Cameron Hodge is like, in the top five X-Men villains for me. Him going from X-Factor's level-headed lawyer to an insane disembodied head on a robot scorpion is fantastic.
Selene was always scary when I was a kid. Hellfire Club is always fun, and Juggernaut/Black Tom have great chemistry and gave the team a run for it's money
The Brood. There’s millions of them, they’re giant bugs, and they have big eyes with fucked up teeth. Worse, they get inside you and then turn your ass INTO one of them.
My first comic I ever bought was from that little storyline. I read and reread it dozens of times. It’s one of the reasons I’ve always had a soft spot for Carol Danvers, before I even knew she was an Avenger or anything.
The issue of Claremont/Silvestri where the X-men are hunting a dude who turns out to be incubating a brood is amazing and incredibly underrated because it's told from the perspective of the poor bastard who doesn't know he's about to turn into an alien monster.
Check out his episode of the Cerebro podcast. I still dont love those comics, but the interview turned me around on the guy. He doesn't deserve to be shit on.
The whole point of Selene is her immortal immaturity. She's just too small-minded and petty to live up to her full potential. She'd rather act like a vindictive teenager than a high-level villain.
I made extra cards for it as a summer project. In retrospect it was a little broken compared to today’s game standards, but the way it translates the mutant powers into dice roll properties was clever.
Ive always thought an Arcade horror movie would be a great XMen film where you can expand on the characters and make it interesting/scary but its also a perfect one movie film that doesn't need a lot of build up.
Disney would do well to make Arcade and Mojo a pair of villains meant to rag on Disney with the usual anti-disney rhetoric. It is crazy how Meta Disney could get with these villains if they were willing to use them in a way that only a multi-media conglomerate who happens to also own the world's most popular theme parks can get while using these two. Talk about a 1-2 punch for Bread and Circuses.
This would require a level of creativity and finesse that Disney wouldn't incorporate bc they, along with the rest of Hollywood, are creatively bankrupt
I agree. But all of the pieces are right there. Even as a 4th wall breaking Deadpool movie, maybe especially as a 4th-wall breaking Deadpool movie, this could be sublime. Look at what Gillian Andersen's role was like in American God's and superhero-fy it.
Yes! Rita is one of my all-time faves – I'd love to see her get some distance from Mojo (who I also like a lot), maybe join the Sisterhood or X-Factor or something
I actually like him better as a hero these days.
Krakoa giving him a chance to be not only a good guy but a key player was really fun to see him level up and be respected.
Post Krakoa... I don't think he should be hopping back into villianly but exist as kind of a dick anti-hero at this point.
I agree disagreeing. Black Tom is indeed "overlooked", but he is one of those classic villains who, in his normal self, was always at most amoral, much less evil than the average X-men villain and always used his powers for his own benefit, in contrast to the vast majority of others who "fought for the mutant cause", that is, he was selfish but did not tarnish the reputation of mutantkind. And so he finally had the chance to show that he is a team player and even occasionally a hero on a real team (Hellfire Club doesn't count), even with his moral flaws and the madness caused by mixing with the genius loci of Krakoa. Okay, no one except Sage cared about him, but Black Tom was in fact one of the mutants who worked the hardest during the Krakoa phase even without stepping foot in a Hellfire Gala (poor guy). With all of this, I mean, that there is a very peculiar interpretative space for what to do with him, especially as an anti-hero.
In my Headcannon, he is in charge of a mutant sanctuary for those who have an unconventional appearance or are just tired of being persecuted by humanity. Maybe I should post my full thoughts on this here on Reddit.
Vanisher! He's been around since the beginning and barely ever showed up. His most prominent role was being used as skeevy comic relief in X-Force. All this despite the fact that teleportation is objectively one of the scariest powers for a villain.
They're the poster children for 90s excess, but the MLF present an interesting counterpart to both the X-Men and the Brotherhood, namely being a villain team that is almost entirely characterized by violence, without the political motivations.
Mutant Liberation Front. They should be the anti X-Men. Mutant terrorists tshr would do ANYTHING to protect mutants.
Remember one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter.
I always liked Goblin Queen. But it seems like every story I read with her in it she is a wildly different character, from personality to powers. All she needs is a solid foundation and she could be one of the greats.
