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Enemies
Agent 18 / Deathlok IV
Jack Truman / Agent 18 / Deathlok IV
AKA: Billy Bailey, Deathlok, Larry Young
Nationality: American
Species: Human cyborg
First Appearance: Cable #59 (1998)
Don't let this broken exterior fool you. I know what I'm doing.
An agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. who was assigned to hunt down Cable. He relishes the chance to hunt down a dangerous and skilled opponent like Cable and accepts without a second thought, though once he learns what S.H.I.E.L.D. wants Cable for, he facilitates Cable's escape. He later became the fourth Deathlok.
See Deathlok
Apocalypse
En Sabah Nur / Apocalypse
First Appearance: X-Factor #5 (1986)
You have travelled over fifty centuries of time to stop me. When will you learn it cannot be done?
Above all other villains, Apocalypse is Cable's Arch-Enemy. An immortal Social Darwinist who believes that only war, conflict and stife advance civilization, Apocalypse is the Immortal Ruler of the Bad Future where Cable was taken and raised, and indeed it was Apocalypse who infected him with the T-O virus in the first place. Born and raised to destroy this mad tyrant, Cable was clashed with Apocalypse several times, but Apocalypse is as enduring as he is powerful.
Acidroid
Acidroid
- Hollywood Acid: He's called Acidroid for a reason.
Bishop
Lucas Bishop / Bishop
First Appearance as villain: X-Men #207 (2008)
Sooner or later, you're going to run out of road, Cable. And I'm going to smash your foot down on the accelerator, you stubborn old bastard.
Another time-travelling mutant who traveled to the past to join the X-Men, similar to Cable. While mostly a hero, when Hope Summers is born, he tries to kill her to prevent his own horrific timeline from ever occurring. Failing in his first attempt, he hunts Cable and Hope through time for the first seventeen years of Hope's life.
Blockade
Dexter Parrish / Blockade
First Appearance: Cable #55 (1998)
Pretty hot for a mutie. So tell me... ready to die?
A superpowered contract killer from Chicago hired to kill Domino. While his attempt fails, he comes close enough to killing Dom that an enraged Cable unleashes full-fledged Mind Rape on him. This backfires on Cable months later when another villain, the Undying, hijacks Blockade's comatose body to use as a Meat Puppet.
- Ambiguous Situation: It's not clear exactly what Blockade is or how he got his powers. He's definitely not a mutant, as he confesses to knowing nothing about them and views them with casual disdain. His connections with the New York criminal scene imply that he's some sort of low-level mutate, but being a Z-list villain the details are never made clear, nor will they ever be.
- Bad Guy Bar: Goes to one after he thinks he's iced Domino. Cable finds him there and it's where he exacts his revenge.
- Blood Knight: When asked by his buddy about his reasons for going after Domino, he initially cites the money before admitting he misses the thrill of mixing it up with masks.
- Boring, but Practical: He's dull as dishwasher in terms of powers and personality, yet is strong enough to almost kill Domino and even overpower Cable.
- Combo Platter Powers: He's got the dull, dime-a-dozen combo of Super-Strength and Super-Toughness.
- Evil Makes You Ugly: He's a contract killer with an inhuman appearance and at one point even says that part of why he stays in his particular line of work is because he doesn't think he can get any other with his looks.
- Fantastic Racism: He uses the slur 'mutie' to refer to mutants.
- Good Old Fisticuffs: How he prefers to kill his targets.
- Heroes Fight Barehanded: Played with, as he disdains the idea of using guns but is most definitely not a hero.
- Improbably Quick Coma Recovery: He was left comatose for months, long enough for his muscles to wither and atrophy, yet he's just as deadly as ever when the Undying jumps into his body to take it for a spin.
- Killed Off for Real: When Cable cripples Blockade's body the Undying forces his host to snap his own neck.
- Meat Puppet: Turned into one by the Undying.
- Mind Rape: Cable turns him into a vegetable as punishment for his attempted hit on Domino.
- Only in It for the Money: He doesn't have any particular grudge against Domino and only tries to kill her because he's paid to.
- Psycho for Hire: His day job.
- Red and Black and Evil All Over: He's got dark red skin and spraypaints black facial stripes across his face.
- Scoundrel Code: He's one of those villains who considers himself a "professional" and sneers when told that Spider-Man villain the Beetle (Abner, not Louise) has gone straight.
- Smug Snake: He manages to wrestle Cable down but instead of snapping his neck he pauses to gloat. This winds up costing him dearly.
- Took a Level in Badass: When possessed, he was stated as being "ten times stronger" than he was as simply Blockade.
- Unwitting Pawn: Ultimately ends up as one to the Undying.
- We Hardly Knew Ye: He was only a threat of his own volition for two issues and only made eight appearances in total.
- Would Hit a Girl: His initial target is Domino, not Cable, and he has every intention of beating her to death.
Brick
Conquest
Conquest
The time-traveling warlord called Conquest!
Species: Human
First Appearance: Cable #2 (2017)
What a waste of time, Cable. A stupid waste. Delaying the inevitable.
A Conqueror from the Future who took control of his world but grew hungry for further, uh, conquests, and began traveling through time. Doing this put him at odds with Cable.
- Army of The Ages: Being about as cliché of an evil time traveler as a character can get, he of course organizes one of these.
- Badass Normal: He's a baseline human who still manages to give Cable a challenge.
- Combat Pragmatist: This is why he's a threat to Cable despite being a baseline human. The first time they meet, he sets a trap for Cable with metal Combat Tentacles, and after that encounter he builds himself an army and simply throws them at Nate instead, since there's no way he'd win a one-on-one duel with him.
- Conqueror from the Future: It's both his codename and his raison d'être.
- Cool Sword: The Time Sword, his MacGuffin of choice which is just as boringly named as he is.
- Didn't Think This Through: So, uh... if he's already conquered the Earth of his future, why doesn't he simply bring his own army instead of going to all the trouble of assembling himself an Army of The Ages? (PS: The answer is Rule of Cool)
- For the Evulz: He wants to conquer all of time and space because... well, just because.
- Hit Me, Dammit!: At least half of the dialogue between him and Cable is just Cable saying some variant of "Fite me!" and Conquest saying some variant of "Nah".
- Just You and Me and My GUARDS!: Played with, as Cable tries to play to his ego by challenging him to a duel but he doesn't take the bait and simply has his troops overwhelm Nate.
- No Name Given: All he's known by is Conquest. Hopefully his real name isn't as boring...
- Pragmatic Villainy: He's Boring, but Practical as time traveling villains go, having little backstory and about as generic a motivation as it gets but compensating by refusing to fall prey to the traditional villain pitfalls. Cable tries to goad him into a fight several times and he refuses, since his goal is to assemble the Time Sword, not to fight Cable.
- Red and Black and Evil All Over: His aesthetic of choice, complete with a red Badass Cape.
- Sealed Evil in a Can: Conquest's storyline ended with him being Out-Gambitted by Cable and lost in time, a lazy way for the writers to get rid of him while keeping him on easy tap for if they ever need a cliché time travel villain again and Kang isn't available.
- Self-Plagiarism: He's essentially just a Kang the Conqueror knockoff with no backstory.
- Starter Villain: He's the first villain of Cable's 2017 title and pretty much exists solely for that purpose.
Caliban
Dark Riders
Dark Riders
AKA: Riders of the Storm
First Appearance: X-Factor #65 (1991)
A roving gang of killers who believe in the Exact Words of Apocalypse's survival of the fittest philosophy, to the point of betraying their current leader if he is ever beaten by someone stronger. The original group was made up of rogue members of The Inhumans and were mainly foes to X-Factor, but after perennial Cable Big Bad Stryfe fought and defeated Apocalypse they became Cable villains. Generally when Stryfe shows up these lackeys will not be far behind.
- Bad with the Bone: The second-gen Dark Rider Deadbolt had this as his mutant (or Inhuman, whatever) power, being able to throw his own flaming bones at heroes and then regenerate them.
- Beast Man: The first-gen Dark Rider Foxbat was one of these, being approximately the sort of the creature his named indicated. Second-gen Dark Rider Spyne also had elements of this, but with an emphasis on Reptiles Are Abhorrent as opposed to the more mammalian Foxbat.
