UNCANNY X-MEN #35: The Irrationality of Anti-Mutant Hysteria

I was reading UNCANNY X-MEN #35 this week and was reminded how irrational the anti-mutant hysteria is in Marvel Comics.

Case in point: A new mutant attacks her father and a sports team. She's defeated by Cyclops' former students, who've struck out as members of a new team called Hero Squad. One of the team's members is a guy named Fabio Medina AKA Goldballs. He projects gold balls from his body. He ended up being the big hero of this particular fight -- and in the process became an internet sensation:


I mean, he's not your typical hero. He's a "think Hispanic kid" who does funny dances. His mother ends up outing him to the media and he becomes an instant celebrity. He shows up on the cover of all the magazines and begins appearing on all sorts of TV shows:


And then his mother ends up outing him again -- this time as a mutant. It's not that he was hiding it. He was just talking about his image and his powers and his personality. But things suddenly go south:


And then the public turns against Goldballs -- violently:


This is where I don't get Marvel's anti-mutant mindset. What is it about Invisible Woman or Daredevil or Captain Marvel that makes them less scary to the general public than Cyclops or Storm or Iceman?

One moment, the public loves Goldballs. The next moment, he's picking glass from his neck. What changed? Only the public's awareness of his origin. Why does a genetically-inherited power induce irrational hatred compared to a power that comes from some sort of external source of mutation?

Ultimately, I just don't get it...