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WARNING: There are unmarked spoilers on these sheets for all comics before issue #1 of Sins of Sinister (January 2023).

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    John Sublime 

John Sublime

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/johnsublime.jpg
You mutants think it's your turn to rule the world. But there's a third voice, a third species— man plus. And to us, you're just livestock.

Notable Aliases: Master John, Michael Grand

First Appearance: New X-Men Annual 2001 (2001)

An eccentric millionaire introduced early on in Grant Morrison's run on the book, John Sublime became well-known for proclaiming that the thing he wanted most in the world was to be a mutant. He described this dream in his book, The Third Species, in which he encourages baseline humans to find the mutant within. He first comes under the X-Men's radar after the book is linked to a string of killings of mutants whose organs are subsequently harvested by a group calling themselves "the U-Men", and he's ultimately revealed to be the group's mastermind. After seemingly dying during his confrontation with the X-Men, he comes back none the worse for wear and ultimately the truth about Sublime is revealed: "he" is actually a species of sentient bacteria capable of controlling any biological species on Earth. Only mutants are immune to Sublime, thus it sees them as a threat and seeks to wipe them out.

He appears in a reimagined form as a boss in X-Men: Destiny.


  • Adaptational Wimp: His appearance in X-Men Destiny sees him downgraded to a basic U-Man Mook who overdoses on X-genes and comes after the player as an Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever.
  • Always Someone Better: The only thing he fears is his sister Arkea. So much so that he surrendered to the X-Men without a fight hoping they deal with her.
  • The Antichrist: In Morrison's token Bad Future storyline, "Here Comes Tomorrow", Sublime had possessed the X-Men's Beast and gone on to conquer most of the world while making a long string of Biblical wannabe-Apocalypse Badass Boasts. He even discarded the Sublime name and was called just The Beast, to hammer it home.
  • Badass Boast: "Here is evolution's end. All life is mine. All creatures great and small. Mine."
  • Big Bad: Of Germ-Free Generation and Here Comes Tomorrow
  • Dating Catwoman: The Catwoman in this equation, to Rachel Grey. Despite the fact that he played a significant role in getting her mother killed. The latter is lampshaded, and their relationship is both brief and referred to by other characters as 'utter wrongness'.
  • Diabolus ex Nihilo: Sublime is very unlike almost any other X-Men villain, the whole sentient colony of bacteria thing coming out of nowhere, and for all that you'd think a villain who's done even half of what Sublime claims responsibility for would have the entirety of the Marvel U's heroes breathing down his neck, Sublime in practice barely appears or even gets mentioned after the Morrison run.
  • The Dog Bites Back: John Sublime kidnapped a young mutant called Martha and excised her brain, which he kept alive in a jar so he could exploit her telepathic powers for his own ends. After Emma and Scott snatch Martha's brain from him, the first thing she does is take control of Sublime and convince him to commit suicide.
  • Eviler than Thou: In Weapon X he pretended to be an old man named Grand who hired Sabretooth to find Mr. Sinister. Sinny was not amused, and the moment it was just the two of them he grabbed Sublime by the throat and forced him to his knees.
  • Evilutionary Biologist: With a twist; he wants to halt evolution so he himself won't die out and replace all life on Earth with his own, mass-produced creatures.
  • Fantastic Drug: Kick, made from Sublime's aerosol form, amplifies mutant powers. It also drove Xorn and Kid Omega off-the-wall bonkers as well as Beast, in the Here Comes Tomorrow Bad Future, who consumes Kick to the point of becoming Sublime's host.
  • Greater-Scope Villain: Of Morrison's run, and the franchise. Sublime is really a microscopic, undetectable etiological agent that causes its host to subconsciously develop an inexplicable hatred for mutants. Its very existence is the reason why the heroes will never be accepted by the world they have sworn to protect.
  • Heel–Face Turn: By the 2013 X-Men series. No one entirely trusts him, though. Not entirely without reason, as while he plays it straight in that series, it's entirely for his own self-interest (even if he does show some affable tendencies) and reverts to villainy in the Krakoan era.
  • Human Resources: John Sublime sees mutants as nothing but a pile of organs he can harvest to improve his own body and become the next step in the evolutionary process.
  • The Man Behind the Man: He was behind the evil actions performed by Quentin Quire and Xorn/Magneto. The Kick drug that the two mutants were indulging themselves with was actually a concentrated dose of Sublime bacteria, which drove them insane.
  • Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: He's done awful things, it's true, but he's also directly responsible for the existence of Captain America aka Weapon I.
  • Non-Malicious Monster: As a strain of sentient bacteria, Sublime doesn't really care about what its hosts get up to so long as he can piggyback on whoever's in charge. It wasn't until the coming of mutants, who he could not infect that he began to act villainously for the sake of maintaning his position at the apex of terrestrial life.
  • Outside-Context Problem: Deliberately made so by Grant Morrison, due to his goal of wanting to shake the X-books out of the rut of circular storytelling they'd fallen into. At first, he is successful, as Sublime is very different from every other villain that came before him (and most that have come since). Comics being comics, though, it didn't take long for Sublime's other-ness to get dialed back and they even ended up giving him an evil twin sister who, yes, is also a billion-year old colony of sentient bacteria.
  • Put on a Bus: Hasn't been seen since the defeat of his evil twin sister Arkea.
    • Commuting on a Bus: And he reappears, briefly, in the 2022 New Mutants run, reverted to his evil self, and then his past self and Arkea appear during a time travel stint in the Marauders.
  • The Reveal: At long last, a cause for the Marvel Universe's citizenry's oft-talked-about Ungrateful Bastard-ness!
  • Retcon: Much of Sublime's influence and his claimed feats have been ignored or retconned since the Morrison run, thanks to a combination of his not being a very popular villain and Status Quo Is God. Ironically, Morrison created Sublime in the first place in an attempt to break the Status Quo Is God rut the X-books had fallen into.
  • Rule of Symbolism: His Here Comes Tomorrow incarnation is closely tied with the Beast of Revelation.
  • Suspiciously Similar Substitute: Whether by accident or design, Sublime takes a lot after obscure '90s villain Haven. Both characters are "mutant gurus" and authors of bestselling books who have secret agendas to advance their own visions of a perfect future and command powerful villainous followings (Haven's terrorists and the U-Men respectively).
  • Time Abyss: He's the oldest sentient being on Earth, surviving every mass extinction in the planet's history, and has taken credit for personally causing at least one.
  • Uniqueness Decay: Originally one of the most unique of all the X-Men villains, Sublime was made significantly less so with the introduction of the character Arkea, whose twist was being Sublime's Evil Twin who was also Eviler than Thou to him.
  • Villain Decay: Under Grant Morrison's pen he was the ultimate Man Behind the Man who became The Antichrist and conquered the world in a Bad Future. Then Mr. Sinister showed him who was boss in Weapon X and after getting manhandled by Essex he disappeared for a long time. Upon his return in the 2013 X-Men series he was reduced to a bumbling, So Last Season character who was The Load to the X-ladies who exasperatedly had to keep hauling his fat out of the fire. As Psylocke said and the readers wondered:
    Psylocke: Oh, John Sublime, how many times are we gonna have to save your ass?
  • Villain in a White Suit: During his original Grant Morrison-written appearances when he was at his most evil, he wore a white suit, as his profile picture above shows. For his later appearances when he was reluctantly working with the X-Men he left the white suits behind and started wearing more standard business suit fare.