- Blow You Away: The second-gen Dark Rider Hurricane had this power as his mutant ability; as his name suggests, he was a low-rent Storm.
- Butt-Monkey: Gauntlet was retconned into this to Mesmero, as it was revealed when Mesmero made his return that not only had he telepathically hoodwinked the Dark Riders into thinking they killed him, he also tormented their leader for months afterward, making him do things like walk into traffic, binge eat until he was fifty pounds heavier, and buy himself shoes he didn't need.
- The Cameo: Tusk made a few appearance in X-Men: The Animated Series and Gauntlet made a single appearance in X-Men: Evolution as a Monster of the Week.
- Cyborg: The first-gen Dark Rider Hard-Drive was one of these, though he was an Inhuman cyborg rather than the usual human one.
- Category Traitor: The first team of Dark Riders was made up of Inhumans who were persuaded by Apocalypse to side with him against their own people.
- Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: Their shtick. Because they follow the fittest, whenever their leader is defeated they will defect to whoever it was that beat him.
- Depraved Dwarf: Psynapse, the token psychic of the group. He was good enough to Mind Rape Jean Grey during their first encounter, and sadistic enough to enjoy every minute of it.
- Fake Defector: One of Tusk's "underlings" once pretended to betray its boss to Cable, promising to lead him back to the Dark Riders. It did... of course, it also led Cable and his friends into a trap.
- Flaming Skulls: The second-gen Dark Rider Deadbolt had this as his motif, being basically a low-rent ripoff of Wild CATS Wild Storm villain Helspont.
- Horned Humanoid: The first-gen Dark Rider Tusk has large horns protruding from his back that are more than a little reminiscent of Wild CATS Wild Storm member Maul.
- The Igor: The second-gen Dark Rider Spyne served this role to second-gen Dark Rider leader Genesis.
- Killed Off for Real: Ironically for a team of villains devoted to survival of the fittest, attrition has winnowed their own ranks over their years. Genesis and most of the second-gen Dark Riders all died at the hands of a berserker Wolverine back in the 90's, while Magneto defeated and then wiped out most of the remaining team via a bomb in the fourth volume of Uncanny X-Men. And then you have the various Dark Riders such as Foxbat and Psynapse who were killed off by their own teammates for being unfit...
- Laser-Guided Karma: Remember Psynapse, the Dark Rider who tried to mentally regress Jean into an infantile state while bragging about how much he was enjoying it? Yeah, shortly after that incident he caught the Legacy virus, leading to a truly humiliating death where his only friends in the world told him just how much he sucked before putting him down like a dog. Couldn't have happened to a nicer guy.
- Leeroy Jenkins: Because the Dark Riders consider themselves the fittest of the fit, they will fling themselves at whoever they think needs "testing" with no regard for their own preservation. More than once this has led them into clashes with One-Man Army-level mutants like Magneto and X-Man.
- Loony Fan: If Mesmero is to be believed, Gauntlet is an obsessive fan of the 1977 film of the same name, going so far as to name himself after it.
- Me's a Crowd: The first-gen Dark Rider Tusk's terrigenesis ability allowed him to create miniature "Underling" copies of himself that could act with some degree of autonomy (ala the Multiple Man) but were also subservient to Tusk-Prime's will.
- Mission Control: Hard-Drive served this purpose to the team, along with providing them Teleportation to retreat from battles when they were invariably beaten.
- Non-Indicative Name: Deadbolt has nothing to do with locks. Tusk doesn't actually have tusks. And half the time, Gauntlet isn't even wearing a gauntlet.
- Oxymoronic Being: None of the Dark Riders are especially intimidating, but Barrage takes the cake. Does anyone, even any of the Dark Riders themselves, believe that a guy with no hands belongs among "the fittest of the fit"?
- Quirky Miniboss Squad: After they were imported as Cable villains they became this, typically showing up in random titles to "test" (i.e. fight and get beaten by) random heroes on behalf of whoever their leader was that day.
- Shoot the Medic First: In their last (as of 2019) appearance this was their goal. Specifically, they were trying to kill off mutant healers trying to abate the M-Pox, since they believed the M-Pox was useful for culling weak mutants.
- Shout-Out: Why, yes, their original moniker was a shout-out to the eponymous The Doors song.
- Small Name, Big Ego: The Dark Riders brag (loudly and often) about how fit they are, yet not even one of them is capable of holding his own against an omega-level mutant for any length of time, nor could the entire team together. Their ranks include a two-foot tall man, a couple of beastmen Morlocks would be embarrassed to be seen with, oh, and a guy with no hands.
- Too Dumb to Live: Due to their betraying their employers on a dime and predilection to throwing themselves at more powerful opponents, on top of not really having any goals besides "testing" mutants, the Dark Riders are regarded among the most idiotic and self-defeating of X-villains. And indeed, as of 2019 all of the Dark Riders are dead.
- Villain Decay: The Dark Riders were never as deadly as, say, the Marauders, but over time when menace they did have has nosedived.
- Wolverine Publicity: Likely the only Dark Rider most fans remember is Tusk, who bizarrely got a TON of exposure in the '90s for some reason (likely because he was the most physically-distinctive member of the group, even though he was just a Maul ripoff). On top of his appearances mentioned above, he was also the only member of the Dark Riders to ever get his own action figure.
Dymphna
Dymphna
- Killed Off for Real: Seemingly died with the rest of the Phalanx when the citadel collapsed on them.
Finality
Fiona Knoblach / Finality
The immortal misandrist Finality!
Notable Aliases: Dark Mother
Nationality: American
Species: Human mutant
First Appearance: Cable #88 (2001)
Three centuries ago my brother Clarity named you my nemesis. As long as you're alive, I'll never be certain of my plans.
A Straw Feminist from the 17th century who leads a Dark Sisterhood made up of her descendants in the present day. She became obsessed with Cable and Rachel Summers due to seeing visions of them defeating her over the centuries, which they did indeed do despite her best efforts. She then vanished into Comic-Book Limbo for several years before being unceremoniously Killed Off for Real during the Messiah Complex event.
- Aborted Arc: Originally creator Robert Weinberg intended for her to be the maternal ancestress of the Grey family, but he was forced to cancel the story at the last minute. He left it open-ended, however, creating an Ambiguous Situation as to whether or not she's an addition to the Summers Family Tree.
- All There in the Manual: Many of the details of Fiona's past were never revealed on panel and can only be learned by reading her Marvel File entry in the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe A-Z Update.
- Ancient Conspiracy: Her Dark Sisterhood has lurked in the shadows of America's history for over two hundred years and has members placed in "every level of society". Their end goal is to overthrow the "corrupt system" of America and replace it with their own matriarchal dictatorship.
- Arc Villain: She was The Woman Behind the Man to Gaunt below and a few even more forgettable villains, and served as the Big Bad of her story arc.
- Aristocrats Are Evil: She hails from an aristocratic British family living first in Hamburg, Germany, and then in the Virginia colony of what would become the United States.
- Black Widow: She's married three times over the centuries, and each time she killed her husband after they gave her children.
- Bond Villain Stupidity: With her level of power and the conspiracy she's built there's no reason why America isn't already the matriarchy dictatorship she wants, really. She's called on this by Cable, but waves it away by saying that America "wasn't worth conquering" yet.
- Burn the Witch!: Her sister was subjected to this, a tragedy that caused her to hate all men forever.
- Butterfly of Doom: Tries to become one, as she sees a future where her Dark Sisterhood controls America if the current day president is killed. Her assassination attempt fails, however, and her followers are all flushed out and arrested in the aftermath.
- Cain and Abel: She's got a good brother, Clarity, who is also immortal and provides Cable with the information he needs to find her.
- Clock King: Her success rides on her ability to see the future actions of herself and others and choose the best possible course of action based on those visions. But because Cable was raised two thousand years in the future, Finality has never been able to predict his actions.
- Combo Platter Powers: She's got a psychic 3-for 1 combo on top of Immortality.
- Evil Matriarch: One of her codenames is literally "Dark Mother". Ironically, she seems to have been a very good mother to her children — just so long as they were girls.
- Evil Redhead: She looks eerily similar to Jean and Rachel, being their (intended) ancestor.