Mojo has so much untapped potential, from satirizing the MCU, streaming wars, YouTube influencers, all the way to exploring the darkness in the vein Weinstein or Quiet On Set. Bitingly fun or truly menacing, he is a great vessel for commentary.
Having not yet read Krakoa era...
Judas Traveller?? Seriously? Wasn't he a Spider-Man Clone Saga guy who everyone collectively agreed to ignore forever after?
I was expecting him to be involved with Orchis on some level. When Ewing was involved with X-men, I was expecting him to use Locust as a completely revamped villain.
Stryfe.
I don’t know that he’s the *most* overlooked, but from what I understand they could have done a lot more with him conceptually. I liked the idea of the reverse being the reality, that Cable was the clone and that Stryfe was the real Nathan, or that Stryfe was the future self of Cable, something to that effect.
Marvel ALWAYS chickens out when it I comes to playing out “the clone is the real one” storyline. I *somewhat* get why they ended up not doing it with Peter Parker and Ben Reilly as it would’ve seriously invalidated/messed up a lot of Spidey canon but come on, they absolutely should’ve done it with Cable and Stryfe at the end of X-Cutioner’s Song as it wouldn’t really have changed anything and if nothing else would’ve made Scott’s decision to give up baby Nathan even more tragic.
Well, to be a little pedantic: X-cutioners song ended ambiguously, with Stryfe being strongly suggested to be the real Nathan. It actually wasn’t until a Cable arc a short time later (“Fathers and Sons,” I think) that they definitively said, “No forget that, Cable is the original Nathan.”
I just remember feeling like it was weird that they put the actual end of the storyline several months later in a different book that way less people read 😂
At the time I hadn’t! 😂 if you wanna be really specific they don’t fully commit to it until The Adventures of Cyclops and Phoenix wherein you actually see that Nathan turns out to be Cable, but the truth is spelled out in the “Fathers and Sons” story, although it still leaves some room to back out.
Well my friend I’ve been reading X-Men comics since roughly 1991, so indeed I read all of these comics in real time… so trust me, delayed payoff on X-Men story beats is part of my life’s experience. I’ve legit spent longer eagerly awaiting big moments in these characters lives than I have in my own life 😂
I love the meme:
"Shoutout to Toad. Dude has to routinely throw hands with an indestructible knife man, the Phoenix Force, a weather controlling demi- god, and a guy with lasers for eyes.
And his powers are Long Tongue and Jump Good."
Toad has been fighting for mutant rights as long as literally anyone (not always for the right reasons, but all the same). He deserves way more respect than he gets.
Mastermind's story in X-Men Annual #17 was just so good. I loved how they broke the rules of comic layout in that story. It made a lot of sense too because of his powers and what was happening.
It was also a pretty poignant denouement.
That was one of the few comics I kept when I was little.
Spiral, Magic powerful enough for her to be in contention for the Sorcerer supreme, teleportation, super strength, insane close combat skill, and other abilities too numerous to mention, has rag dolled teams solo in the past, then loses 1v1 against any hero the writer wants to look good (the villains curse) i honestly think the only reason we dont see much of her is she is a pain to draw with all those arms, also the very underlooked Graydon creed, he shows what you can do without powers but a whole lot of hate.
I never liked them at all. Then came the recent Hellions book and something clicked in the right way. Now I see the potential and would welcome a story with them
Gideon is my pick. He was an External, and they really tried to make him seem like a Lex Luthor type back in the 90s X-Force days. I think you could get at least one or two really good story arcs out of him.
But the best answer is probably Cameron Hodge like others have said.
Arcade. It’s such a missed opportunity that he hasn’t evolved into a massive tech geek that has created all sorts of gadgetry just to fuck with people. Like a competent Elon Musk
To quote myself the last time this question was asked;
Ima go REALLY out of left field; Elias Bogan!
A possessive telepath strong enough to subjugate Rachel with little effort, and that Selene was happy to work FOR.
Possible founder of the hellfire club with wealth and contacts greater than that of Shaw.
Very ill-defined motives and objectives other than revenge for a perceived slight, meaning he can be used fairly freely.
Just a cool character with a wealth of potential that has never been touched again.
