Opal

Certainly.  The practice was endemic to every historical civilization, so virtually every source of inspiration for pre-modern fantasy cultures.  Besides, slavers make great villains - they're like fantasy Nazis, that way.  And, it gives the stereotypical barbarian hero - who is uncivilized, so maybe comes from a culture with no such institutions -  a little moral high ground, from which, with some irony, to project our post-modern de rigueur abhorrence.  

I suppose another strike against it is age.   60 years ago, speaking out against segregation, even metaphorically, was fraught - you might not have been blacklisted for it like a commie in the prior decade, but it would have been reasonable to fear loss of readership, for instance.  Today, even the most cynical, soulless corporations fervently declare their commitment to inclusion.
Like how Star Trek, in the 60s, was groundbreaking and courageous, but by the 80s was feeling trite and preachy, and it might not be long before reruns of TOS gets a Gone-With-the-Wind style forward alerting the viewer to all the rampant Patriarchy they're about to witness.
 
 

I don't think that makes a difference, really.  Every sort of super-origin has produced both heroes and villains, is obviously cause for concern, but the mutant origin is singled out for bigotry.
 
Still sounds plenty irrational.  
 
It does not have to be that extreme, no. 
 
  It's easy and facile to create a narrative of RL bigotry that paints the bigot as utterly malicious or utterly stupid or both. It's comforting because it absolves anyone with an milligram of self respect from thinking they might engage in bigotry, themselves.  It's dangerous for the same reason.
 
You don't have to just lie, you can always use the lie's kissing cousin, the statistic.   The Nazi doesn't just go "check out the Protocols of the Elders of Zion," he points out, did you know, here in Weimar Germany,  that Jews are diproportionately represented among Bankers?  Then he hands you the Protocols. 
 
RL bigots have pointed to violent crime, high birth rates, - even positive like education and professional success  - to lay the foundations for fear, jealousy, and/or scapegoating.
 
Mutant powers are like violent crime statistics, turned up to 11, as an (in-fictional-world)-factual basis for irrational fears.
 
So, yeah, I do see the problem with that, the threat is too easy to see, that way. 
And, I guess., again, where do you draw the suspension- of disbelief line is an issue, too.
 

I haven't been reading Marvel comics for some decades, so correct me if I'm wrong, but Marvel Mutants can be born to typical human couples, and "humans" and "mutants" can mate and produce fertile offspring (scientific definition of the same species)?
 
Bigots /can/ & do point to contemporary genetic testing for relative occurrence of various markers to show genetic differences, and they can point to all sorts of statistics that 'prove' meaningful differences between themselves and the objects of their ire (who, in turn, can point to the same statistics as proof of oppression). 
 
Ultimately, it comes down to what you choose to believe.  If you want to arbitrarily define a group as Other and persecute them, you can, and you can come up with 'real' reasons to rationalize what you're doing, people who want to join you will find those reasons real (regardless) and compelling (though it's the group cohesion gained from Othering the out-group that's compelling), and those who want to oppose you can poke holes in them and hopefully persuade most more rational people not to join you.  
 
Maybe the willing suspension of disbelief traditional in the genre is problematic for that metaphor, since it's easy for the reader to accept "mutants are different because some of them have powers and some look different and all ping a 'mutant detector,'" as part of the willing suspension of disbelief that allows for superpowers &c in the first place.  Or, maybe it's just that much more powerful, because it lets you - hopefully very uncomfortably - into the mind of the bigot who /really believes/ in the differences among the arbitrary races (or whatever) he choses to believe in, all evidence to the contrary subject to rationalization and confirmation bias.   OTOH, I couldn't quickly find any confirmation that Marvel canon says Mutants aren't human and are destined to supplant humanity - seems some mutants on Magneto's side of the fence believe that, and some humans fear it, is all.  OTOOH, I could find virtually nothing about non-powered mutants, which makes me wonder what the X-gene is supposed to be or how it's supposed to work in the Medelian sense, at all....?
 
 
 
 

There's a story like that about RL racism, too:  Tom Driscoll in Mark Twain's Puddn’head Wilson.
 
Like Marvel's mutant-hating metaphor, racism doesn't actually make sense or hold together logically, because the arbitrary definitions of race can oblige the committed racist to flip-flop from embracing an individual as a brother to hating him (or vice versa) with proof of pedigree - like the a wave of the metaphorical mutant-detector.
 
(ps: I hope I'm not appearing too strident on this topic.)
 

