The Ultimate X-Men (15 page)

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?

THE ULTIMATE X-HEH

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.

Finckley:
How do you respond to charges that you’re a dilletante super hero, only in it for the kicks?

Worthington:
Sure, that’s me.
I
stand in front of ray guns because I’m bored and looking for excitement, [laughs]

I used to be much more frivolous about my behavior in

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general, but hey, I was young—don’t forget, I was dodging bullets when most kids my age were dodging classes in high school. In my old age—

Finckley:
Old age? You’ve only been doing this for a few years.

Worthington:
Sometimes it seems like I’ve been at this for well over thirty years. Anyway, as I’ve gotten older, I’ve taken my responsibilities much more seriously—and I now realize I can make as much of an impact working within the existing structure.

Finckley:
It sounds as if you’ve caved in and taken the easy way out.

Worthington:
Not at all.
I
can do as much good by applying financial savvy and good will to the world’s problems as I can by punching out a super-villain—often much more.

Finckley:
Let’s change the subject.

Worthington:
Please.

Finckley:
You mentioned the FAA earlier. Do you have a pilot’s license?

Worthington:
Why?
I
don’t fly a plane. Well, not really well. They tend to explode, [laughs]

Finckley:
Don’t they give you grief about your flying around?

Worthington:
Do they ever. I have an ongoing lawsuit pending stating that I should be allowed to fly wherever I w
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ant, and I’ll win it, because the laws cover vehicular flight only, not unaided personal flight. Unfortunately, the injuries have limited that somewhat, and the plane explosion really ticked them off.

Finckley:
They didn’t take kindly to that, eh?

Worthington:
Oh, no, not at all. So the battle continues.

Finckley:
At least you don’t have to worry about being pulled over while you’re flying.

Worthington:
True. This may be the penultimate case of, “The law’s on the books, but they lack the means to enforce it.”

Finckley:
Let’s take some calls. We have Audrey on the line from Long Island, New York.

Audrey:
Didn’t
I
hear a few years ago about a paternity suit against you?

Finckley:
The boy born with wings, right?

Audrey:
Yes, him. Was he your son?

Worthington:
Absolutely not. A DNA test proved that. The argument that because he was born with wings he was my son didn’t hold
up. I
mean, my father didn’t have wings, does that mean the stork had an even bigger hand in delivering me?

Finckley:
Thank you, Audrey. Crystal from Alabama, you’re on the air.

Crystal:
Mr. Worthington,
I
just really want to know what is it like to fly?

Worthington:
You know, everybody asks that question, and I’ve never really been able to put it into words. I’ve talked it over with lots of other fliers—pilots and superheroes—and I’ve never found anybody who quite gets it.

Finckley:
Surely there’s a common language of flight between you and, say, Iron Man?

Worthington:
Not really. Iron Man isn’t flying under his own power, he’s got little boot jets that push him around. I’m the only person I know who flies under his own muscle power, pushing against gravity by flapping my own wings.

Finckley:
Is it anything like deep-sea diving?

THE UlTMATE X HEfl

Worthington:
Darned if I know, I can’t do it.

Finckley:
You can’t swim?

Worthington:
Not well, no. Even as a child, I could never go underwater—I found out later that my body was adapting itself to flight, and I’ve got things like hollow bones, just like a bird has. I just floated. And once my wings grew out, it became next to impossible to navigate on water.