Hank replaced his glasses and looked directly toward Anderson.
“The attack did not prove that mutants are inherently courageous, peaceful, or morally superior, because no biological population possesses one unified character. It demonstrated that mutants are people, and people make choices according to conscience, experience, fear, and character rather than genetic classification.”
Reverend Hargrove leaned toward his microphone before Anderson could direct the discussion elsewhere, his earlier restraint now carrying a harder edge beneath it.
“It also demonstrated how rapidly society may become dependent upon individuals whose abilities cannot be regulated through the institutions governing everyone else.”
Hank turned his head slightly, while Anderson watched Hargrove continue without immediately intervening.
“We witnessed mutants and enhanced vigilantes exercising military power within an American city without democratic authority, formal accountability, or any meaningful civilian oversight, people are celebrating because those abilities were directed against extraterrestrial invaders, but celebration does not answer what happens when the next target is an American citizen.”
Hank’s ears shifted slightly as he regarded the theologian from across the table.
“The mutant civilians defending evacuation centres were not exercising military authority, because they were protecting their neighbours during an invasion. They did not suspend constitutional government, assume public office, or issue commands to the armed forces, and describing their self-defence as a seizure of authority deliberately distorts what occurred.”
Hargrove’s mouth tightened.
“A civilian capable of destroying an aircraft with her hands possesses military power regardless of whether she carries an official rank.”
Reed leaned forward before Hank could answer.
“By that standard, Anthony Stark possesses military power whenever he enters his armour, while Thor possesses enough force to overwhelm most conventional armies.”
“That is exactly why every enhanced individual requires oversight, Doctor Richards, regardless of whether the public currently regards them as heroic.”
Jane looked toward Hargrove from the opposite side of the table.
“Then your concern concerns unregulated power rather than mutants specifically, which would make genetic status irrelevant to your argument.”
Hargrove hesitated only briefly.
“The difference is that Stark’s armour can theoretically be removed, Thor may eventually return to Asgard, and government operatives can be dismissed from service.”
His gaze settled upon Hank with increasing directness.
“A mutant’s abilities are permanent, inheritable, and potentially present before the individual has developed the maturity required to control them.”
Hank’s expression remained composed, although the warmth had disappeared from his voice when he responded.
“Human intelligence, physical strength, wealth, political influence, and access to firearms can also be permanent, inherited, or acquired before someone develops sound judgement, we regulate harmful conduct because punishing biological possibility would require treating innocent people as criminals before they have actually done anything wrong.”
Hargrove spread one hand across the table.
“You are framing legitimate public fear as prejudice when the public has watched untrained individuals unleash destructive force within a major population centre. The destructive force was directed toward an alien army actively murdering civilians, which remains a rather significant part of the context you continue omitting, the context will not always involve aliens, Doctor McCoy, and the public deserves reassurance before accepting these individuals within schools, police departments, or military installations, I am not a bigot Doctor, I am not calling for you to be rounded up into camps, I am calling for regulation.”
Hank leaned closer toward his microphone, the movement controlled enough to become more threatening than any raised voice might have been.
“What reassurance would satisfy you, Reverend, considering mutants already attend schools, work within public institutions, pay taxes, raise families, and serve their communities without announcing their genetics?”
Hargrove looked briefly toward Anderson before answering.
“At minimum, there should be mandatory identification, ability assessment, and monitoring for anyone whose condition creates a credible threat to surrounding citizens.”
A visible reaction passed across Hank’s face, while Jane’s posture stiffened and Reed stopped examining the footage entirely.
“You are proposing a government registry based upon genetics, do you not see how much of a slippery slope that is?”
“I am proposing transparency proportional to the danger involved, because ordinary parents deserve to know whether their children share a classroom with someone capable of burning through walls.” Visit novelping dot com for the full chapter.
Hank’s fingers curled slowly against the table before relaxing again.
“Should those parents also receive lists identifying children with violent parents, untreated behavioural conditions, access to unsecured firearms?”
Hargrove’s expression tightened.
“That comparison is deliberately absurd, Doctor McCoy, and I expected something better than a straw-man argument from a scientist of your reputation.”
