X-Men: Evolution/Headscratchers: Difference between revisions
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*** Consider who he's training them to fight: Magneto. The kind of guy who would have complex security systems, guards (mutant ones), and so forth. Not to mention potential government imprisonment, which happened, and the myriad other covert agencies which want mutants for their own purposes. In a normal world, it'd be excessive. In Marvel's world, it's your average Tuesday.
*** But on what authority does he unilaterally declare himself and his handpicked team to be humanity's protectors and law-enforcers? They may not be perfect, but there are ''reasons'' why every functional government on Earth maintains a state police force and national army. It's the same reason vigilante justice is outlawed and laws of war are agreed to. State-sponsorship ensures at least some accountability to the community and standards of behavior. Compare any even semi-functional country with an anarchic state like Somalia and this will be one of the most fundamental areas of difference
And at any rate, most of those problems occurred because of too much secrecy, not just human prejudice. They were taken into custody by the military because they had just trashed a city battling a giant robot, and no one in the government seemed to have any clue that they were even human. Of course they were assumed to be a threat. Especially when they wouldn't cooperate even after officials gambled and broke them out of the green resin. Once mutants became public knowledge, they may have been generally feared, but they were afforded all the same state protections enjoyed by any other citizen. Duncan and his thugs were arrested for attacking the Morlocks, and even if Kelly had managed to get the kids thrown out of school, it's doubtful it would have withstood a court challenge on even cursory grounds. The same reasoning holds for the various covert agencies they had to deal with. The Weapon-X program was only able to proceed as far as it did because of the almost complete vacuum in which decisions were made. If the general public had known of the program, could they have managed even a tenth of the atrocities? HYDRA's a terrorist organization, and thus already targeted by law-enforcement. Knowing about mutants would give even local law-enforcement agencies a better understanding of possible motivations and suspects, thus making their job easier and increasing the safety of citizens.
*** For starters, the military wouldn't exactly be much use against, say, Juggernaut. He stomped them in the third season. Magneto, too, would be too much to handle, at least until they got their act together. Really, there are a large number of mutants that normal human armies would really have no ability to handle. It's easy to prepare for a specific threat. Trying to prepare for hundreds of conceivable powers doesn't pan out so well. That's why the X-Men exist: to deal with threats that regular humans simply can't. Sure, there's no legal basis behind his work, but Xavier isn't the type to let that stop him.<br /><br />Despite the fact that battling a giant robot got them caught, and Magneto engineered it that way, you can't honestly believe it would be all fine and dandy to expose mutants normally. The reaction would be pretty much the same, just with less property damage and (probably) less arrests. You suddenly expose the unknown to people and the reaction will, with almost complete certainty, be mass panic and fear.▼
As for Magneto specifically, he's just a terrorist without HYDRA's massive organization behind him. So again, on what basis does Xavier and his team have the right to abrogate unto themselves the law-enforcement powers of the state, without the state's sanction? This is precisely what Magneto is doing in trying protect mutants from the perceived threat humans pose. Xavier may claim to wish to protect average humans as well, but he clearly doesn't respect them enough to follow the same laws everyone else is expected to. Magneto isn't a god, and as seen in the X-Men movies can be dealt with even by powerless humans - ''If'' they are given information on what they're dealing with.
▲*** For starters, the military wouldn't exactly be much use against, say, Juggernaut. He stomped them in the third season. Magneto, too, would be too much to handle, at least until they got their act together. Really, there are a large number of mutants that normal human armies would really have no ability to handle. It's easy to prepare for a specific threat. Trying to prepare for hundreds of conceivable powers doesn't pan out so well. That's why the X-Men exist: to deal with threats that regular humans simply can't. Sure, there's no legal basis behind his work, but Xavier isn't the type to let that stop him
Despite the fact that battling a giant robot got them caught, and Magneto engineered it that way, you can't honestly believe it would be all fine and dandy to expose mutants normally. The reaction would be pretty much the same, just with less property damage and (probably) less arrests. You suddenly expose the unknown to people and the reaction will, with almost complete certainty, be mass panic and fear.
* Well Xavier had to help the students learn to control their powers and probably figured that using the Danger Room to simulate actual missions would be more interesting and interactive than just sticking them in a room and saying "okay, do this".
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*** Xavier is teaching mutant's to [[Technical Pacifist|defend themselves from persecution, while ultimately working towards peaceful coexistence]]. Magneto is a mutant supremest, and (to paraphrase Grant Morrison) a mad, old terrorist twat who thinks mutants should replace humanity as the dominant life-form. ''That's'' the fundamental difference.
