The X-Men spent decades as the most popular superteam in superhero comics. The X-Men have starred in multiple films, animated series, video games, novels, and basically every other type of media out there. This popularity has made it so the X-Men’s villains are some of the most popular among fans of superheroes. Magneto is just about a household name, Apocalypse has starred in movies and TV shows, even the enigmatic Mister Sinister is known to audiences. On top of that, there’s Juggernaut, Mystique, and others who are well-known because of their extra-comic activities. The X-Men’s rogue’s gallery is well-known, but not every great X-Men villain is as popular as they could be.
Videos by ComicBook.com
The X-Men have battled many different kinds of villains over the years, from evil racist humans to mutant supremacists to mutants who decided to use their power for evil. The X-Men have starred in some amazing stories, and even the lesser known stories have some excellent villains. These seven X-Men villains are awesome, but they never get the credit they deserve.
7) Amelia Voght
Professor X is a villainous character nowadays, but X-Men fans have known there was something up with him ever since we found out the origin of Amelia Voght. After Xavier was paralyzed in battle with Lucifer, he met and fell in love with Amelia Voght, a nurse who was also a mutant. She had the power to transform into mist and teleport, and Xavier taught her to master her powers. The two of them would work together for a time to find mutants, but Xavier tried to use his powers to make her stay with him when she decided to leave. This broke their relationship forever, and the next time they saw each other, she’d be one of Magneto’s Acolytes. Amelia is one of those sympathetic villains that can go either way, as either an enemy of the team or someone sympathetic to them. Amelia is a character that not enough readers know about and that’s a tragedy.
6) Emperor D’Ken
The road to “The Dark Phoenix Saga” took readers through the Shi’Ar Empire, and introduced them to Emperor D’Ken. He was the mad lord of the alien empire, responsible for the death of Cyclops’s mother and the sundering of the Summers family. Eventually, he wanted to use the M’Kraan Crystal to gain ultimate power, with the X-Men and D’Ken’s younger sister Lilandra killing him. The mad emperor would later be resurrected, joining with his other sister Deathbird and the third Summers brother Vulcan to retake empire. Vulcan eventually killed the Shi’Ar Emperor, taking the throne for himself, and since then the Shi’Ar Empire has been playing musical chairs with its throne. D’Ken is very important to X-Men history, but it’s rare anyone talks about his stories anymore.
5) Sauron
Sauron is somewhat popular thanks to a meme that hit the greater pop culture, where Spider-Man asks him why he doesn’t cure cancer, but Marvel hasn’t really used the villain all that often. Karl Lykos was bitten by a pteranodon from the Savage Land, and gained the power to turn into a pteranodon when he drained mutant life force. He became Sauron, and has tried to conquer the Savage Land many times over the decades. Sauron is one of those villains that has been around for a long time, but no one has ever tried to make him into an arch-villain. He shows up every now and again, fights a mutant (and occasionally Spider-Man), and the disappears again. He’s a fun villain, and hopefully one day he’ll get to become the big shot villain that he’s always deserved to be.
4) Zaladane
The Savage Land is one of the most interesting parts of Marvel’s Earth, but the publisher has let it fade away over the decades. Beyond dinosars and cavemen of this lost world, there are the mutates, people born with powers found by Magneto when he had a base there. There was also Zaladane, a powerful sorcerous and the former High Priestess of Garokk, the Petrified Man. She would battle Savage Land hero Ka-Zar, served the High Evolutionary, and eventually became the Empress of the Savage Land, starting a war with Magneto that drew in Rogue (this was the story that began their relationship) and SHIELD. She was killed by Magneto, and has only appeared in flashback stories since then. Zaladane is a villain who can work against numerous heroes and has a minor yet important role in the history of the X-Men, a powerful magic user who deserves another chance in the sun.
3) X-Cutioner
The ’90s were the X-Men’s most successful decade, with Marvel allowing creators in the mutant office to create an entire sub-Marvel Universe. The X-Cutioner fit that world like a glove. Carl Denti was a an FBI agent whose mentor was killed by mutants. Denti got his hands on powerful technology taken from superheroes and supervillains, and became the X-Cutioner. He was basically the perfect anti-mutant cannon fodder villain; he would show up in an issue of an X-book, fight someone, and then lose when the rest of the team got there or when the hero dug deep to win. He has always been a D-list villain, and his biggest success came in the first season of X-Men ’97. X-Cutioner is a simple villain who can fit in any mutant book, and the right creator could make him into a superstar.
2) Abyss
“The Age of Apocalypse” is an X-Men classic, and it introduced a villain that was quite unique. Abyss was one of the Horsemen of Apocalypse, and led the mutant forces of Eh Sabah Nur against the Sentinel Air-Lift, a mission from the Eurasians to save the humans of North America. He battled Quicksilver’s X-Men team — Storm, Exodus, Banshee, Dazzler, and Iceman — and captured Bishop. Abyss’s body was a portal, and he could unravel his body into threads to pull enemies into himself. He was a very interesting villain, and a really cool visual, much better than the Genoshan Earth-616 version. “The Age of Apocalypse” made Abyss into something special, and it’s about time Marvel remembered that.
1) Cameron Hodges
Cameron Hodge was best friends with Warren Worthington III, but was secretly jealous of everything in Warren’s life. When he learned that Warren had become a superhero, he hated him even more and transferred that hatred to mutants as a whole, secretly joining the Right and working against X-Factor as their “ally”. In “Inferno”, he made a deal with N’astirh to get immortality, his hatred of mutants buoying his existence. He teamed up with the Genegineer of Genosha and tried to destroy the X-Men, becoming a powerful techno-organic being before eventually dying. Cameron was later resurrected by Bastion, helping battle against Wolverine, Archangel, and X-Force in a bid to destroy the mutant race after House of M. Hodge is a symbol of undying hatred of mutants, and is one of the few beings out there who could be considered an Archangel villain. Hodge is a cool villain, and it’s shame that he’s always been the bridesmaid and never the bride when it comes to the X-Men’s human bigot villains.
What do you think? Leave a comment in the comment section below and join the conversation on the ComicBook Forums!
Most Viewed
-
Warner Bros. Animation / Cartoon Network Studios -
Image courtesy of Netflix -
Image courtesy of Paramount. -
Promotional art for Star Wars: Empire at War with the LucasArts logo emblazoned over it.
