Gary Kleppe wrote:
Time to put my three yen into this discussion....
I think a point people might be missing here is that in the Marvel universe --
which this story, if not a full crossover, draws from -- there exists a
prejudice and suspicion against mutants that doesn't extend to other types of
super-powered humans. Characters like the Fantastic Four or the Avengers have
never really been harrassed the way that the X-men have.
One notes that this is because the Avengers have developed such a high
reputation over their years of superheroics that even when a known
mutant joins, the very fact that they are an Avenger tends to make them
considered acceptable. The Beast was very popular as an Avenger.
The Scarlet Witch not quite so popular...but then that's fallout from
having the poor judgement to have joined an organisation called
the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants. (Boy that Magneto, what a public
relations wizard. If he organised a superhero team he'd probably
call them "The Puppy Killers".)
The main problem of course is that the X-men have self-identified as
mutants, while most "human" superheros have announced their origin
stories whether it's "Super-Soldier Serum" or "Mr Stark built me this
keen outfit".
(Others like Spiderman
and the Hulk have been, but of course for vastly different reasons.)
Spiderman has been suspected of being a mutant, but he's such a New York
fixture that people have gotten used to him, mutant or not. It helps of
course that he never joined the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants and that
giant mutant hunting robots don't follow him around.
This is the
simple result of having different dramatic needs in different comic series that
co-exist in the same fictional continuity, but it's not hard to justify it in
story terms. Just the existence of someone like Magneto, who views mutants as
the master race, who is openly working to subjugate the rest of humanity to
mutants and has the power to make it possible, would be enough to cause an
outbreak of fear and suspicion among the general public.
What's missing, I think, is some way for Akane in this story to be identified as
a mutant as opposed to just some random super-type. If you can establish that
there's some sort of distinctive feature that a mutant (and no one else) has,
something that Akane and all the people who are turning hostile to her can
recognize, then I think it would solve a lot of the problems that people are
having with this.
I think the way to go would be to have Akane manifest some kind of
physical peculiarity with her powers. That would tend to establish
that it isn't simply a new martial arts technique, which would be
regarded with a certain amount of admiration. Antennae, or all
white eyeballs, or having her hair constantly standing on end would do
the trick, particularly since there's a pretty strong stigma against
physical deformity in real life Japan.
However, in this mutant fearing world, Ranma's going to have to have
made a more sustained effort to keep his curse secret since it really
would cause an immediate hostile reaction. Soun would be less concerned
about Akane being a mutant than about her mutantcy being revealed in
public, bringing shame on the family.
Another good alternative is just to have Mr.
Know-It-All-Arrogant-Mutant-Activist immediately show up and announce
that Akane's a mutant so the students can say, "One of those gaijin
freaks who want to take over the world? Ack!"