I'm pretty sure Ronny Howard is a mutant.

     Looking back on this mutant "phenomenon" in Marvel comics, I kind of find that I really liked it when it was just the core X-Men comic and maybe one or two spinoffs (New Mutants, Wolverine solos).  It kept the characters fairly planted in the uniqueness of their setting without leaping into the confusion that we have these days.

     Shortly after John Byrne left the title, Marvel started going ape-blank in the concept.  Soon, I was reading somewhere that the Falcon (!! of all characters) was explained as being a mutant with telepathic links to his trained falcon in a miniseries published during the 1990s.  "Lazy writing", indeed!

     I think the X-Men would've turned out better if they didn't have much of a change in their lineup over the years, but there were younger mutants brought in periodically as supporting characters who appeared as freshman students at their school.  Keep the character count small, and refrain from producing endless spinoffs that only serve to dilute the brand!  (I'd be okay with the occasional miniseries, if it's done well.  No more than that!)

     The current status of the X-Men is even more annoying to me as a past reader.  Wasn't it the Professor's aim to help mutants integrate into society, either by training them to control their powers properly and use them for benevolent purposes, or setting an example with the X-Men where the normal humans would see that not all of them were like Magneto?  Now they've set themselves apart in a separatist "X-Nation".  So much for the Professor's dream...

     Marvel, of course, is going to "resolve" this... by having the X-Men split up into factions over this.  One group being the hard core separatists, and the other wanting to resume the pursuit of Professor X's cause.  It would've been much better if Magneto was the one who had "X-Nation" while the X-Men opposed his designs to drag other mutants into an all-out war on humanity.

Craig you give an excellent and awesomely unbiased recap of that
storyline.

***

I know it wasn't exactly Murrow-esque.  I'm at working in the mornings, so I must skip the foreplay and get straight to the, "do not buy this book ever, under any circumstance."  Less of a review, more of a caution sign.  "Warning: Terrible Storytelling Ahead."

In a nutshell, my fundamental problem with AVENGERS: INITIATIVE was that instead of showing how fun it would be to have superpowers and be trained by veterans, it was an absolutely horrifying book.  MVP gets his head blown off in training by his own teammate.  Then a Nazi super-villain cloned him and turned them into the Iron Spiders (that part started out awesome, but turned nasty).  Cloud 9's tale was not that of a good-hearted teen finding her courage, it was turning an innocent into a killer.  Hardball was not a guy with a shady past overcoming the negative influence in his life to save his friends, it was one of betrayal to save his own skin while trying to knock boots with Lizard Girl. 

Ok, less of a nutshell, but in essence, A:I could have been a fun book for youngsters about youngsters learning to control their powers and the trials and tribulations (and fun) of becoming superheroes.  Instead, it was FULL METAL JACKET for kids ill-equipped to fight a crazy ass Hulk and his cabal of alien invaders.  I'm not trying to convince anyone who enjoyed it to change their minds or anything.  I own my subjectivity on the matter.

What upsets me about the current crop of mutant books is that I just don't recognise anyone.

Prof X has been turned in to a manipulating, lying, horrible man, Cyclops is STILL shacked up with a woman that tried on numerous occasions to kill teenagers, Nightcrawler is dead and the stories seem to concentrate more on new characters that are completely uninteresting, possibly because they all look the same when drawn by Greg Land.

The only interest I have had since Morrison strated his go (And I include his take in the uninterested bit) was when Joss Whedon was writing.

Remender's current X-Book, Uncanny X-Force, is quite good.  It's a manageable cast (Logan, Warren, Wade, Betsy, Fantomex).  Remender finds just the right tone and level of sarcasm with Wade.  Not too much, not too little. 

If you do not like Morrison characters, Fantomex might grate on you a bit.  I've found Remender's Fantomex to be much more tolerable than Morrison's initial run with him. 

They are currently in a crossover with the Age of Apocalypse universe trying to keep Warren from fully manifesting into the next Apocalypse of "our" universe.

Uncanny X-Force, Venom (both by Remender) and Waid's new Daredevil are my favorite books so far this year.

From Sergio Massacres Marvel:

(X-Men member): "Why, why the world does hate us? Why the world hates the mutant minority?"

(ordinary man): Actually, in Marvel comic books non mutants are the minority."

And that was so true!

Thanks JB for the one in a million concept for mutants. That actually makes some logistical sense. And it allows for other super powers too.

So has anyone taken the time to figure what the Marvel population of mutants currently is? Or "was" depending on which time in Marvel history? What I mean is has anyone gone through the Marvel Universe Handbook and actually physcially counted the numbers of mutants?

So has anyone taken the time to figure what the Marvel population of mutants currently is?

***

Currently approximately 200 mutants left in the world, most of whom live off the coast of San Francisco on Utopia, which is actually a modified Asteroid M.

As for how many ever?  Good question. 

Carmen Bernardo: "Soon, I was reading somewhere that the Falcon (!! of all characters) was explained as being a mutant with telepathic links to his trained falcon in a miniseries published during the 1990s.  "Lazy writing", indeed!"

80s, but in defense of Owsley, the "Falcon may be a mutant" bit came from the 70s (during the X-Men's inactive period) in the Englehart Captain America run (circa Cap #172).  Owsley was following on from that.  Unfortunately, he'd forgotten about the post-Englehart story (circa Cap #189) that explained the real reason for Sam's greater than usual connection with Redwing.  (Red Skull playing with the Cosmic Cube, which admittedly isn't much better. :-) )