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- Why do citizens of the Marvel universe
cheer on superheroes like Iron man, Captain America
and Thor yet a large faction
loathes, utterly despises the X-men?
Why are mutants hated when other heroes are loved?
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A big part of X-men lure is that they are outcasts.
They're mutants; a group that is been
and continues to be marginalized
and oppressed by society at large.
The same society that treats other superpowered
heroes like celebrities, why the double standard?
Part of the reason might be because most
non-mutant super people gain their powers
and abilities later in life, usually
through some sort of accident or experiment,
some completely random and/or rare circumstance
that would take an extreme level of luck
or lack there of, training or even money to achieve.
In a sense, it can kinda be regulated.
Gama bomb explosion caused someone to
turn into an enormous green rage monster.
Well, now we know how to stop that from happening.
Or recreate it if we wanted to.
Same with super solider serum, if the formula
had been written down or even a radioactive spider bite.
It's a clear scenario that we can either prevent
future cases of or attempt again.
Plus technology like an Iron man suit
is pretty much unattainable for those
who aren't a genius billionaire or friends
with one or a very ambitious thief.
With mutants, it's a different story.
These are people who are naturally born with powers.
How do you regulate that?
Well, we saw in X-Men: Days of Future Past exactly how
and it's not pretty: eugenics.
Everyone is split into three classes:
mutants, anomalous, or those who have
a dormant mutant gene and human,
or those who's genes are clean.
Only humans are allowed to breed.
Mutants and anyone with even a hint
of a possible mutant gene are forbidden to have children.
But why do the humans feel the need to regulate
the mutant gene in the first place?
Well, it's likely that it
could simply be a survival mechanism.
Mutants are stated to be the next stage in human evolution
that came about 100% through nature.
Humans simply might feel threatened by the idea
of effectively becoming an endangered
or even extinct species if they leave
the mutants to thrive in the world,
spreading their genes around.
A driving force of life, perhaps the biggest
driving force of life is for a living
being to pass on it's genes.
And if mutants have become a threat to that goal,
then perhaps the humans could've developed an
unconscious bias against them.
And that's the key here; I think a majority
of those who despise mutants in the Marvel universe
do so simply because their biology tells them to.
But they aren't consciously aware of that reason.
So they might be forced to think
of ways to justify their rage.
In other words, humans hate mutants
not because they have a specific reason to
but rather, every fiber of their being tells them
to hate mutants so they must think of
a reason to justify that hatred.
It's kind of a little cognitive dissonance.
For example, in God Love, Man Kills, we saw
Revered William Stryker call mutants abominations.
In his mind, God created man in his own image
and mutants were atrocities who disgraced that image.
Stryker was able to spread that message of hate
to millions of people as a televangelist,
giving his followers justification
for their hatred of mutants.
Similarly, we've seen in Astonishing X-Men
that some view mutants, not as a natural evolution,
but as a disease, a disease that scientists like
Doctor Cavuto Row claimed to have a cure for.
How could mutantism possibly be progressing
the human species when so many mutants
are hurting the people around them
and even hurting themselves, some
to the point of committing suicide?
Mutantism is a disease, a corruption of
healthy tissue that can be cured with gene therapy.
And this would give non-religious people
a reason to dislike mutants.
The great irony in all this is that the humans
hate mutants, an oppressed minority,
solely because they fear the mutants
could eventually make humans the oppressed minority.
We've seen that happen in the alternate reality
of House of M, when the tide was turned
and mutants largely dominated culture.
The primitive instinct to stereotype groups
of people as a threat may have helped
our ancestors survive by avoiding
potential threats from outsiders.
But that hard wired automatic response
also creates prejudice, gut reactions in humans
that mutants are dangerous without
even getting to know a mutant and seeing that
they aren't really that different at all.
But oh, if it were only that simple.
This is comics; of course we're going to
get an incredibly convoluted explanation.
In New X-Men number 154, we see that the reason
humans and mutants are in a constant battle with
each other is very much a survival mechanism,
as I've been saying, but not survival of the humans.
To get a better understanding of this
we have to head all the way back to the very
beginning of life on earth.
As the planet was still forming, life emerged.
This first G-nome, this self aware
primordial sequence which called itself Sublime,
was the beginning of life on earth.
