The answer is yes, you register. For the same reason we register motor vehicles and handguns. Collect their name, power, and address. If they move or change their name (or their power changes), they update. That's all that's needed. Somebody dies from a concussive blast, no prob, you go check Scott Summers' whereabouts.
We register motor vehicles because if you want to use one on public roads, you have to abide by public laws.
You don't have to register with a government database if you have, say, an extra finger or some other mutation.
So why should a person with powers have to give up their privacy for something that is possibly not their fault? If my power is "I can change my hair color at will," do I have to go on a list for the government to track me? That shit is scary and totalitarian and I am rather surprised people are so on board with registration. Do we get to know what books they're reading at the library too?
edit: And do bodybuilders have to register? They're way stronger than the average human. Does Daredevil have to register? Does Black Widow (Assuming no super serum)?
And wasn't a major point of anti-registration "Half the reason we have secret identities is to protect those close to us so they can't be used against us." Destroying their privacy puts everyone's family at risk.
The answer is yes, you register. For the same reason we register motor vehicles and handguns. Collect their name, power, and address. If they move or change their name (or their power changes), they update. That's all that's needed. Somebody dies from a concussive blast, no prob, you go check Scott Summers' whereabouts.
We register motor vehicles because if you want to use one on public roads, you have to abide by public laws.
You don't have to register with a government database if you have, say, an extra finger or some other mutation.
So why should a person with powers have to give up their privacy for something that is possibly not their fault? If my power is "I can change my hair color at will," do I have to go on a list for the government to track me? That shit is scary and totalitarian and I am rather surprised people are so on board with registration. Do we get to know what books they're reading at the library too?
edit: And do bodybuilders have to register? They're way stronger than the average human. Does Daredevil have to register? Does Black Widow (Assuming no super serum)?
And wasn't a major point of anti-registration "Half the reason we have secret identities is to protect those close to us so they can't be used against us." Destroying their privacy puts everyone's family at risk.
While the X-Men are absent from the MCU, the other argument in the comics universe has been that the American government is always one bad day from rounding up the mutants and superheroes and putting them in death camps. The idea has always been that if you make a list, then someone will eventually use that list to eliminate the "threat" instead of just containing it.
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minor incidentexpert in a dying fieldnjRegistered Userregular
Bro, if you think they don't already know what books you're reading at the library, I have a bridge to sell you.
Snark aside, yes, those are basically the primary anti-registration arguments, and if MCU Civil War addresses that aspect better than the comics did, that would be a net win.
Ah, it stinks, it sucks, it's anthropologically unjust
The answer is yes, you register. For the same reason we register motor vehicles and handguns. Collect their name, power, and address. If they move or change their name (or their power changes), they update. That's all that's needed. Somebody dies from a concussive blast, no prob, you go check Scott Summers' whereabouts.
We register motor vehicles because if you want to use one on public roads, you have to abide by public laws.
You don't have to register with a government database if you have, say, an extra finger or some other mutation.
So why should a person with powers have to give up their privacy for something that is possibly not their fault? If my power is "I can change my hair color at will," do I have to go on a list for the government to track me? That shit is scary and totalitarian and I am rather surprised people are so on board with registration. Do we get to know what books they're reading at the library too?
It is scary, so is a random person who accidentally blows up New York City with an earth quake. We don't know the details yet but I think you're stretching with powers like an extra finger, humans do that already. How they got their powers isn't relevant, it's that they do have powers and the government would be silly for ignoring the potential disasters if a Gifted accidentally hurt innocent people with their powers or went the serial killer or terrorist route. Being registered means that they have the knowledge to act if a Gifted they knew fucks up, rather than sitting on the thumbs with no knowledge while, say, a shape-shifter travels around the country assassinating businessmen. This isn't any different from registering motor vehicles, the difference is their born with it and once they manifest it'd be prudent for the government to know who they are, what they can do and if they do anything funny they'll get arrested for it.
edit: And do bodybuilders have to register? They're way stronger than the average human. Does Daredevil have to register? Does Black Widow (Assuming no super serum)?
IIRC people who are dangerous in martial arts and boxing have to register their hands as lethal weapons. DD shouldn't be registering since no one knows his powers, everyone assumes he's a random thug with a mask. Black Widow shouldn't need to register as she is, it's the fact she's a member of the Avengers - that's information the government would want to know about her. Hawkeye should definitely be registered.
And wasn't a major point of anti-registration "Half the reason we have secret identities is to protect those close to us so they can't be used against us." Destroying their privacy puts everyone's family at risk.
Secret identities aren't what the registration will be about in the MCU.
IIRC people who are dangerous in martial arts and boxing have to register their hands as lethal weapons.
This is a popular old story and used to be a fun publicity stunt boxers and wrestlers would do, but it's never been true. For a few years in Japan, all martial artists were registered to keep them from training others, but that also applied to you if you weren't any good. Which... Well, considering some of the things we've put people on lists for on this planet is actually kind of surprising.
So why should a person with powers have to give up their privacy for something that is possibly not their fault? If my power is "I can change my hair color at will," do I have to go on a list for the government to track me? That shit is scary and totalitarian and I am rather surprised people are so on board with registration. Do we get to know what books they're reading at the library too?
Because privacy is a polite lie that civilized people tell themselves in order to live alongside other people. Registering that you can shoot concussive beams out of your eyes isn't giving up your privacy any more than getting a driver's license or a concealed carry permit. And it carries a similar threat to the people around you.
And wasn't a major point of anti-registration "Half the reason we have secret identities is to protect those close to us so they can't be used against us." Destroying their privacy puts everyone's family at risk.
You know who had the most to lose by revealing their secret identity? Peter Parker. What did he do, again?
There's a case to be made for only registering if you're going to be a vigilante, but then what happens if a powered person goes all Good Samaritan and helps out? Are they gonna get punished? Nah, that's too much rules and counter rules and nonsense. All powers get registered. It's a flat, evenly enforceable law that is no more intrusive than getting a passport.
Some sort of law that you have 24 hours to register after using your powers? If you go "I'm not going to be a hero" but then see someone fall on subway tracks or something and you teleport down to rescue them, then you have to register?
I don't know, I've been staying out of this argument because I thought it was dumb the first time around and at this point I just have faith that Marvel will release a good movie.
Some sort of law that you have 24 hours to register after using your powers? If you go "I'm not going to be a hero" but then see someone fall on subway tracks or something and you teleport down to rescue them, then you have to register?
If you have powers, you register. It isn't a vigilante registration.
I don't know, I've been staying out of this argument because I thought it was dumb the first time around and at this point I just have faith that Marvel will release a good movie.
Part of the reason I can see power registration being a thing is that people with powers in comics usually fall into one of two categories:
A: Unsanctioned Vigilantes taking the law into their own hand.
B: and the Villains they fight.
If somebody is proven to have powers, I would at least expect the government to investigate and rule out that they where Stabby McMurder(or Wolverine if you prefer) in civilian guise.
People with powers that just sit on their couch are thin on the ground in Comics.
The sky was full of stars, every star an exploding ship. One of ours.
Most mutants/powered people have weak powers that don't present much of a danger to others. However, there are mutants/powered people with powers that cause massive amounts of destruction. So it would be pretty disingenuous for the ones with godlike powers to hide behind the ones who only have the power to see UV light or eat at Arby's.
Driving a car is a choice. Being born with shapechanging abilities isn't.
Using those powers in a bad way is a choice too. Just like using carpentry to make a spear and go around stabbing people. Using your abilities to do bad is bad, but having them isn't.
