Mutants are the Marvel Universe version of this fear, only "over there" the fear is justified. Two "normal" parents can, indeed, produce a mutant. This was the basis of Senator Kelly's campaign for President, remember, in "Days of Future Past". His slogan was "It's 1984! Do you know WHAT your children are?"

the Mutant "scare" was always stupid...

The Thing and the Human Torch are loved by the masses but the Angel is so horrifying that people run in panic?

With our culture today Mutants could sell their sperm and eggs for MILLIONS and people would line up around the block to get it... With plastic surgery and celebrity worship people BORN with superpowers would be treated like GODS...

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I completely disagree. The Fantastic Four are popular (perhaps not universally loved, but certainly popular) because they are high-profile protectors of the world. They are A-list celebrities by design - they have public identities and a public address. People feel as though they know the Fantastic Four.

Mutants, on the other hand, could be anywhere. The funny looking kid next door might be a walking weapon of mass destruction. It's the unknown that's frightening.

Besides, prejudice against mutants has been a core concept of the X-Men since the early days. They defend humanity because they are superheroes, but the public at large will never trust or like them. It's just part of the package.

If reinvigorating a franchise means seriously bending genre rules, so be it.

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But I don't think the X-Men needed reinvigorating. There is a clear blueprint for success with that team - just check out the JB/Chris Claremont run for how to do it right.

On a more general scale, I don't think superhero comics are "broken" and in need of repair. The genre itself works fine - just tell good stories within that genre.

And for anyone who says the traditional conventions of comic books limit creativity and need bending, I offer this:

William Shakespeare worked under constraints much more limiting than any comic creator ever has. His plays were written in iambic pentameter. All his comedies ended in a wedding and his tragedies invariably end in death. And he couldn't even use women in his stage productions - young boys had to play the female roles.

Those conventions didn't stop Shakespeare from being creative and telling good stories, did they? There's nothing inherently wrong with the superhero comics genre. But like any genre, it requires skillful storytellers to do it right.

"the pointing and laughing is why I hate the Giffen and DeMattis(sp) JLA bwah ha ha haaa stuff so much. They essentially piss on things from that direction and I find it much more offensive than I do the stuff that the deconstructionists do... "

I've seen that view many times, but I've never really been persuaded by it. Giffen and DeMatteis did play up the humor and levity in the book, but it was a little more like MASH in that while it might joke around with the characters, it never ridiculed the CONCEPT of superheroes. It just showed them as fallible, and since most of them were second, third or fourth tier characters, it showed them struggling to live up to the ideal of Superman, bBatman and Wonder Woman and sometimes succeeding, sometimes failing.

Giffen and DeMatteis' characters  probably wouldn't ask "why are we wearing superhero costumes" . They might ask "why am I fighting bad guys wearing a thong?"