FALLOUT’s Super Mutants, Explained—From Games to TV Show Jess Harshbarger | usagoldmines.com

Season two of the Fallout TV show has put something big, ugly, and mean on our screens—or perhaps just a misunderstood monster? In Episode six of Fallout season two, we see the long-awaited reveal of  Super Mutants in the form of Cooper’s unlikely savior. Super Mutants have a long history of importance in the Fallout games, and we even glimpsed them briefly in season one of the TV show. But what are Fallout‘s Super Mutants? Who created them? And what role do Super Mutants play in the world of Fallout‘s games and TV series? Let’s dive deep into Super Mutants and learn all about these imposing green figures in Fallout‘s world.

What Are Super Mutants in Fallout?

How Are Super Mutants Created on Fallout? And How Strong Are They?

In Fallout‘s world, Super Mutants are humanoid mutants created by a massive overdose of the Forced Evolutionary Virus. There are several different origin points for Super Mutants in the Fallout games, but all come from one strain of FEV or another—though results may vary. Broadly, Super Mutants are massive creatures on Fallout, with exceptional strength and endurance, as well as innate resistances to radiation damage and disease. They are also very green. Pause for irony that the species that looks the most like a freakish radiation disaster are pretty much the only type of mutants running around Fallout‘s world that AREN’T made by radiation. 

How Do Super Mutants Make MORE Super Mutants?

Super Mutants are inherently sterile and usually asexual, so to perpetuate themselves, they have to kidnap humans and dunk ‘em in FEV in the hopes that they’ll turn into a Super Mutant instead of just dying horrifically. The success rate for this is usually about one-in-five—just enough to get by.

Do Super Mutants Have Rational Thought on Fallout?

Most Super Mutants on Fallout do not retain high-functioning intelligence, though they maintain enough dexterity and understanding to use conventional weapons. While many Super Mutants carry nailboards or sledgehammers for their go-to offense, just as many can be seen with shotguns and assault rifles, etc. Not all of Fallout‘s Super Mutants sustain widespread mental damage, though. Throughout the Fallout games, you can meet a number of Super Mutants with intact mental faculties, and even some whose mental capacities were damaged by the Forced Evolutionary Virus and Super Mutant transformation, who still choose peace over violence. 

Heads up if you find a Super Mutant Behemoth in Fallout‘s games, though—they’re three stories tall, and have lost the ability to speak or reason. They only know how to kill, and if they see you, well, hope your Agility skill is high enough to get the hell away before you run out of steam. 

Who Created the Super Mutants on Fallout?

The very first Super Mutants created in Fallout‘s world, chronologically, were the ones produced in the West-Tek facility outside of Huntersville, West Virginia, in cooperation with the United States Army. Military-backed experiments were happening simultaneously on the west coast with the FEV-2 strain, though by most accounts it seems that Appalachia technically produced the first successful(?) Super Mutants in Fallout, while Mariposa Military Base was still dealing with failure after failure. 

The first person (might be pushing the use of the word) to successfully mass-produce Super Mutants was, fittingly, the Master of Super Mutants in the original Fallout game. His army was called the Unity, and the Master considered the mutants to be the master race, the next step in human evolution that could abolish differences between different societies—and from that homogeneity, peace could flower. Or something. He’s wrong, obviously, and if the player character points out to the Master that his ‘master race’ of Super Mutants can’t reproduce, he uh. Doesn’t have the best reaction. 

The Master’s strain is responsible for the Super Mutants on the west coast—so all mutants in Fallout 1, Fallout 2, and Fallout: New Vegas originate from Mariposa Military Base in one way or another. Even Frank Horrigan, the Enclave’s favorite science project (and the main antagonist of Fallout 2), was initially brought to Super Mutantdom by stumbling upon the FEV in the old Mariposa Military Base. So, basically, Mariposa is the Super Mutant’s cradle of humanity. We’d bet the Super Mutant we meet in Fallout season two also hails from this origin point.

“But Jess,” you may ask, “there are Super Mutants on the east coast, too. Did they walk all the way there?” The answer is—yeah a few probably did, but there are independent Fallout spawn points for Super Mutants in DC and Boston. In DC, Super Mutants were initially produced by the Vault-Tec FEV experiments in Vault 87. In Boston, the Commonwealth Institute of Technology got its mitts on a Forced Evolutionary Virus strain in the 2100s, and they ended up making Super Mutants of their own flavor—and of course, they released them into the Commonwealth to kill the locals. Mankind redefined, as the Institute likes to say. 

The Enclave & Super Mutants: How Are They Linked on Fallout?

The Enclave has played around with the Forced Evolutionary Virus in their own right, but they haven’t made much foray into the world of Super Mutants. Still, I’d be remiss if we did all this talk of Super Mutants, and I didn’t tell you a little bit more about Frank Horrigan, the final boss of Fallout 2. 