There's a reason Peter Parker changed his mind. There's a reason Captain America doesn't think registration is a good idea. It's a breach of privacy which DOES and CAN still exist, unless we go around assuming it's not worth fighting for.
Skye can cause earthquakes by having a bad dream. Using powers isn't always a choice. If there's a dude who can explode in a fireball if he has a bad enough nightmare or gets stressed out enough, I kind of want to know so I can make the choice to not live in the same apartment building as him.
Skye can cause earthquakes by having a bad dream. Using powers isn't always a choice. If there's a dude who can explode in a fireball if he has a bad enough nightmare or gets stressed out enough, I kind of want to know so I can make the choice to not live in the same apartment building as him.
By that logic, we should take away everyone's petrol-using, environment-polluting cars and close down all factories and such, because they cause the Earth to slowly become uninhabitable for humans.
Driving a car is a choice. Being born with shapechanging abilities isn't.
It's not about choice, once those powers are in the open the world has to deal with the consequences.
Using those powers in a bad way is a choice too. Just like using carpentry to make a spear and go around stabbing people.
How many carpenters do you know who can assassinate world leaders and get out undetected with their carpentry tools? She can do it without breaking a sweat, and so can Gordon.
There are others who destroy cities accidentally, like Skye. There are Gifted like Radiation Man in the comics, his power? Emitting radiation. He was a super-villain. Set him loose in our world, what do you see happening?
Charles Xavier, prominent telepath on Earth - almost killed humanity by thinking hard in X-men 2. Nightcrawler came frighteningly close to killing the president with his powers. Magneto reversed the polarity of Earth's axis twice, causing untold tragedies and early in his super-villain career used his powers to lift a Soviet submarine from the ocean and steal their nuclear missiles. Wolverine's a mutant whose powers includes going berserk and killing everything he can see. Storm causes hurricanes and tornadoes. Kitty Pryde has a power that makes her immune to being harmed and has the ability to steal whatever she wants if she felt like it. The highest quality safe is less than paper to her. This was bought up by Senator Kelly in X-men, and while he is an anti-mutant bigot the descriptions he used for Xavier and Kitty were on point.
Using your abilities to do bad is bad, but having them isn't.
This is a protocol for the government so that the villains don't start massacring cities for the hell of it when they have a bad day, or the untrained don't accidentally destroy lives when they have nightmares. This what Skye did without training
Having powers isn't bad, it is good for the government to keep an eye on them, within reason - like they did with Scorch. When they use their powers accidentally or deliberately for evil - it's the government whose going to be picking up the pieces.
Think about this - would you trust the average America with a nuclear bomb? High end Gifted, like Skye, have that responsibility thrust upon them. It's bad enough with someone like Crusher Creel, who'd be an invincible assassin or hit man.
There's a reason Peter Parker changed his mind.
Yeah, his aunt got shot. Who'd have thought? That isn't what MCU's SHRA is meant to do.
There's a reason Captain America doesn't think registration is a good idea. It's a breach of privacy which DOES and CAN still exist, unless we go around assuming it's not worth fighting for.
Registration is a good idea, unfortunately it's a no sell in the Marvel universe (in the comics, anyway) since comic Civil War wasn't about both sides having good ideas or insights into a grey area, it got diluted by creators who didn't agree on what SHRA was and turned the pro-SHRA side into genuine super-villains because people read comics to see super-heroes punch people in the face. The MCU don't have to go that route, they can deliver on what the comics promised and failed to produce.
One little niggle in the "in the real" world part of the argument is that, in the real world, an outbreak of superhumans at the frequency and power-levels of the Marvel Universe wouldn't end with government registration. It would end with Lord Magneto dividing us normals into useful thralls and mulch for the Brood Pits.
It comes down to whether you think registration itself is a punishment or not, in that case.
As far as we had seen, the Index was basically "preemptive probation for life". That's kinda a punishment, yes.
Probation being keeping tabs on them, and since the "masquerade" is in full effect, not to use his powers in public. Other than that he was free to do as he liked.
edit: If Scorch had listened to SHIELD's advice he wouldn't have become a lab rat for super-villains.
Skye can cause earthquakes by having a bad dream. Using powers isn't always a choice. If there's a dude who can explode in a fireball if he has a bad enough nightmare or gets stressed out enough, I kind of want to know so I can make the choice to not live in the same apartment building as him.
By that logic, we should take away everyone's petrol-using, environment-polluting cars and close down all factories and such, because they cause the Earth to slowly become uninhabitable for humans.
It comes down to whether you think registration itself is a punishment or not, in that case.
As far as we had seen, the Index was basically "preemptive probation for life". That's kinda a punishment, yes.
Probation being keeping tabs on them, and since the "masquerade" is in full effect, not to use his powers in public. Other than that he was free to do as he liked.
edit: If Scorch had listened to SHIELD's advice he wouldn't have become a lab rat for super-villains.
They have no right to establish a masquerade.
While racing light mechs, your Urbanmech comes in second place, but only because it ran out of ammo.
How many carpenters do you know who can assassinate world leaders and get out undetected with their carpentry tools? She can do it without breaking a sweat, and so can Gordon.
Not to be all, "the bad guys won't register," but... Mystique really wouldn't register. I'm also not clear how Mystique registering would stop her at all, given that a) everybody knows she is anyways, or b) if they don't know who she is, they can't make her register, and c) they can't catch her even now, and d) what're you gonna do, "Something was behaving out of character! It was obviously Mystique!"
It comes down to whether you think registration itself is a punishment or not, in that case.
As far as we had seen, the Index was basically "preemptive probation for life". That's kinda a punishment, yes.
Probation being keeping tabs on them, and since the "masquerade" is in full effect, not to use his powers in public. Other than that he was free to do as he liked.
edit: If Scorch had listened to SHIELD's advice he wouldn't have become a lab rat for super-villains.
They have no right to establish a masquerade.
Without a masquerade it'd be easier for groups like Centipede to find and dissect/brainwash Gifted into cannon fodder. It's in SHIELD's portfolio to protect the world from Gifted, and a masquerade would be crucial to doing that. That said, the masquerade is falling, in a few years (when the Inhumans are in the open) I see SHIELD, if it comes back, dumping it altogether.
In the real world, if you commit a crime, people investigate this and try to find you. We don't have everyone on a list and monitored because people are innocent until proven guilty. If you have earthquake dreams, someone investigates that, then yes, sure, register that person. But "every powered person has to register" is intense. Again, what if my hair changes color? What if I can levitate up to 5 pounds and never use it to steal anything? I could, sure, but I could also just steal things. If caught, goes on my record, actions are taken.
It comes down to whether you think registration itself is a punishment or not, in that case.
As far as we had seen, the Index was basically "preemptive probation for life". That's kinda a punishment, yes.
Probation being keeping tabs on them, and since the "masquerade" is in full effect, not to use his powers in public. Other than that he was free to do as he liked.
At which point registiration no longer helps stop people from super powers from commiting crime, and you entire thing about how people like Skye should be registered because they could kill the president at any time falls apart.
Everyone has the capability to commit a murder any time, and as long is registration doesn't entail preemptive action against gifted it's just a useless invasion of privacy.
Either they commit a crime and get sentenced according to existing law (registration unnecessary), or they don't and registration is unnecessary.