Hank regarded him steadily across the table, refusing to match the sharpness gathering in the reverend’s voice.
“It is not a straw man, Reverend, because I am applying the principle behind your proposal consistently rather than limiting it to the population you already distrust.”
“Each example involves a child being treated as dangerous because of circumstances surrounding them rather than anything they have personally chosen or done. You are asking society to regard one category of children as inherently suspicious before examining their behaviour, simply because their potential frightens you more visibly than everyone else’s.”
Hargrove raised his voice slightly.
“A child experiencing an emotional episode cannot accidentally level an entire school unless that child possesses an abnormal ability allowing it.”
Hank’s voice became quieter in response, forcing everyone around the table to listen more closely.
“A frightened mutant child becomes considerably more dangerous when adults teach that child to hide, fear discovery, and expect imprisonment whenever control becomes difficult. If safety is genuinely your concern, then education, medical support, voluntary training, and social acceptance offer better protection than surveillance and public registration.”
Hargrove shook his head dismissively.
“That answer requires society to trust the restraint of people capable of overpowering every ordinary mechanism intended to restrain them. Society already does that with soldiers, police officers, political leaders, intelligence agencies, billionaires, and corporations controlling dangerous technologies.”
Hank glanced toward the footage of Iron Man and Thor fighting above Manhattan.
“The answer has never been declaring those people biologically unworthy of citizenship, because the answer is building fair institutions governing conduct.”
Hargrove pointed toward the image of the flying mutant girl on the screen.
“You cannot build a fair institution around abilities that differ completely between individuals and may emerge without warning. Human societies have always governed people with unequal capabilities, opportunities, resources, and physical characteristics, because equality before the law never required everyone to be identical.”
Hank held Hargrove’s gaze across the table.
“It requires that the law judge what people do rather than what frightened observers imagine they might eventually become.”
For several seconds, neither man looked away, while the studio remained quiet enough for the low hum of the display screens to become audible.
Hargrove finally leaned back, although his next words carried more hostility than surrender.
“We are normalising a future in which genetically aberrant individuals decide when their power is justified, while ordinary families are expected to trust their personal restraint.”
The phrase struck the table like something deliberately thrown, and Hank’s ears flattened slightly before he answered.
“The phrase genetically aberrant has no serious scientific meaning in the way you are using it, because variation is the foundation of every living population. Every human genome contains mutations, inherited differences, and characteristics departing from an imaginary average that has never existed in biological reality.”
Hargrove attempted to interrupt, but Hank continued with a firmness that prevented him from reclaiming the exchange.
“You are taking people who defended this country and presenting their continued existence as a greater danger than the extraterrestrial army they helped defeat. You accepted Thor’s assistance despite knowing nothing about Asgardian law, biology, or political allegiance, yet mutant citizens who protected their own neighbourhoods must apparently prove they deserve to remain inside them.”
Jane nodded sharply and added on.
“Thor entered Manhattan carrying a weapon capable of summoning lightning, I am not sure as to why you do not demand he be regulated.”
Hargrove turned toward her.
“Thor is not requesting integration into American society.”
“Neither were the civilians fighting in Hell’s Kitchen, because they already belonged to American society before the Chitauri arrived.” Follow the newest chapters on g.com.
Hargrove’s composure finally broke, and his words came faster as he attempted to speak over the objections gathering around the table.
“We are told mutants merely want acceptance, but now they are appearing on battlefields with abilities conventional soldiers cannot match. If they enter the military, law enforcement, emergency services, or national defence, ordinary citizens will eventually become dependent upon a population capable of overpowering every institution meant to govern them.”
Hank stared at him with an expression stripped of every trace of professional patience.
Hank stared across the table with an expression stripped of every remaining trace of professional patience.
“You continue speaking as though mutants constitute a foreign population requesting entry into countries where they were never born. Most mutants are citizens of the same nations currently debating whether their biology disqualifies them from participating within their own communities.”
Hargrove raised his voice before Hank could continue, leaning so far forward that his silver cross swung away from his jacket.