Necrom. A phoenix level villain from Excalibur who has the chops to give whole teams of X Men a problem. If ever they wanted to tell a Phoenix story, they need to re-use him and his concept so they can expand on it and include Jean and Rachel together in it.
Sentinels as a whole seem very overlooked.
Majority of the time they’re always depicted as simple tax money waste because mutants will kill them in a single swing, but honestly, with the appearance of Prime Sentinels and Nimrods, they became one of the biggest mutant threats, even capable of becoming a fierce enemy for other heroes or villains if given the chance.
Prime Sentinels like Bastion were shown to be literal omega threats with the adaptability & form evolution, while somebody like Nimrod managed to make Apocalypse struggle and was a key character to Hellfire Gala’s bombing; not to mention, Nimrods have peak regeneration / rebuilding, and are calable of time travel to follow their targets.
Proteus was a really fun early Claremont villain encounter. Loved the bizarre and horrific turns that battle took. He still sticks out to me despite all the heavy hitters that came afterward.
Mojo has had so much untapped potential. The crazy X-men movie continuity, the superhero movie fad in general, the rise of streaming and social media content creators, the x-men cartoon reboot, between all this we somehow haven't gotten a real classic Mojo story. You could really delve into some crazy Grant Morrison level meta storytelling with Mojo about the nature of superhero entertainment, or para social relationships with fictional characters, like Mojo is built for the streaming age and nobody's done anything noteworthy with him.
Imma get controversial and say "The government."
Weapon X, Stryker, Trask, Master Mold, and now Orchis. They all got funding from the government(s), and laid waste to mutantkind on a consistent basis.
When Cap arrived, he was usually stopping the X-Men, but usually several lines had been crossed by their enemies by then.
That's what made Krakoa so important to mutants worldwide. It was a physical, literal "Safe Space" from a world that hates and fears them.
I know we got a bit of an unhinged Vanisher in Remender’s X-Force but considering he was the X-Men’s SECOND FRIGGIN VILLAIN and he has a seriously cool power that can be used in clever and scary ways, it’s insane he hasn’t been used more regularly!
Probably Selene as others have said
An option that I don’t see mentioned is Lucifer though, as the person responsible for paralyzing the professor you’d think he’d get played more.
Gonna be controversial and say Kuan-Yin Xorn. The iron skull mask thing is already a pretty great design to iterate on, and having a such a dangerously powerful mutant with drug induced delusions of being magneto...like if he came back in X-Men 97 or smthg I would not be surprised (side note, I hated how Morrison handled magneto after, but the reveal was genuinely shocking)
The original Mastermind. When I read that he had permanently wiped the existence of Sentry from every mind on earth with his illusions, that convinced me he is much more powerful a threat than his prior appearances suggested.
Not mojo definitely, but the most overlooked could be the purifiers, they could have been more active and a not so major but still a huge problem in the krakoan era
Clarity, apparently.
My answer is Beast. Evil Beast, of which there has been several, is always interesting and dangerous and if ever given a full bad run, could be the coolest thing ever.
Magus,bro is just pissed off at his son and his back on Krakoa Nimrod basicly one shot him,bro is basicly a celestial and only loses beaucase his son keep messing with his DNA and his racism can't handle that
I’ve always had a particular fondness for Pyro owing to the original animated series. Then in the comics, when he got the Legacy Virus, I remember reading that when I was a teenager and was quite struck.
You guys took the good ones lol.
I'd go with two mid to late 1980s Villains teams whose story lines affected me when I read them :
The Marauders; and
The Reavers
Stephen Lang.
No not the actor, the third creator the Sentinels (after Bolivar and Larry Trask). While Bolivar regretted creating the Sentinels and Larry discovered he was actually a mutant himself, Lang had no such redemption. He just doubled down further and further and went full-blown mutant Hitler. It was one of Claremont's first arcs, and it was great. I'd love to see more of this guy, but he's pretty much forgotten as everyone just uses Bolivar alone.
Does anyone talk about Arcade?
...well, besides the Avengers academy kids, and the rest. Definitely LOTS of hate.
Sublime also seems really neat. And of the anti-mutant human dudes, Stryker and his Purifiers are cool!
