Comic Rainbow - X-Men Villains

So, the first trailer for X-Men: Apocalypse is here.  I already gave my thoughts on it but in case you missed that I was less than thrilled.  I’ve never really been on board with the X-Men films and, truth be told, the X-Men comics have always been kind of hit or miss for me as well.  There are runs I like but by and large a lot of it is really mixed, especially when it comes to villains.  

Sure there are great villains but even the good ones can often fall prey to insane and convoluted continuity.  That’s what brings us here today, a look at the various villains of the X-Men, the bad guys often sited as the best Marvel has ever made.  So, let’s get the full spectrum on the foes of the X-Men in all their shades, shames, and successes. 

Hey, look at that, we started things off with one of those incredibly convoluted and unrewarding bad guys I just mentioned.  I’m honestly not sure if Sugar Man is cheating or not when it comes to bad guys but given his connection to Apocalypse I decided to keep him in.  Sugar Man is a mutant from an alternate time line where Charles Xavier was killed by his super powerful but completely unbalanced son Legion.  In this timeline Apocalypse conquered all of North America and Sugar Man was one of his key lieutenants.  The whole thing was encapsulated in one of the strangely common alternate history jaunts that mark the X-Men continuity entitled Age of Apocalypse.  Even though the timeline was eventually reset Sugar Man along with an evil version of Beast both managed to slip into the main timeline for reasons that won’t improve either of our lives. 

Aside from requiring a full paragraph of text to explain his backstory Sugar Man is just a terribly boring villain.  He’s a squat little demon looking dude with 4 arms and the personality of mud, informed by an ideology no more complex than “evil is cool!”  He’s kind of similar to prior X-Men villain Mojo except Mojo was at least interesting as an inter-dimensional game show host, Sugar Man is just place holder muscle that somehow managed to snag a top spot.  It also doesn’t help that his “powers” are just being ugly and multiple arms, that’s a pretty lame ability.

Now this guy has an awesome power, the ability to turn into a pterodactyl/man hybrid.  Sauron was originally a nerdy college student before he ended up trapped in the Savage Land, a hidden continent full of dinosaurs under the Antarctic.  When he got their his mutation and developed and he morphed into this awesome dino-man AND gained the power to hypnotize people.  In case the name sounds familiar to you; yes, it’s the same name as the villain from Lord of the Rings and yes, this character is named after him.  I don’t just mean the creators borrowed the name from the books either, in continuity Sauron was SUCH a huge fan of Lord of the Rings he CHOSE to name himself Sauron after developing his mutation. 

Everything about this character is amazing.  Dinosaur-Men are one of the coolest creature concepts out there and Sauron is a perfect design, especially given his place in a world of dinosaurs and fellow Savage Land mutants (he’s got like a league of caveman mutants.)  He’s the perfect embodiment of everything goofy and imaginative and completely unrestrained and joyous about the X-Men continuity that the films so dogmatically excise.  What I really love about him though is the origin of his name; he’s the nerdiest little bad guy ever.  He’s like the killer super villain version of all those incredibly embarrassing dummies on Youtube who dress up as “not the Joker” to give faux-criminal addresses.  It’s actually pretty rare to see this kind of outside allusion pop up in the Marvel universe, making Sauron even more unique and amazing. 

Ah, the part of the column where I lose fans and friends: Wolverine isn’t that interesting.  Yes he’s a fun brawler, yes his claws are cool, but there’s literally nothing to his character other than murder and angst and there’s nothing worse than when he angsts about his lost origins; that’s where Weapons Plus comes up.  Originally weapon X, which begins to give you an idea of the problem with this group, the secret government organization that gave Wolverine bone claws is one of the most insufferable enigmatic agencies ever conceived of.  The big problem with the group is that there was SO much mystery and mystique built up around them over the years that any explanation ever given always felt too pedestrian and unimpressive so Marvel had to keep upping the stakes.  

Suddenly Weapon X changes to roman numerals for Weapon 10 as part of the Weapons PLUS project and even then you’re just getting a smoke screen of the REAL project.  They’re more of a plot device than a full villain, a mangled hash of secret councils, hidden facilities, and botched super soldiers.  Of all the asinine and nonsensical explanations given my favorite one comes from Grant Morrison where it was revealed Weapons Plus had a secret city in a dimensional bubble that moved at super accelerated time and produced advanced weapons.  That was at least amusingly stupid till it turned out that, shock, it wasn’t the REAL Weapons Plus. 