**** The X-Men have to prepared. Humanity and the Brotherhood are not their only enemies. In Evolution, the world at large does not know about mutants and Xavier is savvy enough to know that when they do, they will accept them. Governments will not sit by and allow such high-powered individuals roaming free. So not only do the X-Men need to practice to learn and control their powers and help save and protect people, but to protect themselves from the military and any other organization that would rather capture or destroy them. It's simple. But yes, it's a nice bit of irony that this level of preparedness makes it easy for mutant-haters to say mutants are trying to take over the world.
*** Bear in mind: 1) SHIELD never recruited the underaged 'child soldiers' for any mission (except for Apocalypse, see below). Nick Fury told Logan (A legal adult mutant with a centuries worth of experience and who had a personal or genetic connection to the mission) about the Rebirth Formula's theft and asked him for his help. Rogue and Nightcrawler insisted on helping since Logan needed them, even thought he was against it. The time X-23 broke into SHIELD, stole files on the X-Men, and left a large number of forensic details pointing towards Logan, Fury actually wanted Logan to have nothing to do with it until he was told Logan was the only one capable with dealing with X-23. The only time Fury interacts with anyone '''but''' Logan he wasn't recruiting them for a mission, but giving them help in secret as he couldn't actively assist them. Hell, the only time he ''does'' recruit them for any mission was to fight Apocalypse. That was only because they had more information/experience in dealing with him, had at least some connection to the 'Horsemen', and Rogue's power was the only way to beat him.
2) The Training for in breaking into complexes was to "save Storm" who had "been captured", so yes, any training was essentially Xavier being [[Crazy Prepared]] in case of any possible situation and came in handy when the aforementioned capturing of Mutants.
3) The "fully trained adult mutants" that Tropers insist exist are never seen. If they did exist, they probably were either not willing to help, didn't need Xavier's training, or did work for SHIELD but were on other missions, but couldn't be sent on public missions like the X-Men. SHIELD protects the world. The many emergency situations that need mutant help happening all the time likely made them too busy for any time.
4) The X-Men never did any vigilantism, except for the Bayville Syrens episode. In that episode, the actions were both (a) Unknown to Xavier who had 'nothing' to do with it [[Wild Mass Guessing|unless it was some complex]] [[Batman Gambit]] (b) obviously a terrible attempt by the Writers for a "girl power" episode but was laced with so much [[Ms. Fanservice|Fan Service]] and such a [[Non Sequitur Scene]] that we will not talk about it. The most they did was foil the Brotherhood's mischief and violence, which was not vigilantism as they never put them in jail but mostly just sent them home. They also saved people from accidents and mutant riots caused by the Brotherhood. In comparison to the ''other'' superheroes mentioned above, the X-Men did very little and were literally ''just'' heroes helping people.
5) In comparison to the comics version of Xavier, this version is mild. At least he doesn't keep a living computer a prisoner so he can train these students, or keep files on how to kill them, or even send a half trained group on a suicide mission, and then erase everyone's memory of the incident.
6) And lastly [[Professor X Likes Watching Teenagers Sweat]]. Fairly obvious.
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* Scott's eyes emit destructive blasts.<br />Scott wears special ruby-quartz glasses so he doesn't destroy everything he looks at.<br />Scott's glasses get knocked of his face about every other episode, and he must grope around blind looking for them.<br />Scott never even ''considers'' putting these glasses on a neck-cord or something.
* Inversely, it's the writers that just plain fail, as they couldn't figure out these things themselves, and that the guy who's supposed to be the tactical genius and young field leader for the team would've already thought of some of this himself...
** Or thought up some sort of ruby quartz contacts.
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I get that she was dangerous, but that place was abusive. She was locked in an unfurnished room and food was shoved through a slot in the door. When Xavier visited, it was obvious the orderlies who were restraining her held no kindness towards her. There was never any scene showing a psychiatrist or anyone trying to talk to her. So, what, he expected her to overcome her emotional issues all by herself, in a locked room, with only him occasionally coming to socialise with her? Why couldn't he have taken her to the mansion, have her regularly see a psychiatrist or someone, and, whenever she started to lash out using her powers, he use his powers to disable her like he did in his first scene with her? Or at least, used his powers/influence to get her transferred to a non-abusive facility where she could have gotten some actual help? After that episode, this troper despises the Evo incarnation of Professor Xavier.
