Like many children of my era, the late Seventies revival of the mutant franchise came as a powerful influence. And while it was not always to the good, as I've come around to seeing the whole "Fans are Slan" thing as not psychologically helpful, the mutant idea addressed prejudice with a polymorphic face that offered something for everyone and that reified "prejudice" as an operator with no object. In other words, prejudice was always and only an angry reaction to self, projected on others. This was, and is, something that anyone can learn at any point in their life, and the mutant/X-Men thing was always there, available, as great literature always is.
The particular criticism here strikes me as a categorical error, conflating the hyper-realism of a comics world with the lived reality of our own. The classic example of this is "Batman letting the Joker get away to murder thousands more people." That Batman would do this is, in my mind, more realistic than the premise we have already bought into, which is an eternal Joker who keeps coming back dozens of times in the first place. Professional American football players play twelve games a season for six seasons. They don't go on fighting/committing crime at a rate of six-to-ten-capers-a-month for going on a century! "Real" Batman lets "real" Joker live because "real" Batman runs into "real" Joker all of four times in his "real" career.
In much the same way, a great deal of the ridiculousness in our treatment of "the X-Men only they're real" derives from what parameters we choose to relax to get to our "real world."
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John was tying his boots when he caught the familiar smell of sentinel robots in the draft from windows both ends of the motel single. A lot of them. Way too many to fight.
Clarice was snoring. She's not going to like this, John thought as he stepped over to her bed and shook her shoulders, putting his finger to her lips.
Her eyes opened. "I was trying--" Long pause. Her head came out of the pillow, eyes focussed on the paper-thin wall. They'd talked about this. If DARPA had mikes on the bungalow, they would rush it the moment they heard John and Clarice on the move, to heck with causing a scene.
A portal opened where Clarice was staring. Not even bothering to look where he was going, John picked Clarice up and jumped through the teleportation gate, coverlet fluttering behind them.
"Crap." Now it was his turn. "Here?" They were in the hospital.
"You didn't give me a lot of time to wake up!"
"DARPA didn't," he muttered. "But what about--"
"Do you see a bunch of X-Men going down the X-pole? You told me after you broke in last night. It's not a secret base for a renegade supergroup. It's what it says on the sign. A hospital. For eating disorders, which is why it's locked up. The only thing we have to worry about in here is running into a white girl sneaking out of her room to throw up and making fun of my pyjamas. Meanwhile, out there, there's DARPA drones in the air and it's not like I have a lot of indoor teleport points around here. Or shoes." She lifted her bare, right, foot and stretched her toes. Cute, somehow.
"Maybe we can somewhere to portal from the top floor windows," John said. "Stair's over here. Now we better get moving, because my Agent-in-Charge says if DARPA kills us, I should walk it off and remember to file with HR before my internship expires."
"I still can't believe the FBI sent an intern to check a lead on the X-Men," Clarice said.
"Me either," John said as he punched through the wall to knock out the alarmed lock on the stairwell. It was easy, like a dream. Why did he think that? Not important right now. Why did he think that? Get your head in the game, John! "I guess they figured it was a crap lead. Anyway, if they hadn't I wouldn't have met up with you."
"Rez kid and aged out foster, together against the Man. Story of every cellblock ever."
"Eh, at least we're co-ed." Clarice gave him a smile and John got butterflies. Why did he feel like someone was smiling at him who wasn't Clarice? Weird.
Top floor. Also deserted. Funny. He couldn't smell anyone or hear anyone in the entire hospital. People made smells.
Clarice poked at the basket under one of those thingies nurses wheeled around, probably looking for slippers. "Why do I feel like we're being watched?"
"Yeah, no," John said. "I usually don't get that feeling because I know when I'm being watched. But yeah."
"Crap," Clarice said. "You've got to have more faith in your Faithful Indian Scout-fu, John. It's OP. Do you see any cameras?"
"Probably as good a time as any to make my entrance," said a strange voice in the silence. John practically had to peel himself off the ceiling. Like he just said, he wasn't used to being surprised out of video games. A middle aged man with a Jesus beard and long, curly brown hair, wearing one of those collarless hippie jackets that usually only that kind of girl could pull off, was talking. A man standing right there in the corridor where there hadn't been anyone to see, hear, or smell second ago.
"So." the middle-aged man said, "I've been reading your minds and projecting mental images. Creepy as hell, I grant you. On the other hand, like the song says, I was born this way. I hope we don't have to prove that you've been detained for questioning."
Five more people appeared out of nowhere, like hippie Jesus. An old woman with a definite family resemblance to both the man and Laura's little friend, Hope, the wide-shouldered, equally old current Director of the Hospital, Dr. McCoy, a pair of twins in their twenties that John didn't know from Adam, and Laura's dad, Mr. Howlett. The one that his Marine buddies said was some kind of Special Ops angel of death.
