#genegineer

THE GENEGINEER

Real Name: Dr. David Moreau Debut: Uncanny X-Men #236 (1988)

A high government official of the small, high-tech state of Genosha, Moreau was in charge of mutant affairs—Which in Genosha meant supervising the implementation of a ruthless Super Registration Act that made all mutants forced laborers for the government, under military supervision. Moreau, a highly moral man, was always troubled about the system he served (especially when his own family suffered the personal consequences of it, as his daughter-in-law-to-be was identified as a mutant), but remained convinced that it was the least bad option in a Crapsack World where rampaging superhumans would frequently cause disaster and ruin when not firmly kept down. First of all he was a patriot, always loyal to his nation, for which he was prepared to suffer and die. In a later story, this bizarrely forced him into an alliance with the X-Men against the system he had so long championed, when right-winger Cameron Hodge and jingoist President Renault hijacked the Genoshan government and steered it towards military confrontation with the United States. Hodge killed him, and the old Genoshan system died with him, soon to be replaced with a mutant-supremacist People's Republic of Tyranny.

Anti-Villain: An all-around sympathetic man, good father and non-corrupt official who takes his duties and responsibilities very seriously and always puts the public good first, no matter the personal cost. He's Nice to the Waiter, too, and overall about as moral as someone in his station can be. Of course, being in charge of a mutant control program still makes him a hated foe to the X-Men. Underlining his anti-villainy is the fact that when anti-mutant Big Bad villain Bastion used the transmode virus to resurrect a number of dead anti-mutants villains in the 2008 Second Coming storyline. Moreau was not among them, as Bastion had no need for a Minion with an F in Evil.

Apologetic Attacker: For a given value of "attack," to Jennifer, when she is outed as a mutant and made subject to Genosha's strict laws for superhumans. While he does not have to personally involve himself in individual cases, he does, trying to ease her into it as gently as possible and give her what comfort he can. He is obviously very distraught about the matter—As he reveals in private, more so than he shows to her, as then and there he tries to project calm and confidence, so as not to upset her even more. And he apologizes to her, very sincerely, for ruining her life. But he will not make an exception, even for the woman his son was engaged to marry. If everyone else has to follow the law, so too do he and his family.

Archnemesis Dad: To Philip Moreau, a normal human who becomes a mutant rights activist when he finds out the cost of his easy, privileged life (and that his beloved girlfriend is about to become collateral damage to the Genoshan regime).

Badass Bookworm: He is just a somewhat elderly government official, but is prepared to die for his country. And apparently he has some military training, as he joins the insurrectionist Magistrates when they attack Hodge, firing at his robot chassis with a man-portable rocket launcher.

Beware the Superman: The whole motivation for his villainous actions, and indeed those of Genosha as a whole, at least before they suffered an extremist takeover in the 1990s.

Brainwashing for the Greater Good: The Genoshan authorities use a sort of mind control on mutants who cannot pass their loyalty reviews, which seems to be many/most (if explicitly not all) of them. They justify this by the argument that with their superhuman powers, the mutants are so dangerous that this is required if they are not absolutely trustworthy otherwise. As part of his responsibilities, Moreau is ultimately in charge of this procedure, as well, though it's not something he's wholly comfortable with. Late in his career, when his government has been taken over by extreme jingoists, he covertly subverts it in some notable cases.

Cape Busters: The Magistrates, the militarized gendarmerie he is ultimately in charge of, who supervise the Genoshan mutants and defend Genosha against foreign super-powered threats.

Category Traitor: Ultimately became one by siding with the mutants against the Genoshan government, which by then had been taken over by a Corrupt Politician and a General Ripper who were trying to start a nuclear war with the United States. While he still had deep misgivings about the future this would bring about, he was forced to conclude that it would most likely still be better than Mutually Assured Destruction.

Cerebus Retcon: Originally, Genosha was presented as the Muggle Power Marvel country, where human effort, sacrifice and "God-given ingenuity" had allowed them to develop advanced technology and successfully control the mutant menace, like the US government in the setting sometimes tries but always fails to do. In a world constantly threatened by various megalomaniac super types, with most governments chronically helpless before the onslaught, this is, in its own way, a sort of positive and hopeful message, even though the Genoshans later abused their technology to oppress their mutants instead: Normal humans still matter, and still stand a chance against the supermen if they organize and stand together. However, a later retcon rewrote the story, so that Genosha's technology was said to actually have come from the extraordinarily monstrous mutant Sugar Man. So in this version, instead of overzealous champions of the common man in a super-dominated world, Moreau and the other Genoshans became mere pawns of yet another mutant conspiracy, completely and depressingly subverting the original character concepts.