Bet you thought this was going to be Magneto huh?  Well no dice; the Sentinels are easily the best X-Men villain because they’re the best iteration of the X-Men’s promise.  The X-Men franchise has always sort of sold itself on the idea that you’re reading something smart, something being fueled by clashing ideologies with all kinds of subtext and sci-fi allegory.  That’s not really true most of the time but the Sentinels are the perfect example of how great that idea could be because, in the end, the Sentinels are kind of right. 

If I may quote Green Arrow from Justice League Unlimited “The government must do for people what people can’t do for themselves,” and the people sure can’t protect themselves from mutants.  

Sure, all mutants aren’t bad but the ones who are bad have this tendency to destroy major cities or try to assassinate key political figures, they’re hardly harmless and the only response to this threat from the Xavier has always been “don’t worry, my 8 guys in upstate New York will protect the whole world from evil mutants.”  That’s a ludicrous demand, especially given that Xavier’s 2 oldest friends, Magneto and Cyclops, BOTH turned against ideology.  He’s been wrong so often how can we just trust this one random guy with the security of the entire world?  The Sentinels are the good guys here, protecting the earth from a very real threat. 

None of this has really ever come up in the X-Men comics but it’s all inherently baked into the conception of the Sentinels.  The books tend to lump them into the “evil because Xavier says so” bin, which is always irritating, but they’ve been through so many unique iterations and changes and work so well as a realization of the X-Men’s core claim to ideological depth that they had to take this spot.

The Phoenix is one of a plethora of X-Men bad guys who are popular and well known if not terribly understood.  Most folks could probably recognize the name and maybe describe the costume but wouldn’t be able to tell you a damn thing about what the hell the Phoenix IS other than Jean Grey.  A big reason for that is that the Phoenix has had to try and coexist with a lot of other cosmic Marvel gobbledygook but for me that’s always been part of the charm.  The basic idea of the Phoenix is that it’s a cosmic entity birthed at the end of the previous universe and the dawn of this one at the moment of the Big Bang.  It’s a destructive entity that basically culls elements of the universe, the kind of big, powerful, ephemeral being you usually see hanging around with Galactus and the Celestials. 

A lot of folks find the cosmic connections of the Phoenix off-putting for the X-Men but I’ve always preferred it when the X-Men dive into the craziness of aliens, alternate dimensions, and hidden dinosaur lands and such.  The series has far too long sat on the idea that having a main villain with AN ideology means its smart and needs to be grounded even though the crazier and cooler affects are the much more rewarding elements of the mythos.  I’m not wedded to Dark Phoenix possessing Jean Gray and while it does come around more often than I’d like it’s still a blast to see the Phoenix pop up, especially given how stakes raising and cosmically scaled it is.  There’s actually a weird anti-Phoenix entity empowered by, get this, the Goblin Force, a power for hunger and consumption within the universe.  Comic books are weird. 

Oh Mr. Sinister, you’ve got to be the coolest looking yet least interesting character in all of X-Men Land.  Seriously, Mr. Sinister stands as a pinnacle of character design, his weird white metallic skin, that great ringed metal armor, his massive shredded cape, and the freaky psionic head jewel is great.  It also helps that he sports the flattest of flat tops, making it look like he’s got a helmet for hair.  His origin and identity are also interesting in a theoretical kind of sense.  He was a mutant named Nathaniel Essex in Victorian times who became the apprentice of a cosmic geneticist known as the High Evolutionary.  Using the High Evolutionary’s technology he enhanced his own abilities to make himself immortal and indestructible. 

Often the lackey of Apocalypse, Mr. Sinister has never managed to be an interesting or well developed character aside from all the cool character creation stuff but there’s enough awesomeness to his conception to give him potential.  His origin is complex but not to a degree that’s inherently alienating and, as mentioned, his look is top notch.  What’s more, a mad scientist genetic bad guy is a smart angle for the X-Men given all the DNA technobabble that makes it into their mythos.  I’m not sure exactly what it’d take to make Mr. Sinister compelling rather than just cool, maybe a more engaging persona or master plan.  Still, his unique design and inexplicable popularity means he won’t be going away anytime soon. 

Obviously it’s Magneto, who else would it be?  Dude’s probably one of the MOST popular comic book villains of all time right alongside Loki, Joker, and Dr. Doom.  As mentioned, I’ve always been pretty unimpressed with the X-Men mythos’ claims to intelligence, mainly because they all hinge on this thoroughly modern vision of Magneto as a holocaust survivor turned Mutant superiority advocate.  A big part of the problem has always been the inconsistency of Magneto’s character, sometimes he wants mutants to rule the world other times he’s pro-human genocide, he’s all over the place.  What’s more it’s not like Magneto’s ideology really fits the sci-fi allegory thesis that keeps getting pushed. 

