Why are people in the Marvel Universe more upset about mutants than any other metahumans there?

On the Scifi.stackexchange someone posits a question after watching this video of the Honest Trailers series on the X-Men trilogy. His question reads:

“As CinemaSins snarkily wisely noted in “Honest Trailers – X-Men Trilogy“:

In the world where people cheer the Fantastic Four, Avengers, Spider-Man, those same people will inexplicably hate the X-Men.

Why is that so? As far as I know, all these superheroes exist in the same exact comic universe, yet X-Men seem to always be significantly more disliked.”

While the most popular answer from the Stack article answers the question from the rarefied air of intellectualism, saying

“It’s the tyranny of evolution. Sooner or later, you have a species that will have a genetic or technological advantage and that species will always conquer a species without that advantage. Carthage, the triumph of the Homo sapiens over the Neanderthal showed us that. Now what do we have? We have Homo superior versus Homo sapiens. On a level playing field, Homo superior wins every time.

That is a quote by the character Wade in season 4 of Babylon 5, explaining why he believed all telepaths in that universe needed to be either murdered or enslaved for use by “normals” (homo sapiens). The same guidelines clearly apply in the Marvel Universe.”

I posted a link so you can read the entire article at your leisure.

However, I disagreed strongly with this answer.

It is unlikely my answer will gain any traction because his is a rather easy to understand perspective but I posted my own answer by trying to look at the problem differently.

Rather than approaching it from a purely intellectual perspective, I tried to see the problem from the perspective of a person living in the Marvel Universe rather than from the viewpoint of a person looking at the Marvel Universe from the outside.

Why Fear the Mutant?

There are factors which play into the fear of mutants more than most metahumans from the perspective from a person living in the Marvel Universe.

Uncertainty

A person living in the Marvel Universe has a life very different from yours and mine. His world is an uncertain one.

• One day Mr. Average is on his way to work and there is suddenly an invasion of Kree warriors bent on battling the Avengers right on the freeway he’s driving over. The battle ties up traffic for hours, costing him money and prestige at his job. Hundreds of people are injured in the collateral damage of buildings and cars being destroyed. (See: Kree-Skrull War)

• A month later, after they managed to repair the bridge, the Mole man ventures up from his subterranean lair and battles the Fantastic Four. Mr. Average’s car is destroyed as one of the Mole Man’s monsters trudges through the city before being put down by Ben Grimm. Hundreds of people are injured or even killed. (See: Fantastic Four #1, 1962)

• Three months after that Mr. Average, riding the bus to work now, finds his bus under attack as a powerful and hidden mutant is riding the bus with him, in disguise. Mr. Average escapes with a few burns and a deep abiding fear of giant robots which randomly attack buses full of normal people to reach “dangerous” mutants. (See: Master Mold, X-men #16, 1962)

Mass Hysteria

• Every day after each attack news pundits like J. Jonah Jameson espouse about the dangers of mutants, Spider-Man and superheroes in general. But mutants catch special flack because they could be anyone. You. Your neighbors, the person on the bus next to you could be a mutant.

• Hysteria is a powerful tool in a world where uncertainty is fanned by fear-promoting pundits and the threat of attack is a regular event at least once every Marvel year, somewhere on the planet. (See: Kree-Skrull War, Galactus, Secret Invasion, Shuma Gorath, Magneto and his Acolytes, Apocalypse, etc.)

• Look how powerful hysteria is on our modern Earth when the random threat of terrorism is used to manipulate how people feel about other HUMANS. We created the Patriot Act, we dropped bombs on foreign countries for the FEAR of terrorism. The single act of the destruction of the World Trade Center over a decade ago STILL has people in the grip of fear.

• Now imagine you had events like this happening every year, some of them, not all of them are due to the mysterious mutants living among us, with fantastic powers capable of wiping out all of humanity with the blink of an eye, (so the news media sells it, no matter that it in the case of certain mutants is actually TRUE).

A Legitimate Fear of Incredible Power

As an individual without fantastic powers and a need to go to work, protect your family, pay your taxes, be a decent individual and maintain a role in society, the very fact that you may feel insignificant compared to the mutant superbeing carrying away the stadium you were hoping to watch tonight’s baseball game in undermines your self esteem, hell, your very sanity as you see the impossible being done before your very eyes.

• Imagine Mr. Average learns the person carrying away your stadium is a mutant, a being who was born this way and whose probably manifested as a teenager. He has a twelve year old daughter and a ten year old son. Could this happen to him? Is it possible that his children could have this mutant gene you hear so much misinformation about?

