Current Events > So X-Men comic book fans, how is Senator Kelly in the wrong? (spoilers)

(+) Yeah! (+)

I've only seen the movies and TV adapations.

I read a handfil of comics but not enough to be knowledgable except that Cyclops is a dick.

But in the movies and TV shows Xavier is literally capable of destroying all life on Earth within 100 seconds.

In X-Men 2 he's "drugged" with the ease of drugging a kitten and almost kills all humans withing seconds and is barely stopped. That's ALL of them, the entire planet worth. Every single one. In seconds.

This isn't our "world" this is a world where random civilians at any time could be capable of wiping out all life on the planet in an instant.... And the guy who says "Hey we should find out who is able to do this and have a record and safeguards in place to protect literally everyone." is the bad guy?

I mean sure it's not "nice" but it seems necessary.

Christ I feel like there's a couple of people on CE who if they had that power would have wiped out all life on Earth.

Now imagine someone in the Taliban having it or one of the Jan 6ers having it or a Nazi having it. Imagine if Andrew Tate had it.

Yes I know it's an on the nose metaphor for the civil rights movement but there's a difference between different color skin and literally being able to destroy all life on Earth in moments.

Sure it sucks for Jubilee that her "privacy right" for people not to know that she can fart fireworks out of her ass is violated but within THIS SPECIFIC context, X-men planet Earth, not our Planet Earth, that seems entirely reasonable.

If I could fart fireworks out of my ass I wouldn't mind that people knew if it meant all humans on Earth weren't all killed by a lunatic one day.

Because in most cases its one arresting and detaining mutants regardless, in a world where no mutant based super heroes already exist and I would assume a few story line probably also involves the deaths of mutants as well as experimentations on them.

UnfairRepresent posted...

That's ALL of them, the entire planet worth. Every single one. In seconds.

When nobody was looking Professor X took the global populace out in forty seconds. It took forty seconds.
That's as many as four tens.
And that's terrible.

I used to sympathize with mutants, but then there was an event in the comics called Avengers vs Xmen

And by the end of that story I fucking hated mutants. They act like real assholes in that story
So yea, Kelly can pass his law. I don't care anymore

Because the government creating databases of minorities can only go right.

Why is it bad that the government, who also commissioned a literal army of mutant hunting robots and has at moments used them near-indescriminately, has a list of all the mutants?

You've made a point that that the X-Men earth isn't our earth, and I agree. The governments in the X-Men's earth is far far worse.

Compsognathus posted...

Why is it bad that the government, who also commissioned a literal army of mutant hunting robots and has at moments used them near-indescriminately, has a list of all the mutants.

You've made a point that that the X-Men earth isn't our earth, and I agree. The governments in the X-Men's earth is far far worse.

And the people just as if not more stupid because Mutant hate is goofy as fuck when again super powered beings are not all Mutants anyhow.

The allegory to racism kinda falls apart when you realize most mutants actually are dangerous unless found and specifically taught to control themselves or given outside devices like Cyclops.

Zikten posted...

I used to sympathize with mutants, but then there was an event in the comics called Avengers vs Xmen

And by the end of that story I fucking hated mutants. They act like real assholes in that story
So yea, Kelly can pass his law. I don't care anymore

Man, I can't help be feel that there was a corporate mandate to shit on the x-men brand in general thus having it's characters act like some real dumbasses during that specific moment in time since that was during the disney being a bit petty for not having movie rights for the x-men era. Even rubbed off on certain games like marvel vs capcom infinite what with marvel disney throwing their weight around about who appears in the game/whoever is currently in the movies.

Compsognathus posted...

Why is it bad that the government, who also commissioned a literal army of mutant hunting robots and has at moments used them near-indescriminately, has a list of all the mutants?

You've made a point that that the X-Men earth isn't our earth, and I agree. The governments in the X-Men's earth is far far worse.

Were the Sentiels made by Senator Kelly?

cuz yeah giant pink robots are a dumb idea.

BUT I do get that you need counter-measures to stop the mutants. Heck I'd argue giant pink killer robots are still less stupid than "Let's just assume no Xavier level mutant will kill everyone and get on with our lives"

Reminds me of that Fallout 3 town where everyone just lives next to a live nuclear bomb in the hope it never goes off. Except instead of a town that bomb will destroy the planet.

Okay enlisting the first guy who walks into town in a blue jumpsuit to disarm it is a bad idea, but disarming it is a good idea.

Even the X-Men admit they are dangerous. In an issue of Ultimate X-Men, Wolverine hunted down and disposed of a highschool student whose powers made him accidentally kill everyone in his entire town.