- Freudian Excuse: She hates all men due to her sister Gloria being burned as a witch during the Salem witch hunts in 1692.
- Glowing Eyes of Doom: Often comboed with a Sickly Green Glow.
- In the Hood: Particularly on cover art and in her Dark Mother phase.
- Killed Off for Real: By the Marauders Blockbuster, Prism and Riptide, apparently, though her death wasn't shown on panel and it is possible (though very unlikely) that she survived.
- Mad Oracle: Being able to see her defeat hundreds of years before it happens has made her a little batty where Cable is concerned.
- Magic Meteor: Her father Hans Knoblach apparently stumbled upon one in his youth, along with five other children. The other children all died, but Hans lived, and the exposure apparently activated latent mutant genes in his children.
- Meaningful Rename: She was called and referred to herself as Finality in her original story arc, but was referred to as the Dark Mother during Messiah Complex as Cable had put a very decisive end to Fiona as Finality.
- Manipulative Bitch: She convinces Blaquesmith that she and her sisterhood are benign and worthy of carrying on the Askani tradition.
- Mind Wipe: Cable does this to her to neutralizes her threat. It works very well, as even years later when the Marauders come calling Fiona is still incapacitated and unable to defend herself from being killed.
- Offing the Offspring: It's implied that she did this to any male children she had.
- Psychic Powers: Very powerful ones, as she is able to hold her own in a duel with Cable. She's got the always-effective combo of Telepathy and Telekinesis as well as a powerful Precognition that lets her see her defeat at the hands of Cable and Rachel hundreds of years before it happens. She's also capable of Mind Control, though powerful telepaths like Cable and Rachel can resist it easily.
- Really 700 Years Old: She was born in 1680 and has remained in her prime over the centuries.
- Salem Is Witch Country: So much so that all she and her sister had to do was visit Salem (they were originally from Virginia) to be caught up in the witch hysteria of the time.
- Self-Fulfilling Prophecy: Both her foreseen defeat and her failure to establish her desired matriarchy dictatorship seem to have been brought about by this, particularly the latter since she didn't act earlier when she could have accomplished her goals because she didn't see herself acting until the present day. Like Dr. Manhattan, being able to foresee the future seems to have paralyzed her to a degree.
- Self-Made Orphan: She arranges the deaths of both her parents in 1705 by having the boat they were on sunk.
- She Knows Too Much: The reason for her being Killed Off for Real, as Mr. Sinister had his Marauders instituting The Purge against all Seers in the prelude to Messiah Complex.
- Straw Feminist: As mentioned above, she hates men, so much so that she married to have children only to kill off all three of her husbands.
- Villainous Breakdown: Has a bit of one in her fight with Cable, once it comes out as to exactly why she fears him.Finality: You've haunted my nightmares for three hundred years. I want you out of my DREAMS!
- Villainous BSoD: According to Cable, she couldn't handle seeing a future with no possible way for her to win (during their fight), leading her to have one of these.
- Villainous Valour: Whatever else can be said about Fiona, she's not a coward. When her plans to assassinate the president fell apart and all the rest of her Dark Sisterhood was panicking and urging her to flee, Finality calmly rebuffed them, telling them that if she killed Cable it would be a greater victory than assassinating any number of presidents.
- Visionary Villain: Finality and her Dark Sisterhood have a plan for America. It involves an immortal leader, a matriarchal government and all men ground under their bootheels.
- We Hardly Knew Ye: She was used as the villain for exactly one story arc in Cable's title, stretching from issue 88 to 95. Outside of that, her only other appearances are a token cameo in the Messiah Complex event to kill her off and a single Marvel Handbook entry.
- You Can't Fight Fate: Despite her best efforts to Screw Destiny and avert her foreseen defeat at the hands of Cable and Rachel, she fails.
First Strike
Personal Army of Bastion in Operation: Zero Tolerance
- Arc Villain: They were only active during Operation: Zero Tolerance and since Bastion has long since lost that mandate, the chances of them ever appearing again are basically nil.
- Costume Copycat: Imagine an army of dollar-bin Deadpool lookalikes and you've got First Strike.
- Faceless Goons: They combine this trope with the Gas Mas Mook, wearing full face masks with rebreather-looking devices.
- The Squad: They're basically Bastion's version of X-Force, a black ops assassin squad. Fortunately they weren't very good at their jobs.
Gaunt
Gaunt
The cyborg warlord called Gaunt!
Nationality: Mizar 7
Species: Human cyborg
First Appearance: Cable #83 (2000)
"You want your sister returned, I want to be entertained. Anything of value is worth fighting for, so we'll fight for what we each desire most."
A mutant cyborg from two billion years in the future who fought a 10,000 year long war of universal conquest before finally being defeated. He was banished to an even farther future point, but was contacted by time-traveling members of Finality's Dark Sisterhood who promised to release him in exchange for taking care of Cable for them. Despite giving Cable a tough time in their fight, he failed and was slain by the Sisterhood for his failure. Some "great warlord" he turned out to be.
- Aborted Arc: According to creator Robert Weinberg, he was originally going to be a very different character
, being described as a tall and thin fellow in 19th century clothing (which would fit with the Sisterhood's leader also having been around during that time period). For whatever reason, this was nixed in favor of making him a futuristic warlord instead. - Badass Cape: Wears a lilac purple one.
- Conqueror from the Future: Or would have been, had he made it to the mainstream Marvel U.
- Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: He's fascinated by good because it's so alien to him, according to Rachel.
- For the Evulz: Yet another Marvel warlord who wants to conquer everything ever just because.
- From a Single Cell: The T-O virus strain he's infected replaces any damaged tissue he was with "living steel", accounting for his long lifespan.
- Informed Ability: His character file gives him high to very high stats in everything but speed and he's talked up as a fearsome warlord who fought a future universe's version of The Federation for thousands of years, but Cable beats him in one hit and he's subsequently slain with little effort by some jumped-up misandrists.
- Informed Attribute: Rachel calls him "the most evil man who's ever lived." So apparently a random throwaway villain is more evil than the likes of Apocalypse, Mr. Sinister and Mojo to a person who's met all three.
- Legend In His Own Mind: He calls himself "the great warlord of human history" but he's clearly no Apocalypse.
- Logical Weakness: Because a more mild version of Cable's T-O virus is the source of his powers, he can't cope with the Cabe's more aggressive strain, leading him to be defeated with just one blow.
- Mind Control: He subjects Rachel to it, but apparently Cable has a stronger mind.
- No, Mr. Bond, I Expect You to Dine: He greets Cable by offering him dinner and is as gracious a host as one could hope for a throwaway villain to be.
- Non-Indicative Name: He's not very gaunt, though as mentioned above he was originally going to be.
- Sealed Evil in a Can: He was banished to a desolate reality called the Borderline, supposedly the endpoint of all of the Marvel U's various timelines.
- Secondary Color Nemesis: His armor is green and wears a purple cloak.
- Single-Stroke Battle: With Cable. Turns out he's a Man of Kryptonite to Gaunt due to carrying around a deadlier version of the virus that is the source of his abilities.
- Time Abyss: Averted, actually. He's from two billion years in the future, but he's not actually two billion years old. Still, he's at least 10,000 years old, which isn't anything to sneeze at.
- The Unfettered: According to him "no crime was too great and no sin too depraved" to accomplish his goal of ruling the universe.
- Viral Transformation: The source of his powers, apparently, as he was infected by a "more mild version" of Cable's T-O virus.
- We Hardly Knew Ye: He's appeared in exactly five issues, one of those simply being his character file in the X-Men: Phoenix Force handbook.
General Haight
General Parraidan Haight
Nationality: New Canaan
Species: Human
First Appearance: Cable #1 (1993)
"How would you like revenge on the Clan Chosen for what they did to you? How would you like revenge on— the Dayspring?"
A General Ripper who leads the armed forces of New Canaan, The Empire that rises in the wake of Future Apocalypse's defeat and works to hasten his return. A cunning military strategist, he weaponizes time travel technology by sending Cable's brainwashed son Tyler through time to kill him, and when that doesn't work, sending the villain Sinsear to kill them both.
