Demand Should Be High

I think that in the wake of House of M, there should be a greater increase in demand for Mutant Growth Hormone. While there are certainly folks who are glad to have lost their mutations, there are also obviously folks who would very much like to have it back. Just look at how Quicksilver's got an upscale looking office to meet and help the ones that come looking for him.

Mutant Growth Hormone has also clearly not vanished. Patriot (of Young Avengers) seemed to have powers in the early going of Civil War, which suggests he had a cache somewhere. Nitro was apparently high on the stuff when he blew Stamford to hell, and purchased it from that corporation that ran Damage Control (they had a different name, didn't they?).

So the stuff's around. So now, I'd like to see a mob of desperate ex-mutants trying to find it. They can be people that enjoyed the power and status, people that want the security that their powers gave them, or just people...

...

Sorry, Tony Kornheiser just said Clay Aiken is his soulmate, and that he completed TK. Cripes.

Like I was saying, or just people who feel something's missing without their powers (I'm thinking of Cannonball's brother, the one with the wings, probably missing the sensation of flight).

I'm not sure where it would fit. Possibly as a job for Iron Man's Jerkass Squad. I mean Mighty Avengers. Or maybe the Thunderbolts. I'm sure Bullseye would like killing some desperate people.

Actually, since it would involve stopping a breaking and entering, probably a job for Cap's Avengers, seeing as they actually prevent crimes.

"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).

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?".