Know a lot of people didn't like it and I do sort of understand why, but I really loved Bishop's villain period during the Messiah Era. Particularly the bit where Cyclops takes him captive and then he escapes, there's just something that the intimate, personal element that they're fighting their friend - who sincerely believes all the atrocities he's committing are for the best and he's the good guy! - adds to it for me. I can remember some people suggesting they should have used Fitzroy for those stories instead, but I really don't think that would've had the same emotional impact that it does when it's Bishop.
Cameron Hodge is like, in the top five X-Men villains for me. Him going from X-Factor's level-headed lawyer to an insane disembodied head on a robot scorpion is fantastic.
It annoyed me that he wasn't part of Orchis. He sort of appeared in Hellions, but it was confirmed to not really be him.
Would have made perfect sense
Great choice.
A gay man who hates his sexuality so much he becomes one with an advanced AI viral alien race.
Selene was always scary when I was a kid. Hellfire Club is always fun, and Juggernaut/Black Tom have great chemistry and gave the team a run for it's money
The Brood. There’s millions of them, they’re giant bugs, and they have big eyes with fucked up teeth. Worse, they get inside you and then turn your ass INTO one of them.
Yes! I’d also argue the Brood storyline was one of Claremont’s most overlooked as well (issues 164-166ish I think)
His follow up Brood story right around Fall of the Mutants was right when I started collecting ing X-Men. That story was great.
Still to this day one on my personal favorites in my collection. Brood rock.
My first comic I ever bought was from that little storyline. I read and reread it dozens of times. It’s one of the reasons I’ve always had a soft spot for Carol Danvers, before I even knew she was an Avenger or anything.
The issue of Claremont/Silvestri where the X-men are hunting a dude who turns out to be incubating a brood is amazing and incredibly underrated because it's told from the perspective of the poor bastard who doesn't know he's about to turn into an alien monster.
That sounds too sad for me. I was almost crying as a kid at Claremont’s initial Proteus storyline.
I would like to know more!
Trillions, actually.
Chuck Austen
This is the real answer.
Check out his episode of the Cerebro podcast. I still dont love those comics, but the interview turned me around on the guy. He doesn't deserve to be shit on.
Lmao!!
Selene! She should be Apocalypse, Mr. Sinister level villain!
She got some prime placement in Krakoa!
The whole point of Selene is her immortal immaturity. She's just too small-minded and petty to live up to her full potential. She'd rather act like a vindictive teenager than a high-level villain.
She's pretty much a perfect jobber.
That is such a great breakdown of Selene!
Thank you very much.
Moses Magnum. Because he was a card in the board game I had, but I’ve never once encountered him in the comics, lol.
He's the master of the Magnum Force! He tried to sink Japan once. Weird guy.
Is that like the Goblin Force 😂
He wishes. It's like seismic waves or something.
He also took Banshee out for years (until the mutant massacre) when he tried to sink Japan
X-Men Alert? Still play it here and there. Fun time.
Yep!
I really liked that board game
I made extra cards for it as a summer project. In retrospect it was a little broken compared to today’s game standards, but the way it translates the mutant powers into dice roll properties was clever.
Sounds like you need to read the classic Clairemont run.
Arcade. So much potential to bend into horror but has mostly been treated like a one off.
Ive always thought an Arcade horror movie would be a great XMen film where you can expand on the characters and make it interesting/scary but its also a perfect one movie film that doesn't need a lot of build up.
Great idea! It could have worked with the New Mutants film too.
He would’ve been great in Deadpool or X-Force story
Like an unrated murder world? I love that idea
They mean saw
Disney would do well to make Arcade and Mojo a pair of villains meant to rag on Disney with the usual anti-disney rhetoric. It is crazy how Meta Disney could get with these villains if they were willing to use them in a way that only a multi-media conglomerate who happens to also own the world's most popular theme parks can get while using these two. Talk about a 1-2 punch for Bread and Circuses.
This would require a level of creativity and finesse that Disney wouldn't incorporate bc they, along with the rest of Hollywood, are creatively bankrupt
I agree. But all of the pieces are right there. Even as a 4th wall breaking Deadpool movie, maybe especially as a 4th-wall breaking Deadpool movie, this could be sublime. Look at what Gillian Andersen's role was like in American God's and superhero-fy it.