“The Chitauri are gone, Doctor McCoy, while mutants remain inside our schools, our neighbourhoods, and potentially our armed forces. I can see how you are looking at me, as though I am some paranoid fascist inventing reasons to fear people who have done nothing wrong. You believe any concern about mutant intentions must come from ignorance, religious intolerance, or some primitive refusal to accept scientific progress. However, I would ask you one question before you dismiss everyone who shares that concern as merely prejudiced.”
Hargrove paused, allowing the studio’s silence to gather around him before directing the question squarely toward Hank.
“When the X-gene was first identified and mutant development entered scientific community, what name did researchers within your own community use to classify your population?”
Hank’s jaw tightened, although he refused to look away from the theologian staring across the table.
“…Homo superior was proposed as an informal classification during the earliest attempts to understand mutant genetics.”
Hargrove spread both hands, seizing the answer before Hank could qualify its meaning.
“Exactly, Homo superior, not Homo variant, Homo mutatis, or another term describing simple biological difference without attaching a hierarchy. Your own scientific literature introduced mutants to the world as the superior human, the species destined to replace everyone sitting beneath it. How can ordinary people hear language like that, watch mutants develop powers capable of overwhelming police and military forces, and never question what your community believes about its future? You ask us to treat mutants as ordinary neighbours while your own textbooks describe the rest of humanity as an earlier and presumably inferior stage of evolution.”
A wave of uncomfortable science filled the studio, but the Reverend continued on.
“Perhaps the term began inside a laboratory, but words reveal assumptions, Doctor McCoy, and superiority is a particularly difficult assumption to dismiss when it belongs to people capable of enforcing it.”
Hank spoke up, his anger becoming more controlled as Hargrove’s accusation became more openly ideological.
“Homo superior was never a declaration of political intent, a manifesto of mutant supremacy, or an agreement shared by every person carrying the X-gene. It was speculative taxonomic language created during an early period when scientists incorrectly assumed mutant traits represented a clean evolutionary succession beyond modern humanity. Most geneticists now reject that terminology because evolution does not move toward universal superiority, and species do not advance along a single ladder with one population standing above another.”
He adjusted his glasses without breaking eye contact with Hargrove.
“A mutation can provide an advantage under one set of environmental conditions while becoming useless or harmful under another set of circumstances. A person capable of surviving extreme temperatures is not inherently superior at language, compassion, judgement, reproduction, or any other quality defining human life. Mutants are not one coordinated species advancing according to a shared political programme, because the X-gene produces enormous biological diversity among unrelated individuals.”
His voice became more spirited as he continued.
“Using an outdated scientific label to question the loyalty of every mutant citizen would be comparable to treating every human being as responsible for every doctrine previously justified through the word mankind.”
Hargrove shook his head sharply, speaking over the final portion of Hank’s answer.
“That is a convenient reinterpretation now that the language has become politically uncomfortable, but the term did not emerge from people hostile toward mutants. It came from scientists studying your biology, including mutant scholars who appeared perfectly comfortable describing themselves as humanity’s successors.”
Several members of the panel began speaking simultaneously, but Anderson’s voice rose above the developing argument before it could become completely uncontrolled.
“Reverend Hargrove, I apologize but we are ending this line of questioning here.”
Hargrove turned toward him, visibly angered by the interruption.
“Why, because the terminology is inconvenient for the narrative this programme has already decided to promote?”
“Because you have moved from questioning the history of a scientific classification toward using that classification as evidence of collective political intent.” Anderson’s voice remained measured, although the firmness beneath it left no room for another interruption.
“Doctor McCoy has explained that Homo superior was disputed taxonomic language rather than a creed adopted by every mutant alive. You are now asking one individual to defend the loyalty of an entire population because of terminology he neither invented nor possesses the authority to impose upon them.”
Hargrove attempted to respond, but Anderson continued before he could reclaim the discussion.
“This programme can examine the regulation of extraordinary abilities, the ethics of public safety, and the consequences of unequal power without implying that mutant citizens secretly intend to replace humanity. We are not turning a discussion about extraterrestrial contact into an interrogation concerning whether an entire minority population can be trusted to exist beside everyone else.”