Current Events > Never got the complaint that the X-Men don't belong in the Marvel Universe

(+) Yeah! (+)

The general complaint seems to be "why are x group with superpowers beloved but y group with superpowers hated?"

A couple of counterarguments:

1) There are several Marvel heroes who DON'T have good publicity who aren't X-Men. Spider-Man, especially early on in his career. Ghost Rider. Daredevil. Hulk. The Thing. Recent characterizations of the Inhumans lend towards this. Namor (even before he became an official X-Men member). The only ones who actually have GOOD publicity are members of one of two major groups: The Avengers and The Fantastic Four.

The Avengers is a government agency led by the literal poster boy for truth, justice and the American way and who is a literal war hero. Before that, it was led by multi-billionaire and industrialist Tony Stark. The Fantastic Four, on the other hand, already had good publicity before they even became superheroes simply due to them being well-renowned scientists, astronauts, etc., and even THEN, those two groups both have members who were feared and/or hated.

2) Humans fear mutants precisely because of the fear that mutants will take over the human species as the dominant species. That's not a fear with the Captain America, who was manmade, or the Fantastic Four, where the event that resulted in them can be prevented, without resorting to eugenics or mass genocide. Mutants, however, are naturally occurring, and there's not a damn thing humanity can do to stop mutants from breeding and creating more without a) sterilizing all of them or b) killing ANYBODY who possesses the X-gene, which includes non-mutants.

"But people can't tell who's a mutant and who's not!"

No they can't make that distinction. But as established, they generally distrust anybody who isn't an Avenger or Fantastic Four member. Spider-Man, Hulk, etc., might as well be lumped in with the X-Men.

3) Civil War DID happen, and it caused people to be fearful of ANY superpowered person, mutant or not, unless they revealed themselves publicly to the world and registered as an agent of the government.
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Many non-mutants have powers similar to mutants, but they dont get accused of being mutants.
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Chicken posted...

Many non-mutants have powers similar to mutants, but they dont get accused of being mutants.

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But how can they love The Avengers when they know that Tony Stark has used satellites to brainwash people in the past?
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Chicken posted...

Many non-mutants have powers similar to mutants, but they dont get accused of being mutants.

Actually, Spider-Man has been mistaken for a mutant a couple of times, to the point where the X-Men tried to make him a member.

Same with Deadpool. The nature of Namor and Blade's mutations are entirely different from the typical mutant you'd see within the X-Men, but in modern comics they're lumped in with the X-Men (though Blade isn't an official member).

Warlock counts too. Member of the New Mutants, but he's entirely different from the mutants you see running around in Xavier's Mansion.

On the flip side, you have legitimate mutants and X-Men who people mistake for being something else. Storm being the prime example, people thought she was a goddess.
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Prior to the first Civil war arc it seemed rather silly that the people in the Marvel universe seemed to be real specific about hating mutants for having super-powers but not mutates [ * ]. It would've made sense if maybe it was shown that people just didn't understand the difference between mutants and mutates and assumed mutates were mutants [cause they're really not terribly different].

Could've even made a few stories exploring why people would be okay with mutates but not mutants [which is still silly].

Civil war did have people coming to their senses and saying "hey, I don't want these over powered guys who can level cities running around unchecked leveling cities and schools and such." But it still never explained why they cared so much about mutants specifically.

But at least humans also hated the inhumans... who're basically just mutants only they don't have to wait till puberty to get awesome super powers.

* Mutates are basically the same thing as a mutant, except their powers aren't biologically inherited from the X gene. They get theirs from something like a radio active spider bite, gamma wave experiment gone wrong, cosmic rays, etc.

It's not that X-Men don't belong in Marvel universe, it's that the idea behind the X-Men doesn't work in a setting with thousands of superhumans running amok.
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