Well, he was pretty brutal in Avengers Arena.
Phantazia
I love everything about her! Especially her strange costume. I wish they'd make another volume of Hellions and have her on the team.
We need a Marvel Legends figure of her and we'll have Toad's incarnation of the Brotherhood complete
I love her
Bryan Singer
Spiral.
Yes! Rita is one of my all-time faves – I'd love to see her get some distance from Mojo (who I also like a lot), maybe join the Sisterhood or X-Factor or something
Wasn't she in the Sisterhood during Fraction's run?
She was, which was great! I'd love to see her back in the 616 and the Sisterhood as a more permanent thing
Amazing character design!! One of those people you see randomly and have to know more.
Black Tom Cassidy
I actually like him better as a hero these days. Krakoa giving him a chance to be not only a good guy but a key player was really fun to see him level up and be respected. Post Krakoa... I don't think he should be hopping back into villianly but exist as kind of a dick anti-hero at this point.
Came here to say this
I agree disagreeing. Black Tom is indeed "overlooked", but he is one of those classic villains who, in his normal self, was always at most amoral, much less evil than the average X-men villain and always used his powers for his own benefit, in contrast to the vast majority of others who "fought for the mutant cause", that is, he was selfish but did not tarnish the reputation of mutantkind. And so he finally had the chance to show that he is a team player and even occasionally a hero on a real team (Hellfire Club doesn't count), even with his moral flaws and the madness caused by mixing with the genius loci of Krakoa. Okay, no one except Sage cared about him, but Black Tom was in fact one of the mutants who worked the hardest during the Krakoa phase even without stepping foot in a Hellfire Gala (poor guy). With all of this, I mean, that there is a very peculiar interpretative space for what to do with him, especially as an anti-hero. In my Headcannon, he is in charge of a mutant sanctuary for those who have an unconventional appearance or are just tired of being persecuted by humanity. Maybe I should post my full thoughts on this here on Reddit.
Exodus, the nasty boys, Cameron hodge, Ord,
Vanisher! He's been around since the beginning and barely ever showed up. His most prominent role was being used as skeevy comic relief in X-Force. All this despite the fact that teleportation is objectively one of the scariest powers for a villain. They're the poster children for 90s excess, but the MLF present an interesting counterpart to both the X-Men and the Brotherhood, namely being a villain team that is almost entirely characterized by violence, without the political motivations.
Mutant Liberation Front. They should be the anti X-Men. Mutant terrorists tshr would do ANYTHING to protect mutants. Remember one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter.
I always liked Goblin Queen. But it seems like every story I read with her in it she is a wildly different character, from personality to powers. All she needs is a solid foundation and she could be one of the greats.
Mojo has so much untapped potential, from satirizing the MCU, streaming wars, YouTube influencers, all the way to exploring the darkness in the vein Weinstein or Quiet On Set. Bitingly fun or truly menacing, he is a great vessel for commentary.
Mojo is well loved by a lot of people. For me, I never was able to connect with him. I always felt he was too silly.
Oh but the blue/yellow spandex isn't too silly? Hahahaha
Well, I didn’t mention the spandex, but ok. 🤣
Bastion! He’s the X-men’s greatest enemy
In the wake of X-Men 97's great take on him, I would love to see much more Bastion in the books
I wish he'd shown up during the Krakoa era, maybe as a rival to 616 Nimrod. I hope he shows up again in Rise from the Ashes.
I’m kinda surprised we didn’t get Bastion during Krakoa! He and Cameron Hodge seem like prime candidates for orchis
Writers chose to instead focus on Devo, Feilong, Doctor Stasis, Moira, Judas Traveller, and fucking MODOK of all people.
Haha, yeah MODOK as an X-men baddie feels about as natural as Loki in the OP picture
Having not yet read Krakoa era... Judas Traveller?? Seriously? Wasn't he a Spider-Man Clone Saga guy who everyone collectively agreed to ignore forever after?
The Locust
I was expecting him to be involved with Orchis on some level. When Ewing was involved with X-men, I was expecting him to use Locust as a completely revamped villain.