Imagine Radiation Man had never harmed anyone and had no prior record. How would registration reduce Radiation Man's ability to kill someone with his powers, unless it automatically rules it unlawful for him to approach any human being to within range of his powers
How many carpenters do you know who can assassinate world leaders and get out undetected with their carpentry tools? She can do it without breaking a sweat, and so can Gordon.
Not to be all, "the bad guys won't register," but... Mystique really wouldn't register. I'm also not clear how Mystique registering would stop her at all, given that a) everybody knows she is anyways, or b) if they don't know who she is, they can't make her register, and c) they can't catch her even now, and d) what're you gonna do, "Something was behaving out of character! It was obviously Mystique!"
Depends how they do it. Being a mutant I suspect it'd be up for her parents or they'd do it when she was a kid or teenager before she was a super-villain. It's a precautionary measure. In First Class the government only knew who she was when she met them, and they forgot about her completely in DOTP. It was a plot point that they didn't know she was. They can catch her easier by learning information and without registration there's less information on her to track. They can't catch her because their main method of finding her was the Sentinels - they didn't have SHIELD. You bet they're going to be extremely suspicious of people acting out of character,
Talbot had good procedures in place when he was infiltrated by Agent 33.
To find someone like Mystique requires more security protocols, not less.
In the real world, if you commit a crime, people investigate this and try to find you.
This is an out of context problem to the real world. That's not going to do anything with a Gifted individual like Mystique. New methods need to created, new technologies need to be build.
By the time a Gift accidentally destroys Detroit the government is going to look like chumps for not acting sooner. Registration is that action.
In the real world criminals and terrorists can't destroy cities with their mind, Gifted can. That's why I used the nuclear bomb example. In this situation random citizens hit the genetic lotto and become Crusher Creel, Magneto or Skye. Would you trust half the country with those powers?
I'd also like them to take lessons from the Inhumans in teaching the Gifted how to control their abilities in a safe area.
We don't have everyone on a list and monitored because people are innocent until proven guilty. If you have earthquake dreams, someone investigates that, then yes, sure, register that person. But "every powered person has to register" is intense. Again, what if my hair changes color? What if I can levitate up to 5 pounds and never use it to steal anything? I could, sure, but I could also just steal things. If caught, goes on my record, actions are taken.
It's intense because that's what the Gifted would do to humanity. Government bureaucracy isn't going to care if your powers are worthless, and telekinesis isn't worthless. If the government knows you have that power it becomes that much easier to connect the dots to that crime.
In the real world, if you commit a crime, people investigate this and try to find you.
This is an out of context problem to the real world. That's not going to do anything with a Gifted individual like Mystique. New methods need to created, new technologies need to be build.
By the time a Gift accidentally destroys Detroit the government is going to look like chumps for not acting sooner. Registration is that action. o to humanity. Government bureaucracy isn't going to care if your powers are worthless, and telekinesis isn't worthless. If the government knows you have that power it becomes that much easier to connect the dots to that crime.
How is registration supposed to help here?
Seriously, I don't understand.
It can't stop the crime from happening.
It doesn't help the vicims recover.
It doesn't even help with investigation, because to force someone to register the government must already have known they had powers.
What you are talking about leaves registration as a minor judical tool to give someone an extra month or two of prison on top of their murder charge. Like charging a serial killer for jaywalking.
What's the point of keeping track of toxic waste? Companies can avoid government inspectors. It won't stop 100% of toxic waste spills. It won't help victims of toxic waste spills recover.
Seriously, I don't understand.
It can't stop the crime from happening.
No, but it helps the investigators know who they're dealing with sooner rather then later with files and monitoring them. This isn't Minority Report.
It doesn't help the vicims recover.
The criminal justice system unfortunately doesn't consider that a higher priority.
It doesn't even help with investigation, because to force someone to register the government must already have known they had powers.
This is hard to get into since we don't know how that part of the registration worked with the Index pre or post-Winter Soldier. It won't be perfect (no law enforcement precautions are) but there are various carrots and sticks the government could use to get them on the Index. A file would come in handy to know who their friends and family are, where they grew up - to start with. That's common with police investigations once they know who they're chasing IIRC. In this case, the person they're chasing creates fireballs.
What you are talking about leaves registration as a minor judical tool to give someone an extra month or two of prison on top of their murder charge. Like charging a serial killer for jaywalking.
In the comics this wasn't minor. It was a huge offence that an entire division of SHIELD elite commandos, sometimes lead by super-heroes like Carol Danvers, hunt fugitives like this down and when caught they were facing years in jail. The point is to get them on the Index so the government knows who is a Gifted, what they can do and when they decide to break the law they have information to work with rather than going in blind. LEOs are going to use different tactics for Crusher Creel than Mystique.
How many carpenters do you know who can assassinate world leaders and get out undetected with their carpentry tools? She can do it without breaking a sweat, and so can Gordon.
Not to be all, "the bad guys won't register," but... Mystique really wouldn't register. I'm also not clear how Mystique registering would stop her at all, given that a) everybody knows she is anyways, or b) if they don't know who she is, they can't make her register, and c) they can't catch her even now, and d) what're you gonna do, "Something was behaving out of character! It was obviously Mystique!"
Depends how they do it. Being a mutant I suspect it'd be up for her parents or they'd do it when she was a kid or teenager before she was a super-villain. It's a precautionary measure. In First Class the government only knew who she was when she met them, and they forgot about her completely in DOTP. It was a plot point that they didn't know she was. They can catch her easier by learning information and without registration there's less information on her to track. They can't catch her because their main method of finding her was the Sentinels - they didn't have SHIELD. You bet they're going to be extremely suspicious of people acting out of character,
Talbot had good procedures in place when he was infiltrated by Agent 33.
To find someone like Mystique requires more security protocols, not less.
Except that Mystique is at least over 100 years old, born in nobody knows where to nobody knows who.
Also there are an absurd number of differently powered people in the X-Men and MCU universes. There's also a stupid amount of technology accessible to "regulars" - like Doctor Doom - and also, yes, Asgardians drop from the sky every once in a while to fuck things up. What we see in the comics and the movies is the outcome of a fundamentally skewed creative process: writers can easily think of superpowers that defy regular security standards, but can't think of security standards that would compensate, or at least not at the same rate. So comics universes seem insecure as fuck, and in this context, registration as a preventative measure seems absurd. There'd be so many fucking security protocols that you couldn't get through them in an 8-hour work day: are you a shapeshifter, are you being mind-controlled, are you a clone, are you an android, are you disguised by a magic illusion, are you wearing a holographic face mask, etc, etc, and that's just to establish your identity!
The idea of building a massive database to collect everybody's powers for preventative purposes just seems completely useless. There's just too much shit to possibly be accounted for. And this is assuming that anybody ever actually bothers to go looking through this damn database. The X-Men wiki indicates that there are eleven Omega-level mutants out there, which means there's probably way more that haven't been IDed or aren't on the Wiki - Scarlet Witch is not listed??! - never mind all the non-Omega-level mutants that can cause havoc with security - Kitty Pryde can phase through matter AND time - and all the non-mutants.
And collecting just the powered people to use in a database as a suspect database afterwards seem like it just paints a target on their back. The "Mystique defense" would be used all over the damn Marvel universe - it wasn't me, it was Mystique disguised as me, I swear! Was it earthquake dreams or was Dr. Doom up to shenanigans again? Or rather, hell, if I was Dr. Doom, I'd start framing powered people for my crimes by using techniques similar to their powers near them.
