Interestingly, if I were to try to name one character whose powers never worked for me, it would have been Tarot. Actually, no, it would have been Maggott, but then it would have been Tarot. I'm afraid I think Penny Crayon definitely is too stupid a mutant power even in this milieu. But when you've got writers desperately coming up with characters like Darwin and Slipstream and trying to make them work, it's probably safe to say that the good powers shortage is now getting more serious than the good codenames crisis.
The only way I can think of "logically" (yeah, I know...) explaining powers like that is to say it's some kind of low-level telekenesis/illusion/telepathy that has to be focused through some type of instrument, as opposed to say, an Emma Frost who just uses her mind and doesn't need a device to channel it through. Kinda sorta how Psylocke focuses her powers through her psychic blade.
The thing is, Tarot could work as either a sorceress or a mutant who thinks she is/was raised by a sorceress. Granted, the former is boring and the latter makes her a bargain basement Mastermind, but that would at least make sense.
Ink just doesn't work though. I mean, if I were to draw a bird on his arm with a Sharpie, does that mean he'd be able to fly? If not, why does it have to be tattoos? Would it work if you used a tattooing chisel instead of a needle? There just seems to be too many questions to make his powers work.
I think it depends on whether you view mutant powers as Science (in which case things like this make no sense at all) or De Facto Magic (in which case they're sort of acceptable).
So if he gets a tattoo of Speedy Gonzales on his arse, does he gain super-speed or the proportionate strength of a mouse? If he had LOVE and HATE tattooed across his knuckles, would he become the new Psycho-Pirate?
There was a character in Ninja Scroll - later homaged by the movie Elektra - that had living tattoos. Snakes that would flow off his body, Tigers that would leap off his man-boobs and eat people. That sort of thing.
There's probably some sort of...echh...totemic thing going on. Focused, limited reality-manipulation, etc..
//Oo/\
While the power may be stupid I like that Ink isn't technically a mutant.
The X-Men need more non-mutant members...for a bunch of mutants trying to live in peace with humans they don't half segregate themselves from humanity.
Matt: the suggestion seems to be that the tattoos have whatever effect Leon intended them to have. In other words, as long as he's clear in his own mind what they mean, that's good enough.
The story also suggests that Ink's powers work by drawing on a connection with Leon (so that if Leon dies or the link gets broken, he'll just be a guy with tattoos).
So: if you prefer, Leon is a reality-warping mutant, who just happens to use the tattoos as a way of channeling his will. The tattoos might not do *anything*, other than serve as a psychic anchor point for the link to Leon.
Somebody is gettin' mauled by a tramp-stamp, is all I'm sayin'.
//Oo/\
Really, folks - this is the X-Men, the team whose very first line-up included a member with wings which enabled him to fly (rather than just looking deformed) but were able to be strapped completely out of sight under a sharp suit, and another member whose power was basically that he had really big feet and could jump about a lot. It's a bit late to start being picky.
If you start on the premise that wings and big feet are too silly, you probably shouldn't be reading superhero comics at all. That doesn't mean that there shouldn't be limits to the willing suspension of disbelief.
I've always noticed with myself that powers are less stupid to me if the character has been around for ages. I think the tattoo thing is ridiculous but I accept someone like Forge, whose power is just as odd as magic tattoos. How could a mutation possibly take machines and technology into account? It's weird, but I'm okay with it because Forge has been around for as long as I've read comics. Give it 15 years, and maybe everybody will be saying "But Ink has always had these powers, and they're not nearly as stupid as Mutant #508's powers." Also, they'll have run out of codenames by then and have to start numbering mutants.
"There was a character in Ninja Scroll - later homaged by the movie Elektra - that had living tattoos."
DC has had the Tattooed man since 1963.
And honestly, I'll take mutant tattoo powers over the vast number of generic "I shoot energy out of my hands/face/belly button" mutants anyday.
I always figured that Tarot's just used the cards as focuses (foci), and that she could have used anything.
If she hadn't been killed, someone probably could have done a fun comic where she was fighting Gambit and made all the face cards he had start attacking him.
Guggenheim has never been too worried about pushing the reader's suspension of disbelief. After all, he was the writer who had Wolverine regenerate in short order after having all his flesh, muscle and organs blown off of his adamantium skeleton in the Civil War tie-in issues that he wrote.
In a hard science fiction universe, Ink's powers would make no sense, but if you think about it, neither would Storm's ("weather control" sounds sufficiently "natural" for a mutant power - the problem is: "weather" is a purely human concept. There's no reason being able to control air pressure - i.e., wind - would let you shoot lightning bolts from your hands, and don't even try to think about how much air, and at what velocity, it would take to lift a human being and move her at high speeds) or plenty of other characters whose powers are based more on concepts than science (the original Cypher made no sense whatsoever - if you assumed his power was telepathic, why could he also READ any language, including mechanical and long-dead ones?).