- Batman Gambit: He works out that Garrison Kane is from the past and deduces that he'll want to return to his time, which allows him to set a trap for Cable and the Clan Chosen.
- Casual Time Travel: His scientists built the Tinex, a time travel device very easily confused for a watch brand. He uses it to throw various brainwashed killers and madmen back through time.
- The Empire: The New Canaan regime he leads is basically this, serving as the iron fisted overlords for the Clan Chosen to rebel against.
- General Ripper: As a military leader who works for Apocalypse's New Canaan regime, this is more or less a given.
- Evil Versus Evil: His regime feuded with the Scions of the High Lord, an even more insane Canaanite splinter group founded and led by Stryfe.
- Karma Houdini: He never faced any punishment for his crimes and as far as we know is still making life in Cable future miserable to this day.
- Know When to Fold 'Em: The fact that no more chronal assassins appeared after Sinsear indicates that Haight eventually tired of throwing good killers after bad.
- Lack of Empathy: He strode through a field of rebels violently slain by Sinsear without once breaking stride.
- The Man Behind the Man: To Genesis and Sinsear, as he rebuilt each and facilitated their travels through time to take their respective shots at Cable.
- Manchurian Agent: Tried to turn Tyler into one of these. Unfortunately for him, Tyler had already been so thoroughly broken by Stryfe's pet telepath Frisco that he had acquired Insanity Immunity to further brainwashing attempts.
- A Nazi by Any Other Name: He's the archetypal blond-haired blue-eyed Nazi stereotype and leads the military of a fascist future government.
- Nothing Can Stop Us Now!: "I sincerely doubt anything can now stop the chain of events we have set into motion."
- Sarcastic Devotee: He refers to Apocalypse as "our oh-so-beloved En Sabah Nur".
- Sharp-Dressed Man: Apparently the military generals of the future will wear business suits rather than uniforms.
- Small Role, Big Impact: You can count on one hand the number of times Haight appeared, but in the end he was responsible for hammering the final nail in Tyler's coffin (an act which caused Cable no end of grief for years) and sending Sinsear back in time (which was frankly treated as a much bigger deal at the time than it would end up being in retrospect).
- Starter Villain: He exists to facilitate the various time travel trips of Cable and friends but faded into the background as Cable focused his attention on the present day.
- Time Police: His motive in sending Tyler and Sinsear back in time, ironically, was to prevent Cable from meddling with history.
- Token Human: Despite working for a Super Supremacist ideologue's government, Haight never exhibited any mutant powers.
- We Hardly Knew Ye: Only ever appeared in four issues, and two of those were purely flashbacks and dream sequences.
Genesis
Tyler Dayspring / Genesis
AKA: Mr. Tolliver, The Other (no, not that one)
Species: Human mutant
First Appearance: New Mutants #98 (1991)
- "I was his son, Zero!!His son!!And look what he did to me!"
The son of Aliya Dayspring and Cable or Stryfe, Tyler hates his father and will do anything to kill him.
- Adaptational Heroism: In the X-Men: The Animated Series animated series, where he never becomes Genesis.
- Antagonistic Offspring: His son, Tyler, aka Genesis, who was kidnapped by Stryfe spent several arcs making his father's life miserable before being killed by Wolverine.
- Avenging the Villain: After reinventing himself as Apocalypse's successor.
- Being Tortured Makes You Evil: As a teenager he was captured by Stryfe and handed over to a sadistic mutant telepath named Frisco, who literally put the boy's mind through hell and back for months to make him a Manchurian Agent.
- BFG: He certainly inherited his father's fondness for giant nineties-style guns.
- Big Bad Wannabe: He styles himself as the heir to Apocalypse, but he's manhandled by Mr. Sinister effortlessly and outside of fights with Cable, just a pair of X-Men are all it takes to handle him.
- Conqueror from the Future: Averted at first, with Tyler only seeking revenge on Cable. Later he plays this trope straight upon becoming Genesis.
- Death Equals Redemption: He appears in a vision to a dying Cable shortly after his own death, thanking his father for trying to save him and urging him to not give up.
- Distaff Counterpart: Nearly ten years after Tyler bit the dust, Marvel revisited the idea of Cable having a warrior child carrying on his legacy in Hope Summers.
- The Don: When he first arrived in the present-day reality he took on the persona of shadowy Arms Dealer Tolliver, a Sicilian mob boss.
- Evil Versus Evil: In one of the 1995 annuals he targets Mr. Sinister for turning on Apocalypse.
- Fallen Hero: A former freedom fighter who fell into villainy and took up the mantle of one of the most heinous villains in all the Marvel U.
- Fights Like a Normal: Yet another trait he learned from his father. It served him well in seizing control of the Dark Riders, but throwing down with Wolverine ended up being a little over his weight threshold.
- Gone Horribly Right: One what-if tale focuses on what would have happened if Genesis had managed to successfully go through with his brainwashing of Wolverine. The result? Wolverine becomes more powerful than even Apocalypse ever managed to make him, becomes the literal personification of war, and proceeds to slaughter a good chunk of the Marvel U. Oh, and Tyler is once again killed off by him. Dude can't catch a break even in alternate realities.
- Helmets Are Hardly Heroic: In his very first appearance as Genesis, his Powered Armor comes with a pressurized helmet that makes him look much more like Apocalypse's successor. He takes the helmet off within a couple of panels, and is never seen wearing it again.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: Seeking to build his own version of the Four Horsemen, Genesis kidnaps Wolverine and attempts to re-bond adamantium to his skeleton. The procedure fails, driving Wolverine into a Berserker Rage which ends with Genesis and all his underlings dead.
- Insanity Immunity: The emotional and neurological damage Tyler suffered at the hands of Stryfe left him so mad that a second attempt to brainwash him by General Haight of the New Canaanites had no effect whatsoever.
- Killed Off for Real: In Wolverine #100, courtesy of a feral Logan. Notably, Tyler is one of the very few mutants who has not been resurrected in X-Men (2019).
- Love Is a Weakness: He believes this, and weaponizes it when going after Mr. Sinister by abducting Essex's hidden Morality Pet.
- Luke, I Might Be Your Father: It's possible that Tyler's true father is not actually Cable but Stryfe, though Stryfe's claim is to be taken with a grain of salt, and it was never confirmed by the writers either way.
- Master of Disguise: Played with. Tyler successfully invents a false identity for himself so convincing that even his own father is fooled... but said false identity is literally just him wearing a Coat, Hat, Mask.
- Mundane Utility: When he first travels back to our time, Tyler puts his future knowledge to good use... by using it to establish a place for himself in the criminal community as the arms dealer Tolliver.
- Mutants: The descendant of a whole family of them, namely the Summers/Grey bloodline.
- Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: Averted and played straight all at once in his attempt to re-bond adamantium to Wolverine's skeleton. The process fails, with Wolverine ejecting the adamantium from his body, but the trauma sends Logan into a Berserker Rage. Tyler himself realizes this by the end.Genesis: Ah. Here comes a doom by my own hand...
- Powered Armor: As Genesis, presumably to compensate for his unremarkable mutant abilities.
- Powered by a Forsaken Child: Played with. He hijacks Apocalypse's mutant power siphons to power himself up, but is only ever seen using them on Cable (not even killing him!) and while he later claims to have acquired greater power, later appearances proved that to be either a bluff or at best a case of Informed Ability.
- Psychopathic Manchild: Certainly comes off as such in his interactions with Cable, where he disturbingly insists on referring to him as 'daddy'.
- Revenge Before Reason: Established with the reveal that Tolliver was Tyler. Despite building himself up from nothing into a prominent European crimelord, Tyler only cared about making his father suffer, and lost all his ill-gained wealth after Cable's strike on his Sicilian villa.
- Rogues' Gallery Transplant: Started off as merely part of Cable's backstory, then his villain, before finally tackling Wolverine. In retrospect, he probably should've stuck with his dad...
- Set Right What Once Went Wrong: This was his motive before full-blown Apocalypse-fanaticism set in; he claimed that by taking Apocalypse's power and massacring his ancestral descendants in Akkaba that he would change the future he and Cable both came from and prevent Cable from ever abandoning him to Stryfe. Yeah, he really never got over that...
- Tangled Family Tree: He's yet another Summers descendant. Not helping matters is that it's not clear who his biological father actually is, Cable or Stryfe.