Again, if you are to take these comics universes at face-value, what you have are universes in which the hewmons cannot be secure, just as part of how these worlds have been constructed. As long as superpowers are just basically deus ex machinas with no real explanations, there don't seem any reasonable countermeasures that a society built on realistic science and technology could adopt. I mean, maybe if we had some explanation as to how Mystique physically does what she does, some way of detecting that easily, but even then, trying to counter their powers is like trying to cover up the long tail, which even real modern-day security protocols are weak against, never mind in a world where the long tail manifests as unique, incredibly high-impact events.
Even now, SHIELD's list seems stupidly long, and it seems like their best solution for a lot of these people is just plain-ass life imprisonment. Which... I mean, if you want to go there then sure, but urrrgh. Still, that's part of SHIELD's conceit that's never really been well-explained in the comics or the movies, which is exactly how do they counter all this crap out there without just resorting to the same superpowered BS (see The Avengers). It's the same conceit that makes Batman's database of every superhero and supervillain and the exact way to beat them all laughable.
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Apothe0sisHave you ever questioned the nature of your reality?Registered Userregular
SURE plotting to set off a dirty bomb would harm a lot of people, but until they actually DO it why does the government care?
How many carpenters do you know who can assassinate world leaders and get out undetected with their carpentry tools? She can do it without breaking a sweat, and so can Gordon.
Not to be all, "the bad guys won't register," but... Mystique really wouldn't register. I'm also not clear how Mystique registering would stop her at all, given that a) everybody knows she is anyways, or b) if they don't know who she is, they can't make her register, and c) they can't catch her even now, and d) what're you gonna do, "Something was behaving out of character! It was obviously Mystique!"
Depends how they do it. Being a mutant I suspect it'd be up for her parents or they'd do it when she was a kid or teenager before she was a super-villain. It's a precautionary measure. In First Class the government only knew who she was when she met them, and they forgot about her completely in DOTP. It was a plot point that they didn't know she was. They can catch her easier by learning information and without registration there's less information on her to track. They can't catch her because their main method of finding her was the Sentinels - they didn't have SHIELD. You bet they're going to be extremely suspicious of people acting out of character,
Talbot had good procedures in place when he was infiltrated by Agent 33.
To find someone like Mystique requires more security protocols, not less.
Except that Mystique is at least over 100 years old, born in nobody knows where to nobody knows who.
Also there are an absurd number of differently powered people in the X-Men and MCU universes. There's also a stupid amount of technology accessible to "regulars" - like Doctor Doom - and also, yes, Asgardians drop from the sky every once in a while to fuck things up. What we see in the comics and the movies is the outcome of a fundamentally skewed creative process: writers can easily think of superpowers that defy regular security standards, but can't think of security standards that would compensate, or at least not at the same rate. So comics universes seem insecure as fuck, and in this context, registration as a preventative measure seems absurd. There'd be so many fucking security protocols that you couldn't get through them in an 8-hour work day: are you a shapeshifter, are you being mind-controlled, are you a clone, are you an android, are you disguised by a magic illusion, are you wearing a holographic face mask, etc, etc, and that's just to establish your identity!
The idea of building a massive database to collect everybody's powers for preventative purposes just seems completely useless. There's just too much shit to possibly be accounted for. And this is assuming that anybody ever actually bothers to go looking through this damn database. The X-Men wiki indicates that there are eleven Omega-level mutants out there, which means there's probably way more that haven't been IDed or aren't on the Wiki - Scarlet Witch is not listed??! - never mind all the non-Omega-level mutants that can cause havoc with security - Kitty Pryde can phase through matter AND time - and all the non-mutants.
And collecting just the powered people to use in a database as a suspect database afterwards seem like it just paints a target on their back. The "Mystique defense" would be used all over the damn Marvel universe - it wasn't me, it was Mystique disguised as me, I swear! Was it earthquake dreams or was Dr. Doom up to shenanigans again? Or rather, hell, if I was Dr. Doom, I'd start framing powered people for my crimes by using techniques similar to their powers near them.
Again, if you are to take these comics universes at face-value, what you have are universes in which the hewmons cannot be secure, just as part of how these worlds have been constructed. As long as superpowers are just basically deus ex machinas with no real explanations, there don't seem any reasonable countermeasures that a society built on realistic science and technology could adopt. I mean, maybe if we had some explanation as to how Mystique physically does what she does, some way of detecting that easily, but even then, trying to counter their powers is like trying to cover up the long tail, which even real modern-day security protocols are weak against, never mind in a world where the long tail manifests as unique, incredibly high-impact events.
Even now, SHIELD's list seems stupidly long, and it seems like their best solution for a lot of these people is just plain-ass life imprisonment. Which... I mean, if you want to go there then sure, but urrrgh. Still, that's part of SHIELD's conceit that's never really been well-explained in the comics or the movies, which is exactly how do they counter all this crap out there without just resorting to the same superpowered BS (see The Avengers). It's the same conceit that makes Batman's database of every superhero and supervillain and the exact way to beat them all laughable.
Yeah, non powered people are helpless so there's really no point for them to resist domination by powered people.
How many carpenters do you know who can assassinate world leaders and get out undetected with their carpentry tools? She can do it without breaking a sweat, and so can Gordon.
Not to be all, "the bad guys won't register," but... Mystique really wouldn't register. I'm also not clear how Mystique registering would stop her at all, given that a) everybody knows she is anyways, or b) if they don't know who she is, they can't make her register, and c) they can't catch her even now, and d) what're you gonna do, "Something was behaving out of character! It was obviously Mystique!"
Depends how they do it. Being a mutant I suspect it'd be up for her parents or they'd do it when she was a kid or teenager before she was a super-villain. It's a precautionary measure. In First Class the government only knew who she was when she met them, and they forgot about her completely in DOTP. It was a plot point that they didn't know she was. They can catch her easier by learning information and without registration there's less information on her to track. They can't catch her because their main method of finding her was the Sentinels - they didn't have SHIELD. You bet they're going to be extremely suspicious of people acting out of character,
Talbot had good procedures in place when he was infiltrated by Agent 33.
To find someone like Mystique requires more security protocols, not less.
Except that Mystique is at least over 100 years old, born in nobody knows where to nobody knows who.
Also there are an absurd number of differently powered people in the X-Men and MCU universes. There's also a stupid amount of technology accessible to "regulars" - like Doctor Doom - and also, yes, Asgardians drop from the sky every once in a while to fuck things up. What we see in the comics and the movies is the outcome of a fundamentally skewed creative process: writers can easily think of superpowers that defy regular security standards, but can't think of security standards that would compensate, or at least not at the same rate. So comics universes seem insecure as fuck, and in this context, registration as a preventative measure seems absurd. There'd be so many fucking security protocols that you couldn't get through them in an 8-hour work day: are you a shapeshifter, are you being mind-controlled, are you a clone, are you an android, are you disguised by a magic illusion, are you wearing a holographic face mask, etc, etc, and that's just to establish your identity!
The idea of building a massive database to collect everybody's powers for preventative purposes just seems completely useless. There's just too much shit to possibly be accounted for. And this is assuming that anybody ever actually bothers to go looking through this damn database. The X-Men wiki indicates that there are eleven Omega-level mutants out there, which means there's probably way more that haven't been IDed or aren't on the Wiki - Scarlet Witch is not listed??! - never mind all the non-Omega-level mutants that can cause havoc with security - Kitty Pryde can phase through matter AND time - and all the non-mutants.