All of that said I still like Magneto but more as a force for revenge than conquest.  Magneto going after people who hurt mutants or leading the mutant nation of Genosha has always been more interesting than stranding him as a moustache twirling, “kill all the humans,” bad guy.  He’s more of an anti-villain than anything else, a bad guy who does bad things that you kind of wish the heroes would get more into.  Honestly, if Marvel made a whole comic out of Magneto hunting down and killing Nazis it’d be great, mainly because him taking revenge on violent bigots in the way the X-Men never will is him at his most relatable and engaging. 

Grant Morrison’s run on X-Men is one of the most underrated comic series ever composed while simultaneously being a deeply uncomfortable decent into lurid sleaze and complete character assassination.  I’ve got mixed feelings about it is my point but one of the best aspects was the U-Men, a new human ideology based around killing mutants to harvest and surgically implant into themselves to gain their abilities.  It’s a super creepy and messed up idea that’s borderline body horror in all the best ways and one of the few unadulterated great ideas of Morrison’s X-Men run.  

The U-Men are sort of like the X-Men standard taken to a greater extreme, in that even though they’re fueled by an ideology it’s an intrinsically amoral ideology that isn’t trying to challenge the reader or the characters in any definable way.  Still, it’s a better approach than just having the bad guys be evil cause evil or even the often boring bent of having human baddies who hate mutants because reasons.  Seriously, the X-Men canon is full of dozens of different rifts on “hating mutants cause mutants are so awesome” but the U-Men are the only villains who are fueled by anything other than backhanded wish fulfillment.  It’s a damn shame we don’t see these guys more often. 

Another great creation from Morrison’s X-Men run, only one who ends up often terribly misused.  Cassandra Nova was Xavier’s secret twin sister, a deadly Omega level mutant whose psionic abilities eclipse every other foe the X-Men have ever faced.  She’s designed as a dark mirror of Xavier through personality, action, and visual look and boy does she live up to that bent.  Like the U-Men, she’s an example of Morrison stretching his horror chops in the X-Men universe though she seriously emphasis the kind of trashy, lurid, almost exploitation level sleazy storytelling that punctuated that run.  She’s got all of Charles’ incredible mind control powers but none of his morals so she’s constantly undermining people’s sense of identity or forcing them into brutal self harm like she’s god damn Purple Man.  She’s one of the deadliest and most disturbing villains that way, even taking control of Xavier’s body for like half the run and using it to make the X-Men vulnerable to global distrust and then eventually taking control of the Shiar empire to wreck mass death and havoc.  She’s never really managed those same heights but the fact she did it once is really all you need to be incredibly terrifying. 

Hey, another choice that won’t win me any favors.  The Hellfire Club is the bad penny of the X-Men universe: constantly popping up across all aspects of the franchise without ever once being compelling, interesting, or unique.  They’re essentially the world’s tamest secret society, a collection of scented dandies with mutant powers and exactly no agenda.  They’re actually based on a term in the 1700s for various discrete clubs for those of the high society who wanted to meet up for activities society consider “immoral,” which generally meant lots of sex and booze.  That kind of foppish detachment has always lingered around the comic’s Hellfire club, they’re basically a bunch of rich jerkos looking to get their rocks off while also occasionally manipulating young girls into experimenting with bondage so they can be possessed by cosmic space birds.

Yeah, they were heavily involved in the Dark Phoenix storyline as they were responsible for manipulating Jean Grey into becoming susceptible to the phoenix entity.  This one act has made them a mainstay of the X-Men comics for years to come, even appearing in the films prior to the Sentinels and Apocalypse, and they didn’t even know what they were doing when they did it.  The whole thing is a seriously lurid exercise wherein Mastermind, a mutant with illusion powers, convinces Jean Gray she’s a Victorian aristocrat with a kink for BDSM and sexy murder…really.  A lot of the Clairmont era comics, while great, are weird like that, mainly because he tried to incorporate the characters developing sexuality into the stories, like how Storm is always hitting on Kitty Pride. 

Aside from their place in the Dark Phoenix Saga these guys all have pretty interesting powers like the Black King’s kinetic absorption and redistribution or Emma Frost being able to turn to diamond but by and large their powers are the only interesting thing about them.  They were a right place, right time group of bad guys who’ve been costing on that success ever since. 


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