- Telepathy: His official bios state he has this ability, though it's very underdeveloped.
- Time Travel: From 2,000 years into the future, to be precise.
- Unexpected Successor: Tyler had already been established as a not-all-that-sane presence with a grudge against his dad, but to say he was an unexpected choice for the self-proclaimed 'heir to Apocalypse' would be a huge understatement.
- Used to Be a Sweet Kid: Before being brainwashed by Stryfe, Tyler was a bonafide hero and proud freedom fighter.
- Villainous Legacy: Believes himself to be carrying on the will and testament of Apocalypse.
- "Well Done, Son" Guy: Even after switching his daddy issues from Cable to freaking Apocalypse.
- What Kind of Lame Power Is Heart, Anyway?: Tyler's main mutant ability is the power to project psychic 'solid-light holograms' directly from people's memories — a fairly useless power by any standards, but especially useless coming from a Summers/Grey descendant.
Gideon
Gideon
First Appearance: New Mutants #98 (1991)
An Affably Evil Corrupt Corporate Executive who just so happens to secretly be an immortal Power Copying mutant with designs on world domination. See the Externals character page for more on him.
Harbinger
Harbinger of Apocalypse
Nationality: British
Species: Human mutant
First Appearance: Cable #50 (1998)
An unnamed British man from Victorian London who was abducted by Apocalypse and placed in a Celestial coffin. He remained in that coffin for the next 140 years, until the Hellfire Club's leaders released him in a bid for power. Having transformed into a living weapon by this time, the Harbinger set off on a mission to bring destruction and chaos to the world.
- Action Bomb: After being overcome by the Avengers and Cable in his final battle, he attempts a Taking You with Me attack. It doesn't work, though the issue ends on a cliffhanger to fake out readers into thinking it did.
- Adaptive Ability: His primary ability is this; like Doomsday of Superman fame, he adapts to any attack used against him.
- Badass Boast: "You are no quicker to learn that you were in our London encounter. I was built to survive any enemy's worst!"
- Butt-Monkey: It has to be said that among X-villains, this guy's life sucked pretty hard. Even before becoming the Harbinger he was a down-on-his-luck Brit living in the sewers of London, and then a malevolent mutant of Lovecraftian presence abducts him, shuts him in a fancy coffin without a word of explanation and strips away all his humanity until all that's left is a living weapon. Fate Worse than Death indeed.
- Evil Is Petty: His creation is rooted in this, as Apocalypse had just been defeated by the unlikely team-up of Cyclops, Jean Grey and Mr. Sinister, and was limping away to lick his wounds. On the way back he stumbled upon the luckless man who would become the Harbinger, and abducted him purely out of spite as a weapon to turn against his enemies later.
- Cyborg: Like Apocalypse, he is a mixture of man and Celestial machine.
- Generic Doomsday Villain: Subverted in his original appearance where he was contemplative of himself and his purpose, but played depressingly straight later.
- Living Weapon: Transformed into one by Apocalypse.
- No-Nonsense Nemesis: "The concept of sport means nothing to me now, So, let this come to an end..."
- One-Man Army: He was strong enough to fight Cable and The Avengers singlehandedly.
- Really 700 Years Old: He's from the same time period as Mr. Sinister.
- Redemption Rejection: At the end of his first appearance he says that even though his programming compels him to bring destruction to the world, he wants to judge the worth of humanity before obeying it. In his next appearance, he's eagerly bringing destruction, having either forgotten his promise or having judged humanity as unworthy.
- Touched by Vorlons: He's not a mutant, and indeed was just an ordinary human before Apocalypse transformed him with Celestial technology.
- Victimized Bystander: Apocalypse didn't choose him because of any particular quality he possessed, he was literally just some random British guy who was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.
- Voice of the Legion: Like Exodus before him (who was interestingly enough also an intended weapon of Apocalypse), the Harbinger's speech bubbles are yellow-colored when he speaks.
Metus
Metus
Nationality: American
Species: Human mutant cyborg
First Appearance: Cable #155 (2018)
A childhood friend of Nathan's who he accidentally infected with the techno-organic virus, a secret he's kept ever since. He's been hunting Cable throughout his life.
- Brought Down to Normal: Eventually, Cable is able to purge the virus from him, restoring him to his child state, but also taking all those nifty powers with him.
- The Bus Came Back: Cameos in one panel after the conclusion of the arc that introduced him with other X-Students in a Danger Room session. He's cowering in fear because the simulation is of Apocalypse, the God-King of his time period.
- Chest Monster: With the virus, he can turn into objects as well as people.
- Combat Pragmatist: Metus is seriously powerful, but he doesn't pick fights with Cable when he's got heavyweight backup, notably avoiding him when he's on the X-Men and during the 'Soldier X'/'Saviour Cable' period when he's at the peak of his powers. He also picks off the alternate Cable's and absorbs their virus for a boost before he takes on Cable and a young Nate Grey together (and after Nate still almost roasts him, doesn't try it again).
- Combo Platter Powers: The T-O virus makes him a consummate (and horrifying) shapeshifter, incredibly strong, with a significant Healing Factor, possibly able to fly (it's a bit ambiguous), and he's a powerful Technopath capable of hacking Cable's 'Professor' AI. Also, he can time-travel, though how he does that, no one knows.
- The Corruption: The T-O virus functions as this, indirectly - the constant agony it puts him through is the main cause of his Start of Darkness.
- Cybernetics Eat Your Soul: A combination of pain and fear and the virus, which leads to him constantly shapeshifting to try and alleviate the pain, turns him from a sweet kid into a psychopathic monster.
- Cyborg: Due to the T-O virus completely overtaking him.
- Determinator: On par with Cable himself. No matter where or when Cable goes, no matter who he has backing him up, Metus will find him.
- Eldritch Transformation: Courtesy of the T-O virus.
- Evil Former Friend: Was one of Nathan's few friends as a child, until the virus got to him.
- Foil: To Cable himself. As Stryfe reflects his raw power and what could happen if he let his power and ambition get ahead of his conscience (albeit rather more competently, given that Stryfe is a bit of a loser), Metus reflects Cable's fears about being alone, being abandoned, and losing control of the virus that he constantly struggles with. In fact, Metus is infected precisely because Cable is alone, afraid, frightened of being abandoned, and haunted by nightmares of his virus... and snuck up on Cable at precisely the wrong moment. Cable is entirely aware of the irony.
- Forced to Watch: He's quite intent on Cable seeing all of what he's doing. Otherwise, what's the point?
- Fingore: When he pleads with his father to recognise him, the man rejects him and swipes off his fingers with a cleaver. Presumably because of his lack of control of the virus at this point, unlike various attempts by Nate Grey and Cable to blast him apart, this wound sticks even after he returns to human form.
- Hates Being Alone: Gets isolated thanks to his T-O infection, and absolutely hates it. Consequently, he tries to kill or torment all of Cable's friends and family to isolate him too.
- Hulking Out: Absorbing more of the virus allows him to grow much bigger.
- I'm a Humanitarian: Sort of. He's certainly not shy of consuming/absorbing the T-O virus infected flesh of several alternate versions of Cable, though he leaves their uninfected flesh alone.
- Long Neck: One of his intensely creepy powers. Sometimes, it's more than one.
- Master of Disguise: A powerful enough shapeshifter to pass as more or less anyone - or even the inside of a building.
- My Greatest Failure: He's up there as one of Cable's, to the point where Cable refuses to let Nate Grey kill him (though he makes the pertinent point that the effort might have killed Nate too), and ultimately cures him.
- Not Growing Up Sucks: Thanks to the combination of his shapeshifting mutation and the T-O virus his body was stuck as a child: he can shapeshift into other forms, but his default is always at the same age he was infected at. Naturally, he's not at all happy with this state of affairs.
- Only One Name: His surname is unrevealed.
-
Paranoia Fuel: He's an extremely accomplished shapeshifter, capable of impersonating the walls around someone, and the only sign of his presence is Cable's virus going mad. - Perpetually Protean: The virus sends his shifting powers into overdrive, and is so painful that he has to keep shifting to alleviate the pain, preventing a young Cable from reabsorbing the virus. This means that Metus rarely looks the same between one panel and the next.
