this post was submitted on 28 Aug 2024
1217 points (98.5% liked)

Political Memes

5428 readers
2531 users here now

Welcome to politcal memes!

These are our rules:

Be civilJokes are okay, but don’t intentionally harass or disturb any member of our community. Sexism, racism and bigotry are not allowed. Good faith argumentation only. No posts discouraging people to vote or shaming people for voting.

No misinformationDon’t post any intentional misinformation. When asked by mods, provide sources for any claims you make.

Posts should be memesRandom pictures do not qualify as memes. Relevance to politics is required.

No bots, spam or self-promotionFollow instance rules, ask for your bot to be allowed on this community.

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 15 points 2 months ago (1 children)

In-universe, there are plenty of normal humans with those kinds of powers

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago (5 children)

really? but wouldn't the fact that they have those powers make them mutants by default? I'm not well versed in the x-men universe.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I'm not well versed either but mutants have the X gene while powered humans in general wouldn't. Remember it's marvel so there's Spiderman, ironman, Hawkeye for examples of heros stronger than your average human who don't have the X gene. Interestingly enough mutants are always seen as lesser while non mutant heros are usually celebrated (unless it's one of the grim dark comics).

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

ah okay, i didn't realize that marvel and x-men shared a universe, i thought marvel and x-men were mutually exclusive

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago

Yea they all belong together and have plenty of comics where they interact, funnily enough it's real world BS that kept them separate for the longest. Iirc fox owned the right to use xmen in media while a couple other companies owned the rights of various other heroes and mutants and marvel stuff.

It's all sorta consolidated now with Disney and Sony has been playing niceish with Spiderman for a couple years now too.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Mutants are humans that are born that way, all the others are made in one way or another. Pretty much all Marvel superheroes that don't originate from X-Men are not mutants.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago

Mutants specifically have to carry the x-gene; some super powered humans have been born with powers but don't have the x-gene, so they aren't considered mutants.

Mutants, even the X-Men, can be a bit anal, and even racist, about that kind of thing.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago (1 children)

There is no "X-Men universe" really, there's just the Marvel universe / multiverse.

The X-Men regularly interact with Spider Man, Thor, Captain Marvel, Daredevil, Captain America, Luke Cage, etc. Those guys are humans who got their powers from a method other than mutation.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

A method other than the X-gene. Spider-Man, Daredevil, Cap, and Luke Cage are all mutated humans. Possibly Thor, too, depending on whether you're going with the god or sufficiently advanced alien/precursor/whatever origin.

I don't think Captain Marvel has a genetic basis though.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago (2 children)

What makes you think they're mutated? There's a hint of mutation in the Spider Man origin story, as it's a radioactive spider, and radiation is associated with mutation. But, the rest of them get their powers in non-mutation-related ways.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

They've been occasionally been referred to as “mutates”, as opposite to “natural” x-gene carrying mutants.

Also if their powers (or some form of power) can be inherited by their children (or clones), there's probably been some genetic change.

This is definitely the case for Spider-Man (so many clones! 😩) or the Hulk (though that could be radiation poisoning), and might be the case for the Fantastic Four (though it depends on the writer, and one of their children is a mutant, not a mutate, and radiation poisoning is also a possibility in their case).

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago

Yeah, it starts getting especially blurry when you have people who might have both. There's a multiverse version of Spider-Man that was born a mutant and the spiderbite suppressed his X-gene characteristics.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Among many other things, like the Clone Saga clones having his powers, a Sentinel straight up scans Peter Parker and mistakes him for a mutant because his DNA has literal spider genes in it now. That's just Spidey canon.

Same with Super-soldier Serum that gave Rogers his power, it was a genetic modification and, eventually, the same is true of Weapon VI aka Luke Cage (Weapons Plus being a descendant program, he received a modified version of the Serum)

In Marvel comics there's generally a distinction between "mutants" and "mutates." A mutant got their powers from birth, typically from the X-gene, a mutate had something happen to them, but that's not a real scientific distinction. They've all been mutated. It's just in-universe discrimination and is often specifically portrayed as such. Like all discrimination, the distinction is quite often arbitrary and unjustified.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago

It's worth noting that mutants are often the ones making distinctions, even the X-Men..

If you're born with powers but don't carry the x-gene they'll be the first ones to tell you you can't be in their club, even if you used to be in it when they thought you carried it (see Wanda and Pietro Maximoff or Franklin Richards for notorious examples).

[–] Dudewitbow 4 points 2 months ago (1 children)

mutants in the marvelverse involes those born into one due to the X gene. people who had gained powers through a mutation are seperately called mutates, which dont face discrimination like mutants do. mutate examples are spiderman, thr hulks, fantastic four.

basically mutants are being discriminated because of their x gene and not their powers ironically.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago

Which is surprisingly subtle on the part of the general public

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago

but wouldn’t the fact that they have those powers make them mutants by default?

Setting aside the Hulk-style "I got super strength instead of terminal cancer" heroes, a bunch are just Batman retreads. Super-Ninjas, Super-Geniuses, Super-Rich Guys. Marvel has a rich cast of people who are either amped up professional athletes or people with enough money to buy super-herodom.