He has a fair argument he was just a dick about it and fuck dicks ya know.

UnfairRepresent posted...

I read a handfil of comics but not enough to be knowledgable except that Cyclops is a dick.

No he's not...

Mutants are like pitbulls who actively dont want to trained....

I'm pretty sure Professor X was going to kill all mutants not humans.

TerraSeeker posted...

I'm pretty sure Professor X was going to kill all mutants not humans.

He tried both and very nearly succeeded with both

He just did whatever he was told to do.

Which kinda demonstrates the point

The Registration protects mutants too

The other issue is that what good does a mutant registry do? So congratulations government, you are aware that Charles Xavier is an Omega level mutant telepath. What good does that actually do them? Are they going to arrest him? Try to remove his powers? Like what good is this knowledge without additional, more severe restrictions of civil rights?

I mean the government is obviously very aware of people like Magneto and his powers but what good does that do them? Certainly doesn't help them stop his attacks given how often they need superheroes to step in.

And where is this registry information coming from? Mutants who volunteer it up? The Mutants you'd be worried about aren't exactly going to give up their mutant identity willingly.

Mutants have an island kingdom called Genosha. If American mutants don't like being registered then they should move there. Though that still wouldn't stop powers that can effect the whole planet

You're basically getting to the point many have come to before that mutants in the x-men world make a poor sci fi stand in for the Civil rights metaphor. The mutants actually ARE dangerous to humanity.

If mutants existed in real life like they did in the Marvel universe then creating a database of who they are and what they could do would be a very prudent matter of public safety. These are essentially hormonal teenagers that get the sudden ability to kill with a touch, invade people's minds on a whim, and casually alter the physical environment like a child undergoing a temper tantrum can casually alter their playroom. However this idea falls apart because this isn't real life, it is indeed the Marvel universe. In the Marvel universe whenever lists or good societal ideas are put into practice by the government it almost inexplicably leads to giant robot fights, life destroying viruses, sadistic cloning programs, or alien abductions. no matter how dangerous the mutants are, a systemic response to them just results into something far far worse each and every single time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b9wPveHM1Xo

Honestly Marvel is a shithole of a world, there's Wakanda hording resources that could save lives the world over because they feel it only belongs to them, there's the avengers who have made decisions that have dragged the earth into interplanetary wars, there's Dr.Doom running his own country even through he's a terrorist, there's the secret society composed of Marvel's brain trust of egotistical assholes, it's honestly a wonder the earth hasn't been destroyed by their infighting, they don't need Galactus or Kree, Skrulls or even Gods, time travelers or even space pirates they do a good job of fucking up their world themselves, I don't think there's a single hero that hasn't screwed something up majorly at this point

Zikten posted...

Mutants have an island kingdom called Genosha. If American mutants don't like being registered then they should move there. Though that still wouldn't stop powers that can effect the whole planet

Yes please, live on the island of Geonosha. I promise nobody is going to hijack yet another secret government Sentinel program and kill nearly all 16 million of its inhabitants.

Oh wait.

Remember that time the mutants stole someone's kid because he had powers and they told him how he'd be loved, respected and treated as his own person on their orgy island, then when their parents came looking for them a fight broke out until the parents told them their kid wasn't a mutant and his kidnappers looked at him with disgust and told him to get the fuck out of their tree house and never come back? Yeah, the mutants are no better than the humans they claim to be superior to next step in evolution my ass

Compsognathus posted...

Yes please, live on the island of Geonosha. I promise nobody is going to hijack yet another secret government Sentinel program and kill nearly all 16 million of its inhabitants.

Oh wait.

Oh please, live without a register or countermeasures, I'm sure no one is going to drug Xavier and nearly kill all human life on Earth in seconds

Oh wait.

I mean there's no easy answers here but you can't just ignore the problem

You can say that for a lot of things such as not killing all the bad guy they catch instead of letting them sit in a cell they will break out of and likely kill a bunch of people in their escape only to do it again the next time they get caught

UnfairRepresent posted...

Oh please, live without a register or countermeasures, I'm sure no one is going to drug Xavier and nearly kill all human life on Earth in seconds

Oh wait.

I mean there's no easy answers here but you can't just ignore the problem

You know the scenario that posted mentioned is what actually happened, right?

And Xavier didn't kill anyone because of who again?

tremain07 posted...

You can say that for a lot of things such as not killing all the bad guy they catch instead of letting them sit in a cell they will break out of and likely kill a bunch of people in their escape only to do it again the next time they get caught

I mean I'm against the Death Penalty in this Earth, our reality

But I wouldn't be opposed to the state sponsored execution of Thanos or Zod. Guys who can and will literally wipe out billions

UnfairRepresent posted...

