The Ultimate X-Men

by Unknown Author

  Finckley: I can imagine it must be very clumsy.

  Worthington: You bend down and knock over a table. What a pain in the tailfeathers. Literally.

  Finckley: So it’s not embarassment or a publicity thing, or hiding your mutant ability?

  Worthington: Now it’s a bit of vanity—my wings are not pretty to behold anymore. But for the most part, it’s just convenience for everybody else around me. I have nothing to hide, it’s not like my face is unknown—God knows my face shows up in the paper enough, between the business section and the society pages, never mind the battles with Professor Power and the Secret Empire on the front page.

  Finckley: How do you conceal your wings?

  Worthington: I wear a special harness that keeps them flat against my back.

  Finckley: Is it painful with your injured wings?

  Worthington: I’ve learned to adjust.

  Finckley: You were very publicly involved with two semi-prominent super-teams—the Champions and the Defenders—but both were quite brief. What led you to get involved

  in those endeavors? The world is, after all, full of superteams.

  Worthington: Well, the Champions was made up of a number of people who just had many different irons in the fire. I got involved with them because—well, to be blunt, I was there at the same time on the west coast. This was before the days of a West Coast branch of the Avengers. I like to think we were a viability test. As for the Defenders . . . again, it seemed like a good idea at the time.

  Finckley: Considering how long the Champions lasted, I’d say they weren’t terribly viable. Then again, the Avengers shut down their West Coast branch, too.

  Worthington: The Champions served their need and function at the time. I don’t know that it’s a good thing or bad that they disbanded when they did; I’m sure that a lot of people benefitted from them being together. For any super hero group, you don’t measure success by long-term cohesiveness or financial success, you measure it by the quality of the work they produced and the lives they touched. It’s kind of like a musical group. Besides, it was nice to be in a group with people with bigger PR problems than me.

  Finckley: And who would that be?

  Worthington: Ghost Rider, clearly. When you hang out with someone with a flaming skull for a head, having a sixteen-foot wingspan sort of fades into the background. And of course Natasha [the Black Widow] was a Soviet defector, which brought its own special problems.

  Finckley: Which leads me to my next question . . .

  Worthington: Oh boy.

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  Finckley: You took quite a risk by publicly revealing your status as a mutant. What led to that decision?

  Worthington: I was tired of hiding it, really . . . after all the entire issue of “protecting” my family seemed to be moot after my parents died.

  Finckley: Weren’t you worried about what it would do to your social status, not to mention your business?

  Worthington: You have to consider the time and place. California is—or rather, was—more forgiving at the time of people different than themselves. Plus, having the name Angel and the appearance to go with it isn’t what you might necessarily call a minus in certain circles.

  Finckley: Still, Worthington Enterprises’ stock did go down significantly after you spread your wings, so to speak.

  Worthington: Ehh—it goes down, it. goes up. I look at the long term, not the short. We’ve run ourselves into the ground as a country, as a people, thinking short term.

  Finckley: Certainly that can’t be the only reason you went public.

  Worthington: No, it wasn’t. A big reason was to bring home the fact that anybody could be a mutant, that it cuts across race and class. Even the bluebloods can have a mutant baby. It’s not a “only gays, only Haitians, only poor white trash, only Jews, only blacks” sort of thing.

  Finckley: Was that a big problem?

  Worthington: Yes, it was and is. I found out that one of my oldest prep school friends, Cameron Hodge, a man I trusted with my finances and my life, hated mutants with a passion. He tried to destroy me and my friends numerous times—first from the inside of my own company, with embezzlement and spiteful PR while I was believed dead,

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  although I found out he’d been doing it ever since I brought him into the company, then later by joining and leading rabid anti-mutant groups.

  Finckley: Why would a man like that—from your comments, a man with the most pedigree of backgrounds—behave that way?

  Worthington: I don’t want to speculate on him in particular, but why does anybody do that who should know better? With some people if it’s not the mutants, it’s the moneylenders, it’s the Masons, it’s the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.

  I’ve personally always been much more impressed with Hank McCoy’s decision to go public. Hank has always been a courageous soul in that respect—there was no reason for him to reveal himself, he was unrecognizable.

  Finckley: Ah, yes, you and Dr. McCoy served with the Defenders together. Of course, he is heavily involved in the current foofuraw over the so-called “Legacy Virus.”

  Worthington: Yes, he is.

  Finckley: Now, as a mutant, you are suddenly at risk of contracting a deadly disease, in addition to any other problems being a mutant might cause.

  Worthington: Believe me, catching a “mutant-killer” disease goes straight to the end of my list of problems. Being audited—that worries me.

  Finckley: How do you feel about the fact that the existence of the virus was kept hidden from the general public for so long?

  Worthington: I don’t think “kept hidden from the general public” is an accurate phrase—it implies that there was a deliberate cover-up. Just as with AIDS, it took a long time

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  to track down that such a disease was in operation—it took time to diagnose. The hysteria over making yourself known to be a mutant—indeed, many of the people who contracted it didn’t know that they were mutants themselves until they became sick. Come to think of it, the first news stories about the virus came out after the first infection in the general population, when Dr. [Moira] MacTaggart caught it herself.