As more complex and organized life forms
started popping up, Sublime would embed itself
into their DNA, making sure it's genes were
passed on through every living thing
from plants, insects, mammals, etc.
Even as humans came into existence,
Sublime was still able to encode it's g-nome into them.
No living thing had any defense against Sublime.
It was in everything; Sublime was and has been
the dominant species on the planet since
the first day life sprouted... until mutants arrived.
The mutant gene was impervious to his control.
For the first time, Sublime felt threatened.
If humans continued evolving into mutants,
he would run out of hosts; he would slowly die
or at the very least, cease to be the most dominant species.
So in order to survive, Sublime had to get creative.
He had to rage a war against mutantkind.
He helped found the weapon plus program,
which created characters like Phantom X, the
Stepford Cuckoo's and of course,
Wolverine, can't forget about him.
But the plan was to effectively fight fire with fire.
Experiment on mutants so that they could kill other mutants.
Didn't work out so well for Sublime.
The weapon plus program also helped create other
famous characters like Deadpool, Nuke
and even Captain America made a
full video about it right up there.
Sublime has also launched other attacks on mutantkind
throughout history but the most prolific thing
he ever did was to infect the humans with hatred
towards the mutants via his power of mass mind control.
Yes, you heard that right.
Sublime, the sentient bacteria is the
reason why humans hate mutants.
Quote "We had to infect them with aggression.
Had to divert their great energies into mindless conflict.
Locked in perpetual struggle, they could never breed,
their population could never grow
to threaten us with extinction."
So in essence, if there's ever been an active
aggression against mutants by the humans,
it was more than likely thanks to Sublime.
Depending on your perspective, you might think
that's super neat, really lame.
But I do feel like we're missing something.
Perhaps we need a new perspective.
A philosophical one and I think I know just the guy.
Hi Scott, for my money to find out why mutants
are discriminated against we just need to ask
why are real life minority groups discriminated against?
Philosopher Falguni Sheth says it's because
they are or are just seen as unruly.
The unruly is that which is unpredictable,
undependable or threatening to a political order.
It's that which is seen as challenging power
or the basic assumptions that power makes.
Liberal power likes to assume that all citizens are equal.
So in so far as mutants are victims of
systemic discrimination and aren't quiet about it,
their existence presents a challenge to that assumption.
People like to assume that everything is fine.
And when you say, actually no, there are
big systemic problems that you may be contributing to.
Well, we've seen real life activists
groups get pushed back for that.
If you try to have a conversation about
the unfair distribution of power and capital,
people often misinterpret that as, wait,
are you saying that makes me personally a bad person,
even though that's not what
systemic discrimination is about.
Mutants can also literally challenge
power a lot easier than humans can.
Remember at the end of X2, where
they X-Men just walked right into the oval office?
You can't hide behind a bureaucratical political
structure to avoid direct accountability to mutants.
Their ability to stage protest against power
is much greater than any humans.
In so far as mutants can be difficult to kill
and sometimes destructive, they also take
away some of the power that the state
likes to reserve for itself.
The ability to attack an enemy
and then be free of reprisal is something
that governments like to maintain a monopoly
on with militaries and police forces.
So mutants present a challenge to the
government's monopoly on violence.
But one thing you'll notice I haven't mentioned is fear.
Over on my channel, Philosophy Tube, we're
talking about whether discrimination against
mutants really does come from a place of fear
and if it doesn't, what that might say
about whether a certain revolutionary mutant could be right.
- Seriously, go check out Olly's video.
It is amazing; link will be down there in the description.
In the meantime, I want to know what you guys think.
Why are mutants hated when other heroes typically aren't?
Is there another explanation I may have overlooked?
Let's talk about it all in the comments.
Once again, go check out Philosophy Tube's video
by clicking right here, is Magneto in the right?
Are the X-Men actually doing anything to help mutantkind?
Click here to find out; you can also watch this old
video about the weapon plus program.
Wolverine is weapon number ten, of course.
But what are weapons one through nine?
And are there more than ten?
You can find out by clicking it right here.
But really though, just still watch Olly's video.
And make sure you hit that big, sexy subscribe
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that explore the history, science, art and philosophy
behind your favorite comic book super heroes.
My name is Scott reminding you to read
between the panels and grow smarter through comics, see ya.