From: embrunes@soc16.acpub.duke.edu (Alex Rogers)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.comics.xbooks
Subject: Re: Franklin Richards and Stryfe
Date: 11 Dec 92 20:08:41 GMT
Reply-To: embrunes@soc16.acpub.duke.edu (Alex Rogers)


In article <1992Dec11.173616.29569@jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu>, wntrmute@jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu (August Paul Yang) writes:

|> In article <7857@news.duke.edu> embrunes@acpub.duke.edu (Alex Rogers) writes:
|> >Whose teke power is stronger, Franklin Richards's or Stryfe's?
|> 
|> Franklin can OBLITERATE Mephisto.
|> Stryfe can hardly handle Cable.
|> You decide.
|>

Perhaps I should elaborate on the question.  In Cable #2, when Stryfe seizes
Cable with his telekinesis, Cable notes that he has never felt such power.  
Moreover, in one issue of the X-Song (my issues are at home and I am in my dorm
so I do not know exactly which issue it was), Stryfe telekinetically restrains
Cyke's optic blasts, a feat previously performed only by the Phoenix.
Secondly, I wonder if Stryfe's only power is TK.  In the same issue of the
X-song, Stryfe prevents Jean from using her TK as well as her telepathy.
Because he was able to restrain telepathy, it seems reasonable that  Stryfe is
a powerful telepath as well.  Note that in Cable #2, Cable says he can feel
Stryfe's anger, pain, and warped sense of honor.  Feelings can only be projected
through empathy or telepathy.  If Stryfe does indeed posess telepathy in 
addition to his telekinesis, then he is probably a "level 2 mutant" (remember
the phrase used by the Master Mold in UX 248).  If Stryfe is a level two mutant
with the same abilities as Franklin, why must Franklin's abilites be that much
stronger.  Franklin's character has been around for more than a decade, and his
writers have had more time to explore his mutant abilities.
	At any rate, I asked the question as a precurser for this one.  If 
indeed Franklin is as powerful as he appears to be, he can use his TK to control
matter at the molecular level.  He should, therefore, be able to retard his own
aging with cellular regeneration especially since in FF 145 he appeared to 
understand the cellular composition of the Thing.  Franklin, therefore, should
be a viable (and extremely powerful) character in the "Applecrust" future.  My
question then is:  Does anyone have any speculation on A)Is Franklin alive in
Cable's time? B)If yes, what role would he be playing?
	These questions point to several issues.  There are many characters who
could realistically live until "Applecrust;" therefore, it seems that any
speculation concerning Cable's future must also consider the other superhuman
(or godlike) characters that might still be alive.  Moreover, if Stryfe is
a "level 2 mutant,"  then we need to question whether, as a group, mutants
are more powerful in "Applecrust"'s time than in the current timeline.  (Please
excuse the number of "ifs", but I have read many plausible theories in this
newsgroup, and I am uncertain about where I stand on many of the issues.)  If
mutants are, in general, more powerful, then couldn't Stryfe be Cable's descendent
altered by Apocalypse to look exactly like his father and to believe that he in 
fact is Cable?  Any mother of Stryfe from that period would have the genetic makeup 
to make a "level two" mutant.  I realize that this theory is not nearly as reasonable
as many of the others already posted and I do not believe that it is correct.  I do,
however, want to suggest that there are enough variables such that any theory might be
possible.  A final question:  does anyone have any ideas about mutant-kind in general
in the "Applecrust" era?


Alex                              email:  embrunes@acpub.duke.edu
Newsgroups: rec.arts.comics.xbooks