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Oct 27, 2017
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One of the things that make the X-Men such compelling heroes is that they face off against villains that are just as, or sometimes more, compelling than they are. The X-Men’s foes have a wide range of powers and personalities. Some of them prefer to team up into groups like the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants while others prefer to try and destroy humanity alone. All, however, are a danger to the X-Men and to the rest of the world.
RELATED: 15 Mega-Powerful X-Men That Are Way Scarier Than Their Villains
However, not all X-Men villains are created equally. Some of them are powerful enough to threaten the entire galaxy… and some of them simply jump around, making their mutant power equivalent to the dancing powers of the ’90s band Kris Kross. How can you tell which X-Men villains should have you quaking in your boots and which ones are just walking punchlines? Fortunately, it doesn’t take a lot of time to solve this mystery. You don’t have to peek into the future like Destiny or just try to read our minds like Jean Grey. In fact, all you have to do is keep scrolling if you want to check out us out as we start ranking 15 X-Men villains from weakest to OP!
16. TOAD
There is pretty much no way that Toad isn’t on the bottom of this list. He’s got definite street cred for being such a longtime X-Men foe, and he even appeared prominently in the first X-Men movie. However, the character has always been more or less a joke as a villain.
At the end of the day, he’s really just good at leaping around. Sure, in some stories, he’s also got the ability to extend and weaponize his tongue, but these are not the most offensive powers in the world. When he’s surrounded by people with the ability to change shape or control fire, Toad just looks like he’s woefully outclassed by his own team. But what more can we expect from a glorified sidekick?
The Blob is one of those mutants whose powers look very impressive on paper. He’s literally unstoppable in the sense that he can make his body almost impossible to move. However, that’s less useful in a fight than you might think. This is because despite being immovable, Blob is still very vulnerable. Characters like Wolverine can go for his eyes, Cyclops can shoot the ground out from under him, and so on.
And while he has enhanced strength, he can’t utilize it well without moving, effectively negating his main power. Any given psychic can also attack the Blob as well, as he is not protected like his unstoppable counterpart, The Juggernaut. All in all, there is a reason that even in a movie as terrible as X-Men Origins: Wolverine, The Blob is remembered as one of its biggest jokes.
Compared to the previous two mutants, Pyro is very dangerous. His ability to manipulate fire is very versatile: not only can he control where the flames go, but he can make the flames bigger, more intense, and more dangerous for our heroes. In fact, this character would be a lot higher on this list if not for a couple of key things holding him back.
First of all, Pyro cannot generate the flames himself, meaning he must rely on a special suit to both generate fire and to protect him from his own flames. This means that his powers can really be neutered by damaging or destroying his suit, as he would either become vulnerable to his own flames or lose the flames altogether. And the fact that he controls the flames with his mind means his threat can be neutralized by anything ranging from distracting to psionic attack.
In some ways, the Sentinels are the most iconic foes of the X-Men. They are certainly the most thematic enemies: just as the X-Men fight for a world that fears and hates them, the Sentinels represent mankind’s willingness to create deadly mutant killing machines.
There has been a lot of different Sentinel variety over the years, ranging from X-Men clones to giant purple robots and adaptive, evolving machines. Many of these Sentinels are undeniably powerful, but they share limitations: most Sentinels are not able to take on the most powerful X-Men directly, and their computer brains make them easy to defeat in a battle. On one memorable occasion, Cyclops tricked a bunch of them into flying into the sun. With robotic brains like that, these guys were never going to be that high on this list.
Arcade is one of the few characters on this list that doesn’t have his own innate abilities. Instead, he is a genius human who uses his brains to build variations of his infamous “Murderworld.” His whole deal is that he is the world’s most eccentric assassin, kidnapping targets and depositing them into his Murderworld so he can watch them die.
Chances are high that if Arcade really used his great intellect to kill the X-Men, he’d be a bit higher on this list. However, he’s held back by his maniacal devotion to fair play: there is always a chance that his victims will “win” Murderworld, and if they do, Arcade lets them go. If he was willing to just shoot every mutant and superpowered character that he knocks out instead of bringing him to Murderworld, he’d be one of the most dangerous men on the planet!