• What about that town that was blown off the map out there when those Young Warriors fought that criminal Nitro? Everyone was killed. Could that happen here? Should mutants and superbeings be registered? (See: Civil War)

• Maybe Strucker has the right idea. Maybe the best thing that could happen is we kill all the mutants before they take over the world. (Not knowing that it has already happened more than once and been reversed; See: House of M). Being an ordinary human in this world would be a terrifying experience akin to living in a warzone where you had no options but to run and hide whenever anything happened.

We Have Seen the Enemy…

Why do mutants have it worse than the rest of the metahuman community?

• Most of the metahuman community makes an effort to be seen as being on the same side as normal humans. At least some of them have been revealed to be normal humans (Tony Stark, Hawkeye, Black Widow) resemble normal humans (Thor) or were once normal humans (the Hulk).

• But mutants were born this way, their appearances vary wildly, along with their powers, many in learning to control their powers, harm innocents and even if they become “good” mutants have blood on their hands. When they are evil mutants, they seem to relish their powers and kill without reservation. There are reports (however unreliable) that more mutants are being born every day.

What is a normal man to do in a world where the uncertainty of his very existence depends on a very thin line of metahumans to protect him from the ever-growing menace of mutant power on an Earth in an ever-expanding hostile universe of threats? Aliens, gods, intelligent machines are terrifying but they are the Other.

Mutants? They are us. And they are everywhere. 

Can Wolverine Swim?

Yes. Given the range of skills, James “Logan” Howlett (codenamed, Wolverine) has learned over his long life-span, swimming is something he would have learned how to do and used during his time as a member of the military during World War I, World War II and certainly as a covert operative for the CIA and eventually the Weapon X program. Under most of his military training protocols it would have been a requirement.

Let’s forget all of the pictures of him we see swimming, like when Jean Grey was believed killed and he was forced to tread water until they could be rescued. Or any of the other times we know he has had to swim for combat operations when he was first transformed into Weapon X. Wolverine can swim, no matter what uninformed writers and editors at Marvel comics may choose to believe. Does he like to? Especially since being given an additional one hundred pounds of adamantium to his physical makeup? Probably not. It certainly couldn’t make it any easier, even if it’s perfectly balanced and added directly to his bone structure.

It’s not a mattter of training or ability

Of course, Wolverine can swim. His body weight, while an impressive 325 pounds, should be no match for his superhuman levels of strength and stamina. He is capable of easily lifting 800-1200 pounds and running at speeds of up to 35 miles per hour for hours on end. His body produces limited fatigue toxins and those are processed immediately allowing him the ability to swim nearly indefinitely.

The operative word is nearly. Eventually, if he were trapped out at sea, even he would drown through exhaustion and depending on what ocean and time of year, possibly hypothermia.

His body, even enhanced with its extra 105 pounds of adamantium, would be a perfect enhancement because it is at the core level of his being. He would have to work a bit harder, swim a bit stronger, and his core buoyancy would be affected but he would be using his raw muscular strength to overcome that. We have human SEAL team members who have been trained to swim with a hundred pounds of unbalanced and cumbersome equipment. His weight is completely internalized and already balanced. Wolverine’s problem with water is a psychological one.

Warrior, Berserker, Engine of Destruction

Logan is the living embodiment of combat. His body is filled with a genetic disposition for battle. Bones and tissues regenerate from nearly every injury, as fast as he can be harmed, within reason. A body with bone claws, superior physical senses, combat awareness sharpened by decades of training. Beserk rages allowing his body under duress to be even more powerful, more deadly, so even when he is overwhelmed by enemies he can KEEP FIGHTING!  Swimming, and more importantly drowning, are directly opposed to his natural tendencies. Drowning is the antithesis of combat. You are alone, in the dark, with no one to direct your rage against. Oceans are large and almost impossible to cross under your own power. Now imagine being a man whose body is designed to fight against any threat and win, surrounded by the only enemy he can never defeat, no matter how undying he might be, this would be an enemy he would be psychologically unhappy to confront, no matter how little or much swimming he would have to do. If he has had to face the ocean more than once, his experiences could leave him simply unwilling to deal with swimming whenever possible.

Innate fear, magnified by his natural ability to survive

Wolverine hates the water because it can kill him, again and again, until he is rescued or until the trauma of drowning, one of the most traumatic ways to die, drives him insane. Drowning works against his nature, he is a being designed to struggle, and used to struggling effectively against any foe, struggling when drowning only increases the speed of drowning. From the way he talks whenever he talks about swimming, I am lead to believe he has experienced this trauma at least once. Remember, Logan will regenerate and return to life, even from drowning. The mechanics of that are frankly, mind boggling, but this might mean, he might recover, awaken, sink to the lowest point in the ocean, try to swim, drown again, reawaken, rinse and repeat; until he can reach the surface. Imagine that and then ask yourself, how close to the ocean would you EVER try to get knowing you might end up without a suitable flotation device?