"I can't make a portal, John," Clarice whispered, as she said it, John noticed that one of the twins' hands was glowing red. Okay, take him out first if this turns into a fight, John thought. Mr. Howlett slid three long, metal claws popped out of his right hand. Yeah. As if.
"So let's get on with this," Hippie Jesus said. "We all have places to be in the morning. Tell me what you think you're doing here, John, Clarice."
John looked at Clarice. If either of them could talk their way out of this, it would be her.
Clarice said. "So, John's an FBI intern. The FBI figures the X-Men have a base within a hundred miles of New York and that it has some kind of cover. They've been checking out private schools for years, but John got the idea to try hospitals instead. Meanwhile, when I aged out of the system last year. I started looking for Dr. Summers, who used to write to the group home about me sometimes." Clarice paused, because she didn't like that conversation about fosters looking for their birth parents. "Turns out he used to be the director here. And, oh, by the way, DARPA has a surveillance ops running on the street outside, watching your next door neighbour kid, Laura Kinney. We got mixed up in it, and that's our story."
"Why surveillance? How did you get involved?" The curly-haired man prompted.
"Turns out that Laura and some friends escaped from a Mexican lab that was cloning people with superpowers. DARPA's in charge of American super agent work and is totally stoked with the idea of super clones. Way more reliable than waiting for someone to get bitten by a radioactive bat or whatever. Catch is, it only works with inheritable superpowers, which turns out to be a thing. They have a saliva test that finds people who inherit super powers. Me and John got "A"s! Which turns out to stand for "annihilate." Who knew? Anyway, Laura's living with her clone-daddy, but the other kids are undocumented. For some reason, instead of turning it over to INS, DARPA is watching Laura to see if she contacts the other kids. Oh, also, her Dad is super-scary and they want to keep tabs on him."
"And do you know why DARPA decided to try to kill you?"
"One of the agents on our private death squad got really explanatory after John broke his buddies. Turns out when people inherit superpowers, a lot of the time they're unstable. He says. A double tap down at the garbage dump is just a mercy killing. He says. Frankly, it sounds like pretty much everybody who starts manifesting superpowers at puberty is either "unstable" or a slave clone from a Mexican lab. Now that's creepy."
The Director cleared his throat. "Ever since the Nazis started studying birth supers in the camps for the war effort and found that one strain breeds true and pops up in new lineages, there's been a Nazi thing where they think they've discovered Homo God-damn superior and are on the frontline of the war for human evolution, Neanderthal versus Cro-Magnon, Part II. After the postwar rush to recruit those guys to fight the Cold War, the whole thing went mainstream. So that's you. Homo Superior, or alternatively, "life unworthy of life.' Also, because this is covered by the same "born secret" doctrine as atomic weapons, just knowing that you inherited superpowers puts you in violation of national security, so don't be going to the media."
"Homo superior?" Clarice said, sounding calm although John could hear her heart racing at the comment about inheriting. She'd need to talk about her family, after. "That's crazy!"
"It's not crazy," the Director said. "It's a rounding error. Forget about the mutants, species, evolution. The genetics of an intelligent species of eight billion is too complicated for molecular genetics or science fiction. Focus on what's real. There's about ten people born with our kind of superpowers in the world every year, and DARPA thinks its half that. The people who run the super powered side of national security don't need to think about Big Ideas. All they have to do is shoot two Americans a decade, all the loose ends are tied up."
"We don't want to be loos ends, Director McCoy. In fact, maybe I'm putting words in John's mouth, but we're fine with going on living. That's what you guys seem to be doing."
Dr. McCoy smiled. "Hide and Seek doesn't go very well if you let everyone into your hiding spot. But! We can let you in. Just, our house, our rules."
Clarice's hand slipped into his, squeezed. Yeah, John thought, not a line to use on a foster kid, but Dr. McCoy noticed her reaction, too. "Here are some home truths for you: Since the war, we have put together a community of 300 people, about half of them in America. There's about as many more of us out there on their own, and a lot of them are out there because they're unstable. That's it, that's all. All the baby daddies, all the single ladies, all the everybody. I don't know if either of you have done population growth equations, but it's going to take five hundred years before there's enough of us to swing a single Congressional District. I have no idea how you keep a secret for five hundred years, but that's basically what we have to do, all the while policing our own."
"So now what? We go live in another dimension, or a cloaked asteroid, or something?"
"No," the Director said, "This is about staying under the radar. You go live in trailer parks and and raise your kids to be plumbers and nurses, and let your neighbours think you belong to a tiny Jehovah Witness splinter group. And if you don't like it, you can go play with the sentinels."
