‘The Gifted’ Teases Major X-Men Villain

The Gifted just teased the possible coming of a major X-Men villain to the series.

SPOILERS for The Gifted, “iMprint,” follow.

In tonight’s episode of The Gifted, Polaris has become frustrated with how unwilling Reeva has been when it comes to sharing information about the Inner Circle’s mission. The Frost Sisters approach Reeva separately and suggest it may be easier to keep Polaris on their side if they at least show her a piece of the larger picture. Reeva grants the Frosts permission to handle it.

Esme approaches Polaris and offers to show her plans and blueprints, but Polaris insists on going to the location herself. Esme agrees to go along with the idea.

Esme and Polaris sit outside what at first appears to be a bank. Esme clarifies that its not a bank, but the headquarters of Creed Financial.

Creed should ring a few bells for X-Men fans. Victor Creed is the real name of Sabretooth, the killer mutant, Marauder, and Wolverine’s greatest nemesis. He’s been featured in the X-Men movies and plenty of X-Men comics over the years.

Seeing the name of a savage killer like Sabretooth on a financial institution is probably a little strange. That’s because the reference is probably not to Sabretooth himself but to another X-Men villain named Creed, Graydon Creed.

Graydon Creed is the son of Sabretooth and Raven Darkholme, aka Mystique. Graydon was conceived after Mystique seduced Sabretooth while shapeshifting to impersonate a German spy. When Mystique realized she was pregnant, she carried the baby to term and then gave Graydon up for adoption.

After Graydon learned he was born to two mutants who abandoned him, he grew up to resent all mutants. He became involved in politics and formed the Friends of Humanity, a group pursuing an anti-mutant agenda by both legal and illegal means. His rise to power culminated with him nearly being elected president of the United States, but he was assassinated on the eve of the election, kicking off the Sentinel crackdown and the events of the “Operation Zero Tolerance” crossover event.

So far in The Gifted, neither Victor nor Graydon Creed has been mentioned by name. What we do learn is that Creed financial funded the laboratory where mutants like the Frost Sisters were cloned, held prisoner, and forced to undergo torturous experiments under pain of death. This sounds like exactly the kind of thing that Graydon Creed would be involved with and he seems like exactly the kind of villain that would be right at home on The Gifted.

What do you think about this possible villain foreshadowing on The Gifted? Let us know in the comments!

The Gifted airs Tuesdays at 8 p.m. ET on FOX.