Oh please, live without a register or countermeasures, I'm sure no one is going to drug Xavier and nearly kill all human life on Earth in seconds

Oh wait.

I mean there's no easy answers here but you can't just ignore the problem

The government absolutely knew about Xaviers powers as he was very open about them. That's how Colonel William Stryker knew about them. If there is one mutant who they absolutely should have had a contingency for it was him.

What good did it do them?

Don't get me wrong there definitely is value of knowing potential mutant threats. It is a difficult question with difficult answers. It's just the question becomes less difficult when the government's answer is routinely "exploit mutants for extra-judicial use", "preemptively lock them up" or "build giant mutant hunting robots".

Compsognathus posted...

The government absolutely knew about Xaviers powers as he was very open about them. That's how Colonel William Stryker knew about them. If there is one mutant who they absolutely should have had a contingency for it was him.

What good did it do them?

Well we don't know because a mutant who can turn into other people and a mutant who could drug others into slaves, both of whom the government knew little about due to not having a register intervened and created a scenario where nearly literally everyone died.

Besides I said Kelly, not Stryker

Stryker is actively trying to kill people. Kelly is actively trying to save lives

Xavier could just use his powers to force everyone to play nice.

Stryker is a secondary factor here. The point is that Xavier, the one mutant they should absolutely have a contingency against, attacked the minds of every mutant, and then human on Earth. Yes he was drugged into it, but this is something he could theoretically do at any time of his own volition and something that as a mutant who has publicly declared his powers, the government should have anticipated. In theory, this is a situation that a registry would prevent.

It didn't do anything.

Even if Kelly had noble intentions, the registry directly relies on the keepers of said information to behave appropriately and ethically. Something that they have proven unable to do time and time again. A good idea that relies on a broken system is ultimately a bad idea.

RetsuZaiZen posted...

Xavier could just use his powers to force everyone to play nice.

Well sure until

1. You realize that's a fucked up thing to do and eliminates free will
2. Xavier 2 Electric Boogaloo comes along or someone else with even more dangerous powers and fucks it all up.

Even going by your scenario, let's say the government somehow compels mutants to register. That would give the military a lot more access to mutants-- and military assholes like Stryker have already tried to use mutants to commit genocide. How is that a good idea?

And Stryker's hardly a unique example. See Gen. Ross' bullshit with the Hulk, the Weapon X program, the Sentinels, etc.

Besides, the most dangerous mutants would be the criminal type who would refuse, leading to more violence if/when the government forces the issue. Plus, you'd be driving more mutants towards the people like Magneto who say that they can't trust humanity.

UnfairRepresent posted...

I read a handfil of comics but not enough to be knowledgeable except that Cyclops is a dick.

This isn't even really true, honestly. It's mostly something Wolverine fanboys pushed because they prefer the idea that Wolverine and Jean would make a better pairing than Jean and Cyclops.

So to overcome the fact that Jean and Scott were basically made for each other and were a couple for nearly 20 years, and that Logan was always just a bit of a creep and Jean had zero interest in him, fans of that pairing always sort of have to retcon Scott into being a dick. Or at least imply that Logan and Jean totally have an underlying attraction for each other and would totally hook up if it wasn't for Scott.

The real problem is that the inmates are running the asylum now, and most comics are written by fanboys these days, so you get stuff like Age of Apocalypse or House of M or Schism.

But the inmates have pretty much ruined comics entirely these days, so it's not as if any of it matters at this point. Most people are only going to know what happens in the next Marvel X-Men movie continuity anyway because almost no one reads comics anymore.



UnfairRepresent posted...

Now imagine someone in the Taliban having it or one of the Jan 6ers having it or a Nazi having it. Imagine if Andrew Tate had it.

Now imagine one of those getting into power in government, and having access to the file that tells them the names and addresses of literally every mutant. Would you trust that government to handle things fairly and humanely?

I mean, our real world government is still running the Guantanamo Bay detention camp in spite of the fact that it's been repeatedly been accused of violating basic human rights and international law. In the Marvel universe mutants are winding up getting forceably drafted or shipped off to concentration camps about 20 minutes after registration. It's a large part of why the Nazis are usually the go-to metaphor for anti-mutant bigotry (especially for Magneto), with blacks, gays, and whatever oppressed group you want to play off of coming in second. Because the Holocaust basically started out as "we need to register you for everyone's protection" as well.

It's not a coincidence that all the "mutant registration" storylines started not too long after the end of the Vietnam War, when public faith in the government was at an all-time low. If you don't trust your government in general, why would you trust it to respect the civil rights of people who may not even be considered human?

