Did Spider-Man Just Create A Tool Of Mutant Oppression?
Peter Parker might have accidentally created the perfect conditions for the wide-scale oppression of mutantkind.
Throughout six decades of storied X-Men comic book history, mutantkind’s superhero champions have faced off against countless enemies with genocidal aims for the homo-superior species. Villains like Bolivar Trask (the creator of the mutant-hunting Sentinel robots); the paramilitary anti-mutant hate preacher, William Stryker; the cyborg Cameron Hodge, along with his radical anti-mutant group The Right; and countless more all seek the total eradication of mutants on Earth. Outside of other villainous mutants like Apocalypse or alien threats like the Phalanx (who assimilated Jean Grey’s sister Sara in the comics), most of the X-Men’s frequent antagonists are just human beings who fear them and the uncomfortable implications their existence raises.
Occasionally, other heroes in the Marvel Universe that fill that role. Both the Avengers and the Inhumans (a separate race of genetically mutated human beings) have come to blows with the X-Men for various reasons, ranging from the threat of the Phoenix Force to the fact that the Terrigen Mists which gives Inhumans their powers are deadly to the mutant populace. Spider-Man: Brand New Day’s introduction of Jean Grey to the MCU comes in the form of a conflict of misunderstanding with Spider-Man, but the method Peter comes up with to defeat her just might spiral into a much larger conflict down the line.
Warning! Spoilers for Spider-Man: Brand New Day below.
Somehow the first appearance of Jean Grey in the MCU isn’t the only consequential piece of mutant lore in Brand New Day.
In the film, Spider-Man is recruited by the U.S. Department of Damage Control, led by Tramell Tillman’s Bill Metzger, to capture Jean; at the same time he’s struggling with an unexpected mutation of his powers, the result of an increase in the spider hormones in his DNA. He deals with both situations by creating a genetic inhibitor, modeled after a similar device used by Bruce Banner to keep The Hulk under control. While Peter’s solution works for both of his goals, the realization that he’s been manipulated by Metzger causes Peter to both help Jean and embrace the natural transformation within him — but his change of heart doesn’t erase the fact that he has created a prototype for a technology any X-Men fan would recognize immediately.
Mutant Inhibitor Collars, Explained
Because Peter’s invention is based on Bruce Banner’s own genetic inhibitor, he’ll also inevitably be tried at the Hague.
In Chris Claremont and John Byrne’s acclaimed 1981 X-Men storyline Days of Future Past, Mystique’s assassination of an anti-mutant politician in the present day leads to a dystopian version of 2013 in which mutants are hunted down by Sentinels and placed in internment camps. This story invented the concept of the inhibitor collar, a piece of technology designed to suppress the powers of captured mutants. Although the storyline’s future was seemingly averted (by a version of Kitty Pryde in the future hijacking the body of her younger counterpart), the mutant inhibitor collar has appeared numerous times since then, usually weaponized by villains of the X-Men.
There’s no way Peter Parker could know the inevitable consequences of his actions, but with Damage Control explicitly seeking to capture and experiment on mutants (under the guidance of longtime X-Men villain William Metzger no less), it’s a given that his invention will be weaponized against mutants in the future. Even though Peter and Jean come to an understanding by the end of the film and he allows her to leave in search of a home, there’s a strong chance that his actions might lead the two characters to blows once again further down the road, when Jean is accompanied by the rest of Xavier’s first class.
Could Peter’s Actions Lead to Avengers vs. X-Men?
AvX was originally fought over the Phoenix Force’s attempt to possess Cable’s adopted daughter Hope Summers, but in the MCU the battle lines might be drawn for a different reason.
The 2012 storyline Avengers vs X-Men is probably the biggest example of the mutant team clashing with other heroes in the Marvel Universe, and although that conflict occurs because each team has a differing opinion on what to do about the return of the all-powerful Phoenix Force, it’s long been rumored that the MCU is planning an adaptation in the future. Because the Dark Phoenix Saga has never been adapted in a universe where other superheroes exist, there’s a strong possibility that the MCU could combine that storyline with AvX, causing the Avengers and the X-Men to fight over Jean’s initial possession by the Phoenix. In that case, Peter Parker might find himself at the center of an impossible moral quandary, in which his technology might be used to stop an unstable Jean Grey at the cost of handing humanity a tool to oppress mutantkind, a fact the X-Men certainly won’t take lightly.
A lot of people expected Spider-Man: Brand New Day to definitively set up the existence of mutants in the MCU, but no one expected the film to also make Peter Parker the Oppenheimer of future mutant suffering. In the film that marks the debut of one of the X-Men’s founding members, it’s certainly not just a coincidence that Spider-Man invents a technology designed to subdue genetic anomalies. The X-Men have long stood apart from other superhero groups in the Marvel Universe because of the prejudice they face as a minority, and even though it was an unwitting mistake, Peter Parker has just made sure that will remain the case on-screen.