A Member of the Enclave Stumbles Into Super Mutant-dom

Frank was a big guy. A big dumb brick of a guy who served as a bodyguard to Enclave President Dick Richardson in the first half of the 2100s. However, after an undisclosed psychotic incident—you know, just Fallout things (◡‿◡✿)—Frank was reassigned to Wasteland Patrol, which, as you might imagine, is not the most enviable position in the Enclave’s armed forces. During the course of his work, Frank Horrigan stumbled into what remained of Mariposa Military Base after the Vault Dweller defeated the Master in the original Fallout and began his Super Mutant journey. 

The Enclave has never been known to turn down an opportunity for evil science! Frank was sent to the Enclave’s oil rig base off the coast of California. Frank was studied intensely for two years, tracking his slow but steady physical and mental transformation into a Super Mutant. At the hands of Dr. Charles Curling, the man who developed the Curling-13 FEV, Frank was subjected to experiments and operations centered around testing this new strain of Forced Evolutionary Virus. The Enclave wanted to see what kind of monster they could create. During this time, Frank Horrigan was kept under heavy sedation, only allowed to stay awake for brief periods. Several violent outbursts occurred during these short breaks.

The Enclave Created the Most Powerful Super Mutant Ever in Fallout

By the time Curling was done with him, Frank Horrigan was the biggest threat on the western seaboard. Frank Horrigan became the strongest, fastest, biggest Super Mutant ever created on Fallout. Well, biggest until Behemoths were introduced in Fallout 3, I suppose. The Enclave made sure to put Frank through a plethora of conditioning programs, taking advantage of his low intelligence (compounded by his Forced Evolutionary Virus exposure) to make the Super Mutant slavishly loyal to the Enclave. They installed a number of cybernetics, then put him in some custom Power Armor. The Power Armor consistently pumps him full of performance-enhancing drugs and stabilizing agents. It is the only thing keeping him alive. 

Dude can literally just tear people in half with his hands. Doesn’t even need the fuck-off strong plasma gun or the composite blade he carries on his person. When they put Super Mutant Frank back in the field, other Enclave soldiers were terrified of him, reportedly getting PTSD from having been firsthand witnesses to his sadistic streak. 

Frank Horrigan Is One Terrifying Super Mutant, But Fallout‘s Enclave Is EVEN Scarier

Legend has it that no one ever lasted more than sixty seconds against Frank Horrigan. (Except Fallout 2’s protagonist, the Chosen One.) Frank dies at the end of Fallout 2, going down in the flaming wreckage of the Enclave’s oil rig. When his Power Armor fails him, Frank is bisected. Being in two pieces doesn’t keep him from trying to taunt the Chosen One, though. He dies when his head blows off spectacularly, unable to handle the pressure that had built up in his body. He dies a horrible, macabre death. No creature like him is ever brought into being again. 

Super Mutants Can Be Peaceful, Like Those in the Mojave Wasteland (Where Fallout Season 2 Takes Place)

There are communities of Super Mutants that are entirely peaceful on Fallout, and Jacobstown, NV, is one of them. It’s run by Marcus, a possible Super Mutant companion in Fallout 2. Marcus is an elderly Mariposa Super Mutant, one of the original surviving members of the Unity. In Fallout 2, he is the sheriff of Broken Hills in California, and during the events of Fallout: New Vegas, he is the mayor of Jacobstown.

A natural-born leader with ambitions of interspecies cooperation, Super Mutant Marcus believes in the fundamental goodness of people in Fallout. Marcus is only available as a companion to you in the second game if you have positive karma. He doesn’t want to hang out with jerks. Jacobstown is a place of, haha, unity, where Super Mutants and humans coexist peacefully in Fallout‘s world. Marcus has also established it as a place for Nightkin to go where they don’t have to fight in order to survive.

Super Mutant Marcus Has Created a Community for all Super Mutants to Be Safe

The Nightkin are Mariposa Super Mutants as well, with one distinct difference—they REALLY like Stealth Boys, a Fallout device that turns you nearly invisible by refracting light, which means they REALLY hate being seen. It makes them, at best, deeply anxious. Long-term Stealth Boy use has turned these Fallout mutants blue. There are several Nightkin you’ll run into over your travels. Some are hostile, but there are well-intentioned Nightkin who will mean you no harm—like potential companion Lily, who herds Bighorners in Jacobstown. 

Lily Marie Bowen can join you on your travels through the Mojave, and she’ll tell you bits and pieces of her former life. The Nightkin, as it so happened, were the most advanced troops of the Unity. Only Super Mutants who had fully surviving faculties were given the honor of being Nightkin, the Master’s most elite troops, characterized by their all-black uniforms and Super Mutant armor. When the Master fell, they were the ones who felt the snapped psychic connection between the Unity and the Master most poignantly. 