Even aside from the fact that, because we've literally seen the future in the comics (and the Days of Future Past film), we know for objective fact that the government absolutely cannot be trusted, because they will absolutely hunt down and murder every mutant they can find.



UnfairRepresent posted...

This isn't our "world" this is a world where random civilians at any time could be capable of wiping out all life on the planet in an instant.... And the guy who says "Hey we should find out who is able to do this and have a record and safeguards in place to protect literally everyone." is the bad guy?

This is honestly the only real argument against the idea that "registration bad" - namely, that it's hard to hide behind accusations of racism or bigotry when "black people can't explode things with their mind". So the idea is that mutant registration is less racism and more like gun control.

The problem is, you can't really separate the person from the power, and mutant registration rarely distinguishes between dangerous powers and completely banal ones. And still involves people being persecuted for something that is literally beyond their ability to control. Mutants don't choose to be mutants.

Things get murkier when a mutant "cure" is involved, or the morality of forcing mutants to go to a school like Xavier's to train in their powers to prevent accidents, but ultimately registration as presented is almost always an excuse to persecute people for simply being born.

The counter-argument (even presented in the comics occasionally) is that you can potentially justify registering people who actively use their powers (ie, heroes have to apply for a "vigilante license", villains get registered the first time they get booked for a crime), but people who don't should be left alone. But the Marvel universe government is rarely willing to accept that level of nuance, and is almost always presented as being completely irresponsible with whatever power it actually has (Henry Peter Gyrich was an absolute piece of shit for years in Avengers long before he was put in charge of screwing over mutants, for example).

Compsognathus posted...

Stryker is a secondary factor here. The point is that Xavier, the one mutant they should absolutely have a contingency against, attacked the minds of every mutant, and then human on Earth. Yes he was drugged into it, but this is something he could theoretically do at any time of his own volition and something that as a mutant who has publicly declared his powers, the government should have anticipated. In theory, this is a situation that a registry would prevent.

It didn't do anything.

Even if Kelly had noble intentions, the registry directly relies on the keepers of said information to behave appropriately and ethically. Something that they have proven unable to do time and time again. A good idea that relies on a broken system is ultimately a bad idea.

I'm not sure I agree.

This whole premise is a fallacy

It's like saying "There's no point in gun control because this guy had a liscenced gun and then commited murder. So obviously gun control does nothing."

While 200 school shootings happen behind you that aren't reflected in Japan/UK/Australia/New Zealand/Canada etc.

Stryker using Mutants to use Xavier to kill mutants isn't an argument against the registry, it's an argument in favor of one.

UnfairRepresent posted...

I've only seen the movies and TV adapations.

I read a handfil of comics but not enough to be knowledgable except that Cyclops is a dick.

But in the movies and TV shows Xavier is literally capable of destroying all life on Earth within 100 seconds.

In X-Men 2 he's "drugged" with the ease of drugging a kitten and almost kills all humans withing seconds and is barely stopped. That's ALL of them, the entire planet worth. Every single one. In seconds.

This isn't our "world" this is a world where random civilians at any time could be capable of wiping out all life on the planet in an instant.... And the guy who says "Hey we should find out who is able to do this and have a record and safeguards in place to protect literally everyone." is the bad guy?

I mean sure it's not "nice" but it seems necessary.

Christ I feel like there's a couple of people on CE who if they had that power would have wiped out all life on Earth.

Now imagine someone in the Taliban having it or one of the Jan 6ers having it or a Nazi having it. Imagine if Andrew Tate had it.

Yes I know it's an on the nose metaphor for the civil rights movement but there's a difference between different color skin and literally being able to destroy all life on Earth in moments.

Sure it sucks for Jubilee that her "privacy right" for people not to know that she can fart fireworks out of her ass is violated but within THIS SPECIFIC context, X-men planet Earth, not our Planet Earth, that seems entirely reasonable.

If I could fart fireworks out of my ass I wouldn't mind that people knew if it meant all humans on Earth weren't all killed by a lunatic one day.

I think people are going to conflate Senator Kelly with the other guys who wanted to actually murder every mutant in order to argue...but he was right and never ever seemed wrong at all unless you just had that stance and fought to stick to it. The mutants proved him right like every week.

Now Stryker and others...uh they were just modern Hitlers.

UnfairRepresent posted...

Well sure until

1. You realize that's a fucked up thing to do and eliminates free will
2. Xavier 2 Electric Boogaloo comes along or someone else with even more dangerous powers and fucks it all up.

Meh he's done it before

Fony posted...