  Finckley: Well, let’s hope that your friend Dr. McCoy and his colleagues can find a cure. Moving on to more pleasant subjects, you were recently sighted at a Hellfire Club reception with a very attractive young woman on your arm. Might she be part of the reason why you’ve been less public lately?

  Worthington: Yes? Which one? [laughs]

  Finckley: I believe we have a photo here—-Jim, can we get that up on screen? Yes, I believe that’s her there.

  Worthington: Oh, her! Betsy! [laughs] Boy, am I going to get in trouble for saying that.

  Finckley: [chuckles] In that case, I assume we can take it as read that your social life has not suffered?

  Worthington: Well, after the ordeal of putting my life back in order after the damage to my wings, it was more an issue of getting my head back together. But since then, I haven’t lacked for a social life, no.

  Finckley: Getting your head back together?

  Worthington: For a while after the injuries to my wings, I was really, really morbid. Preoccupied with death—that and getting my wings back. If I couldn’t fly again, I didn’t want to live.

  Finckley: How are your wings now? There were reports

  OH THE AIR

  at the time that your wings had been amputated, and you haven’t shown them in public since, yet now you’re claiming you still have them.

  Worthington: Functional, but not much more than that. I can still fly, on occasion. But I really don’t see myself getting involved in high-speed aerial combat as much as I used to, if ever.

  Finckley: A career-ending injury?

  Worthington: It was bound to end, sooner or later, just as with any athletic career. Well, any athletic career where people shoot at you on a regular basis.

  Finckley: I imagine dealing with super-villains can be t
rying.

  Worthington: Actually, I’ve never been comfortable with that phrase.

  Finckley: Huh?

  Worthington: “Super-villain.” Dumb phrase. Simplistic mentality. Think about it. Nikita Khruschev stood on the floor of the UN and said he wanted Communism to encircle the globe. Did anybody ever call him a super-villain? Of course not. If somebody feels required to break a person’s entire history and belief system into one word, I don’t want to discuss politics with them.

  By the same token, I’m not real thrilled with the abbreviation “mutant.” WTiat I am is a mutant human. The human part is very important. Just calling me a mutant, or calling anybody a mutant, obscures the fact that we’re human at the core. Makes it easier to seperate us, deal with us as something from the outside.

  Finckley: Since you brought up politics earlier, what are yours like?

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  Worthington: Libertarian, basically. The right to swing your fist ends where my nose begins. I don’t believe the government should get in the way of my life, whether it’s the IRS, the FTC, or the FAA. [laughs] In my public appearances, I always want to talk about the tax code and the business climate in this country, yet everybody always wants to hear me talk about, “Mutant rights! Mutant rights!”

  Finckley: Okay, what’s your opinion on mutant rights?

  Worthington: A tough sell.

  Finckley: Why is that?

  Worthington: The problem with trying to rally behind “mutant rights” is that it’s such an encompassing theme, and it’s difficult to find a common theme to rally behind.

  Finckley: I’m not sure I follow you.

  Worthington: Well, let’s say that every mutant had wings. If a hundred thousand people had them, there’d be a common thread among them. Somebody would start selling feather groomers, to add fluff and luster. People would join “Birds of a Feather” societies, and there would be a new variation on the Mile High Club.

  But we don’t all have wings. Some have tails, some have fur, some have glass skin. Other mutants have no unique exterior features at all, just an extra ability that marks them as different. But almost every mutation we’ve seen evidence of seems to be unique. So there isn’t a common element to rally behind.

  I’m in favor of equal rights and equal treatment under the law. Special treatment, I don’t know if we need it.

  Finckley: Are you implying that you can defend yourself by taking matters into your own hands?

  Worthington: No, not at all. It’s a personal belief. I don’t

  see how beating a person with a tire chain because he’s a mutant is better or worse than beating a person with a tire chain because he’s human. Somebody’s still being beaten.

  Finckley: Do you believe that mutants are human and deserve protection under human law?

  Worthington: I believe mutant humans are sentient and deserve protection under sentient law. Human, mutant human, mutated human, self-aware computers like the Vision, and resident aliens like Centuiy should all be bound by the laws of the society they’re in. - ' ' "'

  Finckley: Does being a mutant affect the way you conduct your business in any way? Do you find yourself shying away from any business deals, losing clients, things like that?

  Worthington: Well, in our financial holdings, we’ve had to be very careful. In the eighties, we had some significant holdings in biotechnology stocks, just like every other large financial player in the market. Our problem was the impression started by some fundamentalist wackos that our investments in these companies were covers for secret research to turn out more mutants. Patently ridiculous, but we divested anyway.

  Finckley: What else?

  Worthington: Other than that—it’s more the life I’ve led, it’s led me to a wider variety of experiences than most people. I take advantage of the fact that I’m much more widely travelled, that I’ve seen so much more than most people. And of course, being shot at or kidnapped by demons makes the average business negotiation look easy.

  Finckley: Do you know of cases where people don’t do business in your companies because they’re led by a mutant?