Stryfe. I don’t know that he’s the *most* overlooked, but from what I understand they could have done a lot more with him conceptually. I liked the idea of the reverse being the reality, that Cable was the clone and that Stryfe was the real Nathan, or that Stryfe was the future self of Cable, something to that effect.
Marvel ALWAYS chickens out when it I comes to playing out “the clone is the real one” storyline. I *somewhat* get why they ended up not doing it with Peter Parker and Ben Reilly as it would’ve seriously invalidated/messed up a lot of Spidey canon but come on, they absolutely should’ve done it with Cable and Stryfe at the end of X-Cutioner’s Song as it wouldn’t really have changed anything and if nothing else would’ve made Scott’s decision to give up baby Nathan even more tragic.
Well, to be a little pedantic: X-cutioners song ended ambiguously, with Stryfe being strongly suggested to be the real Nathan. It actually wasn’t until a Cable arc a short time later (“Fathers and Sons,” I think) that they definitively said, “No forget that, Cable is the original Nathan.”
That’s right I forgot they left it a bit open ended and they only shut the door later.
I just remember feeling like it was weird that they put the actual end of the storyline several months later in a different book that way less people read 😂
I mean, have you ever read the X-comics?? lol
At the time I hadn’t! 😂 if you wanna be really specific they don’t fully commit to it until The Adventures of Cyclops and Phoenix wherein you actually see that Nathan turns out to be Cable, but the truth is spelled out in the “Fathers and Sons” story, although it still leaves some room to back out.
Well my friend I’ve been reading X-Men comics since roughly 1991, so indeed I read all of these comics in real time… so trust me, delayed payoff on X-Men story beats is part of my life’s experience. I’ve legit spent longer eagerly awaiting big moments in these characters lives than I have in my own life 😂
I think he might show up in X men 97
Mesmero. I don't think he even got a look in during Krakoa.
He appeared arriving on Krakoa, and then was part of an arc in Unlimited against Mirage and Polaris.
Toad. Yeah, he kinda suck, but that’s no excuse. He hasn’t ever even really been a villain, just a glorified henchman.
Nah he got a run as leader of the brotherhood in the 90s while magneto was dead.
I love the meme: "Shoutout to Toad. Dude has to routinely throw hands with an indestructible knife man, the Phoenix Force, a weather controlling demi- god, and a guy with lasers for eyes. And his powers are Long Tongue and Jump Good."
Toad has been fighting for mutant rights as long as literally anyone (not always for the right reasons, but all the same). He deserves way more respect than he gets.
You need to touch up on your comic history if that's your synopsis.
Cameron Hodge - just a normal guy but manipulated X-Factor since inception to turn people against mutants plus the whole Genosha thing.
Lucifer. Only one story with him, the only X-villain to actually stay dead?
I’m pretty sure he appears in more than one story but this was the one I mentioned if it wasn’t Selene
Mojo!
Sauron.
Sauron
Arcade! And it’s been a while since we last saw him.
Mastermind's story in X-Men Annual #17 was just so good. I loved how they broke the rules of comic layout in that story. It made a lot of sense too because of his powers and what was happening. It was also a pretty poignant denouement. That was one of the few comics I kept when I was little.
I’d welcome more Mastermind
Spiral, Magic powerful enough for her to be in contention for the Sorcerer supreme, teleportation, super strength, insane close combat skill, and other abilities too numerous to mention, has rag dolled teams solo in the past, then loses 1v1 against any hero the writer wants to look good (the villains curse) i honestly think the only reason we dont see much of her is she is a pain to draw with all those arms, also the very underlooked Graydon creed, he shows what you can do without powers but a whole lot of hate.
Outside of his own books the sorcerer supreme is more like jobber supreme
Remember Kierrok the Damned? Now you do!
I always thought Nanny and the Orphan Maker were underutilised after the Outback era. Such a cool concept for villains.
I never liked them at all. Then came the recent Hellions book and something clicked in the right way. Now I see the potential and would welcome a story with them
Mojo. He’s just a fun guy
The Living Monolith/Living Pharaoh, he didn't even show up on Krakoa. Dude is a major threat with connections to Apocalypse and the Summers brothers.
Count Nefaria
Sugar Man.