Deal with the Devil: Of a distinctly Faustian sort, as the advanced technology that allowed Moreau to become the Genegineer and lift his nation up into (a kind of) greatness was bequeathed to him by the Sugar Man, a nightmarish Mad Scientist mutant who made Moreau gift him a secret laboratory fortress no one else in Genosha knew about and regular shipments of mutant prisoners for his own depraved purposes.

Doomed Moral Victor: At least from a certain point of view. He wanted only what was best for his country, and while his system was oppressive for some, it was much better than what followed. Exactly what he warned of and tried to prevent happened, in spite of all his efforts and sacrifices—Because the heroes wouldn't listen.

Establishing Character Moment: In the first Genosha story arc, he attempts to comfort Jenny Ransome—a young mutant woman hitherto passing for human, who views him as an Honorary Uncle and is engaged to be married to his son— and explain to her as best he can why she must now be subject to the Super Registration Act and what this means. As he states it, the law is necessary both for the prosperity and security of Genosha, and if the law is to be just, there can be no exceptions made for individuals, even for her. Her new life will probably not be so horrible as she imagines, and she will be able to keep contributing to the welfare of her nation and loved ones. However hollow such attempts ring, their conversation rams home the essentials of both the best and worst of Moreau. On the one hand, he does not have to see her in person about this, something he is clearly uncomfortable about, but does so anyway, because he considers it his duty and because he cares about her. On the other hand, however, he is such a Knight Templar that he is prepared to force an innocent mutant girl (and close family friend he naturally feels protective of) into an oppressed and demeaning life in the name of a supposed greater good, rather than break the laws he considers himself bound by.

Even Evil Has Standards: High standards, in his case, since he's a highly moral, but conflicted man. Notably, he's disgusted with the quite obviously insane Cameron Hodge; then again, so are most of the Genoshan government and military figures. More to the point, he is honestly upset about it when he hears that Genoshan troops have sexually abused Rogue (a mutant who has brutally killed several of his policemen, thus pretty much an Asshole Victim from his, and their, point of view), and angrily dresses down the senior officer who reports it, demanding that the guilty parties should be punished.

The Extremist Was Right: Moreau's argument about how his system is the best one possible for a small nation with many powerful superhumans in it, and how much worse things will be if the mutants are freed, is shown to be absolutely correct by the following events. They first unleashed a ruinous civil war, then took over the country and killed, enslaved or expelled all humans—Who were the majority of the population by a factor of ten thousand or so.

False Utopia: Under the system he enforces, Genosha is a more or less self-sufficient high-tech economy with one of the world's highest living standards and a military powerful enough to take on (though not win against) the United States. It is also a democracy, where the people's rights are respected and, by all accounts, life is harmonious and pleasant. However, this society, a veritable utopia for millions, depends to a large extent on the labor of a few hundred mutants, kept under strict control by a militarized police force in secluded work camps. The X-Men, naturally, think this single critical fact automatically invalidates all the rest of Genosha's achievements. (They're not without merit on that point however as the Genoshan government did exert authority on non-citizen mutants that just happened to wind up in the country and also tries to exert authority on escaped mutants in other countries regardless of legal authority to do so.)

Family Values Villain: He helps run a country whose economy is based on slavery, but draws the line at sexual assault of a prisoner.

Fate Worse Than Death: It seems to be a common opinion in Genosha that the fate of the mutants is this. Moreau attempts to reassure several people on the receiving end that it is really not that bad, and argues that the mutants are well fed, housed and cared for, safe and probably much better off than most people in the world. In purely material terms, he might even be right—But they also have very little freedom, and many/most are not even allowed to retain their own memories, arguably rendering that a moot point. Moreau's own uneasiness with his work in general, and anguish at seeing Jennifer condemned in particular, make clear that whatever he says, he is very much aware that it is not a good fate, as compared to being just an ordinary citizen.

