The Gifted San Diego Comic-Con trailer has been released. A popular theme in entertainment is the story of the family you are born into vs. the family you chose. In the new trailer for The Gifted that story is brought to the forefront. On one hand there are two teenage mutants, born into a family where their father hunts people like them. On the other is a rag tag group of mutants on the run and trying to survive. When the two families merge for safety, everything changes for both.
Much of the trailer focuses on the character of Lauren Strucker, who has been keeping her mutant abilities a secret for fear that her own father will turn her over to the authorities. But when her brother Andy’s powers also emerge when bullied, she has to reveal the truth. Her father turns his back on his work and the whole family goes on the run.
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Countering that are Thunderbird, Blink, Polaris, and Eclipse. Four people hiding in the shadows and trying to survive. They hear about the bullying incident involving Lauren and her brother, and have to choose whether or not to risk everything to protect them – as well as their powerless parents.
The trailer does not shy away from showing how bad things have gotten for mutants. A wanted poster for Blink can be seen right in the same neighborhood that the Struckers live in. The mutants wonder out loud if the X-Men even exist. And Reed Strucker – Lauren and Andy’s father – goes from helping hunt mutants to begging for help from anyone he can to protect his children.
One element of the story that the trailer does not reveal is how the other four mutants will react to learning Reed’s role in the hunting and incarceration of others like them. Sooner or later, they are going to find out who he is and what he did. Whether he will still be welcome among them because of his inside knowledge is very in the air. His whole family may no longer be wanted by the new protectors they so desperately need.
Six mutants and two humans fighting for their lives against a powerful government with access to numerous resources – over powers that they did not choose, but were born with. Those powers might be why they are hunted, but they are also why the mutants are able to fight back. As Lauren and Andy’s mother reminds them: “This is a burden, yes. But it’s also a gift.”
