The plot twist will actually see massive play too, it is way overpowered.”

Gee, thanks Tony Bedard. No, really

Re: Chamber – I thought his power was keeping him alive after he blew half his body apart, again?

MGK, write that.

Grant Morrison mentioned ‘Juggernauts’ as a mutant rock band. And, groan, ‘Sentinel Bait’.

But I agree, it’s an interesting idea. I think it ties in nicely with Morrison’s ‘U-Man’ idea — the idea of ‘mutant chic’, mutants as the ultimate symbol of subculture cool. It’s such an obvious idea, flowing naturally out of the premise.

Eh, whatever. Maybe Gambit can go and steal back all those de-powered mutants’ personalities.

Wasn’t there a mutant punk band at some point? Or am I conflating that with the “Jumbo Carnation” mutant fashion designer?

Wouldn’t a human “mutantcore” band be the ultimate sell out? “Never Mind the X-Men here’s the Gene Pistols” (Or, maybe, “The Bamf”

He’s a fun supporting character with a line in snappy patter and such a bad case of the girl-crazies that he tries to seduce a woman who literally can’t be touched without going into a coma. Trying to layer “depth” on that is like frosting cake with concrete.

(Oh, and my pre-Decimation idea was for a mini-series involving a struggling band that decides to reinvent themselves as “mutantcore”, only to find that a lot of bad stuff can go down when your fans can punch through battleship steel.)

Yes, that’s one of my main problems with Decimation (to hijack MGK’s thread still further). A lot of mutants have powers in lieu of characterisation: without being ‘the guy with feathers’ or ‘the rock guy’, they’re really not that interesting on their own.

Of course, part of the point of Decimation was to dramatically thin out the supporting cast. But if, like me, you think having a wide range of characters is to your net benefit (because you have a whole universe to play with, with its own rules and boundaries), all the Decimation has done is removed much of what made the Marvel Universe interesting.

I mean: Mutant Town would have had its own state representatives! The local congressmen would have competed for ‘the mutant vote’: fat, paunchy humans speaking about their empathy for mutants, turning a blind eye to Magneto’s activities to curry political favour. Isn’t there even a glimmer of interest in that?

So when Chamber lost his powers, he was left with no heart, lungs or lower jaw (but, presumably, was standing right next to an artificial heart, because he survived and later got rebuilt by a cult of Apocalypse-worshippers), but when Beak lost his powers he was turned into a generic blond pretty-boy.

He doesn’t have feathers, he can’t fly, he doesn’t have a beak. He doesn’t have much of a personality now, either.

His character card, and a plot twist called Beak Saves the Day.

The plot twist will actually see massive play too, it is way overpowered.

Since the more rarified the fetish the freaker it becomes a fetish that has only 192 outlets must be pretty freaky indeed. The less “normalized” the mutation the hotter the prospect. Beak (is he still alive? I haven’t read X-men since the Morrison run Lister is so fond of) could have his own groupies and internet shrines!

Isn’t that the plot of West Side Story?

Yeah…but, then again, that was unavoidable, given the Decimation. It’s very hard to have Mutant Town without actual mutants. The market for ‘Tales of the Middle East Side’, where guntoting valley girls fight Ashkhenazi Jews with cyborg arms, is neither broad nor deep.

My idea is predicated upon them repealing the Decimation, returning to the ‘visible and growing minority of mutants’ idea. Just wait till sales start dropping, they’ll throw anything at the wall to see if it sticks. For now, I can merely plot. And complain on blog comment threads, obviously.