The Fettered: The weight of duty can be very heavy, at times almost unbearably so. Moreau shoulders it as one of the unhappy few on whom his nation's destiny depends, and he never bends a rule or principle to favor his own family or friends.

Godwin's Law: Madelyne Pryor calls him a Nazi when he tries to explain and justify the Genoshan system to her.

Grey and Gray Morality: The Genoshans fighting the mutant insurrection the X-Men are fomenting. From their POV, they're trying to defend their democracy and way of life from an armed minority led by foreign agents and super-powered terrorists; the X-Men, meanwhile, consider themselves freedom fighters who seek to liberate the mutants of Genosha from an oppressive regime. Both Sides Have a Point, and both are willing to kill in the pursuit of their objectives.

Hoist by His Own Petard: For all Moreau's good intentions, his willingness to associate himself with monsters like the Sugar Man is what ends up being his undoing when one of those monsters kills him.

Death by Irony: The monster that kills Moreau is ironically not one of the mutants he has spent his life oppressing at all, but rather the human (for a given value of human) Cameron Hodge.

Hypocrite: Established as one with the Sugar Man retcon (see below). Despite building a whole system on Beware the Superman, Moreau ironically is bequeathed the technology and knowledge to build this system by a mutant, who he allows free reign to do as he pleases.

Inherent in the System: Genosha's prosperity is built on mutate labor; according to Moreau, his country would be poor and barren without mind-controlled slave labor.

Just Following Orders: The Magistrates, except for a few bad apples, are mostly regular, patriotic soldiers/policemen who are just doing their job. When they first fight the X-Men in Australia, some even doubt whether they ought to, because they think they might be that country's own super police, much like their own mutant volunteer troops. (True to the trope, they still do fight them, though.) Averted with Moreau himself, but only because he's sufficiently senior that he has to give the orders.

Killed Off for Real: By Cameron Hodge in the 1991 X-Tinction Agenda storyline. Being a fairly minor character, this death has stuck.

Meaningful Name: He is, of course, named after the title character in The Island Of Dr Moreau.

Morally Ambiguous Doctorate: As a scientist, he has personally helped to devise and design some of the Applied Phlebotinum the Genoshans use to keep "their mutants" under control earlier in his career.

Muggle Power: In order to keep democracy and majority rule working in Genosha, their few hundred mutants (who would quickly take over the country and institute a super-powered dictatorship if given the civil rights afforded other citizens) have to be kept strictly controlled, so that they cannot unite against the humans and attack them. But there are also crass economic incentives for the system: thanks to their superpowers, the mutant laborers are very efficient workers, producing much greater values than the resources required to police them. By the time Genosha features in the X-Men stories, they have become the fundamental source of much of the nation's wealth.

Necessarily Evil: For all that he tries to be as fair to them as he can afford to be, Moreau fully realizes that from the POV of the mutants, his actions look evil, and he does not turn his back on their suffering. He cares, but he still believes that what he is doing is necessary, or even worse things will come instead.

The Needs of the Many: Invoked. Moreau justifies the harsh Genoshan treatment of their mutants by appealing to consequences: In the present state, a few hundred individuals are kept in involuntary servitude, whereas if given the same rights as humans, the differently abled mutants would quickly dominate Genoshan life, putting an end to democracy and oppressing the millions of ordinary citizens. His argument

Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: The X-Men's interference in Genoshan affairs, from his POV and that of most of his countrymen.

Nice to the Waiter: He treats the Genoshan mutants (second-class citizens with very limited rights) with as much consideration and respect as he can get away with. He's also nice to his subordinates, civilian and military, and indeed to the X-Men to a point, trying to explain and justify his system to them rather than invoking Might Makes Right, as does his paramilitary deputy, Chief Magistrate Anderson.

Nothing Personal: Unusually for a human X-Men villain, Moreau does not irrationally hate or despise mutants; indeed, he feels sorry for them, as Genoshan law severely restricts their lives. However, he knows that if the mutants are not kept down, they will rebel and destroy the lives and happiness of Genosha's much larger baseline human population. So he does what he has to do, in order to protect his nation, even if this is difficult in individual cases.

Only Sane Man: One of the few characters in the human Genoshan government who wasn't a complete Card-Carrying Villain.

