Saturday, September 09, 2006

"The 198" My Butt!

Went to bed feeling kind of down last night. Two reasons:

1) Anthony Reyes got shelled by the Diamondbacks last night. Reyes was the ray of hope for Cardinals fans that maybe, just maybe, we wouldn't see Jason #$%^ing Marquis in our postseason rotation. But if Reyes doesn't demonstrate his superiority, there's no way the rookie gets the nod from Tony Bleeping LaRussa over the vet.

2) I'd already seen the House episode on USA last night. Hermaphroditic models, oh boy.

All in all, not a stellar Friday. Ah well, that's life, etc., etc. On to the main gist of the post.

I don't know whether this is technically a post inspired by X-Factor #10. I mean, the idea's been rising to the forefront of my consciousness off and on for awhile now, but yesterday's post kind of made me feel like it's time to deal with it.

Wanda supposedly left only 198 mutants still powered (going by Len's suggestion that Wanda's blocked the genes of the other mutants from expressing themselves). Which is all very well and good, except that it was immediately undercut by Iceman regaining his powers through some sort of medical mumbo-jumbo b.s. I didn't understand and don't care to try and find. So that's 199.

Nobody living (besides Xavier) knew about the existence of Vulcan or Darwin, so that's 201.

Apocalypse has showed up (202), and he seems to have repowered Sunfire and Polaris. I don't know whether they're considered mutants or not, though. Who was Pestilence? Were they a depowered mutant? Wasn't War that chimp on the space station? So that might be one more. Either way, Chamber also got the benefit of the Supercool Apocalypse Blood Treatment (Patent Pending, because not even Apocalypse can make the bureaucracy of the Patent Office move faster), so potentially 205. Maybe 206.

Magneto's back on the block (come on, we all know he didn't die in a helicopter explosion of all things), so that's at least 206, and anybody know if that Michael guy was a known mutant prior to the New Avengers story?

Then there's the question of whether Pietro and all the people's he's repowered are mutants or something more akin to Inhumans. Looking through New Avengers #16 (I'm waiting until after my "Year in Review" posts are done to toss it in the garbage), Commander Hill says 'All of the sudden the mutant gene doesn't exist in millions of people where it once had.' That would suggest depowered mutants aren't mutants at all anymore, as they no longer have the genetics for it.

But I'm loathe to take anything Bendis wrote in that damn "Collective" story at face value, so for the sake of argument lets throw all of them in as well. They had powers before, and now they have powers that are very similar, if not exactly the same, so they count. Let's see, there were about five people on Genosha (Callisto and Unus the Untouchable among them, right?) and one more fellow there at the end of Son of M, so that's 211.

And we all know it's just a matter of time until Jean Grey hits the scene again, so that's 212. Who else have I missed?

So yeah, Marvel did a real great job holding to that 198 thing. Honestly, I wonder why 198? Did they think it would resonate better than 200?

If it were me, I would've gone with 300, and not just because I could restore Stacy X. I could do that just by leaving Iceman as the depowered schmuck he ought to be. 300 evokes thoughts of the 300 Spartans at Thermopyle, a small force, fighting against a seemingly overwhelming number of people with hostile intentions towards them. Granted, that ignores the 600 or so slaves and servants the Spartans had, that died alongside the warriors (hat tip to Larry Gonick's Cartoon History of the Universe, Vol. 1), but I'm not sure what the equivalent of them would be for Marvel's band of Melancholy Mutants (I'd say they haven't been "merry" in quite some time).

12 comments:

thekelvingreen said...

I think Marvel published an official list of the 198 at some point (in one of those tedious Files books); I wonder how mch of it holds up?

thekelvingreen said...

But hang on, they're being inconsistent (no way!). Beast says Wanda removed the mutant genes, but Hank Pym says their muttant energies were removed...

And speaking of which, what happened to all the other powers 'Michael' absorbed? I assume Magneto didn't absorb all of them, so did all the original owners get their powers back?

CalvinPitt said...

kelvin: I looked through that 198 Files book when it came out. I can't recall how accurate it is.

As for the other powers, as far as I know most mutants didn't get their powers back. I think the Xorn entity still had most of them, having only returned Magneto's powers, and then. . .

The Sentry threw the Xorn entity into the Sun, because there's no way that chucking that many wildly variant energy types into the ball of gas Earth depends on for life could possibly be a bad idea! Seriously, there aren't any mutants who's powers would be supercharged by that proximity to the Sun?

I can't wait until Xorn and the Void meet on the Sun and have a villain team-up. We can call it "Sins of The Sentry's Stupidity!"

Marc Burkhardt said...

I'm still wondering why so many mutants had to be depowered anyway. It hasn't cut down the number of X books and the whole Sentinel thing is just stupid.

I read an interview with the New X-Men writers who said Grant Morrison is a genius, but they preferred to see mutants hated and outnumbered by their enemies.

It seems to me that mutants would be even more hated as an emerging culture rather than a near extinct species, as they are right now.

I also saw the X-Men's status as leaders of that movement as a situation that put a bigger target on their back than the old "mutants on the run" trope.

Do modern comics creators really lack that much imagination? My gosh ...

P.S. I'm waiting for the new, murderous Thor to toss Sentry into the sun!

thekelvingreen said...

I read an interview with the New X-Men writers who said Grant Morrison is a genius, but they preferred to see mutants hated and outnumbered by their enemies.
Morrison wiped out Genosha in one of his early issues. Can't get any more outnumbered and hated than that.

Thor's more original than the Sentry, even if he is being badly written (it's got to be mind-control). He'll chain him to a rock in Niflhim or something.

Sentry just takes his villains into space; Carnage, Void and Xorneto. Exciting!

CalvinPitt said...

fortress: It would be nice if the reduction in mutants had reduced the # of X-books, but alas, it isn't to be.

kelvin: Maybe Thor could find what's left of The Destroyer and pit Sentry against that?

googum said...

Haven't some of the refugee 198 (i.e, the scabs) been killed yet? Maybe there's only 198 at a time, and if one dies, another is born or gets their powers back?

Doubtful. Too Highlander.

CalvinPitt said...

googum: That's true. i think that big Mammoth mutant died, or maybe a blue guy.

So maybe there really can only be 198.

Anonymous said...

Oooh! Go 300 reference, but sadly, it will neve be uses as that would give the all some PURPOSE and NOBILITY instead of standing around wondering what exactly the Sentinels are doing there or going into space to avoid continuity all together.

...god I am so bitter.

Anonymous said...

i always assumed that the 198 was the number or known mutants....like the goverment had files on and thats why only 198 were tossed in the x-concentration camp....but others like vulcan or darwin werent known by the goverment so they were not counted.

and u asked :Who was Pestilence?
that was polaris..but i dont have a clue as to how her powers wich apocy gave her are more like energy blast when she was given the power of plauge..i dont know germ powers seem like airy ..like they are in the air like omega red..you cant see the virus but you feel it..but now in the new uncanny issues she has her power back so thats confusing.

gabesummers

CalvinPitt said...

carla: I get bitterness.

gabesummers: The 198 being mutants only the government knew about would make sense, which excuses Darwin and Vulcan, and I guess Apocalypse, but it still leaves the Magnetos and Chambers that have since been repowered.

Anonymous said...

When this all started, 198 was supposed to be the actual number of mutants left. Shortly after, Joey Q mentioned that the number was, in fact, just a rough estimate (suprise, surprise).
A low number to rally around or grab headlines or something. This was in a Newsarama interview, I believe.

Basically, it started out as being an actual headcount then Marvel realised that was totally impractical so tried to cover there asses.