And collecting just the powered people to use in a database as a suspect database afterwards seem like it just paints a target on their back. The "Mystique defense" would be used all over the damn Marvel universe - it wasn't me, it was Mystique disguised as me, I swear! Was it earthquake dreams or was Dr. Doom up to shenanigans again? Or rather, hell, if I was Dr. Doom, I'd start framing powered people for my crimes by using techniques similar to their powers near them.
Again, if you are to take these comics universes at face-value, what you have are universes in which the hewmons cannot be secure, just as part of how these worlds have been constructed. As long as superpowers are just basically deus ex machinas with no real explanations, there don't seem any reasonable countermeasures that a society built on realistic science and technology could adopt. I mean, maybe if we had some explanation as to how Mystique physically does what she does, some way of detecting that easily, but even then, trying to counter their powers is like trying to cover up the long tail, which even real modern-day security protocols are weak against, never mind in a world where the long tail manifests as unique, incredibly high-impact events.
Even now, SHIELD's list seems stupidly long, and it seems like their best solution for a lot of these people is just plain-ass life imprisonment. Which... I mean, if you want to go there then sure, but urrrgh. Still, that's part of SHIELD's conceit that's never really been well-explained in the comics or the movies, which is exactly how do they counter all this crap out there without just resorting to the same superpowered BS (see The Avengers). It's the same conceit that makes Batman's database of every superhero and supervillain and the exact way to beat them all laughable.
Yeah, non powered people are helpless so there's really no point for them to resist domination by powered people.
Look, if you're talking about the context of how comics are actually written and portrayed, yes, this is true. Right now, the X-Men et al. aren't just fighting for the world's future, not even the universe's future, but literally the multiverse's continued existence. We're talking about people who regularly combat space empires, cosmic entities, colliding universes, rips in the fabric of the multiverse, their mirror selves from alternate dimensions or the future, etc, etc,. SHIELD is effectively powerless against all of these forces. At best, they're a coordinating organization for "good" powered people, which (IIRC) was the other part of the Superhuman Registration Act that actually makes more sense - that various countries were going to form government-sanctioned teams of superheroes to enforce order. I vaguely recall there being a Chinese team of superheroes (People's Defense Force??) and there was like a military-like interception of the X-Men when they encroached on China at some point during this arc (or something like that).
Admittedly, governments would ultimately still have little leverage over these individuals. Still, things like the Suicide Squad are fascinating to me because they do reflect how governments might have to operate in such a world. (Though, with comics, inevitably the governments have some sort of secret evil agenda or some shit.)
Except that Mystique is at least over 100 years old, born in nobody knows where to nobody knows who.
Not in the movies. Governments would also be tracking down every scrap on intel on her they can find and researching methods to catch and kill her when she crosses their path, registration simply starts that process earlier.
Also there are an absurd number of differently powered people in the X-Men and MCU universes. There's also a stupid amount of technology accessible to "regulars" - like Doctor Doom - and also, yes, Asgardians drop from the sky every once in a while to fuck things up. What we see in the comics and the movies is the outcome of a fundamentally skewed creative process: writers can easily think of superpowers that defy regular security standards, but can't think of security standards that would compensate, or at least not at the same rate. So comics universes seem insecure as fuck, and in this context, registration as a preventative measure seems absurd. There'd be so many fucking security protocols that you couldn't get through them in an 8-hour work day: are you a shapeshifter, are you being mind-controlled, are you a clone, are you an android, are you disguised by a magic illusion, are you wearing a holographic face mask, etc, etc, and that's just to establish your identity!
This is where the MCU has an edge over the comics. There aren't as many Gifted to keep track of, and there aren't as many aliens to keep an eye on. Yet. The MCU is also good with learning how to adjust, the government agencies aren't Keystone Cops.
The idea of building a massive database to collect everybody's powers for preventative purposes just seems completely useless. There's just too much shit to possibly be accounted for. And this is assuming that anybody ever actually bothers to go looking through this damn database. The X-Men wiki indicates that there are eleven Omega-level mutants out there, which means there's probably way more that haven't been IDed or aren't on the Wiki - Scarlet Witch is not listed??! - never mind all the non-Omega-level mutants that can cause havoc with security - Kitty Pryde can phase through matter AND time - and all the non-mutants.
I'd rather have too much information then none at all. So what if it's incomplete? Add information when necessary. It's easier for the government to track down who did something with information. If they're dealing with an Omega, they can narrow down who it is by their powers. If it was weather manipulation it's gotta be Storm, if it's mind control and telekinesis it's either Cable or Jean Grey. With that information they know who they're looking for, don't have to start from the ground up and can start knowing what to ask their government contractors to build for them to neutralize them when they need it. Fitz did this on his own, numerous times on the show.
And collecting just the powered people to use in a database as a suspect database afterwards seem like it just paints a target on their back. The "Mystique defense" would be used all over the damn Marvel universe - it wasn't me, it was Mystique disguised as me, I swear! Was it earthquake dreams or was Dr. Doom up to shenanigans again? Or rather, hell, if I was Dr. Doom, I'd start framing powered people for my crimes by using techniques similar to their powers near them.
No system is perfect, that's going to happen with or without registration. With registration the government has the slightest edge on knowing who they're dealing with and have the motivation to acquire the appropriate countermeasures.
Again, if you are to take these comics universes at face-value, what you have are universes in which the hewmons cannot be secure, just as part of how these worlds have been constructed. As long as superpowers are just basically deus ex machinas with no real explanations, there don't seem any reasonable countermeasures that a society built on realistic science and technology could adopt. I mean, maybe if we had some explanation as to how Mystique physically does what she does, some way of detecting that easily, but even then, trying to counter their powers is like trying to cover up the long tail, which even real modern-day security protocols are weak against, never mind in a world where the long tail manifests as unique, incredibly high-impact events.
The MCU is a world with Tony Stark and other geniuses in it, it isn't our world. The movie X-men universe had Dr. Bolivar Trask, a man who not only built accurate mutant detecting devices - he made working Sentinels. In 1973. I was using specific X-men for examples for what Gifted can do in the MCU, and they're not that far from their X-men brethren in ability. The MCU has established powers through super soldier serums, alien breeding programs and unknowns. SHIELD has been doing this since they began. It's not new for the MCU, it's Tuesday.
Even now, SHIELD's list seems stupidly long, and it seems like their best solution for a lot of these people is just plain-ass life imprisonment. Which... I mean, if you want to go there then sure, but urrrgh. Still, that's part of SHIELD's conceit that's never really been well-explained in the comics or the movies, which is exactly how do they counter all this crap out there without just resorting to the same superpowered BS (see The Avengers). It's the same conceit that makes Batman's database of every superhero and supervillain and the exact way to beat them all laughable.
They imprison the super-criminals, and even then they've been more than lenient with Gifted murderers, like knife lady. Registration only ends in imprisonment if they break the law, that's how it's always been with SHIELD in the MCU. Scorch didn't lose his rights and wasn't sent to a fantasy Guantanamo. What else are they meant to do with super-villains? In the comics SHIELD's not able to shit about them since they'd make the super-heroes useless. On a SHIELD tv show that isn't what it has to be. That's up to the writers, the concept is sound.
Holy multi-point post Batman. I ain't gonna do that quote and respond point-by-point shit.
