Perhaps Jamie's Not As Rare As We Thought

I believe this started with one of Googum's post where he discussed his lack of interest in the younger mutants that we've been told are just the coolest thing ever over the last 20 years or so.

I kind of like Artie myself, because I think that talking in pictures is a cool power. The power doesn't make Artie cool, or necessarily interesting, but the actual point of this post came to me as I started to think about the one comic I have with Artie in it.

It's X-Men Unlimited 14, Post-Onslaught, and Beast brings Gambit, Storm, Artie, Leech, and the recently orphaned Franklin Richards back to his parents' farm. I guess they wanted to get Franklin away from the city, and the memories, I'm not sure why all the others came along. Ultimately, Franklin is convinced that Magneto's responsible for his parents being gone, and attacks Joseph (who he teleported from the Institute to Illinois), to try and make him bring them back. At the end, Franklin nearly killing Joseph is averted, and he and the other two kids play ball instead.

And that reminded me of the little revelation about Madrox we got back in the current X-Factor. How Jamie is slightly different from your average mutant, because his powers developed in childhood, rather than adolescence, so he's a throwback to an earlier form of mutants. Well, the trio of Artie, Leech, and Franklin were all little kids too, and all of them were mutants with already functioning powers (though Reed's always trying to keep Franklin's locked down, because reality-altering, threaten the universe, blah, blah). So would that mean they're throwbacks as well?

I started to think about how that trait (whatever it is) wouldn't have the negative side-effects on survival now that it did in the past, since people are less likely to grab torches and pitchforks to burn the "demon child" than they were in say, the 1400s, or ancient Sumeria. So having a mutant gene that doesn't express itself until one is a bit older and better able to fend for themselves, isn't as much of an advantage as it was when Tryp was growing up. Now (at least prior to Messiah Complex), there was the Xavier Institute, Magneto, the Morlocks, Mr. Sinister, possibly the High Evolutionary, Moira McTaggert, all sorts of people and organizations that would fight to protect you.

Suddenly, being a five-year old with fish eyes, or fire-breathing, isn't the death sentence it was before. Whereas before, only a few individuals with that trait might survive to reproduce, more might be able to do so now. Given enough generations, development of powers in childhood might have become the norm. I don't know if it would have provided any decent story ideas, and they would have had to been explored in stories set in the future, but it was something that occurred to me.