for a week then go back to hating his guts.

When you think about it, most people average people in the world know the basic origins for a lot of marvel's heroes. The Avengers and the Fantastic Four being the big ones. Sure people don't know Daredevil's origin, but as far as they know he's just a dead fit guy in a red devil suit.
 
ultron87 said:
Because one was written to be about race and the other wasn't and things get kind of weird when you squish them together.
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Everything in western comics has to be squished together. X-men and all other heroes, even when fucking magical, need to be in the same universe. You don't see that shit in the big manga comics. You don't see Goku in fucking Naruto and shit.
 
B-Dubs said:
The Spider-Man example doesn't really work because everyone sort of hates him anyway, due to JJJ's decades long crusade against him. They'll like him for a week then go back to hating his guts.

When you think about it, most people average people in the world know the basic origins for a lot of marvel's heroes. The Avengers and the Fantastic Four being the big ones. Sure people don't know Daredevil's origin, but as far as they know he's just a dead fit guy in a red devil suit.
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The public turned around on Spiderman along time ago until marvel did a recent retcon and apparently they went back a few decades to Spiderman being a menace again , since ole Joe Q liked the old status quo. It's ridiculous how it's been 16+ years in the actual comic book timeline apparently and people still are ragging on the guy especially after joining the Fantastic Four and the Avengers. It's contrived like most of the continuity and the mutant situation.
 
Somebody already mentioned it but Civil War is where people got fed up and lumped the Meta Humans in with the Mutants. Anyways, I thought it was revealed somewhere that Superhumans and Mutants are related except that the latter are born with it while the Supers are activated with certain circumstances and it was all programmed by ancient aliens the Celestials.

I have a better one. Why is the world of Marvel so much like our's when they have Superhumans flying around, public knowledge of extraterrestrials and sorcery and super technology? Wouldn't the world be a radically different place? And would people really worry about the Middle East and an Israeli-Palestinian conflict when there's like Genosha and Latevia with ultra powerful maniacal super villains?
 
B-Dubs said:
The Spider-Man example doesn't really work because everyone sort of hates him anyway, due to JJJ's decades long crusade against him. They'll like him for a week then go back to hating his guts.

When you think about it, most people average people in the world know the basic origins for a lot of marvel's heroes. The Avengers and the Fantastic Four being the big ones. Sure people don't know Daredevil's origin, but as far as they know he's just a dead fit guy in a red devil suit.
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Actually most people like Spidey or meh about him. JJJ is pretty much in an a vacuum chamber. The hero community loves Spiderman to death.
 
I grew up on Marvel myself.

I'm not the most avid comic reader but I borrowed my buddies Ultimate X-Men issue 41, and it actually gave an insight into why people fear mutants.

I copied the issue's synopsis from wikia, it explains it better than I could:

link

Unknown to himself, A boy hits puberty developing mutant powers. He is running late for school, unable to find his breakfast or his mother. The world outside his home seems empty, but there are still people left. But as he turns, those people start to burn up. At school, the boy struggles with normal teenage problems. His girlfriend wants attention and his parents have strict phone rules. But his problems become worse as his schoolmates, including his girlfriend, start to burn up in front of his eyes.
Wolverine arrives at some caves, sent on a solo mission for the X-Men. Wolverine finds the mutant boy hiding in the cave and hands him a beer, explaining the situation with him. The boy is a danger to both human and mutant society. The 265 people killed by his powers will be covered up as a chemical leak and the boy's story will never be revealed, but talking to the boy was not the mission Wolverine was sent on. Wolverine leaves the cave alone the next morning.
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Most of the non mutants fears are unjustified and bigoted in nature and mostly comes from them feeling powerless as mutants take the stage of humanity. But obviously there are some fears that are justified.

If this kid could have been able to learn, control and master his power, he'd either be serious threat or a superhero...

Obviously when you read the issue and Wolverine tries to connect with him, you can tell the kid just wants to die. Since he lost everything from his powers awakening and he was the reason why all the people he cared about were killed.

Wolverine was really the only one who could actually get near the kid without dying because of his healing factor and durable body and so yeah I can understand why the kid just wanted it all to end. Not that I'm condoning suicide.
 
Log4Girlz said:
Everything in western comics has to be squished together. X-men and all other heroes, even when fucking magical, need to be in the same universe. You don't see that shit in the big manga comics. You don't see Goku in fucking Naruto and shit.
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what if goku and sailor moon was in the same universes
 
Darkmakaimura said:
Somebody already mentioned it but Civil War is where people got fed up and lumped the Meta Humans in with the Mutants. Anyways, I thought it was revealed somewhere that Superhumans and Mutants are related except that the latter are born with it while the Supers are activated with certain circumstances and it was all programmed by ancient aliens the Celestials.

I have a better one. Why is the world of Marvel so much like our's when they have Superhumans flying around, public knowledge of extraterrestrials and sorcery and super technology? Wouldn't the world be a radically different place? And would people really worry about the Middle East and an Israeli-Palestinian conflict when there's like Genosha and Latevia with ultra powerful maniacal super villains?
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They oddly just focus on pop culture references. And the usual. "New Jersey is a terrible state" joke
 
Log4Girlz said:
Everything in western comics has to be squished together. X-men and all other heroes, even when fucking magical, need to be in the same universe. You don't see that shit in the big manga comics. You don't see Goku in fucking Naruto and shit.
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You saw Dr. Slump characters in Dragon Ball, though.
 