Look, if writers are going to deus ex some goddamned technological solution to the problem, then they're going to deus ex some goddamned technological solution the problem. You'll note that the Sentinels didn't need a mutant registration act to figure out who were mutants or not. AXIS-inverted Tony Stark can apparently just make the human population immortal using Extremis if he wants to. I cannot account for that shit; I cannot hold a rational discourse while accommodating anything that people can imagine; I'm working with the facts of the Marvel universe as I understand them, laid upon the background of real modern-day society and technology. If comic book writers wanted to roll out a SHIELD that was effective against all sorts of threats and could both implement and take advantage of a superhuman registration act effectively, that'd be a different thing, but AFAIK, they haven't, and I assume there are in-universe reasons for it. (More practically, writers probably just don't want to neuter all their superheroes by turning the Marvel universe even more sci-fi-y than it is now.)
(You'll also note that 1) the X-Men defeat the Sentinels - never mind what'd happen if Spiderman and Dr. Doom and the Fantastic Four and Black Bolt and Dr. Strange and god knows who else also fought them - 2) the Sentinels are frequently taken over by crazy alien viruses or whatnot, and Master Mold attempted to take over the planet itself, and 3) comics have begun introducing powered people who can interface with technology and take them over, so I don't even know if the original Sentinels really make sense in a 21st century scene.)
In the comics universe, the Superhuman Registration Act was presented like it was a common-sense solution to a multi-faceted problem, specifically intended to resonate with modern readers as a reasonable measure. Comparing it with the Sentinel program is stupid, because the Sentinel program is technological magic that would make registration just pointless anyways, and using Mystique to try and justify registration is equally absurd, because the idea of trying to account for each and every powered person in the Marvel universe is logistically insane. Because, no, if it's weather manipulation, it ISN'T just going to be Storm, because it could also be Thor or Iceman or Washout or lord knows who else has weather-manipulation powers, never mind that it could always just be Dr. Strange casting a spell or Reed Richards running an experiment.
As for the MCU? I dunno. It's weird with the X-men being explicitly separated from the MCU, and with our limited windows into the MCU, we don't see much of the broad scope of the problem. Still, it does seem like there are a hellluva lot of powered people, and like in Civil War, there are major jurisdictional issues - if Malta refuses to be subject to SHIELD, I can only imagine that China also isn't - which ... again, if someone's fucking with the weather, you're going to assume it's Storm without regard for the fact that a quarter of the world's population isn't subject to your database?
I mean, this is where the simile to firearms registration just utterly breaks down. The fact that each firearm has completely different and unique properties, and that these firearms are incredibly portable and powerful enough to be earth-shaking and fire in undetectable ways end up completely breaking the similarities, and we can't even get firearms registries right. The real effectiveness of a superhuman registration act seems pretty goddamned minimal relative to the larger problem it presents as a solution to. Not saying that more information for LEOs et al. wouldn't be useful, but comparatively, the effectiveness would be greatly reduced and the the trade-offs greatly increased, and that's even ignoring the fact that Captain America's fricking life was part of those trade-offs (in the comics).
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We register motor vehicles because if you want to use one on public roads, you have to abide by public laws.
You don't have to register with a government database if you have, say, an extra finger or some other mutation.
So why should a person with powers have to give up their privacy for something that is possibly not their fault? If my power is "I can change my hair color at will," do I have to go on a list for the government to track me? That shit is scary and totalitarian and I am rather surprised people are so on board with registration. Do we get to know what books they're reading at the library too?
edit: And do bodybuilders have to register? They're way stronger than the average human. Does Daredevil have to register? Does Black Widow (Assuming no super serum)?
And wasn't a major point of anti-registration "Half the reason we have secret identities is to protect those close to us so they can't be used against us." Destroying their privacy puts everyone's family at risk.
While the X-Men are absent from the MCU, the other argument in the comics universe has been that the American government is always one bad day from rounding up the mutants and superheroes and putting them in death camps. The idea has always been that if you make a list, then someone will eventually use that list to eliminate the "threat" instead of just containing it.
Snark aside, yes, those are basically the primary anti-registration arguments, and if MCU Civil War addresses that aspect better than the comics did, that would be a net win.
It is scary, so is a random person who accidentally blows up New York City with an earth quake. We don't know the details yet but I think you're stretching with powers like an extra finger, humans do that already. How they got their powers isn't relevant, it's that they do have powers and the government would be silly for ignoring the potential disasters if a Gifted accidentally hurt innocent people with their powers or went the serial killer or terrorist route. Being registered means that they have the knowledge to act if a Gifted they knew fucks up, rather than sitting on the thumbs with no knowledge while, say, a shape-shifter travels around the country assassinating businessmen. This isn't any different from registering motor vehicles, the difference is their born with it and once they manifest it'd be prudent for the government to know who they are, what they can do and if they do anything funny they'll get arrested for it.
IIRC people who are dangerous in martial arts and boxing have to register their hands as lethal weapons. DD shouldn't be registering since no one knows his powers, everyone assumes he's a random thug with a mask. Black Widow shouldn't need to register as she is, it's the fact she's a member of the Avengers - that's information the government would want to know about her. Hawkeye should definitely be registered.
Secret identities aren't what the registration will be about in the MCU.
This is a popular old story and used to be a fun publicity stunt boxers and wrestlers would do, but it's never been true. For a few years in Japan, all martial artists were registered to keep them from training others, but that also applied to you if you weren't any good. Which... Well, considering some of the things we've put people on lists for on this planet is actually kind of surprising.
Because privacy is a polite lie that civilized people tell themselves in order to live alongside other people. Registering that you can shoot concussive beams out of your eyes isn't giving up your privacy any more than getting a driver's license or a concealed carry permit. And it carries a similar threat to the people around you.
You know who had the most to lose by revealing their secret identity? Peter Parker. What did he do, again?
There's a case to be made for only registering if you're going to be a vigilante, but then what happens if a powered person goes all Good Samaritan and helps out? Are they gonna get punished? Nah, that's too much rules and counter rules and nonsense. All powers get registered. It's a flat, evenly enforceable law that is no more intrusive than getting a passport.
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Lost everything and everyone he loved before making a literal deal with the devil to take it all back?
I don't know, I've been staying out of this argument because I thought it was dumb the first time around and at this point I just have faith that Marvel will release a good movie.
Good times.
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If you have powers, you register. It isn't a vigilante registration.
A: Unsanctioned Vigilantes taking the law into their own hand.
B: and the Villains they fight.
If somebody is proven to have powers, I would at least expect the government to investigate and rule out that they where Stabby McMurder(or Wolverine if you prefer) in civilian guise.
People with powers that just sit on their couch are thin on the ground in Comics.
Using those powers in a bad way is a choice too. Just like using carpentry to make a spear and go around stabbing people. Using your abilities to do bad is bad, but having them isn't.
There's a reason Peter Parker changed his mind. There's a reason Captain America doesn't think registration is a good idea. It's a breach of privacy which DOES and CAN still exist, unless we go around assuming it's not worth fighting for.
Do... Re... Mi... So... Fa.... Do... Re.... Do...
Forget it...
By that logic, we should take away everyone's petrol-using, environment-polluting cars and close down all factories and such, because they cause the Earth to slowly become uninhabitable for humans.
Actually yeah, let's do that.
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It's not about choice, once those powers are in the open the world has to deal with the consequences.
How many carpenters do you know who can assassinate world leaders and get out undetected with their carpentry tools? She can do it without breaking a sweat, and so can Gordon.
There are others who destroy cities accidentally, like Skye. There are Gifted like Radiation Man in the comics, his power? Emitting radiation. He was a super-villain. Set him loose in our world, what do you see happening?