Like Arcade, Mojo is another character who is mostly known for kidnapping our favorite X-Men. Unlike Arcade, though, Mojo has his own powers. Specifically, he has energy blasts, and he has the ability to age humans and bring chaos and disaster to various planets. Finally, he has an array of powers derived from his artificial parts.
When ranking powerful X-Men villains, Mojo is something of a mixed bag. On one hand, he has a diverse set of powers, and he is even immune to Rogue’s abilities. On the other hand, the strength of his powers is based directly on the popularity of his viewers in the Mojoverse. This means that his “actors” can turn the audience against Mojo, making him less powerful (just ask Longshot). And while his technological parts are intimidating, he is also unable to so much as walk without them, making him less of an overall threat.
Emma Frost, also known as the White Queen, is one of the characters on this list who has been both an X-Man and an X-Men villain. She is a powerful psychic who has no compunction about using her abilities to hurt others and benefit herself. Later, she received a “secondary mutation” that allowed her to turn into a super-strong diamond form that is also more resistant to psychic attacks.
At first, Emma Frost seems like the complete package: scary powerful psychic abilities combined with the ability to turn into a super-strong living diamond. However, as a psychic, she’s been defeated by Jean Grey and others on multiple occasions. And her diamond form features a flawed area that, when struck, can actually splinter her into thousands of pieces. These weaknesses, combined with her eventually joining the X-Men, keep her out of the big leagues of the bad guys.
Despite looking like another mad scientist, Dr. Frankenfurter, Mr. Sinister is one of the most dangerous forces in the Marvel Universe. His powers include everything from telepathy and shapeshifting to telekinesis and regeneration. Combined with his technological resources and long lifespan, it’s easy to see why he has been at the center of so many major X-Men conflicts.
In fitting mad science fashion, though, Mr. Sinister’s primary enemy is himself. He helps awaken Apocalypse and spends years helping the villain only to turn around and spend years conspiring to kill him. He helps the High Evolutionary take mutant powers away and ends up getting hunted down by vengeful mutant survivors. He creates Madelyne Pryor and manipulates her, and then she nearly gets him killed. Let’s face it: Mr. Sinister would have been ruling the world years ago if he didn’t keep sabotaging his own efforts.
While fans would likely balk at the description, Sabertooth is a villain you can describe in two words: “evil Wolverine.” This is part of what makes him such a deadly foe, of course: he has his own adamantium skeleton (most of the time), his own healing factor, his own enhanced senses, and so on. All of these contribute to making Sabertooth a truly deadly opponent.
However, having Wolverine’s strengths means having Wolverine’s weaknesses, too. Psychics and others can manipulate his enhanced senses, and anyone can take advantage of the fact that Sabertooth isn’t the smartest opponent. And this seemingly unkillable foe can also be drowned or even beheaded with the Muramasa Blade. All told, Sabertooth always makes a lethal soldier, but he lacks the leadership skills or the raw power to be a world-class threat.
When it comes to raw, unstoppable power, Juggernaut is your man. Powered by a mystical gem and encased in powerful armor, Juggernaut is protected from both conventional attacks and psychic attacks. However, a few key weaknesses hold him back from the truly major leagues.
First, he basically has one move: run at something or someone really fast and count on being unstoppable. To be fair, this is truly impressive: not even Thor can outright stop the charging Juggernaut. However, Juggernaut is like a bull in a China shop, and it’s possible to use his own momentum against him. Plus, he’s vulnerable to psychic attacks once his helmet is off, and the magical deity that grants his powers (Cyttorak) can always take them away from him.
Mystique occupies such a high place on this list primarily for her potential to manipulate others with her shapeshifting abilities. In terms of raw power, it’s easy enough to fight Mystique and knock her out. However, the trick is to know if you’re even fighting the right person!