I suppose another strike against it is age.   60 years ago, speaking out against segregation, even metaphorically, was fraught - you might not have been blacklisted for it like a commie in the prior decade, but it would have been reasonable to fear loss of readership, for instance.  Today, even the most cynical, soulless corporations fervently declare their commitment to inclusion.
Like how Star Trek, in the 60s, was groundbreaking and courageous, but by the 80s was feeling trite and preachy, and it might not be long before reruns of TOS gets a Gone-With-the-Wind style forward alerting the viewer to all the rampant Patriarchy they're about to witness.
 
 

I read "released in the early 1990s" and thought to myself "oh, something new" and then remembered it is 2021 and I felt old again

There's a story like that about RL racism, too:  Tom Driscoll in Mark Twain's Puddn’head Wilson.
 
Like Marvel's mutant-hating metaphor, racism doesn't actually make sense or hold together logically, because the arbitrary definitions of race can oblige the committed racist to flip-flop from embracing an individual as a brother to hating him (or vice versa) with proof of pedigree - like the a wave of the metaphorical mutant-detector.
 
(ps: I hope I'm not appearing too strident on this topic.)
 

I think it rings true on several layers. First of all, as noted above, mutants have been used to tell parallel stories about civil rights struggles. Originally race was often the salient comparison, but in recent years, parallels have been drawn to sexual minorities.
Second, the Silver Age was a time of social upheaval. Mutants could be your kids, anybody's kids. The message being that we should have compassion for each other, even if we are drawn into battles that weren't ours to begin with.
Third, there is a message of individuality. The mutants is a very American story. Someone who can walk through walls or lift a bus isn't just different, they are powerful. And there can be an impulse to lash out when we see others have a power we don't have. But ultimately, for society to work, we have to have some faith in each other. We might worry about someone taking a rifle and shooting up a story, or rioters tearing up a store, or cop abusing their authority, or an education system misinforming our children. But to actually solve those problems requires seeing past the person in front of us, and envisioning how a society operates where we are all free, and where we have the potential to do good or harm. We see this fear in an older generation looking down at a younger generation with access to online tools they never dreamed of, and a younger generation looking at an older generation on a road they no longer with to follow, with old ideas about politics, the environment, and so forth. So I think there is a powerful metaphor in the mutant, that of someone who is powerful but whose right to make decisions has to be respected. And Magneto represents the banding together with your own kind for protection, and Professor X represents trying to find a connection with the wider world so there can be some hope.
Fourth, mutant powers are really about human potential. With our minds and our technology we can completely change the world like no other animal ever has on Earth. Mutants represent those among us whose capabilities drag us into the future, whether we are ready or not. A mutant who can read your mind is like a phone that can read your shopping history; a mutant who can defeat an army is like a versatility aircraft; a mutant who can control others is like a pathogen unleashed by a careless lab or a desperate terrorist; a mutant who can walk through walls is like a kid who hacks the school's computer network and changes their grades. Nuclear power, information networks, cloning, weaponry... our evolution has prepared us for none of these things, which are both opportunities or threats. So mutation is a metaphor for "what can arise among humanity that could save us or doom us."

So, yes, OT1H, all the reasoning around mutant hysteria does fall down upon examination, but then as a metaphor for racism, that works, because the rationalizations an constructs of racism, and race itself, also don't hold up to dispassionate scrutiny.
 
OTOH, the consistent presentation of a group as dangerous is just part of prejudice against that group.  Maybe Marvel should have introduced a lot more non-/trivially- powered but obvious mutants as 'extras' in background scenes and as victims of mutant hysteria, to make that point more clearly?
 
Personally, that still feels on-point for me as a metaphor of the crazy ways race can work.  In past times and places, there were racists who were absolutely certain they could tell a Jew or an Irishman or whatever at a glance, while today, we don't see it, like, at all.  
 
Certainly, tho, a story or two of a mutant spreading around a mutate or mystic origin story as a way of "Passing" might've been a nice idea.
 
OK, well, I can agree to disagree on that point.  I quite like allegory as a literary technique.  It allows the reader to look at the logical structure and moral/ethical implications of a real-world phenomenon without all the unexamined emotional attachment they may have to it.  Sure, some of us can be super-dispassionate without any such crutch, but even if all of us could, it can still be an aesthetically pleasing literary device.

Its not irrational to fear gangbangers or rapists, either.  It is irrational to fear all black men because there are black gangs, or all men because virtually all rapists are men.
 
Bigots always point to a reason to fear the object of their bigotry - it's not always a made up reason, it's the generalization that's, if not entirely irrational, simply wrong.
 
