Muties and M.O.N.S.T.E.R.s
Author's Note: I originally wrote this story in 1986 or '87, as a sample submission for Marvel Comics. (They chose not to buy it, alas.) However, when I met Peter Gillis at San Diego ComicCon and told him that I was using M.O.N.S.T.E.R., which he created in The New Defenders #142 for my sample story, he all but jumped over the table to yell "Bless you, my child!" He was slightly disappointed that no one (at that time) had followed up on his creation of M.O.N.S.T.E.R and he was delighted that I wanted to make it part of my sample story. It was printed in the fanzine Power Star #68 in 1993. I later resurrected the Mary Sue as a gaming character for a Spies and Superheroes RPG (and have plans to recycle her into some Avengers movie fanfic stories). In 2013 I present it as 'netfic. Based on characters and situations from Marvel Comics, especially X-Factor, The Uncanny X-Men, and Marvel Graphic Novel #5: God Loves, Man Kills, as they existed in 1986. If you only know the 21st century movies, this may be a little different than what you're used to.
Muties and M.O.N.S.T.E.R.s
by Susan M. M.
Based on characters and situations from Marvel Comics
High above New York, a private plane flew west toward North Dakota. The pilot's exorbitant salary was paid by Worthington Enterprises, and he was sworn to secrecy. In the lounge of the plane were four people wearing blue jumpsuits which bore an uncanny resemblance to pajamas. No one had told the wearers this, however. The three men and one woman were 80% of X-Factor, and few people would have been brave enough to tell them anything they didn't want to hear.
Scott Summers - whose X-Men identity was Cyclops - pushed a button. A slide of a young woman in a blue police uniform appeared on the projection screen. "Okay, people," he announced, "this is our target: Officer Tracy Oliver."
Hank "Beast" McCoy, Jean "Marvel Girl" Grey, and Bobby "Iceman" Drake - their other team member, Warren "Angel" Worthington, was absent due to a Worthington Enterprises stockholders' meeting - turned to take a closer look at the picture. Tracy Oliver had strawberry blonde hair and dark eyes. It was impossible to tell from the slide if they were brown or black. She looked very young, scarcely out of her teens.
Scott continued, "Naturally, a lot of the citizens of Grand Forks are concerned about having a mutant running around armed and dangerous. There's been a petition to have her thrown off the police force."
"She's publicly known to be a mutant?" Bobby asked.
Scott nodded. "Three months ago, she was assigned to a security team for one of Rev. Stryker's speeches. As we know," - only too well, Scott thought - "Stryker has his own security measures. His mutant detectors caught her, and she had no choice but to confess." He pushed the button, and another slide appeared on the screen. This one was of the dartboard at X-Factor headquarters, which bore the Rev. Mr. William Stryker's picture. "For her own protection, we've got to rescue her."
Hank looked thoughtful. "If she's survived three months as a publicly-known mutant - and I object to the word 'confessed'; mutancy is neither a sin nor a crime - does she really need rescuing?"
"As long as people like Rev. Stryker and Senator Kelly are out there, no mutant is safe living in the open," Scott decreed. "X-Factor will have to capture her so the real X-Men can protect and train her."
Jean nodded in agreement.
The four X-Factor members gathered in the hallway of Tracy Oliver's apartment building. "Ready?" Scott asked.
"Ready," his three teammates replied in unison.
Scott knocked.
A tall, buxom blonde - big-boned, not fat - opened the door. She wore blue jeans and a green t-shirt with a six-fingered fist and the initials M.O.N.S.T.E.R. "What's the matter, Tracy, forget your key?" she asked before she had the door all the way opened. Then she saw who was standing there. "Oh ... X-Factor!" She tried to slam the door shut.
Scott and Hank stopped her and forced the door the rest of the way open.
"Who are you? Where's Tracy Oliver?" Scott demanded.
"P-peggy J-jensen," the woman stammered. "I'm her roommate. Wh-what do you want her for? She hasn't done anything to hurt you!"
Jean and Bobby followed Hank and Scott into the apartment. Bobby shut the door and locked it behind them.
"She's a mutant," Scott announced, doing a credible job of imitating the scorn he'd heard in Senator Kelly's voice on CNN on the same topic. "That's enough."
Hank looked at the frightened young woman closely. "Sc-, ... uh, chief, she's wearing a M.O.N.S.T.E.R. t-shirt." he pointed out.
"Monster?" Jean repeated.
Proud, defiant, and trembling with fear, Peggy piped up, "Mutants Only Need Sensitivity, Tolerance, and Equal Rights. But you fascists wouldn't know anything about that, would you?"