Avengers are government sanctioned. Or they were. I'm sure there was some kind of anti-american story woven in somewhere along the way.
 
Espada said:
The Avengers and Fantastic Four are humans. Hell, in the Marvel Universe Captain America was the first instance of a superhero. He was honorable, fought in the side of good during WWII, and continues that in the present day. That's a really good first impression for superheroes.
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And the Fantastic Four are essentially the rockstar superheroes of the Marvel Universe. They were known public figures before getting hit with that cosmic radiation, so when they became superheroes, they became even more famous.
 
B-Dubs said:
True. It's a story device used to tell stories about a hated minority.
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This is the human vs mutant story device in a nutshell.

Minorities relate to the trials and tribulations these characters go through, whether you're black, homosexual, interracial dating, asian, middle eastern, transsexual, etc.

Tobor said:
The bone claws are by far the shittiest retcon in the history of comics.
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No way, that honor goes to the mutant werewolf subspecies bullshit.
 
HK-47 said:
There is no good reason. Its cause they need that reception for both series but the fact that they are in the same universe fucks things up.

Also the LBGT or black angle has always been mismatched. When members of your group have weapons and abilities that allow them to murder huge swaths of people or teleport directly inside bank vaults or other secure locations...its not the same.
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the entire point of xaviers school was to teach mutants how to control their powers and if they did use them, to use them for good, to show the general populace that they have no reason to hate/fear mutants without reason. You brought up mutants have extraordinary abilities but having abilities doesnt follow that you HAVE to kill swaths of people or teleport into vaults with them.

So i think the civil rights angle works just fine. There was no good reasoning to hate/mistreat black people especially in a position of power over them. Likewise there was no good reasoning to hunt down all mutants most of which were doing just fine in society. Charles Xavier was educating mutants, education was a huge part of the civil rights movement. Xavier wanted mutants to use their powers for the good of all AS A PART of society, Civil Rights wanted black people to be equal members of society and afforded upward mobility in it through the same hard work any other person was doing. The parallels are there .

Like 4 avengers were always in good standing with the public...like Monica Rambaeu, Wonder Man, She- Hulk and Wasp.... i think. All the rest have had to go on the lamb / underground cause shit got real.

Plenty of non mutants get a raw deal when it comes to public reception.
Spiderman was/is portrayed as a vigilante and got chased around NYC plenty *aunt may hated spiderman*. Daredevil was the same way and he isnt a mutant. For the longest time Iron Man was hounded by authorities. Its not just a split down the line, for a long time X Factor had a tower in downtown NYC just like the Baxter Building.
 
Infinite Justice said:
Wasn't it claimed that he would have been an actual wolverine if it wasn't for the adamantium and his healing factor deal with the effects of that?
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meh that was a suggestion back in the earlier days of hte character but they never went anywhere with it....till the bone claws and he started looking even more animal like...so bad.
 
DonasaurusRex said:
the entire point of xaviers school was to teach mutants how to control their powers and if they did use them, to use them for good, to show the general populace that they have no reason to hate/fear mutants without reason. You brought up mutants have extraordinary abilities but having abilities doesnt follow that you HAVE to kill swaths of people or teleport into vaults with them.

So i think the civil rights angle works just fine. There was no good reasoning to hate/mistreat black people especially in a position of power over them. Likewise there was no good reasoning to hunt down all mutants most of which were doing just fine in society. Charles Xavier was educating mutants, education was a huge part of the civil rights movement. Xavier wanted mutants to use their powers for the good of all AS A PART of society, Civil Rights wanted black people to be equal members of society and afforded upward mobility in it through the same hard work any other person was doing. The parallels are there .

Like 4 avengers were always in good standing with the public...like Monica Rambaeu, Wonder Man, She- Hulk and Wasp.... i think. All the rest have had to go on the lamb / underground cause shit got real.

Plenty of non mutants get a raw deal when it comes to public reception.
Spiderman was/is portrayed as a vigilante and got chased around NYC plenty *aunt may hated spiderman*. Daredevil was the same way and he isnt a mutant. For the longest time Iron Man was hounded by authorities. Its not just a split down the line, for a long time X Factor had a tower in downtown NYC just like the Baxter Building.
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Yea that's why you have the "Professor X = Martin Luther King Jr , Magento = Malcolm X" comparisons
 
The truth is, nobody gave a shit about the Avengers until that movie. It was an easy to ignore inconsistency, and so it was ignored.
 
There is a big inconsistency there. The way I always looked at it, it comes down to volume and sanctions.

At one point, there were way more mutants in existence. They're on the upswing, but the large group of naturally occurring super mutants would be a big scary. Plus you have good mutants fighting bad mutants constantly, where the public might just view it as mutants causing problems.

People in the Avengers have been "vetted." They're basically agent of the government.

This is why the start to Civil War was so brilliant, because it highlighted these two dynamics in a modern context. It's hard to believe that many people would be okay with such powerful beings doing as they pleased, unchecked by anyone.
 
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