Powered by a Forsaken Child: He performs (but did not invent) the mutate bonding process that strips mutants of their free will and often warps their powers into a more "useful" form. He defends this practice by arguing that Genosha is resource-poor, and would not be able to maintain a high quality of life for its human citizens without the "sacrifices" of its mutant population.

Punished for Sympathy: His son Philip, who broke Jennifer out of prison and ran away with her. He is punished only after he starts breaking the law by attacking police and etc; before that, Moreau does nothing to punish his grief over and opposition to the way she is treated, and indeed makes clear that he, too, dislikes it, however necessary it might be. Cameron Hodge later does it to Moreau. The difference between them is that unlike Moreau, Hodge is a foaming-at-the-mouth, sadistic and Axe Crazy mutant-hater, who does think that Moreau's mere sympathy for the mutants (such as it is) is evil, and that he should be crushed for it.

Reasonable Authority Figure: A high government official who feels the full weight of his responsibilities, and supports control of mutants without being a ranting strawman about it. He listens respectfully to his subordinates, and indeed the heroes, to a point, even when they very much disrespect him.

Retcon: Originally Moreau claimed sole responsibility for all of Genosha's advanced tech. Later it was retconned/revealed that in fact the Sugar Man was responsible for said tech, being a refugee from a post-apocalyptic future, and simply teaching Moreau how to replicate the technology of that future. Retcon or not, this explanation has stuck, though in Louise Simonson's alternate continuity X-Factor Forever Moreau's secret Man Behind the Man is Mr. Sinister rather than the Sugar Man.

Screw the Rules, I Have Connections!: Averted. He is sorely tempted to abuse his station to covertly exempt Jennifer from the usual mutant control laws, but ultimately refuses, reasoning that if he expects other people to accept that their friends and family are subject to the law, he must do so himself, as well.

Slavery Is a Special Kind of Evil: Genoshan mutates are effectively slaves owned by the government, as the X-Men point out and the Genegineer himself never quite denies.

Super Registration Act: The Genoshans actually implemented one as a regular feature of their system, requiring all mutants to be identified and segregated in heavily supervised labor battalions. It is much more successful than such legislation usually is in Marvel comics: the system works, for a given value of it, at any rate, preserving peace, prosperity, democracy and happiness for almost everyone in Genosha until they are forced by outside pressure to dismantle it. Moreau is not blind to the system's dark side, but ultimately supports it, fearing the anarchy that would result if literal walking blockbusters were given the civil rights of ordinary, harmless citizens.

Super Human Trafficking: The "dark side" of the Super Registration Act described above is this; Genoshan citizens found to be mutants are subjecting to a procedure invented by Moreau in which they are sealed inside a skintight suit that both protects them from the harsh conditions they'll have to work in and identifies them as mutates, are stripped of their names and memories, and then put to work as a kind of Slave Race, conditioned to be completely obedient to any Genoshan authority. To cement their new status as objects rather than people, the mutates are issued numbers to answer to.

Totalitarian Utilitarian: To a point. Is it acceptable to severely curtail the rights of a few hundred individuals in order to give millions peace and plenty, or is it better to destroy the lives of said millions to give freedom to the few hundred? Moreau reluctantly chooses the first as the least bad option; the liberty-loving X-Men not-at-all-reluctantly choose the latter.

Tragic Villain: An Anti-Villain who gives up all he has for his country and the happiness of its people: his comfort of mind, his family, and ultimately his own life. And in the end, for all his efforts, his country still goes to Hell in exactly the way he had always worked so hard to prevent—due in part to his own actions, as the freed mutants were far more destructive than they would probably have been if they hadn't been seeking revenge for years of forced servitude.

Troubled Sympathetic Bigot: He enforces the mutant control system not because he hates mutants individually, but because he thinks (correctly, as it turns out) that their superhuman powers present a clear and ever-present danger to Genosha's human population. Personally, he is about as morally upright as someone in his position can be, and he is troubled about the fate of the individual mutants, even if it is all for the greater good. Especially when his son's fiancée Jennifer, whom he knows personally to be a fine and moral person, is revealed as a hidden mutant and becomes subject to persecution.

Unwitting Pawn: More witting than most, as Moreau knows full well what the Sugar Man is and how he is being used by him, but agrees to allow him to do as he likes in Genosha anyway in exchange for his advanced technology.