Yeah, Magneto is a living engine of mass destruction, but other mutants just look different.  
 
 

That's an apt metaphor for racist Replacement Theory.
 

So, yes, OT1H, all the reasoning around mutant hysteria does fall down upon examination, but then as a metaphor for racism, that works, because the rationalizations an constructs of racism, and race itself, also don't hold up to dispassionate scrutiny.
 
OTOH, the consistent presentation of a group as dangerous is just part of prejudice against that group.  Maybe Marvel should have introduced a lot more non-/trivially- powered but obvious mutants as 'extras' in background scenes and as victims of mutant hysteria, to make that point more clearly?
 
Personally, that still feels on-point for me as a metaphor of the crazy ways race can work.  In past times and places, there were racists who were absolutely certain they could tell a Jew or an Irishman or whatever at a glance, while today, we don't see it, like, at all.  
 
Certainly, tho, a story or two of a mutant spreading around a mutate or mystic origin story as a way of "Passing" might've been a nice idea.
 
OK, well, I can agree to disagree on that point.  I quite like allegory as a literary technique.  It allows the reader to look at the logical structure and moral/ethical implications of a real-world phenomenon without all the unexamined emotional attachment they may have to it.  Sure, some of us can be super-dispassionate without any such crutch, but even if all of us could, it can still be an aesthetically pleasing literary device.

Its not irrational to fear gangbangers or rapists, either.  It is irrational to fear all black men because there are black gangs, or all men because virtually all rapists are men.
 
Bigots always point to a reason to fear the object of their bigotry - it's not always a made up reason, it's the generalization that's, if not entirely irrational, simply wrong.
 
Yeah, Magneto is a living engine of mass destruction, but other mutants just look different.  
 
 

That's an apt metaphor for racist Replacement Theory.
 

Which just makes it that much better a metaphor for racism, since the very concept of race also falls apart on close inspection.

Gynoid
 
Paige Lari, reclusive co-founder of tech titan, Moogle, best know for its descending order of morality search result algorithm, retired in 2019 to become a superhero named after her company's popular operating system.
As Gynoid, Paige sports a custume, battlesuit, or perhaps holographic forcefield projection, of a glowing blue, idealized, statuesque female form topped with her undisguised notoriously nerdy face including her trademark rectangular reading glasses. 
In combat or emergency situations, she produces powerful blasts, fields, and persistent energy constructs that behave much like solid objects.
While her head is always visible it's actually protected by a virtually invisible fishbowl helmet or force globe.
Whatever sufficiently-advanced technology she uses seems to blur the line between energy and matter.

OK some analysis:
 
The thing is, bare Dispel works well: on average you're going to get exactly the active cost or better on average that you paid for the dispel.
 
ACTIVE                AVG
COST      DICE    ROLL
   10         3d6       10
   20         7d6       24
   30        10d6      35
   40        13d6      45
   50        17d6      59
   60        20d6     70
 
Its when you start adding modifiers to it that things get odd.  
 
+¼ Advantage
ACTIVE                AVG
COST      DICE    ROLL
   10         2½d6    9
   20         5d6      17
   30         8d6      28
   40        10d6     35
   50        13d6     45    
   60        16d6     56
 
+½ Advantage
ACTIVE                AVG
COST      DICE    ROLL
   10         2d6        7
   20       4½d6     16
   30       6½d6     23
   40       8½d6     30
   50        11d6      38
   60        13d6      45
 
Now, this happens with damage too; a 60 active point blast with penetration is 8d6 (28 average stun) or with armor piercing is 9½d6 (33 stun) with damage instead of 12d6 (42 average stun).  That's usually not a problem because the advantages increase effect on the target, such as halving defenses. 
 
But dispel is all or nothing; it works or it does not, and modifiers don't increase that effect.  You can buy armor piercing, for example, but it doesn't do anything unless the target has power defense.  So advantages just strip down power and you get less and less effect.  In a fantasy campaign, for example, you're going to tend to have fairly broad advantages on dispel, such as "affects all magic" which will strip down the effect of dispel significantly and making it fairly weak.
 
So if that effect was true of damage, it would be as if none of the advantages actually increased impact and instead was stuff like Variable Special Effect, Reduced END Cost, and Increased Range.  You'd just do less damage to your targets and it wouldn't feel like it was ever worth advantages.
 
The problem here is that Dispel acts like an attack, but isn't really.  It acts like a defense too, but its aggressive; it targets and takes effect as Shrike noted.  So its a hybrid that is neither fish nor fowl and the rules don't work precisely on Dispel.
 