- Rubber Man: An exceptionally creepy metallic version.
- Sex Shifter: He's entirely willing to mimic a warped version of Hope solely to screw with Cable.
- Shapeshifter: Metus' natural mutant power, limited to Human Shifting. He becomes much more accomplished with the virus.
- Shapeshifter Guilt Trip: In one particularly horrible incident, he hijacks the Danger Room and takes the form of the-then dead Warlock to attack the New Mutants, as well as nearly gutting Warpath with a construct of Magik.
- Shapeshifter Identity Crisis: Metus tends to take on the form of whoever he's focusing or talking about at the time - which is sometimes, but not invariably, Cable.
- Shapeshifter Longevity: Implied to be about as old as Cable, having followed him persistently across time. A combination of his powers and the virus has prevented him from growing up, which he isn't pleased about.
- Shapeshifter Mashup: The nature of his transformations often leads to multiple simultaneous forms. It is incredibly disturbing.
- Shapeshifter Weapon: Generates a number of nightmarish ones, usually blades of some kind.
- Start of Darkness: Being rejected by his family after the T-O virus warps him into a horror-show. It makes him decide, between multiple conversing heads, to go after Cable and make him suffer.
- Tragic Monster: He's fundamentally a kid who's driven mad by pain and fear in the form of an infection that's an Eldritch Abomination in its own right.
- Transformation Horror: Metus in virus form is walking, talking nightmare fuel, changing into new and horrifying forms every panel.
- Transhuman Abomination: The virus plus his native shapeshifting talents and need to constantly shift to evade the pain - and the fact that he can seriously threaten the likes of Hope Summers and a young Nate Grey - all qualify him. The fact that he's prone to eating virus infected flesh doesn't help.
- Turning Back Human: Thanks to Cable and Hope purging him of the virus, he's Brought Down to Normal.
- Used to Be a Sweet Kid: He was a genuinely sweet kid and Cable's best friend. Then, thanks to an accident with the virus, he became Cable's worst nightmare.
- Viral Transformation: A victim of this, via the T-O virus. He manages to get it under a semblance of control, but his powers aren't strong enough to completely master it.
Post
A Mutant who was the one who tried to assassinate Robert Kelly for the second time.
See X-Men: Brotherhood of Mutants
Shining Path
Sinsear
Sinsear
Nationality: New Canaan
Species: Human cyborg
First Appearance: Cable #1 (1997)
"I AM THE SINSEAR, DAYSPRING — AND I WILL BURN THE TRUTH OF YOUR GUILT DOWN TO YOUR VERY CORE!"
A soldier of New Canaan who fell prey to Cybernetics Eat Your Soul after being fragged by Cable. Blaming the Dayspring for his cyborg condition, he pursued both him and his son Tyler through time.
- Bounty Hunter: A futuristic, officially-sanctioned one, as he was charged by General Haight with retrieving "The Other" (who was actually Cable's son Tyler) and preventing any further chronal escapades.
- Cool Helmet: He's got one, and it's more than a little inspired by Boba Fett's.
- Cybernetics Eat Your Soul: He certainly felt this way (and angsted at length about it), though Cable flatly told him he was the same crappy person with or without the cybernetics.
- Cyborg: Turned into one by General Haight after him and his troops were hit with a thermite bomb courtesy of the Cabe.
- Death Equals Redemption: He decides the only way he can reclaim his humanity is by sacrificing himself in Cable's place.
- From Nobody to Nightmare: Before becoming Sinsear he was just some random Canaanite soldier.
- Homing Projectile: He fires homing CDs at his enemies. Yes, as in CD-ROMs. It's as goofy as it sounds.
- Implacable Man: He was rather dogged after pursuing Tyler Dayspring, showing up at the mansion of Tyler's Tolliver identity and interrogating his butler. Despite this, Tyler was always a step ahead of him.
- Informed Ability: According to Cable he's a One-Man Army with "almost a million bloody kills to his credit."
- Killed Off for Real: In Cable #41.
- Malevolent Masked Man: He wears a Cool Helmet that covers most of his face and is most definitely malevolent.
- Mercy Kill: Inverted, as he desperately wanted a Mercy Kill from Cable after being blown up but instead got a homing beacon put on him. For that bit of Cruel Mercy he never forgave Cable.
- No Indoor Voice: His speech was always bolded and written in a larger font than that of other characters, implying that either has a very deep voice or he's always screaming at the top of his lungs.
- Red Eyes, Take Warning: Well, red eye singular, as one of his eyes is just a bloodred visor on his helmet.
- Sins of Our Fathers: Exploited: Sinsear is charged with pursuing Cable's son Tyler by the New Canaan regime and decides he can expand his mission parameters to target his father in order to lure Tyler out of hiding.
- Starter Villain: Like Conquest above, he was created for this purpose. Of the 7 issues he appeared in, five were the first five issues of the original Cable run.
- We Hardly Knew Ye: He appeared in a grand total of 7 issues, yet weirdly got character trading cards and was treated at the time like he would be a major villain of Cable's.
- You Can't Go Home Again: By his final story all he wanted was to go home again. Yes, to his hellish war-ravaged future home. The present-day sucked that much for him.
Stryfe
Stryfe
The clone called Stryfe!
Species: Human mutant clone
First Appearance: New Mutants #87 (1990)
The clone of Cable created by the Clan Askani when it seemed baby Nathan would perish from his T-O Virus, Stryfe was taken and raised by Apocalypse as his heir (in reality his perfect host body). Without the virus ravaging his body, Stryfe grew up with full access to his vast powers. Once Nathan, Redd and Slym Dayspring defeat Apocalypse, he was raised by former Apocalypse loyalist Ch'vayre, who tried to bring the boy onto the right path, from joyful murder to Apocalyse's philosophy of survival of the fittest. It didn't take, and Stryfe grew up to menace his "brother" throughout time.
- Abomination Accusation Attack: He liked to mock Cable about being a clone back when he still believed he was the original Nathan Summers. Unfortunately for him, that Laser-Guided Karma came around like a boomerang.
- Always Someone Better: He styles himself as this to Cable, but in truth, Cable is this to him on a grander level. In terms of pure personal power, even a teenage and genetically damaged X-Man leaves him in the dust (and the fully grown version dominates multiple mutants more powerful than Stryfe without even breaking a sweat). He is acutely aware of this, especially in the latter case, and boy oh boy does it get right under his skin.
- Antagonist Abilities: He's got all the abilities Cable would have if he wasn't The Fettered - though as X-Man demonstrates, for one reason or another, they're not in the same weight class as they should be.
- Antagonistic Offspring: Stryfe himself is arguably this to Scott and Jean, his biological parents. He's also this to Apocalypse, his adoptive father.
- Appropriated Appellation: An in-universe and OOC example, as he took to calling himself the Chaos-Bringer after being called that in the future. Little did the terrorized people of New Canaan know the Dark Phoenix called herself that long before Stryfe hit the scene.
- Arch-Enemy: To Cable primarily, though numerous members of X-Force also have grudges against him owing to various Kick the Dog moments he committed against them.
- Arc Villain: Of the X-Cutioner's Song story, and generally whenever there is an X-Force book there is a better-than-even chance he will be the Big Bad therein.
- Asskicking Leads to Leadership: Invoked when he defeated Apocalypse and took control of the Dark Riders. Their whole thing is that they follow whoever is the strongest, so they fell in line with Stryfe with no complaints.
- The Atoner: Bizarrely attempted in the Gambit and Bishop miniseries, in which he was depicted as remorseful, frankly pathetic (Cable completely owned him with zero effort to the horror of the two X-Men) and desperate enough for redemption to attempt Death Equals Redemption. In his next appearance he was back to being the unrepentant megalomaniac and this has never been mentioned again.
- Ax-Crazy: His desire to inherit Earth from Apocalypse and his jealousy of Cable have left him absolutely positively deranged, sometimes to the point incoherence.
- Badass Cape: Of the red Evil Overlord flavor.
- Beard of Evil: When possessing Cable, Stryfe stopped shaving and grew the cliche evil goatee.