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  Worthington: A mutant boycott, you mean?

  Finckley: In essence, yes.

  Worthington: I know of a few, sure, they’ve been brought to my attention. And I know of people who won’t do business with Japanese companies, or companies with South African holdings, or Jewish owned or Arab owned. I don’t apologize for who I am or the life I lead; all someone who does a deal with me should care about is will I honor the deal? The smart ones do.

  Finckley: Do you use your money to advance a mutant agenda?

  Worthington: Didn’t I just answer that?

  Finckley: Not really.

  Worthington: I use it to advance my agenda, and my clients and my stockholders. I believe that a more peaceful world is more successful, financially and otherwise, and anything that I can do to promote smoother running of the world is a plus. If that means donating to peace activities, I do it. If it means hiring a super-powered individual to do a job because he underbids everybody else and I can use the savings elsewhere, I do that too.

  Finckley: Are you saying you support the Genoshan solution?

  Worthington: Hell, no! I said hire, not enslave. Geno-shans use slave labor, pure and simple. It’s reprehensible whether it’s blacks or mutants doing it. I can’t even compare the two.

  Finckley: What about X-Factor? Was that part of your agenda, to publicly hunt down mutants?

  Worthington: X-Factor was intended to help deal with the sudden emergence of mutants, of people who suddenly

  developed mutant abilities. Take the example of Rusty Collins, a pyrokinetic. His abilities developed spontaneously and he had very little idea how to control them, and in that state he was a danger to himself and to anybody else around. We were able to subdue him without killing him, and later taught him how to control his abilities, effectively “neutralizing a mutant threat.”

  Finckley: You were later charged with fraud by a number of X-Factor’s clients, who claimed that you bilked people out of exorbitnant amounts of money for putting on a dog-and-pony lightshow.

  Worthington: I can’t comment too deeply on that, as some of those lawsuits are still pending. But I can say that we have been vindicated in all of the cases that have been completed, and also that two of the lawsuits were thrown out because the opposing parties wanted a mutant corpse, and felt that we didn’t do the job because there wasn’t one.

  Finckley: If it wasn’t a secret agenda, why was your involvement and financial backing kept quiet?

  Worthington: The main reason was that it was felt that if a mutant was shown to be doing this, it would be perceived as a consolidation, mutants banding together to get normal people. We wanted to avoid that.

  Finckley: But isn’t that what you did?

  Worthington: We tried to defuse the tension between mutants and humans.

  Finckley: By running inflammatory ads trumpeting the mutant menace?

  Worthington: That was the work of the aforementioned embezzeller, backstabber, and all-around traitor to the human race—please, don’t get,me started on Cameron again.

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  Suffice it to say it got out of hand. Look, it had a solid reputation as doing good for human-mutant relations, or else the U.S. Government would never have acquired the rights to the X-Factor name for their own usage.

  Finckley: The X-Factor debacle pretty much bankrupted you.

  Worthington: Most of my personal holdings, yes. Between the costs of running X-Factor, the embezzlement, and my inability to be direcdy involved with the running of my holdings, combined with the death of my financial manager, my personal financial picture was a mess for a while. It didn’t directly affect Worthington stock, except as a result of associations in people’s minds with my problems.

  Finckley: You’ve gotten a measure of that back, though, haven’t you?

  Worthington: I’ve
rebuilt really rather nicely, although I’m not in the personal weight class I used to be. Lots of it is tied up in existing businesses, the occasional ongoing trust, things like that. The way I look at it is I now have to ask permission before I try to take over a company.

  Finckley: Do you miss that level of wealth? Do you ever wish you had all that back?

  Worthington: Hmmm ... I like the quote, “Don’t worry if you’re rich or not, as long as you can live comfortably and have everything you want.” And I guess it’s hard to feel pity for someone who’s lost so much, but he’s still got a few million in assets.

  Finckley: Have you learned anything from going from riches to rags to riches?

  Worthington: I’d like to think I’ve stopped behaving like the money’s never going to run out—it’s happened once,

  and I’m litde more aware of that. I always knew that application of money was a powerful ability, I guess I’ve just learned not to be so profligate with it. A little more judicious.

  I also learned that living comfortably and having everything I want is not a function of having a million dollars any more than it is having a hundred dollars or a hundred million dollars. There are some things money can’t buy, and the best way for me to find that out was to see what I could still get when I was broke, and what I really wanted. I wanted my wings so badly that I lost millions of dollars over them.

  Finckley: So what are you doing with your money nowadays?

  Worthington: The most important things I’ve done include starting up a venture capital firm, Worthington Enterprises—one devoted to causes I personally believe will improve the world, mainly focused in high-tech. What most people know as Worthington Industries is now on its own; although I still maintain a seat on the board, I’m no longer chairman and I’m no longer principal stockholder. The VC firm is a size I can control no matter what happens, and I want to keep it that way. I’m also keeping it closely held. The Worthington Foundation is still going strong, funding a number of worthy activities and super hero groups, as well as education activities, mutant anti-defamation, that sort of thing.