I think people are going to conflate Senator Kelly with the other guys who wanted to actually murder every mutant in order to argue...but he was right and never ever seemed wrong at all unless you just had that stance and fought to stick to it. The mutants proved him right like every week.

Now Stryker and others...uh they were just modern Hitlers.

I mean we've already seen that in this topic

IT turned from "How is Senator Kelly in the wrong?" to "Isn't Skryker a complete asshole?"

Which is a very different question.

"Would you fuck Black Cat?" and "Would you let Rhino, Hammerhead and The Blob run a train on you?" are both sexual but completely different questions.

UnfairRepresent posted...

I'm not sure I agree.

This whole premise is a fallacy

It's like saying "There's no point in gun control because this guy had a liscenced gun and then commited murder. So obviously gun control does nothing."

No it's like saying "there is a solid argument for gun registries but it's pretty understandable that the gun owners are opposed to it because the government keeps sending killer robots after them."

Compsognathus posted...

No it's like saying "there is a solid argument for gun registries but it's pretty understandable that the gun owners are opposed to it because the government keeps sending killer robots after them."

I'm not arguing if the killer robots are right

I'm saying how is Senator Kelly in the wrong. The register seems like a good idea.

You were arguing that the register is a bad idea because unregistered mutants nearly got everyone killed.

To me that's self-defeating.

Because registry leads to violence & rebellion.

I'm arguing that Xavier is basically a test case for the mutant registry. He's a mutant that the government had all the information about, no different than if he were registered. And when a mutant that may as well been registered did something dangerous...the government didn't actually do anything. The circumstances behind why the effectively registered mutant committed the attack isn't as important so much as it showed that even with a mutant being a known quantity, they could do little to stop it.

And you can't seperate the registry from the killer robots when they are inherently part of the same system. The government in the Marvel universe consistently has shown itself wildly abusive to mutants at literally every opportunity. So yeah, people are gonna be pretty fucking resistant to when that government wants you to register with them. They have zero reason to trust that.

UnfairRepresent posted...

Stryker using Mutants to use Xavier to kill mutants isn't an argument against the registry, it's an argument in favor of one.

Is it, though?

Knowing what Xavier is capable of doesn't really do anything to prevent him from doing it. The only way registration works to protect anyone is if you immediately lock the Alpha-level mutant in a power negating collar and lock him away somewhere to prevent him from ever using his power.

At which point you're straight up justifying the argument of every single person who is anti-registration.

Meanwhile, Stryker literally using knowing what a mutant is capable of to force that mutant to kill people is exactly the the thing people fear the government will do with access to a mutant registry that tells them what every mutant is capable of and where to find them. Especially since Stryker, you know, has direct government ties. He's not a rogue agent. He's not a lone villain. He's part of a government black ops team, and he's literally the sort of person who would lobotomize his son and attempt a false flag assassination attempt on the US President to get his own way.

Again, in a more grounded, real world scenario there might be a pro-registration argument that is valid. But as almost always presented in the films or comics, it's pretty much the dumbest fucking thing ever, and almost anyone who suggests it is either a soulless bureaucrat or pure evil.

Most of the time, they end up portraying an "us vs them" with no option but genocide of one side, despite whatever themes they're going for. Even discounting the cartoonishly evil parts, both sides have their good and bad with no way of concretely policing the bad, so it's just an ever back and forth with many people suffering each time.

Zikten posted...

Even the X-Men admit they are dangerous. In an issue of Ultimate X-Men, Wolverine hunted down and disposed of a highschool student whose powers made him accidentally kill everyone in his entire town.

The X-Men also covered up what really happened in that story

The registry is an immoral idea and a complete violation of freedom.

Nemu posted...

Most of the time, they end up portraying an "us vs them" with no option but genocide of one side, despite whatever themes they're going for. Even discounting the cartoonishly evil parts, both sides have their good and bad with no way of concretely policing the bad, so it's just an ever back and forth with many people suffering each time.

As long as their are differences, especially differences in strength there can be no equality or co-existence it is simply beyond human minds, it's their destiny to kill each other until one side remains andeven then that won't bring peace they'll turn their fangs on each other over other differences because of course they will, that's what being of human mind and morals does and will always do it's a cycle that can never be broken, not by human hands, not by human ideals, not by human minds and easily not by human souls and hearts it's simply impossible and yet, maybe due to naivety, maybe due to human nature to wish for the impossible people try anyway even through their efforts may never yeild fruit nor their lives be long enough to experience it.

hockeybub89 posted...

The registry is an immoral idea and a complete violation of freedom.

True

But it's better than everyone in the world dying in seconds.

Amputation is an immoral idea.... except when if you don't ampuate then you'll fucking die.

Then it becomes the lesser of two options.