* Actually, Evo!Xavier isn't that far off the comic version. Anyway, the place wasn't abusive, just careful as hell. When a little wiggle of the finger can melt steel and cause all sorts of bad luck, you need to be. One would assume Xavier at least made regular visits, not to mention other therapists and such. As for why he didn't keep her at the mansion, one wrong word and the building would collapse. She would require an inordinate amount of attention to keep in check. Sort of a lose lose situation. She wasn't exactly doing better at the psych ward, and wouldn't have been much better at the institute.
** True, she wasn't getting better in the institution. If anything, she was getting ''worse.'' Compare her eyes from the first time we see her in "The [[Hex]] Factor" to when we see her in flashbacks as a child. In the present her pupils are constricted and have a manic gleam to them as she fights to escape the wardens and Xavier. In the past, she has the look of a normal, ''terrified'' little girl, confused and scared enough that she isn't even fighting to get away - just twisting and squirming as she begs her father not to leave her. In the interim, we know that she was kept in an unfurnished room and fed through a slot in the door. Her hair also looks like it was sheared off with a butcher's knife - or more likely, child's safety scissors after being yanked into a rough ponytail. She has neither personal clothes nor even a stuffed animal to distract her from the fact that she was betrayed and abandoned by her father in the worst possible way. The staff are afraid of her and want as little to do with her as possible. The institution's entire approach toward her is not as a patient to be treated, but as a problem to managed
With all this in mind, is it any wonder that she became obsessed with revenge on her father? And that does seem to be her only source of mental instability. Once she's free of the institution, she functions well enough to travel, investigate leads, and keep herself fed and healthy, albeit with a complete lack of concern for property damage. But quite frankly, if you had spent most of your remembered in life a facility where 99.9% of everything was designed to control you, contain you, strip of you of powers and pry and poke you like a lab animal, would you be worried about trashing a couple doors later on? In conclusion, Magneto and the employees at the institution he chose created a genuine mental instability in a normal little girl who's only crime was being unable to her control her emotions when her power to warp reality was intimately tied to them. A girl who had been naturally upset that her father was more concerned with world domination than being with his own children. He didn't even keep Pietro in the end, dumping him with an unknown guardian and needing a way to approach him later.
Xavier exacerbated this situation by leaving Wanda where she was, still with no firm human connections to distract her from her father's betrayal. He even seems to condone the institution's treatment of her as a specimen to be studied rather than girl to be healed, seeing as he didn't even blink when told that her desperately needed therapy was being cut short for MRI's, let alone protest the interruption. And however often his sessions with her were, they couldn't have been that frequent, seeing as not even Scott or Jean had any idea of her existence, not even a recognition of "Oh, that was where he was going every weekend...." Xavier saw her at his convenience and left her to hang until she proved that she wouldn't be a burden on his time or resources, exactly as her father did.
*** I can't recall if Charles ever said how long he'd been counseling her. If you assume he took a bit (because I seriously doubt Magneto phoned the mansion to tell Charles "She's your problem now"), that would be plenty of time for the abandonment issues to set in good and leave her a very angry person. Combine that with her power and escalation of force, it is necessary to keep her in line. In short, the situation was just a train-wreck, and everything they did amounted to simply watching it. If they had treated her well, her anger might have abated somewhat, but one mention of her father and the building would be rubble. Once Wanda gets going, there's very little that can stop her.
**** I chalk up his decision (read "dick move") to a "Plutonian Syndrome" - his response to Wanda's incredible levels of power wasn't care and awe and wonder but fear and desire to have some sort of controlling mechanism in place and damage control for only ''potential'' damage. In short, he was so very afraid of the potential consequences of not having her under lock and key, and condoned study of her in order to find a way to neutralize her. I mean, Evo or not, this coming from a man who keeps detailed info about every single individual under his care, including but not limited to ways of putting them down. Besides, Evo!Xavier was rarely intrusive psychically, but he did actively coerce Wanda (if I recall correctly) to calm down by "suggestion." Suggestion in quotes
Wanda gets better upon release because Mystique, in a rather simplistic way, gives her a target to focus her anger on. She was unstable at the institution because she was surrounded by enemies, and once that was narrowed she became functional. Xavier's problem was trying to get rid of that core anger issue without paying attention to the other factors, but in this series he does have a habit of making somewhat poor judgment calls. I think he was trying to bribe her, in a way. He knew the institution would keep her under thumb, and she'd have to get better if she wanted to leave. But this only works so well. The issue would only really resolve by getting to Magneto, and that would never happen.
So yeah, no one really went about it the right way, but given that the girl is literally bad luck to everything, one might excuse their errors in judgment as overly cautious behavior, especially in context that mutants are a secret and she is anything but subtle.
