this post was submitted on 28 Aug 2024
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In-universe, there are plenty of normal humans with those kinds of powers
really? but wouldn't the fact that they have those powers make them mutants by default? I'm not well versed in the x-men universe.
I'm not well versed either but mutants have the X gene while powered humans in general wouldn't. Remember it's marvel so there's Spiderman, ironman, Hawkeye for examples of heros stronger than your average human who don't have the X gene. Interestingly enough mutants are always seen as lesser while non mutant heros are usually celebrated (unless it's one of the grim dark comics).
ah okay, i didn't realize that marvel and x-men shared a universe, i thought marvel and x-men were mutually exclusive
Yea they all belong together and have plenty of comics where they interact, funnily enough it's real world BS that kept them separate for the longest. Iirc fox owned the right to use xmen in media while a couple other companies owned the rights of various other heroes and mutants and marvel stuff.
It's all sorta consolidated now with Disney and Sony has been playing niceish with Spiderman for a couple years now too.
Mutants are humans that are born that way, all the others are made in one way or another. Pretty much all Marvel superheroes that don't originate from X-Men are not mutants.
Mutants specifically have to carry the x-gene; some super powered humans have been born with powers but don't have the x-gene, so they aren't considered mutants.
Mutants, even the X-Men, can be a bit anal, and even racist, about that kind of thing.
mutants in the marvelverse involes those born into one due to the X gene. people who had gained powers through a mutation are seperately called mutates, which dont face discrimination like mutants do. mutate examples are spiderman, thr hulks, fantastic four.
basically mutants are being discriminated because of their x gene and not their powers ironically.
Which is surprisingly subtle on the part of the general public
There is no "X-Men universe" really, there's just the Marvel universe / multiverse.
The X-Men regularly interact with Spider Man, Thor, Captain Marvel, Daredevil, Captain America, Luke Cage, etc. Those guys are humans who got their powers from a method other than mutation.
A method other than the X-gene. Spider-Man, Daredevil, Cap, and Luke Cage are all mutated humans. Possibly Thor, too, depending on whether you're going with the god or sufficiently advanced alien/precursor/whatever origin.
I don't think Captain Marvel has a genetic basis though.
What makes you think they're mutated? There's a hint of mutation in the Spider Man origin story, as it's a radioactive spider, and radiation is associated with mutation. But, the rest of them get their powers in non-mutation-related ways.
They've been occasionally been referred to as “mutates”, as opposite to “natural” x-gene carrying mutants.
Also if their powers (or some form of power) can be inherited by their children (or clones), there's probably been some genetic change.
This is definitely the case for Spider-Man (so many clones! 😩) or the Hulk (though that could be radiation poisoning), and might be the case for the Fantastic Four (though it depends on the writer, and one of their children is a mutant, not a mutate, and radiation poisoning is also a possibility in their case).
Yeah, it starts getting especially blurry when you have people who might have both. There's a multiverse version of Spider-Man that was born a mutant and the spiderbite suppressed his X-gene characteristics.
Among many other things, like the Clone Saga clones having his powers, a Sentinel straight up scans Peter Parker and mistakes him for a mutant because his DNA has literal spider genes in it now. That's just Spidey canon.
Same with Super-soldier Serum that gave Rogers his power, it was a genetic modification and, eventually, the same is true of Weapon VI aka Luke Cage (Weapons Plus being a descendant program, he received a modified version of the Serum)
In Marvel comics there's generally a distinction between "mutants" and "mutates." A mutant got their powers from birth, typically from the X-gene, a mutate had something happen to them, but that's not a real scientific distinction. They've all been mutated. It's just in-universe discrimination and is often specifically portrayed as such. Like all discrimination, the distinction is quite often arbitrary and unjustified.
It's worth noting that mutants are often the ones making distinctions, even the X-Men..
If you're born with powers but don't carry the x-gene they'll be the first ones to tell you you can't be in their club, even if you used to be in it when they thought you carried it (see Wanda and Pietro Maximoff or Franklin Richards for notorious examples).
Setting aside the Hulk-style "I got super strength instead of terminal cancer" heroes, a bunch are just Batman retreads. Super-Ninjas, Super-Geniuses, Super-Rich Guys. Marvel has a rich cast of people who are either amped up professional athletes or people with enough money to buy super-herodom.