Charles Xavier, prominent telepath on Earth - almost killed humanity by thinking hard in X-men 2. Nightcrawler came frighteningly close to killing the president with his powers. Magneto reversed the polarity of Earth's axis twice, causing untold tragedies and early in his super-villain career used his powers to lift a Soviet submarine from the ocean and steal their nuclear missiles. Wolverine's a mutant whose powers includes going berserk and killing everything he can see. Storm causes hurricanes and tornadoes. Kitty Pryde has a power that makes her immune to being harmed and has the ability to steal whatever she wants if she felt like it. The highest quality safe is less than paper to her. This was bought up by Senator Kelly in X-men, and while he is an anti-mutant bigot the descriptions he used for Xavier and Kitty were on point.
This is a protocol for the government so that the villains don't start massacring cities for the hell of it when they have a bad day, or the untrained don't accidentally destroy lives when they have nightmares. This what Skye did without training
Having powers isn't bad, it is good for the government to keep an eye on them, within reason - like they did with Scorch. When they use their powers accidentally or deliberately for evil - it's the government whose going to be picking up the pieces.
Think about this - would you trust the average America with a nuclear bomb? High end Gifted, like Skye, have that responsibility thrust upon them. It's bad enough with someone like Crusher Creel, who'd be an invincible assassin or hit man.
Yeah, his aunt got shot. Who'd have thought? That isn't what MCU's SHRA is meant to do.
Registration is a good idea, unfortunately it's a no sell in the Marvel universe (in the comics, anyway) since comic Civil War wasn't about both sides having good ideas or insights into a grey area, it got diluted by creators who didn't agree on what SHRA was and turned the pro-SHRA side into genuine super-villains because people read comics to see super-heroes punch people in the face. The MCU don't have to go that route, they can deliver on what the comics promised and failed to produce.
"I thought the punishment usually came after the crime."
He said that about murdering terrorists, not putting Gifted on the Index.
As far as we had seen, the Index was basically "preemptive probation for life". That's kinda a punishment, yes.
Probation being keeping tabs on them, and since the "masquerade" is in full effect, not to use his powers in public. Other than that he was free to do as he liked.
edit: If Scorch had listened to SHIELD's advice he wouldn't have become a lab rat for super-villains.
...How is that even remotely similar?
Do... Re... Mi... So... Fa.... Do... Re.... Do...
Forget it...
They have no right to establish a masquerade.
Not to be all, "the bad guys won't register," but... Mystique really wouldn't register. I'm also not clear how Mystique registering would stop her at all, given that a) everybody knows she is anyways, or b) if they don't know who she is, they can't make her register, and c) they can't catch her even now, and d) what're you gonna do, "Something was behaving out of character! It was obviously Mystique!"
Without a masquerade it'd be easier for groups like Centipede to find and dissect/brainwash Gifted into cannon fodder. It's in SHIELD's portfolio to protect the world from Gifted, and a masquerade would be crucial to doing that. That said, the masquerade is falling, in a few years (when the Inhumans are in the open) I see SHIELD, if it comes back, dumping it altogether.
At which point registiration no longer helps stop people from super powers from commiting crime, and you entire thing about how people like Skye should be registered because they could kill the president at any time falls apart.
Everyone has the capability to commit a murder any time, and as long is registration doesn't entail preemptive action against gifted it's just a useless invasion of privacy.
Either they commit a crime and get sentenced according to existing law (registration unnecessary), or they don't and registration is unnecessary.
Imagine Radiation Man had never harmed anyone and had no prior record. How would registration reduce Radiation Man's ability to kill someone with his powers, unless it automatically rules it unlawful for him to approach any human being to within range of his powers
Depends how they do it. Being a mutant I suspect it'd be up for her parents or they'd do it when she was a kid or teenager before she was a super-villain. It's a precautionary measure. In First Class the government only knew who she was when she met them, and they forgot about her completely in DOTP. It was a plot point that they didn't know she was. They can catch her easier by learning information and without registration there's less information on her to track. They can't catch her because their main method of finding her was the Sentinels - they didn't have SHIELD. You bet they're going to be extremely suspicious of people acting out of character,
This is an out of context problem to the real world. That's not going to do anything with a Gifted individual like Mystique. New methods need to created, new technologies need to be build.
By the time a Gift accidentally destroys Detroit the government is going to look like chumps for not acting sooner. Registration is that action.
In the real world criminals and terrorists can't destroy cities with their mind, Gifted can. That's why I used the nuclear bomb example. In this situation random citizens hit the genetic lotto and become Crusher Creel, Magneto or Skye. Would you trust half the country with those powers?
I'd also like them to take lessons from the Inhumans in teaching the Gifted how to control their abilities in a safe area.
It's intense because that's what the Gifted would do to humanity. Government bureaucracy isn't going to care if your powers are worthless, and telekinesis isn't worthless. If the government knows you have that power it becomes that much easier to connect the dots to that crime.
How is registration supposed to help here?
Seriously, I don't understand.
It can't stop the crime from happening.
It doesn't help the vicims recover.
It doesn't even help with investigation, because to force someone to register the government must already have known they had powers.
What you are talking about leaves registration as a minor judical tool to give someone an extra month or two of prison on top of their murder charge. Like charging a serial killer for jaywalking.
No, but it helps the investigators know who they're dealing with sooner rather then later with files and monitoring them. This isn't Minority Report.
The criminal justice system unfortunately doesn't consider that a higher priority.
This is hard to get into since we don't know how that part of the registration worked with the Index pre or post-Winter Soldier. It won't be perfect (no law enforcement precautions are) but there are various carrots and sticks the government could use to get them on the Index. A file would come in handy to know who their friends and family are, where they grew up - to start with. That's common with police investigations once they know who they're chasing IIRC. In this case, the person they're chasing creates fireballs.
In the comics this wasn't minor. It was a huge offence that an entire division of SHIELD elite commandos, sometimes lead by super-heroes like Carol Danvers, hunt fugitives like this down and when caught they were facing years in jail. The point is to get them on the Index so the government knows who is a Gifted, what they can do and when they decide to break the law they have information to work with rather than going in blind. LEOs are going to use different tactics for Crusher Creel than Mystique.
Except that Mystique is at least over 100 years old, born in nobody knows where to nobody knows who.
Also there are an absurd number of differently powered people in the X-Men and MCU universes. There's also a stupid amount of technology accessible to "regulars" - like Doctor Doom - and also, yes, Asgardians drop from the sky every once in a while to fuck things up. What we see in the comics and the movies is the outcome of a fundamentally skewed creative process: writers can easily think of superpowers that defy regular security standards, but can't think of security standards that would compensate, or at least not at the same rate. So comics universes seem insecure as fuck, and in this context, registration as a preventative measure seems absurd. There'd be so many fucking security protocols that you couldn't get through them in an 8-hour work day: are you a shapeshifter, are you being mind-controlled, are you a clone, are you an android, are you disguised by a magic illusion, are you wearing a holographic face mask, etc, etc, and that's just to establish your identity!
The idea of building a massive database to collect everybody's powers for preventative purposes just seems completely useless. There's just too much shit to possibly be accounted for. And this is assuming that anybody ever actually bothers to go looking through this damn database. The X-Men wiki indicates that there are eleven Omega-level mutants out there, which means there's probably way more that haven't been IDed or aren't on the Wiki - Scarlet Witch is not listed??! - never mind all the non-Omega-level mutants that can cause havoc with security - Kitty Pryde can phase through matter AND time - and all the non-mutants.
