Hey /co/, looking to start a discussion on self-contained superhero story arcs. Specifically, pitches for limited mini-series that shake up the status quo without needing a massive crossover event.Here’s a concept I’ve been cooking up for a Marvel 616 book. Let me know what you think of the dynamic and if a character like this could actually work in modern Marvel.
>>154202623:The government forces a new, high-tier powerhouse onto an existing team (or a newly formed government-sponsored squad). He’s incredibly powerful—heavy-hitter status—but completely untrained, raw, and emotionally volatile.He isn't a mutant, but he is a rabid, radicalized anti-mutant racist. He grew up in a dying rust-belt town where his dad blamed every single family misfortune on "mutants taking our jobs and ruining the country." The team frequently gets deployed to handle mutant-related incidents. Half the time, the mutants involved don't even care about politics; they're just people with powers causing accidental trouble. The team’s main struggle isn't just stopping the threat—it's actively holding back their own rookie, who wants to use lethal force on anyone with an X-gene. Early issues show flashbacks of his childhood, framing his dad's grievances as legitimate. But as the series progresses, the team investigates his background. The twist? There were never any mutants in his hometown. His dad was just an unqualified, bitter guy who used mutants as a scapegoat for his own failures. The protagonist's entire worldview is built on a lie.The Resolution: After a massive crisis where he has to team up with actual heroic mutants to stop a legitimate mutant threat, he witnesses the nuance firsthand. He realizes bad people are just bad people, and good people are good people. He ends the mini-series humbled, realized how badly he was conditioned, and resolves to judge people purely by their actions.Is the "deeply prejudiced powerhouse forced to unlearn his conditioning" a compelling enough hook for a 12-issue run, or would /co/ filter this immediately? How would you write the team dynamics?
>>154202631the problem with anything that tries to put muties in a good light is that five minutes later, they'll do something self-defeating, even when they're supposed to be heroic
>>154202708Go on?
>>154202623What?
I don't like mutant stories.
>>154202631>"deeply prejudiced powerhouse forced to unlearn his conditioning" a compelling enough hook for a 12-issue run, or would /co/ filter this immediately?Well calling it automatically gay wouldn't make sense considering that it's what Marvel has been doing since the 60s. My main issue would be how it would be written. For example, Magister yesterday storytimed the first 3 JMS asm issues and there was a school shooting that I don't feel forced and preachy because they explicitly showed the truth: many shooters are bullied and abused. They just snap. There was no political crap there.
>>154202631The problem is your allegory is clunky and doesn’t match up with real life that well. Immigrants have taken jobs away from Americans in real life, just this past year there have been multiple companies who have fired Americans only to then turn around and file for H1B visas to fill them.
>>154207059That doesn’t mean there aren’t people who blame immigrants or others when they’re not actually putting in the effort to find a job they’re qualified for. They might claim they can’t get a good job because immigrants took it for cheaper pay, even when there aren’t any immigrants in their hometown taking the kind of work they should be pursuing with their experience, skills, and education. And the so-called “mutants” aren’t immigrants at all—they’re legal American citizens with some unique trait that his dad was unfairly blaming for getting the job I should have had.
>>154202631/co/ has ONE idea and it's to put the racist redpilled self-insert into a story.
>>154207102Your last point laid out laid out one of the reasons why the allegory is clunky. Although now that I think about it, mutants being involved in stories with clunky allegories is pretty much their whole deal. So if you ever do land a job at Marvel I think it’ll do pretty well.
BUMP
With Spider Man #1000 coming up Marvel should have made a miniseries with Peter, Ben, and Kaine coming together and finally resolving their differences for a feel good moment.
>>154210148What?