Hank bit his lip. He was a founding member of M.O.N.S.T.E.R.
Scott glanced at his mini-Cerebro. "But you're human."
"So's Tracy," Peggy replied. "Mutants are people, too. You have no right to persecute her just because her DNA is different."
Bobby glanced at the Rookie of the Year plaque hanging on the wall. It had Tracy Oliver's name engraved on it, and last year's date. On the table beneath the plaque sat several scrapbooks. Curious, he opened one and found it full of clippings of the X-Men. He glanced at the others. They were full of the same, from black and white photos of the original X-Men to color pictures from last Sunday's paper of Rogue and Storm.
A key turned in the lock. Everyone turned at the sound. Scott put his hand over Peggy's mouth to keep her from calling out a warning.
A uniformed Tracy Oliver stepped through the door. "Hey, Peggy, whaddya say we send out for pizza tonight? I'm too tired to cook." Then she stared at the scene before her eyes and whispered, "Oh, my God." She put her hand on her gun butt, but did not draw the weapon. "Peggy, are you okay?"
Scott removed his hand from the blonde's mouth. She took a steadying breath before replying, "I - I think so."
Tracy looked at the four intruders. "What are you doing here? What do you want?"
"That should be obvious, Ms. Oliver," Scott replied. "We want you."
"Sorry, racists aren't my type," Tracy quipped. "Get out of here before I arrest you for trespassing." Suddenly she looked closer at Hank, and a stunned expression appeared on her face. "Dr. McCoy?" she asked incredulously.
"Oh, no," Hank muttered.
"Dr. McCoy - it is you, isn't it?" Tracy continued. "Henry P. McCoy ... the Beast. And you with the glasses ... you must be Cyclops. Good Lord, you're the X-Men! What the Hell is going on?"
"We're here to protect you, Tracy," Jean replied. "To hide you and protect you. We'll train you how to use your powers."
"I'm not ashamed of what I am," Tracy retorted. "I don't need to hide. Is that what X-Factor is - a front for hiding mutants?"
"Yes," Jean answered proudly, pleased with herself for belonging to X-Factor and with Tracy for being clever enough to figure out their secret.
"No!" Tracy wailed in anguish. Then she caught her breath, calmed herself down as her kung fu instructor had taught her, and demanded coldly, "Do you idiots realize what you've done, the way you've encouraged anti-mutant hysteria? For every mutant you hide, you're endangering hundreds of others who can't or won't hide. How could you do this? How could you betray Xavier's dream? Unless ... oh, no ... is he in on this, too?"
X-Factor stared at her, stunned. No one knew Charles Xavier was the brains behind the X-Men.
"Huh? What do you mean?" Scott stalled.
"Come off it, Cyclops," Tracy scoffed. "Anybody with half a brain knows Xavier runs the X-Men. The only two X-Men who've publicly revealed their identities are both listed in Who's Who as graduates of Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters. Charles Xavier is a biologist specializing in mutant genetics. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to guess what 'gifted youngsters' is a euphemism for. Xavier - X-Men. It's obvious." She gestured to the scrapbooks Bobby had left open. "I wanted to be like you. I even became a cop because nictating membranes weren't enough of a super-power to become an X-Man."
"Nicta-what?" Bobby asked.
"Nictating membranes - built in infrared screens in her eyelids," Hank explained quietly.
"Well, I guess I'm too old for hero-worship," Tracy added bitterly.
"We only want to help you," Scott told her.
"Your kind of help I don't need," she informed him scornfully.
Peggy stepped away from Scott. "Do you realize you've done more to harm the cause of mutant rights than Magneto has?" she added angrily. "He may have wanted to kill or conquer people like me, but at least he was honest about it!"
"Out," Tracy ordered the intruders. "Out of my home. GET OUT!"
Sheepishly, silently, X-Factor trudged obediently to the door and departed.
As soon as Jean Grey had shut the door behind them, Tracy went to the table and backhanded the scrapbooks off of it, tears in her eyes.
Back on the plane, now bound for New York, Jean came over and sat next to Scott. "Scott?" the redhead asked. "Was she right?"
Scott Summers had no answers for her ... or for himself.
Author's Note: Just in case you couldn't tell, I didn't like X-Factor. Hank lost his blue furry appearance. Scott abandoned his wife and child. Jean stopped being dead. And Xavier's students seemed to be doing their best to destroy his dream.
"Mutants only need sensitivity, tolerance, and equal rights." Peter Gillis, New Defenders #142