The trick is to find a way to combat that effect, without making it too effective.

Beatdown
 
Charli Madison had been a fighter all her life. Trained by her ex-boxer father Chuck "Mad Dog" Madison at the age of 10 she excelled at the sweet science. She dominated as an amateur and was well on her way in the pros when a serious eye injury forced her into early retirement from the ring. During her fighting days she had been exposed to Detroit's criminal world and would eventually become an enforcer and debt collector for The Commission. The Commission was a new organization set to try and take over in Detroit and replace the gangs and the last vestiges of the Mob. To this end they wanted to boost Charli to the next level. She acquired super strength and reflexes through drug enhancements provided by the criminal chemist The Fix. The Commission also had some armor boots and gauntlets made to provide protection and more offensive capability. Lastly her hi-tech shades protect her injured eye and compensate for her blindspot. Her work with the Commission as Beatdown has brought her into conflict with hero team the Motor City 6 and the reformed alien invader turned bouncer named Brawl.

Thought I would throw an image out there to try and rekindle this thread. Maybe we loosen things up a bit and just forgo the picking winners deal and just let people post ideas and their own images if they wish. 

I think the problem with the portrayal in Marvel isn't the existence of anti-mutant bigotry, but its almost universal status.  It would have worked a lot better if most people shrugged at it, but a mean, nasty group hated mutants for being mutants.  That would not only fit bigotry better (no group has ever been universally bigoted or been discriminated against) and would carry more impact.

So, yes, OT1H, all the reasoning around mutant hysteria does fall down upon examination, but then as a metaphor for racism, that works, because the rationalizations an constructs of racism, and race itself, also don't hold up to dispassionate scrutiny.
 
OTOH, the consistent presentation of a group as dangerous is just part of prejudice against that group.  Maybe Marvel should have introduced a lot more non-/trivially- powered but obvious mutants as 'extras' in background scenes and as victims of mutant hysteria, to make that point more clearly?
 
Personally, that still feels on-point for me as a metaphor of the crazy ways race can work.  In past times and places, there were racists who were absolutely certain they could tell a Jew or an Irishman or whatever at a glance, while today, we don't see it, like, at all.  
 
Certainly, tho, a story or two of a mutant spreading around a mutate or mystic origin story as a way of "Passing" might've been a nice idea.
 
OK, well, I can agree to disagree on that point.  I quite like allegory as a literary technique.  It allows the reader to look at the logical structure and moral/ethical implications of a real-world phenomenon without all the unexamined emotional attachment they may have to it.  Sure, some of us can be super-dispassionate without any such crutch, but even if all of us could, it can still be an aesthetically pleasing literary device.

Fear rarely makes logical sense.

<curious> Such as? I've been out of comics for a while, but as of the time I stopped reading Marvel (1990s) I don't recall there being any mutants who simply looked different. OTOH there were lots of mutants with dangerous powers who looked like ordinary humans. Most of them, in fact.
 
Okay, I can see the parallel quasi-reasoning:
 
"Some gangbangers are Black. Theefor, I believe that all Black people are gangbangers. I shall ignore all the Black people who aren't gangbangers, and all the gangbangers who aren't Black."
 
goes to:
 
"Some mutants are dangerous supervillains. Therefor, I believe all mutants are dangerous supervillains. I shall ignore all the mutants who aren't dangerous supervillains, and all the dangerous supervillains who aren't mutants."
 
I still think it falls down because, based on the characters presented, most mutants have powers that would make them extremely dangerous if they chose to be: more so than even the most suicidally determined, non-super human being.
 
It might have emotionally rang true to me if Marvel had shown more instances of super-powered people being falsely accused of being mutants. (I remember one instance, but that's it.) So perhaps it isn't the bigotry that rings false to me, as the apparent magical power that people have to tell that a mutant character is a mutant and not some other sort of superhuman.
 
(In my own campaign settings, there are a few "mutant suremacists" because there's no idea so crazy that someone won't believe it, but most people regard mutants with envious admiration for their luck in being born with super-powers. People hope they are mutants too, who just haven't discovered their powers yet. OTOH, in my worlds there are no handy-dandy "mutant detectors" -- the only way to tell is a detailed genetic analysis -- so "muytant" often means merely, "I don't know why I have powers.")
 
Dean Shomshak

Based on my experiences around dessert, I doubt my willpower would be enough to make a Green Lantern Ring light up more than the one my kids got from the gum machine.