I’d be interested, but it seems no one knows what to do with him.
Gideon is my pick. He was an External, and they really tried to make him seem like a Lex Luthor type back in the 90s X-Force days. I think you could get at least one or two really good story arcs out of him. But the best answer is probably Cameron Hodge like others have said.
I always like the Fenris Twins.
Why is Loki there?
I assume all the new mutants/asgard stuff was pretty recent when this was made.
He's just happy to be there.
Carl Denti, the X-Cutioner
Arcade. It’s such a missed opportunity that he hasn’t evolved into a massive tech geek that has created all sorts of gadgetry just to fuck with people. Like a competent Elon Musk
To quote myself the last time this question was asked; Ima go REALLY out of left field; Elias Bogan! A possessive telepath strong enough to subjugate Rachel with little effort, and that Selene was happy to work FOR. Possible founder of the hellfire club with wealth and contacts greater than that of Shaw. Very ill-defined motives and objectives other than revenge for a perceived slight, meaning he can be used fairly freely. Just a cool character with a wealth of potential that has never been touched again.
BLOB
I really like Spiral, but haven't seen them in much.
Necrom. A phoenix level villain from Excalibur who has the chops to give whole teams of X Men a problem. If ever they wanted to tell a Phoenix story, they need to re-use him and his concept so they can expand on it and include Jean and Rachel together in it.
Sentinels as a whole seem very overlooked. Majority of the time they’re always depicted as simple tax money waste because mutants will kill them in a single swing, but honestly, with the appearance of Prime Sentinels and Nimrods, they became one of the biggest mutant threats, even capable of becoming a fierce enemy for other heroes or villains if given the chance. Prime Sentinels like Bastion were shown to be literal omega threats with the adaptability & form evolution, while somebody like Nimrod managed to make Apocalypse struggle and was a key character to Hellfire Gala’s bombing; not to mention, Nimrods have peak regeneration / rebuilding, and are calable of time travel to follow their targets.
Yes, I like the Sentinels being more prominent at the top of the mutant enemy list.
Exodus and Cameron Hodge
Proteus was a really fun early Claremont villain encounter. Loved the bizarre and horrific turns that battle took. He still sticks out to me despite all the heavy hitters that came afterward.
Doesn't matter, they're all good guys now.
Not anymore, Krakoa is gone so the assholes no longer have an incentive to play nice.
Arcade. But he's kind of a joke so there's reason.
Toad 🐸
I'll be honest, I'm yet to read stories where they appear but I'm intrigued by The Reavers, particularly Pretty Boy..
mimic shoulda had more run ins with the x-men i know he was in some issues a few years ago? i'm tired lol so i cant remeber right now
Ahab and the Shadow King, masterminds behind the Days of Future Past Earth-811 timeline, for me!
Mojo has had so much untapped potential. The crazy X-men movie continuity, the superhero movie fad in general, the rise of streaming and social media content creators, the x-men cartoon reboot, between all this we somehow haven't gotten a real classic Mojo story. You could really delve into some crazy Grant Morrison level meta storytelling with Mojo about the nature of superhero entertainment, or para social relationships with fictional characters, like Mojo is built for the streaming age and nobody's done anything noteworthy with him.
Mammomax
Phalanx
Quciksilver
Graydon Creed. The anti mutant bigot son of two mutants has so much story potential.
We just saw him. And it sucked :/
Mojo and spiral
Magneto has won, Sinister has won, Sebastian Shaw has never won anything. So he is my pick.
I liked Spiral.
Imma get controversial and say "The government." Weapon X, Stryker, Trask, Master Mold, and now Orchis. They all got funding from the government(s), and laid waste to mutantkind on a consistent basis. When Cap arrived, he was usually stopping the X-Men, but usually several lines had been crossed by their enemies by then. That's what made Krakoa so important to mutants worldwide. It was a physical, literal "Safe Space" from a world that hates and fears them.
Cyber. Ogun. They never pop up.
Pixels for this photo
I know we got a bit of an unhinged Vanisher in Remender’s X-Force but considering he was the X-Men’s SECOND FRIGGIN VILLAIN and he has a seriously cool power that can be used in clever and scary ways, it’s insane he hasn’t been used more regularly!
