I'm slightly ambivalent on the Government experimenting on criminals plotline and hopefully this explains why:

So far the only characters we've seen who were affected by the release of the alien bacteria into the environment are The Blur and the unnamed female Aquaman analogue, both of whom will likely turn out as heroes. While the only superpowered villain seen within the pages so far was caused by government experimentation. So rather than the superpowered villain being an unfortunate consequence of Mark's arrival on Earth, similar to the meteor freaks in Smallville, it's all the governments fault, which I feel seems like an attempt to absolve Mark of responsibility.

However the story's only really getting started, so hopefully JMS will prove me wrong.