But the Marvel universe isn't hard science fiction (and it pains me to concede this, because Storm, Cypher, and a few others always bugged me with their non sense-making powers). It's firmly established that magic works, and there's no reason a mutant's powers could let them harness it just like any other natural force. For that matter, weren't there supposed to be lots of mutants in Britain who were born mutants because their parents lived in areas with high concentrations of magic? I want to say that was the deal with the Warpies in Captain Britain and Excalibur. Heck, for all we know, Leon and Tarot could have Asgardian, Olympian, or Otherworld blood in them.
Don't forget the agent in X-Statix who had the cool tattoo powers.
But in X-Statix sense mattered a little less. In a GOOD way.
Re suspension of disbelief, it functions literally as far as the author can get away with it. In a genre of fantasy storytelling, the ability to get away with it is pretty much a definition of talent.
Well, really the question is how well these characters fit into the rules of their universe. I think that's where Ink, Tarot, Cypher, and Forge all fail. You could make a case for Ink and Tarot along the lines people have already mentioned, but their powers are just too gimmicky to work. It's been established for a while now that mutant powers are the result of humans evolving into something else. Why would mutation produce something dependent on tattoos or cards?
Forge makes just as little sense. His mutation gives him the ability to understand and create any form of machine. Well, great, but doesn't that mean Mr. Fantastic is a mutant since he can do pretty much the same thing?
At least characters like Storm just feel right. Weather may be a human concept, but the ability to directly control some aspect of the environment makes just enough sense to squeeze by. It just feels 'natural' enough to be the result of evolution.
Right so Forge's sort of hyper-autism is far sillier than Storm's magical ability to have an effect upon weather patterns......has it ever been touched on how exactly she does that? Some sort of specific telekinesis? I know that application of science to this is essentially flawed and at best leads to what Ellis did with Invisible Woman in Planetary...but that always bugged me about Storm.
That makes me think, Magneto's powers are just telekinesis that only works on ferrous things...
Actually I think Joe S. Walker gets it spot on, any power is potentially viable it's up to the talent of the writer to get the idea across in a way which makes sense, coheres with that fictional universe and is so cool it blows my testicles off.
> Forge makes just as little sense. His mutation gives him the ability to understand and create any form of machine. Well, great, but doesn't that mean Mr. Fantastic is a mutant since he can do pretty much the same thing?
Reed does it because he's smart. Forge is a savant-type - he Just Does, rather than actually going through the steps in his head.
And I think Forge's ability would be less silly if it was widened to intiutively understand biology and botany...
Jacob: That's always bugged me about Storm, too. I think Stan Lee felt the same.
Of course, Stan Lee had Spider-Man recieve radio transmissions through his (fillings) Spider-Sense.
//Oo/\
"Storm's magical ability to have an effect upon weather patterns......has it ever been touched on how exactly she does that?"
Storm sees varying colours and by "moving" them it manipulates the weather. Not exactly scientific, I know, but that's "how" she does it.
Given the (I think) matrilineal tendency toward sorcery in her heritage, I always rationalized Storm's power as a standard internalized mutation amped up by the magic in her DNA, as it were. However dumb it sounded, I still thought it trumped whatever comic book science enabled Forge to turn her power on and off with handheld energy blasters.
As for Forge himself, I simply took him at face value as a hyper-savant. Same with Cypher, especially since I think Doug had to have a modicum of exposure to a language first in order to start breaking it down in his head. Linguistic super-intuition—sure, why not? Tarot seemed like a variation on Dani Moonstar, more advanced in making her constructs solid but more limited in that, as Matthew says, she hadn't branched out into other foci for whatever reason. (Although there might've been a sorcerous component to her power as well—didn't Illyana's Soulsword disrupt one of Tarot's constructs, or am I misremembering?)
And yet, I look at Leon's power and think, "What a crock."
I thought maybe Storm's mutant power could be some other thing, besides the weather manipulation. Sort of like Wolverine being known for his claws, but his mutant power is actually heightened senses and a healing factor.
I just assumed that Storm's mutation was elemental rather than physical in nature.
I got to be honest, this series was great at points but it did go through random ups and downs. I started all the way back new x men: academy x and as it was one of the first of the comic books series I collected (including district x and we all know what happened with that!!!) I grew a fondness to it. I think the problem was that it was excellent post decimation, the strating was too much "the kids at mutant high", too many clichéd romances, kinda boring in retrospect but the decimation stuff gave it that dark aspect to it. I still dont know why they changed it after messiah complex, the characters were a good combination.
I kinda latched onto the end of all these comments but from my understanding, storms powers psychic, she has a mental link to the weather, dont know where I heard that but thats my understanding. now the characters power who really annoy me is nightcrawler, I can pretty much think of a reason for everyone except him but I bet someone can think of something
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