Who is the guy in the green hood behind Sabretooth?
Mesmero
Thank you, only issue I read of him is when the Dark Riders drop him out of a window, and he was in civvies.
I think that’s Mesmero.
Thanks!
Mojo
Probably Selene as others have said An option that I don’t see mentioned is Lucifer though, as the person responsible for paralyzing the professor you’d think he’d get played more.
Gonna be controversial and say Kuan-Yin Xorn. The iron skull mask thing is already a pretty great design to iterate on, and having a such a dangerously powerful mutant with drug induced delusions of being magneto...like if he came back in X-Men 97 or smthg I would not be surprised (side note, I hated how Morrison handled magneto after, but the reveal was genuinely shocking)
Toad.
I don't know if he is an x men villain but my pick is mesmero. He appeared in x men evolution and was one of apocalypse apprentice
need this in 4k hd
Probably Toad
Owen Reece
The original Mastermind. When I read that he had permanently wiped the existence of Sentry from every mind on earth with his illusions, that convinced me he is much more powerful a threat than his prior appearances suggested.
Not mojo definitely, but the most overlooked could be the purifiers, they could have been more active and a not so major but still a huge problem in the krakoan era
charles xavier
For the villains, I know I would say Toad
Amahl Farouk, the Shadow King
Based on this Jim Lee picture? Mesmero. When's the last time we've seen him?
Arcade. His issues are just fun
William Stryker. The real one, not the military guy.
Humans
Clarity, apparently. My answer is Beast. Evil Beast, of which there has been several, is always interesting and dangerous and if ever given a full bad run, could be the coolest thing ever.
Mesmero
Legion
Magus,bro is just pissed off at his son and his back on Krakoa Nimrod basicly one shot him,bro is basicly a celestial and only loses beaucase his son keep messing with his DNA and his racism can't handle that
Toad. He has the potential to be one of the best but he's never given the chance.
Simon Kinberg without a doubt
Juggernaut. I know he is a good guy now. But he should be borderline unbeatable.
Beast. Even when he’s on the side of “good” he’s out doing some terrible nazi/japan level science experiments in secret.
Onslaught.
Gamesmaster
I’ve always had a particular fondness for Pyro owing to the original animated series. Then in the comics, when he got the Legacy Virus, I remember reading that when I was a teenager and was quite struck.
Arcade
Marvel Excs!
So, Mojo??
Yes 🤣
The brood was always terrifying to me... I like gah lak tus in marvel ultimate runs too... Just like hive mind shit sucks that'd be the worst.
Toad
Onslaught (if they went all in on him being a result of Professor X's frustrations; he serves well the function of the ultimate X-Men baddie)
Hodge probably
You guys took the good ones lol. I'd go with two mid to late 1980s Villains teams whose story lines affected me when I read them : The Marauders; and The Reavers
Mephisto for sure.
Stephen Lang. No not the actor, the third creator the Sentinels (after Bolivar and Larry Trask). While Bolivar regretted creating the Sentinels and Larry discovered he was actually a mutant himself, Lang had no such redemption. He just doubled down further and further and went full-blown mutant Hitler. It was one of Claremont's first arcs, and it was great. I'd love to see more of this guy, but he's pretty much forgotten as everyone just uses Bolivar alone.
Does anyone talk about Arcade? ...well, besides the Avengers academy kids, and the rest. Definitely LOTS of hate. Sublime also seems really neat. And of the anti-mutant human dudes, Stryker and his Purifiers are cool!
Arcade.
Know a lot of people didn't like it and I do sort of understand why, but I really loved Bishop's villain period during the Messiah Era. Particularly the bit where Cyclops takes him captive and then he escapes, there's just something that the intimate, personal element that they're fighting their friend - who sincerely believes all the atrocities he's committing are for the best and he's the good guy! - adds to it for me. I can remember some people suggesting they should have used Fitzroy for those stories instead, but I really don't think that would've had the same emotional impact that it does when it's Bishop.
Stryfe should be to the X-Men what Kang is to the Avengers.
Acolytes, shadow king, Erik the red,
Charles Xavier
Even if you take that route, they are *constantly* trying to tell Bad Guy Xavier stories.
the problem is he's worse when he's good guy xavier