- Big Bad Wannabe: A high-tier case to be sure, but he's not in the same weight class as he once was and in practice is usually made a pawn by more devious villains. He's got the power and clout to stand as a a true Big Bad, but his underestimation of other villains and lack of any real goals aside from "torment Cable" hamstring his effectiveness.
- Biological Weapons Solve Everything: Well, they don't solve everything, but they certainly make Stryfe's ego feel better. In addition to the Legacy virus detailed below, he also attempted to assassinate Professor X via a T-O bullet that infected him with the same disease his brother Cable suffers from. Only Apocalypse saved the X-Men's founder from certain death.
- Cain and Abel: With Cable, obviously.
- The Cameo: He made a blink-and-you'll-miss-it appearance in X-Men: The Animated Series as one of the telepaths captured by Apocalypse during the "Beyond Good and Evil" 4-part episode.
- Clone Angst: He is forever consumed with angst over being Cable's clone. Though, since he thought for most of his life that he was the true Nathan Summers and that Cable himself was the clone, his angst is perhaps justified to a point. It gets worse when he runs across Nate Grey, who is also an artificially created version of Cable, but more of an artificially gestated half-sibling (he's made from Jean and Scott's DNA)... and who is, to add insult to injury, much, much more powerful than Stryfe. For context, Stryfe has previously beaten Apocalypse and time-travelled. A teenage Nate, with minimal training and power control, flattened Holocaust and went on to beat Apocalypse to a pulp and leave him on a platter for AOA!Magneto to rip in half, and subconsciously resurrected the dead. A fully fledged Nate treats death as a minor inconvenience, has kept Apocalypse imprisoned - effortlessly - while simultaneously running Magneto as a puppet and flattening an entire team of powerful X-Men (including Jean Grey, Storm, Iceman, and Psylocke) in the blink of an eye, effortlessly defeated Legion and treated the multiverse as his personal stepladder, rewritten reality, and created an entire new plane of existence. You can see why Stryfe might feel a bit inferior.
- Clone Degeneration: Implied to be the reason behind his Villain Decay expanded upon in greater detail below.
- Cloning Gambit: His existence is a Cloning Gambit on the part of Mr. Sinister and a future timeline's Rachel Summers, both of whom knew that Cable would be a prime target for the Grand Theft Me predations of Apocalypse. So the duo created "bait" for the ancient tyrant in Stryfe, who served double duty for them both by being a decoy used to keep the real Cable safe and by being a Tyke Bomb designed specifically to destroy Apocalypse at the moment of the inevitable bodyjack.
- Costume Copycat: Because Stryfe is one of those villains whose armor conceals his identity so well, he has had his share of imposters. In at least two of those cases, it turned out that Samus Is a Girl.
- Diabolus ex Nihilo: Used this way in the X-Men 2000 annual, in which the X-Men and Lady Deathstrike team up to take on a force of Prime Sentinels being directed by who they think is Bastion. But no, surprise, it's Stryfe! How did Stryfe return that time? How did he seize control of Prime Sentinels (he's never been associated with Sentinels in any way before or since)? What exactly did he want out of activating the Sentinels? These and all other plot-related questions will be answered never! Additionally, he pulls a Villain: Exit, Stage Left at the story's end, meaning he could have just as easily been a literal giant space flea for all the difference it would have made.
- Dystopia Justifies the Means: This was his objective during his time as Apocalypse's son in the future, as well as during the "Age of Stryfe" story arc of X-Force.
- Evil Is Petty: Boy howdy is it! Apart from Stryfe's unending angst over being a clone, his prime character trait is his pettiness. Unlike grand scale villains like Apocalypse and Mr. Sinister who seek to change all of civilization, or even self-styled mutant protectors like Magneto and Exodus, Stryfe cares nothing about mutant rights, uplifting civilization, or really anything beside gratifying his own impulses - which mostly consist of tormenting Cable.
- Evil Mentor: Attempted to become one to Hope once. She didn't bite.
- Evil Twin: His defining aspect as a character is being Cable's evil clone.
- Frame-Up: He used his identical appearance to Cable to attempt an assassination of Professor X that would make the X-Men think Cable himself was the culprit, kicking off the "X-Cutioner's Song".
- Genocide from the Inside: Despite being a mutant himself, Stryfe attempted to wipe out all of mutantkind with his Legacy virus. He didn't succeed, but thousands of mutants lost their lives to the disease before it was cured.
- Jerk with a Heart of Jerk: He's got a lot of angst (first over his perceived Parental Abandonment, later over Clone Angst) and likes to depict himself as more tragic than villainous, but his cold-blooded manipulation of the MLF members and his spiteful release of the Legacy virus tell you all you need to know about Stryfe. Tragic Villain he's not.
- Joker Immunity: He's died at least three times now (once by having his psychic essence expelled from Cable, once by attempting to contain a sort of anti-Phoenix Force and once by being pulped in his own armor by Magneto) but keeps coming back. He's dead again for a fourth time as of 2021, but if his track record is any indication, that won't last long.
- Kick the Dog: He slaughtered all of Warpath's family and tribe at Camp Verde and murdered Rictor's father.
- Large and in Charge: Like Cable, Stryfe is an extremely physically imposing individual, standing at a massive 6'8" and 350 lbs.
- Large Ham: In his earlier appearances he was one of the hammiest villains around, making grandiloquent speeches and sweeping poses at the drop of a hat. As the years have passed this aspect of him has sadly tapered off, leaving him as a more generic sort of villain.
- Logical Weakness: Because he lacked the Techno-Organic Virus that Cable had, he doesn't have to use part of his powers to hold the virus back; however, said virus also fortified a good amount of Cable's body (to the point where he's practically a cyborg), meaning that Stryfe has to rely on wearing armor to make up for this disadvantage. All that armor makes him particularly vulnerable to magnetic types, as both Polaris and Magneto have demonstrated.
- Manipulative Bastard: He's up there with Apocalypse and Mr. Sinister on the manipulative scale. His evil mutant faction, the Mutant Liberation Front, was made up of mutants who thought the were fighting for mutant emancipation a la the Brotherhood but were in fact nothing but a goon squad for Stryfe to throw at his foes.
- Misapplied Phlebotinum: Stryfe has access to time-travel technology, which he uses for the grand purpose of... annoying Cable, mainly. When not annoying Cable, he can be found working out his daddy issues and guarding opium routes.
- My Own Grampa: Not literally so, but his name came about this way, as Apocalypse names him in the future in honor of a "worthy opponent" who almost killed him 2,000 years ago, never guessing that opponent was the very baby in his hands.
- Only One Name: He believed his true name to be Nathan Summers for years, but with the revelation that he is Cable's clone Stryfe is the only name he has.
- Orcus on His Throne: Prior to the "X-Cutioner's Song" he spent a lot of time just sitting around watching his minions get their butts kicked and making enigmatic remarks about how it was all going according to plan. Sure, Stryfe, sure.
- Psychopathic Manchild: A lot of Stryfe's character comes down to him just being an overgrown Spoiled Brat Sadist with abandonment issues he copes with very poorly.
- Psychic Powers: To the point of Physical God levels; like Cable, Stryfe has the coveted combo of telepathy and telekinesis, with a distinct focus on the latter. Due to not suffering from the Techno-Organic (T-O) virus Cable is afflicted with, his powers are (or at least were) stronger than Cable's - though still not in the same league as X-Man, to his great frustration. His applications of these powers include:
- Batman Can Breathe in Space: He can use his telekinesis to generate a breathable air field around himself (somehow) and multiple other people.
- Deflector Shields: Via his telekinesis, to the point where he just stood there and laughed as Wolverine tried to cut through his personal defenses to get him.
- Grand Theft Me: After his first death he flung himself into Cable's body and took it over with a time with help from Mr. Sinister. Unsurprising, considering he was Raised as a Host.
- Mind over Matter: He's a champion telekinetic, flinging around Apocalypse effortlessly and later having a telekinetic brawl with Cable across the moon.
- People Puppets: Like Cassandra Nova and Exodus, he's capable of overriding a person's control over their body to make them do what he wants. Demonstrated during his attempted "Age of Stryfe", in which he overrode Wolverine and later forced Elixir to heal him.