Even the Darkest Super Mutants Can Find Redemption on Fallout

After the Master fell, the Nightkin were given Stealth Boys, and scattered to the wind. A number made their way to the Mojave. Due to the repeated use of Stealth Boys, the Nightkin have become addicted the use of the device, leading to paranoia, panic, and schizophrenia-like symptoms. There’s still a home for Nightkin among people, however. Lily is a perfect example, in spite of the violent voice of “Leo” in her head. Lily is quite the sweet and pleasant grandma, when you’re not asking her to club raiders to death. 

Dr. Henry in Jacobstown tried to manage her symptoms with anti-psychotics over the years. Eventually, Lily realized it was going to make her lose all memory of her life before the war, so she started secretly halving her doses. She also frequently relistened to a holotape of the last time she visited her beloved grandchildren, Jimmy and Becky. Sometimes your best friend is a two hundred year old schizophrenic grandma in a sunhat. Life and its little surprises!

Fallout Season 2 Introduces a Super Mutant Played by Ron Perlman

Thirty years ago, Interplay paid Ron Perlman forty-five bucks and a sandwich to record the opening and closing narrations of the original Fallout. He has been the voice of the Wasteland ever since, delivering his ominous refrain of ‘War never changes’ in each entry, except for Fallout 4. No voice is more associated with the series than his, and it’s only natural that he would join the show in some capacity, and we love that he’s arrived on Fallout as a Super Mutant. Hurrah for Ron Perlmutant! 

Our First Glimpse of a Fallout Series Super Mutant Was in Season 1

But speaking more seriously about Super Mutants on the Fallout TV show, Ron Perlman’s Super Mutant isn’t the first time we glimpsed them. Way back when, in the very first episode of the series, we saw a Super Mutant on a gurney in the Enclave, the mutant appeared to be dead. That makes sense because the Enclave doesn’t seem like it treats its experiments very well. But that was only a tiny look at Super Mutants.

Ron Perlman Brings Our First Super Mutant Character to the Fallout Show

Now Ron Perlman has brought the Fallout TV series a Super Mutant in its full glory. In a fun nod to the Fallout games, where Super Mutants are often found in a church, we see Ron Perlman’s Super Mutant hiding out in one in the Fallout series. Perlman’s Super Mutant rescues Walton Goggins’ The Ghoul from ferality and death, and asks him to join him in a war he perceives is coming. The Ghoul refuses, for now, and Perlman’s Super Mutant sets him free, but not before giving us some interesting tidbits.

Ron Perlman’s Super Mutant Indicates the Enclave Is Behind More Than We Think in Fallout

Ron Perlman’s Super Mutant tells the Ghoul the following on Fallout season two. “There’s a war coming, and we need you healthy. They call us abominations, but they created our kind. Ghouls, mutants, we’re kin. And we should unite against our common enemy. They drove us to the point of extinction and forgot we ever existed, but we didn’t forget them, the people who set all of this in motion, the Enclave.”

There’s a lot of information in these few lines. The first thing that catches our eye is that Perlman deems the Enclave to be “the people who set all of this in motion.” Interestingly, as we discussed above, it was West-Tek and the military who brought the Super Mutants to extinction. That really seems to solidify our theory that there’s a player in the game who has his hands in all the pots, and perhaps the Enclave is hiding even more evil than we thought. Although it could just mean that the Enclave is generally responsible for the decimation of Super Mutants at this point in time on Fallout, and needs to be stopped.

The other interesting idea is that non-humans are gathering together to fight in a coming war. Will this war be just against the Enclave? Could it potentially be against more humans than just that? Only time will tell, but we feel it’s likely we’ll see Super Mutants again on the Fallout show.

Does The Mojave Desert Super Mutant Community From the Games Connect with Ron Perlman’s Super Mutant From Fallout Season 2

Of course, there’s already a community of Super Mutants and their kin in the Mojave Desert. Jacobstown doesn’t go in for the gore bags, so I don’t know if Ron Perlmutant is associated with Jacobstown, but he was, in the past, almost certainly a part of the Unity. But, as mentioned, in Fallout season two, Ron Perlman’s Super Mutant speaks about a coming war, which doesn’t sound like the project of the existing Super Mutant community in the Mojave Desert. Fallout season two’s Super Mutant wants to bring together all manner of “abominations” who he deems “kin” and that’s similar, but Jacobstown’s project is peace and harmony, peace for Super Mutants and harmony for them with humans. It’ll be interesting to see if these collecting groups of Super Mutants ever come to clash with one another in the future of the Fallout series, and how Ron Perlman’s Super Mutant plays into the political landscape of the Mojave Wasteland.

If nothing else, having someone around who knows what the fuck is going on is sure to help our heroes eventually on Fallout. And we, for one, are glad that the Fallout games’ Super Mutants have made it on the series. We were missing them.

Fallout season two is streaming now on Prime Video.