She has the ability to look like anyone. And her powers have grown over the years, allowing her to conceal herself from the enhanced senses of people like Wolverine and give herself a tactical advantage by growing particular parts, such as wings. Throw in her fighting skills, ability to quickly heal, and her leadership abilities, and she’s truly dangerous. Ultimately, though, her subterfuge is detectable via both technological and psychic screening, and her tendency to get caught has kept her from being a dominating force.
The Shadow King was a world-class threat back in the ’30s, working with Nazis to topple monarchies and try to take over the planet. And with his immense psychic abilities, he has been able to go to-to-toe on the astral plane with Charles Xavier himself. Finally, he has a nasty tendency of possessing people, running global empires, and sometimes hurting the entire planet at once via psychic attack.
With all this being said, he’s not infallible. Charles Xavier ends up winning most of their fights on the Astral Plane, keeping Shadow King in his place. And his reliance on inhabiting host bodies has foiled him before when the hosts are taken away, leaving him vulnerable and, on occasion, in a coma. Ultimately, Shadow King is a villain with the power to take over the world, but he never quite seals the deal.
Apocalypse has been alive for millennia, boasting that he’s the world’s first mutant: this alone gives him knowledge and perspective that makes him dangerous. And there is almost no end to the list of his powers: immortality, super-strength, teleportation, regeneration, and the ability to turn every part of his body into a living weapon…these are just a few of his powers.
Furthermore, we actually have some game tape on his ability to threaten the world. Marvel’s “Age of Apocalypse” event showed us that if Apocalypse had merely emerged in the public eye a bit earlier, he could have taken over the entire United States. He doesn’t have too many weaknesses, but one is his reliance on recruiting “Horsemen” from existing mutants (typically existing heroes). These Horsemen can be converted back by their friends or simply turn against Apocalypse if they sense weakness, helping the X-Men consistently defeat him.
When Grant Morrison began writing New X-Men, he decided that the characters needed a brand new foe. This is where Cassandra Nova comes in: she’s basically Xavier’s evil twin, and she was born without a body. Years later, though, she has taken form, and she becomes a global threat in very short order.
In addition to powerful telepathy, she can copy DNA, which she uses to take control of powerful Sentinels and killing millions of mutants on Genosha. Cassandra Nova can control almost anyone’s mind, and she takes over Xavier’s body, takes over the Shi’ar Empire, and nearly destroys the Earth. She was only stopped by a combination of Jean Grey’s Phoenix powers (she restored Xavier’s mind) and the quick-thinking of the Stepford Cuckoos, who trapped her in an alien body. Without these forces, Cassandra Nova would easily have become the ruler of the planet.
Magneto is the oldest and most classic X-Men foe. His power set is deceptively simple: he is able to control and manipulate anything magnetic. However, X-Men writers over the years have shown exactly how dangerous this power really is. These powers have enabled Magneto to do things like fly and generate protective forcefields. He has also done such dramatic acts as tearing out every bit of adamantium from Wolverine’s bones.
He also has the capacity to reverse the Earth’s magnetic poles (killing millions, and possibly billions, of people), and the Ultimate version of Magneto was able to manipulate Thor’s hammer, Mjolnir, to threaten the world. Unfortunately for Magneto, he is vulnerable to psychic attack as soon as his helmet is removed: this, combined with being a terrible planner (his Byzantine schemes almost never work out), keeps him from taking the top spot.
Most of the villains on this list have struggled to become worldwide threats. Dark Phoenix, meanwhile, is a galactic threat, having already destroyed an entire planet with her powers and threatening others (including Earth) on multiple occasions. The fact that Dark Phoenix combines all of the abilities of Jean Grey with none of the morality makes her truly dangerous, and those powers are augmented by the Phoenix Force itself.
How powerful is she? The truth is, the limits of her powers have never been measured. With her complete control of reality on a molecular level, a fully-powered Dark Phoenix would border on unstoppable. The only reason that it is possible to stop her is that the “good” side of her (the Jean Grey consciousness) is constantly fighting back and is willing to kill herself to stop the Phoenix. Ultimately, without Jean holding her back, the Dark Phoenix would rule all.
Do you agree or disagree with the order? Let us know in the comments!