- Psychic Block Defense: He's constantly protected by a "telepathic cloak" that disguises his presence from over telepaths. Unfortunately for him, another telepath with such a cloak can then get the drop on him, as Psylocke showed him.
- Psychic Strangle: Via his telekinesis.
- Telepathy: Compared to his telekinesis he's a somewhat lackluster telepath, but he is one.
- Raised as a Host: The future Apocalypse of Cable's time took him in and raised him fully intending to make him his new host body. Little did he know that he'd already been Out-Gambitted by Mr. Sinister.
- Rape Is a Special Kind of Evil: It's implied (though never stated outright) that he raped Cable's wife Aliya and that Tyler Dayspring is actually his own son.
- Red Herring: Upon his introduction, it was implied that Stryfe might somehow be Cable, since they have the same face, and were talking about their knowledge of the future while using the same Catch Phrases. It wasn't until later that we learned the real reason for these similarities.
- Sadistic Choice: He's fond of forcing Cable into "give me what I want or you sacrifice someone you care about" style choices. The first time led to the capture and corruption of his adopted son Tyler and the second time led to the crippling of his teammates Hammer and Kane, but the third time around Cable finally made the right choice and was able to save Kane.
- Scary Impractical Armor: Stryfe wore a suit of armour that looked like it was made out of blades, giving many readers the impression that he'd decapitate himself if he ever shrugged his shoulders. To say nothing of the Spikes of Villainy...
- Sore Loser: So sore that his response to losing was to unleash The Virus on his own people.
- Space Base: He built a headquarters for himself on the moon.
- Spikes of Villainy: He wears a spiky armored costume.
- Split at Birth: Stryfe was created as a clone of the infant Cable who was severely infected with techno-organic virus and would make him as a perfect copy in case the original dies. Unfortunately, he was then kidnapped and raised by the evil Apocalypse.
- Spoiled Brat: Apocalypse's parenting consisted of "sometimes lecture him about my philosophy and then give him whatever he wants."
- Taking You with Me: Attempted on all of mutantkind with the Legacy Virus.
- Tangled Family Tree: Yet another member of the Summers family.
- Tear-Apart Tug-of-War: Almost happened to him in X-Factor #77 where he got caught pulled into one of his minion Zero's portals and was caught between the rest of the MLF and the titular X-Factor heroes. It wasn't exactly Stryfe's finest hour.
- Teens Are Monsters: He is repeatedly demonstrated to have already been a true monster in his teenage years, and to have pretty much his adult personality (which explains a lot about adult Stryfe).
- To Hell and Back: After his final (original) death in "Fathers and Sons" he was sent to Hell, where he was encountered by Warpath. He fought James thinking he could escape from Hell if he defeated the X-Man, but after being beaten Blackheart revealed he'd never intended to allow Stryfe to escape and just held out the possibility to further torture him. He later escaped anyway (somehow).
- Underestimating Badassery: He's got a bad habit of this, especially where women are concerned, which trips him up - he misjudges both Nate and Maddie Pryor in Nate's series when they end up working with Cable to bring him down, and most recently, his teenage incarnation thought that he had Rachel Grey-Summers under the control of his pet telepaths, despite their warnings that her mind was strong. He also thought that, once she broke free, he could subdue her. In neither case was he correct.
- The Unfettered: Thanks to his body not being ravaged by the T-O virus. However, he's still not in Nate Grey's weight-class, which leaves him with a serious inferiority complex.
- Unwitting Pawn: For a character as powerful and dangerous as he is, he's often prone to being this. From day one he was this to Mr. Sinister, who created him from the start to be a Tyke Bomb against Apocalypse with a "genetic bomb" in his DNA that would reject Apocalypse's essence when the inevitable Grand Theft Me attempt happened. He was this to Apocalypse himself due to having no idea he was being Raised as a Host. He was later this to his own nephew/son, Tyler Dayspring (Tyler's parentage is a little ambiguous), who manipulated both him and Cable for years. Finally, he was this to Apocalypse (the present day one, not the future one) who allowed him to attack the X-Force and attempt to bring about his so-called "Age of Stryfe" before effortlessly beating him while revealing that he'd only allow Stryfe to get so far to test X-Force in his usual Darwinist way. In his last and lowest point, he was the Unwitting Pawn of Madcap.
- The Usurper: For his appearance in X-Man's book he took advantage of Doctor Doom's absence to seize control of Latveria. Thanks to the intervention of Nate, Cable and Madelyne Pryor he was defeated and sent packing before Doom even realized he'd been usurped.
- Villain Decay: Possibly overlaps with Villain Forgot to Level Grind; in his original '90s appearances Stryfe was an extremely powerful villain, capable of taking out Apocalypse and throwing down with the strongest mutants the X-Men had to offer. In later appearances Cable had a much easier time with him and Apocalypse flat-out dominated him in a rematch, even pronouncing him an unworthy successor and denouncing him as a mistake made by another timeline's Apocalypse that he would never allow to come to pass.
- Villain Team-Up: He's teamed up with Bishop's villainous incarnation and Kang the Conqueror at points. He also teamed up with Maddie Pryor once, but she ended up stabbing him in the back.
- Villain's Dying Grace: Averted in "Fathers and Sons". After an impassioned plea by Sister Askani to help end the cycle of tragedy which grips his family, Stryfe seemingly acquiesces and releases his hold on Cable... only to gloat with his last words that he'll have the last laugh since his Legacy virus is still extant and all hope of curing it will die with him.
- Villainous Legacy: After Stryfe is defeated, it turns out that he has left behind a virus that spreads through humans and kills those with the x-gene, devastating mutantkind for years. Appropriately, it is referred to as the Legacy virus, a name given because Stryfe was constantly ranting about legacies.
- The Virus: The aforementioned Legacy virus, which is noteworthy for being the first of the "virus created to attack mutantkind" plot devices in the Marvel U (many others would follow). Many mutants lost their lives to this contagion, including Magik, Mastermind, Maverick, Multiple Man, Pyro, and others.
- Weak, but Skilled: Compared to his "brothers" Cable and Nate Grey he is this, not being on either of their levels in terms of power but having a whole lifetime's worth of experience of learning how to use his powers in ways they've never thought of. Some of the more innovative uses of his powers he's come up with include his previously-mentioned "telepathic cloak", generating a breathable atmosphere around himself in space, and telepathically negating and activating the use of other mutants' powers. Then both of them, as 'Savior Cable' and 'the Mutant Shaman' reveal that they're every bit as creative and skilled as he is, if not far more so. Guy just can't catch a break.
The Undying
"We are the masters of space and time. Your lives mean nothing to us. You are less than insects to be squashed beneath us."
Five immortal, ageless aliens who possess people, and found themselves on Earth. They play a deadly game amongst themselves with no regard for the lives of the species whose worlds they ruin in the process.
- Above Good and Evil: Averted. They care very little for sentient species, saying that they're insects, and claim that they couldn’t hope to comprehend the Undying. They actually don’t have morality at all, and their motivation turns out to be "because we're bored".
- Body Surf: They possess people’s bodies, and if their host body dies, they just migrate.
- Been There, Shaped History: Heavily implied to be the case for them, and their "game". It’s shown that, without Cable’s involvement, they would have heavily altered human history across the next thousand years to create either a utopia – albeit one filled with strict genetic guidelines and no mutants – or a galactic empire – one ruled by mutants. They are thousands of years old and have played their game using multiple species and planets.
- Energy Beings: Created as probes made of energy, making them immortal.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: The way they’re beaten. Key reprograms their ship’s AI to lock their abilities so that they can only possess cockroaches.
- Irony: Notice the quote and how they were taken out? Their last appearance even has Cable about to step on a cockroach.
- It Amused Me: It turns out that their reasons for killing so many is that… they got bored just killing millions and wanted to make a game of it among themselves.
- Red Right Hand: Those possessed by them are sometimes marked with glowing concentric circles on their forehead.
- Super-Empowering: Their hosts grow more powerful from death and one mutant possessed by them had his psychic sway amplified into total brainwashing.
- Turned Against Their Masters: They were created to chart other planets. They turned on their creators when they realized they could only change hosts after death, and went on to destroy their creator race.
- Our Vampires Are Different: They are essentially cosmic psychic vampires, feeding on the energy released during death.