* I have a theory on this...it could be that Magneto simply asked Xavier to not release Wanda. Remember, though they're arch-enemies, Charles and Eric are still best friends with differing viewpoints...So would it be too much of a stretch for Magneto to say "Hands off" when it comes to his own daughter, and Xavier would respect that?
** If that's the case, he's still horrible in my book. You don't agree with your friend grounding their kid or taking away privileges until kid does something but friend tells you to back off, you back off. If friend is actually abusing kid (and I do consider the mental institution to be abusive), you don't back off. The kid, whether you have any genuine affection for them or not, is more important than your friendship. Or at least, in my book, it is.
*** There's the possibility that Magneto didn't tell Xavier ''anything''. Xavier just found out that Magneto had dumped his daughter some years ago at a mental hospital and left her. By the time he went to find Wanda, she was so screwed up and dangerous that he couldn't take her to his school right away and instead started trying to rehabilitate her.
* I would assume the main reason why Xavier didn't take Wanda out of the mental institution himself was because he's just not her guardian. She's underage, and he has no legal claim over her. Her own father put her there, presumably for a good reason. Sure, Xavier could've sued for custody under the term of child abuse, but good luck trying to put her on the stand to testify, and good luck trying to get Magneto to make an appearance. That could've taken a long time and putting Wanda through a complex legal procedure probably wouldn't have helped her any. Mystique, on the other hand, was already Pietro's temporary guardian of sorts (uh, I assume), so it's likely she'd have more of a chance to get Wanda out of the institution without too much legal fuzz. Not to mention, given her working relationship with Magneto, and the fact that he's a known terrorist whose aliases are not nearly good enough as a shapeshifter's, it's not unlikely that he would've given Mystique some kind of legal power to "handle his business"
== In the Middleverse episode... ==
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* For those who don't remember, you can check it out [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iw09CN35idk here] at 13:20.
* Kitty is supposed to be a computer genius in the comics. Guess they forgot their medium for a minute. Though, to be fair, Kitty shows herself to be fairly smart after mutants are exposed, knowing exactly how to short out a helicopter's weapon system without knocking down the entire craft.
* In her introductory episode, one of the two [[Alpha Bitch
== What's with Kurt hating Mystique's guts at the end of the finale? ==
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*** Still doesn't explain why she didn't try to push it through faster when it became clear she couldn't stop it. Even if she couldn't effect it after Kitty started phasing, the extra momentum might have been enough. We'd already seen Kitty phase the X-Jet through a mesa. She collapsed afterward, but the briefness of the massive phasing seemed to be what allowed her to accomplish it.
*** Kitty acted on her own, for starters. That limits Jean's ability to work as a team. Even if they had been, again, it's a train. She'd have to hit it with a lot of force to get it moving faster. Kitty managed to phase the jet through the mesa because it was moving many times faster than a train through an object that was about the same length.
* She didn't try to stop it because there was no time; she had just finished stopping the ''other'' train, which left her with very little room to stop the first train. When she realized she couldn't slow it down significantly, the train was already feet away from the other one, and kitty was ready to phase through. She couldn't lift the train off the tracks because that would be counter-productive: she'd be fighting against ''two'' forces instead of
== Having alternative control-methods over your powers is a bad idea. ==
I don't the full details since it's been long time since I saw this episode, but Havok and Cyclops agreed to join Magnetos experiment which enhanced their powers to the point where they could fully control them in the season one finale. Before that, Cyclops couldn't control his beams at all due to brain damage, and Havok's powers could burst out randomly and hurt him constantly even when not active. The only side effect was that both turned into splitting images of Magneto. (Everyone else turned into an enhanced images of themselves, how does it work?). And then, when Jean finds out, she gives the whole 'I don't know you anymore'-speech. Not because they joined Magneto, but because of the results. She bitched about them finally having control over their powers.
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== Why Does Wolverine just leave the students to die in Season 3? ==
In the second episode of S3, after they've been found by the military thanks to Logan himself, he runs off, taking his moterbike with him. He believes at the time that they aren't ready yet, but doesn't bother to help them escape even though it was his idea to fight them. All just because Scott said it wasn't a good idea and should instead take them out peacefully. He left a bunch of teenagers, aged
* Even though Logan is totally irresponsible in this instance, he is well aware of what the team can do. Abandoning them like that was a dick move, but his issue wasn't that they ''couldn't'' beat the military flat out, it was that Scott refused to use lethal force. Logan thus knew that the team could and no doubt would pwn the attack choppers one way or another, and thus left them over a difference of opinion in doing so. Again, childish but not completely negligent.
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