"Mutants are People too!"
General Timothy Dugan, Director of Mutant Affairs |
"Way back in the old days, when S.H.I.E.L.D. was just the world's top spy agency - and Nicholas only had OUR planet to worry about - we used to hear that phrase a lot. When I transfered to the agency in the sixties, it seemed that for every A.I.M. or Hydra plot we put down, there'd be a superpowered menace waiting just around the corner... And no matter how much damage they caused, or how many innocent people were injured or killed, there was always some bleeding heart, wailing about their rights as a human being. Of course, this was in the days before Professor Xavier set up his Academy in New York State and decades before the Weapon X project, or any of the Government-backed 'X-teams' like Alpha Flight or X-Factor. The term 'metahuman' hadn't even been coined when Nick Fury, Tony Stark and the Board convened a secret conference to discuss S.H.I.E.L.D.'s policy on what the press were already calling 'the Mutant Menace'- and our response to the growing number of costumed mutants appearing on both sides of the law. What we got was the formation of a new Section in S.H.I.E.L.D.'s hierarchy: the Department of Mutant Affairs.
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The original DMA was nothing more than an office, a couple of filing cabinets and a secretary - as far as Nicholas was concerned, the Mutant Problem was a government issue and S.H.I.E.L.D. had more important work to do than chasing after every reported mutant in the country. And for more than a decade, after the disaster that was the Super Agent Initiative, Mutant Affairs was little more than a quiet posting on the duty roster where an agent could relax away from the rigours of fieldwork - believe me, when you've chased giant lizards all over the world, had your carrier shot out from under you and faced down hordes of Hydra fanatics, a nice quiet office is very attractive! But the world changed on us - when S.H.I.E.L.D. came back into the spy business after Delta, the handful of original agents left found that we were up to our necks in mutants - wallcrawlers, shapechangers, the whole nine yards - and we had to do some pretty painful catching up just to stay in the game!
Suddenly, our policy on Metahumans mattered - everyone had an opinion, of course, but as a UN-mandated Agency, our policy was being analysed by serious minded people on both sides of the debate and Nicholas had to present a stand that was more than an invitation to step outside... Fortunately, one of the most well known mutants was a friend of ours - Logan had fought alongside the Howling Commandos during the big one and worked with Nicholas during his C.I.A. days. So we swallowed our pride and asked for his advice and he introduced us to Charles Xavier, the most respected member of the Pro-Mutant lobby. I won't say that the colonel and the professor saw eye to eye on the whole matter, but we got an angle on the problem that set the direction for the Department that we hadn't had before. I'll admit, it wasn't perfect - S.H.I.E.L.D.'s mandate for keeping the peace often got in the way of looking out for the rights of the mutants we faced - the Cable affair comes to mind - but on the whole, things worked for the better.
These days, our job's a little different - now we have the added responsibility of a galaxy of other worlds and the mutations that they throw up, plus the metahumans within the SGC's ranks - but it's still our duty to see that their treated fairly while they're examined, observed and classified. And I'm here to make sure the job's done right, that means you keep me informed, up to date and briefed on every aspect of the operation. You have a question - ask it, you have a problem - let me know first, you need something done - do it yourself! We're all in this thing together, but out there in the field, the only person you can really rely on is yourself... I expect my team to know their job and do it without a glitch, I'll be here to help and advise and guide the team, but each and every one of you is responsible for making it work too - and so far, nobody's found the mutant gene for perfection, so you'll just have to work at it yourself.
