Things I Think About #19

You know what I would have liked to have seen in House of M? Instead of just widespread loss of mutants, a widespread loss of telepaths, primarily the more powerful ones.

But, how would that work with the Scarlet Witch, you say? I say, why does it have to be her behind it at all? How about Jamie Braddock, Junior, the brother of Psylocke and Captain Britain? He can warp reality, and the X-books have been hinting at something big coming up with him anyway, so why not move it up a bit? He could be trying to make a perfect world by, I don't know, altering the reality within people's minds, altering their perceptions, and thus that alters reality (mind over matter I suppose). Telepaths could either be extraordinarily sensitive to it causing their minds to collapse from seeing all these different minds perceiving a "perfect" reality, or they could be a threat to the plan, by using their abilities to reassert the "true" reality in people's minds. Though I would have to demand that he wear some freaking pants, please! Sorry ladies.

For that matter, what about The Sentry? It's already been established that he has psychic abilities powerful enough to make the entire world forget about him, and to a certain extent seems to be able to alter the way things are to suit what he believes them to be. Hell, use him for that, it'd make him a lot more interesting than he is currently. Oh, I'm sorry, I guess that would be The Void, that would do something like that. Whatever, six of one, half-dozen of the other.

I know that they did this in Earth X, where the Skull's telepathic abilities manifested, and at that moment, every telepath died. I'm not suggesting that, but I think on a lesser scale it would work in a situation where there was a reason for it (namely, telepaths interfering with some crazy/evil person's plan to make the world the way they want it, as opposed to Wanda just concluding mutants are the problem with everything, so she wipes them out, except for the ones Dr. Strange protected, and oh yeah, a few others for some reason or the other), that many of the more powerful telepaths would be removed from the board, so to speak.

The way I figure it, the top-level ones probably have their minds in other peoples' minds pretty much constantly. Just a little bit, and they probably aren't even aware of it. The more powerful the mind, the more minds they're in. It just a unconscious relaxation, letting their minds flow a bit. So if the reality altering occurred quickly, which would be prudent, a telepath could be subjected to multiple realities before they knew what was going on, doing severe damage to their sanity. That leaves them as less of an immediate threat, but a prudent evildoer would still eliminate them, just so they don't pull themselves together and mess things up later. Man, that sounded a lot better when I thought it up. Irregardless. . .

Granted I'm biased, as I'm just really sick of telepaths, and the idea of them bothers me, but I still think that done right (and isn't that always the caveat?), it would be much better than what actually took place. Honestly, the number of telepaths in the Marvel Universe is pretty ridiculous, especially in relation to overall numbers of mutants. It seems like you wouldn't be able to walk down the street there without bumping into one. And there doesn't seem to be any real reason genetically why that's how it is, which could be due to the lack of clarity when it comes to what's behind the X-gene and how powers are transmitted to children (discussed in earlier posts here and here) . And in nature, there are occasional catastrophes, that cause extinctions specific to certain types of organisms, while sparing others. For example, if a meteor hits a planet, and throws lots of dust in the air, competitive advantage goes to beings lower to the ground, where there's less soot, and more clean air. Likewise, if someone is altering the perceptions of every person on the planet, with the alteration perhaps changing from person to person, it's probably better to not have part of your mind in other people's minds.

Of course it would never happen. Too many telepaths are high-profile in Marvel, and like I mentioned a few days ago, Cable is one of Avi Arad's favorite characters, while also being possibly the most powerful telepath actually moving around right now, given Jean Grey seems to be incapacitated - not dead! never dead! - at the moment, and Xavier's nowhere to be seen. For the record, I devised a potential way for Cable to dodge it, one I think could be exclusive to Cable, and would work with the current plot of his book, so I have that base covered.

Oh yeah, and afterwards, there actually would be fewer mutant books like Joey Q said there would be, instead of just fewer mutants.

What can I say? I like to play "What If?".