Readers take humanity’s side in X-Men’s mutant-human divide
With Great Power…
Much of Derrick Sanskrit’s InFamous: Second Son review drew on similarities between the new PlayStation 4 exclusive and the X-Men series, particularly their use of their mutants to explore the negativity that faces outsiders in the real world. Down in the comments, NakedSnake expressed some sympathy for the non-superpowered side of things.
I hate to admit it, but I’ve always sympathized with the human point of view in the X-Men comics. I mean, you’re dealing with a group of people where any given person has the power of an army battalion. What’s more, many of the powers are subtle enough that they can be exercised in all kinds of ways so that we wouldn’t even realize they were being used (e.g. telepathy). Even among the X-Men, there’s a wink-wink-nudge-nudge attitude toward abusing your powers for personal gain. At the end of the day, either the mutants would become outlaws and undermine our society or they would become lawful, in which case they would control our society. Either way, wielding that much power, it would almost be impossible for them to obey conventional morality. I think an instructive analogue is hackers. In many ways, they wield extraordinary power versus the conventional citizen. And whether they use that power for good or evil, they are all united in rejecting petty claims of the “morality” of their actions. Moral arrogance and power go hand in hand.
Mr. Pryce concurred:
Add to that that the fact that 80 percent of superheroes seem to be self-righteous teenagers who can barely navigate high school, let alone understand the concept of abuse of power.
That’s actually why I really locked into Marvel’s “Civil War” storyline, and primarily sided with the folks calling for the registration of superheroes. If you apply any real logic to the characters, the only way to maintain the rule of law and the integrity of society is to basically turn into a fascist regime when dealing with superpowered individuals.
It’s also one of the reasons I much prefer DC’s new incarnation of the Martian Manhunter. He’s an alien with powers comparable to Superman, plus he can phase through walls and shapeshift. Oh AND HE’S A TELEPATH. He isn’t a cuddly green teddybear. He’s the biggest threat to free will in history.
Derrick also touched on Second Son’s continued use of the InFamous series’ infamously binary “moral choices.” Newton Gimmick offered an explanation for why so many games do this wrong:
So many video game karmic systems tend to boil down to “being nice versus being a dick” rather than “right versus wrong.”
There’s a structural reason for this approach. The developers want your experience to be fundamentally the same regardless of what moral decisions you make. You explore the same areas, solve the same puzzles, and mostly fight the same battles regardless of your choices. Your decisions are manifested mostly in dialogue and cutscenes. (There are exceptions, of course. Lots of games have mutually exclusive quest lines.)