And collecting just the powered people to use in a database as a suspect database afterwards seem like it just paints a target on their back. The "Mystique defense" would be used all over the damn Marvel universe - it wasn't me, it was Mystique disguised as me, I swear! Was it earthquake dreams or was Dr. Doom up to shenanigans again? Or rather, hell, if I was Dr. Doom, I'd start framing powered people for my crimes by using techniques similar to their powers near them.
Again, if you are to take these comics universes at face-value, what you have are universes in which the hewmons cannot be secure, just as part of how these worlds have been constructed. As long as superpowers are just basically deus ex machinas with no real explanations, there don't seem any reasonable countermeasures that a society built on realistic science and technology could adopt. I mean, maybe if we had some explanation as to how Mystique physically does what she does, some way of detecting that easily, but even then, trying to counter their powers is like trying to cover up the long tail, which even real modern-day security protocols are weak against, never mind in a world where the long tail manifests as unique, incredibly high-impact events.
Even now, SHIELD's list seems stupidly long, and it seems like their best solution for a lot of these people is just plain-ass life imprisonment. Which... I mean, if you want to go there then sure, but urrrgh. Still, that's part of SHIELD's conceit that's never really been well-explained in the comics or the movies, which is exactly how do they counter all this crap out there without just resorting to the same superpowered BS (see The Avengers). It's the same conceit that makes Batman's database of every superhero and supervillain and the exact way to beat them all laughable.
WHAT ABOUT PRIVACY
that about the shape of it?
Yeah, non powered people are helpless so there's really no point for them to resist domination by powered people.
Look, if you're talking about the context of how comics are actually written and portrayed, yes, this is true. Right now, the X-Men et al. aren't just fighting for the world's future, not even the universe's future, but literally the multiverse's continued existence. We're talking about people who regularly combat space empires, cosmic entities, colliding universes, rips in the fabric of the multiverse, their mirror selves from alternate dimensions or the future, etc, etc,. SHIELD is effectively powerless against all of these forces. At best, they're a coordinating organization for "good" powered people, which (IIRC) was the other part of the Superhuman Registration Act that actually makes more sense - that various countries were going to form government-sanctioned teams of superheroes to enforce order. I vaguely recall there being a Chinese team of superheroes (People's Defense Force??) and there was like a military-like interception of the X-Men when they encroached on China at some point during this arc (or something like that).
Admittedly, governments would ultimately still have little leverage over these individuals. Still, things like the Suicide Squad are fascinating to me because they do reflect how governments might have to operate in such a world. (Though, with comics, inevitably the governments have some sort of secret evil agenda or some shit.)
Not in the movies. Governments would also be tracking down every scrap on intel on her they can find and researching methods to catch and kill her when she crosses their path, registration simply starts that process earlier.
This is where the MCU has an edge over the comics. There aren't as many Gifted to keep track of, and there aren't as many aliens to keep an eye on. Yet. The MCU is also good with learning how to adjust, the government agencies aren't Keystone Cops.
I'd rather have too much information then none at all. So what if it's incomplete? Add information when necessary. It's easier for the government to track down who did something with information. If they're dealing with an Omega, they can narrow down who it is by their powers. If it was weather manipulation it's gotta be Storm, if it's mind control and telekinesis it's either Cable or Jean Grey. With that information they know who they're looking for, don't have to start from the ground up and can start knowing what to ask their government contractors to build for them to neutralize them when they need it. Fitz did this on his own, numerous times on the show.
No system is perfect, that's going to happen with or without registration. With registration the government has the slightest edge on knowing who they're dealing with and have the motivation to acquire the appropriate countermeasures.
The MCU is a world with Tony Stark and other geniuses in it, it isn't our world. The movie X-men universe had Dr. Bolivar Trask, a man who not only built accurate mutant detecting devices - he made working Sentinels. In 1973. I was using specific X-men for examples for what Gifted can do in the MCU, and they're not that far from their X-men brethren in ability. The MCU has established powers through super soldier serums, alien breeding programs and unknowns. SHIELD has been doing this since they began. It's not new for the MCU, it's Tuesday.
They imprison the super-criminals, and even then they've been more than lenient with Gifted murderers, like knife lady. Registration only ends in imprisonment if they break the law, that's how it's always been with SHIELD in the MCU. Scorch didn't lose his rights and wasn't sent to a fantasy Guantanamo. What else are they meant to do with super-villains? In the comics SHIELD's not able to shit about them since they'd make the super-heroes useless. On a SHIELD tv show that isn't what it has to be. That's up to the writers, the concept is sound.
Look, if writers are going to deus ex some goddamned technological solution to the problem, then they're going to deus ex some goddamned technological solution the problem. You'll note that the Sentinels didn't need a mutant registration act to figure out who were mutants or not. AXIS-inverted Tony Stark can apparently just make the human population immortal using Extremis if he wants to. I cannot account for that shit; I cannot hold a rational discourse while accommodating anything that people can imagine; I'm working with the facts of the Marvel universe as I understand them, laid upon the background of real modern-day society and technology. If comic book writers wanted to roll out a SHIELD that was effective against all sorts of threats and could both implement and take advantage of a superhuman registration act effectively, that'd be a different thing, but AFAIK, they haven't, and I assume there are in-universe reasons for it. (More practically, writers probably just don't want to neuter all their superheroes by turning the Marvel universe even more sci-fi-y than it is now.)
(You'll also note that 1) the X-Men defeat the Sentinels - never mind what'd happen if Spiderman and Dr. Doom and the Fantastic Four and Black Bolt and Dr. Strange and god knows who else also fought them - 2) the Sentinels are frequently taken over by crazy alien viruses or whatnot, and Master Mold attempted to take over the planet itself, and 3) comics have begun introducing powered people who can interface with technology and take them over, so I don't even know if the original Sentinels really make sense in a 21st century scene.)
In the comics universe, the Superhuman Registration Act was presented like it was a common-sense solution to a multi-faceted problem, specifically intended to resonate with modern readers as a reasonable measure. Comparing it with the Sentinel program is stupid, because the Sentinel program is technological magic that would make registration just pointless anyways, and using Mystique to try and justify registration is equally absurd, because the idea of trying to account for each and every powered person in the Marvel universe is logistically insane. Because, no, if it's weather manipulation, it ISN'T just going to be Storm, because it could also be Thor or Iceman or Washout or lord knows who else has weather-manipulation powers, never mind that it could always just be Dr. Strange casting a spell or Reed Richards running an experiment.
As for the MCU? I dunno. It's weird with the X-men being explicitly separated from the MCU, and with our limited windows into the MCU, we don't see much of the broad scope of the problem. Still, it does seem like there are a hellluva lot of powered people, and like in Civil War, there are major jurisdictional issues - if Malta refuses to be subject to SHIELD, I can only imagine that China also isn't - which ... again, if someone's fucking with the weather, you're going to assume it's Storm without regard for the fact that a quarter of the world's population isn't subject to your database?
I mean, this is where the simile to firearms registration just utterly breaks down. The fact that each firearm has completely different and unique properties, and that these firearms are incredibly portable and powerful enough to be earth-shaking and fire in undetectable ways end up completely breaking the similarities, and we can't even get firearms registries right. The real effectiveness of a superhuman registration act seems pretty goddamned minimal relative to the larger problem it presents as a solution to. Not saying that more information for LEOs et al. wouldn't be useful, but comparatively, the effectiveness would be greatly reduced and the the trade-offs greatly increased, and that's even ignoring the fact that Captain America's fricking life was part of those trade-offs (in the comics).