Yes, the shoreline of a beach sounds just about right.

Imagine dealing with the horror of a shark based feeding frenzy and having the power to survive physical assault after assault, regenerating in salt water with limited food and the renewed threat of attack. Salt water is very painful to an injury. Doubt me? Next time you get a paper cut, dip that bad boy into some salty water and prepare for some salty language! Now imagine that over a portion of your body regenerating from a shark bite. Makes the ocean seem much less hospitable, doesn’t it. Yes, he will use his claws to kill sharks, but remember, if he draws their blood, they may still frenzy. A feeding frenzy isn’t likely to kill him but given his biological capabilities, it may make him very, very unhappy for a long time.

Yes, Wolverine can swim. He does so with trepidation because it is one of the only ways he can be killed, again and again and is completely dependent on someone else to save him. As the perfect warrior, his psyche has trouble processing this and if he has already survived a less than pleasant period awaiting rescue at sea, it makes sense for him to be at the very least, water-averse.

How strong is Colossus, as the Agent of Cytorrak?

Colossus (Piotr Rasputin) is a mutant whose powers were due to his cellular replacement of his organic structure with an extra-dimensional organic osmium steel. This allowed his body to increase his physical resilience and superhuman strength.

• Even as a teenager his superhuman strength was impressive placing him in the upper tiers of strength in the Marvel Universe at approximately 70-75 tons.
• This put his strength in the same class as Doc Sampson, The Thing, She-Hulk and Thundra.
• Since he was still a teenager, Xavier expected his physical ability to increase as he grew older. He was expected to achieve a Class 100 status making him the equal of The Thing, The Abomination, an un-enraged Hulk or Thor (without his strength enhancing belt or gauntlets).
• His physical strength is currently greater than when he first joined the X-Men due to the realignment of his cells by Magneto following an injury during the Mutant Massacre. (X-men #188)
• While in his armored form, Colossus requires no food, water, or even oxygen to sustain himself, and is extremely resistant to injury. He is capable of withstanding great impacts, large caliber bullets, falling from tremendous heights, electricity, and certain magical attacks.

Recently, Colossus has become an agent of Cytorrak, a near-immortal extra-dimensional being who is a member of a group of entities called the Octessence. These beings vast power is unmatched except by their mystical opposite, the Vishanti.

The Octessence trying to find a way to maintain their influence on the human world.

• The previous agent of Cytorrak was Cain Marko, brother to Charles Xavier. Marko was a normal human who was imbued with the power of Cytorrak. Cytorrak had been banished from the human realm and found a way to disguise a portion of his power in a Vietnam village.
• Cain Marko discovers the Crimson Gem of Cytorrak and read the inscription: “Whosoever touches this gem shall possess the power of the Crimson Bands of Cyttorak! Henceforth, you who read these words, shall become forevermore a human juggernaut!”
• The stone gives a fraction of the power of Cyttorak to whoever possesses it via acting as a portal to or containing a portal within it to the Crimson Cosmos. The infusion of power gave Cain Marko, superhuman levels of physical strength, resistance and durability. The power increase is so vast, when the Juggernaut begins moving in a direction, he is basically unstoppable.
• The power of the Juggernaut allowed him to battle entire superhero teams to a standstill. Juggernaut fought the X-men numerous times with the best result being Marko leaving the scene of the battle. Surrounded by a mystical field of force, Marko was basically invulnerable to harm and had the strength to shatter mountains when properly motivated. Only a few beings have ever managed to stop Marko once he became unstoppable (Hulk, Skaar and Thor; a very short list).
• Now Colossus has been imbued with the power of Cytorrak. If the previous power increase is any indication, he is a far more powerful being than Cain Marko ever was. He has held his own against the Red Hulk and fought against the Worthy during the Fear Itself story line.

Colossus the Juggernaut bringing the pain to Kuurth, Breaker of Stone during Fear Itself.

• For all intents and purposes his physical form should allow him to channel more energy from the Crimson Cosmos, giving him access to limitless physical strength. Cytorrak, even when offered a chance to remove his power from Colossus while he was possessed by the Phoenix force (which everyone expected him to do) Cytorrak refused indicating Colossus’ suitability as his avatar far exceeded anyone who has ever held the title.

Cytorrak on his throne in the Crimson Cosmos, his personal dimension.

I would expect Colossus’ power now exceeds the physical strength, stamina, durability and invulnerability of all but the near-cosmic level entities such as Thor, Gladiator, the Green and Red Hulks or cosmic beings such as the Sentry, the All-father Odin or the Heralds of Galactus.