DAWN OF X Discussion & Speculation (3,912 views)

{Spoiler}Okay, so first of all, the whole "Omega level mutant" concept is garbage. It's as outdated and problematic as power grids. Nothing is going to fix them because they are a fundamentally terrible concept. It's like touting how you managed to make a garbage fire smell better. It's still a garbage fire.

But let's follow the conceit and pretend it's a good idea. Magneto is the designated Omega level mutant for magnetism. ...But why? What gives him that designation over Polaris?

Before just assuming that's purely my fandom bias: hold up. Here's where that question comes from. On multiple occasions, Lorna has been described as inherently stronger than her father, with far more potential for growth in her future. The only thing holding her back being that it's all raw, undisciplined. What makes Magneto "more powerful" than Lorna in the present is that he has decades more experience than her.

So if the definition of Omega level mutant is "this character's dominant power cannot be surpassed by anyone else"... then the character who actually fits that definition isn't Magneto. It's Polaris.

Or at the very least, it opens up a wormy soup of questions as to how anyone gets designated anything. What determines if a character is the "upper limit" example of a power? Is it how powerful a character can be at their most extreme, e.g. Scarlet Witch reality warping? Is it when a character can be consistently and intentionally powerful, where only those who have total control count and anyone who has to "go off the deep end" need not apply? What if you have two characters with the same basic power set, but one is better in one way and the other is better in another way - e.g. maybe Magneto can lift more, but Polaris has better EM field awareness. Is Magneto the Omega for magnetism because what you can lift matters more than what you can sense?

In sum, Omega level designations are a mistake. All it does is bring about needless bickering, expose and entrench ignorant biases, and cause more problems than it solves. At least on this count, Hickman hasn't revolutionized anything. He's just put his own labels on something bad.