Even conceding this...the source material changes so often that, to me, details like this are meaningless. Marvel isn't as bad as DC, but the stories are still on a drunkard's walk, if you look at em over the course of decades.
How many black characters existed *at all* in 1962? Much less Latino, Puerto Rican, Filipino, etc. etc. etc. Those limitations would be completely unreasonable when the story's set today. That's a major change in the underlying premises of the world...and the audience.
Introducing friends/expected romantic interests 'earlier than' in the comics is also dictated by the medium. There's only so much time in each movie; the more you want to tell the main story, the less you can move background aspects forward. People want to see MJ or Gwen earlier, rather than later. Similar things with Dr. Strange...how long, in the comics, did it take before we met Wong and Mordo? And I think they adjusted Wong's role a bit. No big deal, to me; it's part of the process of adapting to the medium.
The last-- unintentional, but an annual event nonetheless-- "tradition" of the Merryneum. It's bedtime, Jan 1. (Well, technically it's the wee hours of Jan 2, but we've been on a roll of productivity, and couldn't bring ourselves to stop.
Christmas was enjoyable, as were the seasonal birthdays. The entire thing was overshadowed by having lost three uncles this season (forgive me if I don't fret too much for a woman I've never met who managed twenty-odd years-- half a lifetime-- more than the oldest of them did), but we had a good time. We got to meet Chris and his wonderful family face-to-face, even if it was relatively briefly in terms of the time I would have liked to have spent with him (perhaps next time we can get in a quick game! ) Then the New Year, and the traditional meal--
those of you not from the south (and I think a year or two ago, I learned that was something on the order of all but two of you), the traditional meal for heading into the new year is blackeyed peas and greens. This year we had a massive pot of neck bones, oxtails and rice, and I managed to find six pounds of purple hulls (the best of blackeyed peas) still on the shelves, so I bought all of them), and against all odds, we found a couple pounds of frozen mustard greens (the second best of all greens, but the best ones don't grow here). Yes, it seems like a lot, but the superstition dictates that the more of these items you consume, the better your health and fortunes will be as you go forward, blah blah blah.
Problematically, it _does_ get a bit monotonous (except to me, I mean. For one, I am not a foodie-- not even _remotely_ a foodie, and have proven during the lean years some decades back that I can exist on the exact same thing, day after day, and not only not care, but mostly not even notice), but I have the advantage that blackeyed peas is one of those tiny handful of foods that I will, on occasion, actively seek out. They are delicious, and the purple-hull variety is the most perfect of the types. That's neither here nor there, of course. I was discussing the monotony.
So there's a late-ish lunch of stewed meat and rice, which has been slowly cooking into the rice pretty much all day, and it's delicious. This is consumed alongside all the peas and greens you can cram into your belly, meaning that supper is a small affair, and-- for reasons both superstitious and practical-- consists of smaller servings of lunch, particularly since it's all still simmering on the stove, making the peas more perfectly mushy and the rice so much more flavorful. It doesn't change the greens much, but hey-- mustard greens are awesome on their own, and we _did_ have an early fall last year, making them a bit more zesty than they might have been otherwise.
Nobody (except me, because I don't care) wants peas and greens for breakfast, though the rice and some eggs are well-received by everyone. Then comes lunch and later supper, which are used-- if you're lucky-- to eat even more of the peas and the greens. Remember: it's still New Year's Day, so it's your last chance to pack your guts with magic food. Ideally (and I've never had a problem with this), you have prepared more food for those two days than the entire family can eat; it wouldn't do to run out of this superstitious blessing now, would it?
Eventually, the day is over, and you head off for bed.
Suspiciously eyeing each other.
By silent agreement, you both end up sleeping on top of the covers, partly because it's hot, and partly because you have learned that a level of suspicion about the new year is important. Unfortunately, it's a bit chilly tonight.
You would think that at the ripe age of 61 I wouldn't worry about this quite as much, but remember that I do have a spinal injury. That means that, when she wants to be, she can be faster than I am-- way, way faster if she's feeling particularly evil.
Also, I have a type. Unlike most men, I will proudly tell anyone that I have a thing for strong women. I like to wrestle. Even back in school, the guys would be ogling the swimsuit models and I didn't give a damn. I was waiting for softball season because the new pitcher was smokin'.
And of course, the longer you stay together, the more your senses of humor grow together. Not completely, mind you-- each has their own preference, no doubt, but your tastes take on some seasoning from your partner and even from your shared experiences.
And for whatever reason, if you grew up sharing a bed with siblings, well-- dutch ovens are still hilarious, so long as you're the fastest and strongest.
Lawnmower Boy reacted to Pariah in Funny Pics II: The Revenge
Lawnmower Boy got a reaction from Lord Liaden in Mutants: Why does this idea work?