    Johnny Dee 

John Dee

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/johnny_dee.jpg

Aliases: Johnny Dee

Nationality: American

Species: Human mutant

First Appearance: ''Son of M" #1 (Decemmber, 2005)

A mutant that kept his powers post M-Day with a mysterious agenda.


  • Body Horror: He has a mouth with tentacles in his chest.
  • Manipulative Bastard: Johnny secretly stole DNA from the other mutants to create voodoo dolls so he could manipulate them for his agenda.
  • Voodoo Doll: His mutant power allow him to create functional voodoo dolls from the DNA from his targets with the help of the tentacles of his chest.

    Kaga 

Kaga

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/kaga_earth_616_from_astonishing_x_men_vol_3_35_0002.png

Nationality: Japanese

Species: Human mutant

First Appearance Astonishing X-Men #34 (2010)

Kaga. That's right. Take a good look at Kaga. Kaga, child of the atom. Am I not a most glamorous mutant?


An elderly Japanese man born with mutations caused by atomic bomb radiation rather than the X-Gene. Angered by how the good looking X-Men claimed to be outcasts, he spent years in secret plotting their downfall.
  • Big Bad Wannabe: He spends years studying the X-Men, created an army of powerful monsters and clones made specifically to kill them and attacked them when they were at their weakest but ultimately failed to take out any of them or even significantly affect them.
  • Cruel Mercy: After his plans fail, he tries to goad the X-Men into killing him. Cyclops, who had been planning to end his life, instead declares that the X-Men will ensure that he spends his life getting the best possible care and treatment until he dies of natural causes. Meaning that Kaga, who devoted his life to hating mutants, will spend the rest of his life under their merciful care, almost certainly A Fate Worse Than Death from his viewpoint.
  • Evil Cripple: Born with various mutations that left him unable to walk, disfigurements that covered half his face and ten fingers on his right hand.
  • Evil Is Petty: He made it his life's goal to destroy the X-Men and mutant-kind simply because he was bitter that they were good looking and had beneficial mutations. He even admits that he had no reason to go after the X-Men aside for pure hate.
    Kaga: What were you expecting? A master plan? A scheme to turn off the sun? This is the real world. Hatred and disgust are good enough reasons to want to kill people.
    Cyclops: Seriously? There are people who hate us because we're not outcast enough?
  • Foil: Though they've never met, he's one to Charles Xavier. Xavier was born a mutant telepath abilities, inherited his fortune and he devoted his life to helping outcast mutants. Kaga is a "textbook" non-powered mutant obtained his fortune by patenting technology he invented and devoted his life to destroying mutants with the X-Gene for not being, in his opinion, outcast enough.
    • He's also one, seemingly completely by accident (unlike the intentional above example) to Sunfire. Both men are Japanese mutants who acquired their mutations as a direct result of the atomic bombings of Japan during World War II. But while Sunfire initially opposed the X-Men and later became their ally, Kaga initially wanted to join the X-Men before realizing they weren't physically repellent like he was and dedicating his life to destroying them.
  • Fantastic Racism: In a reversal from the usual prejudice the X-Men's human villains have for them, Kaga hates mutants because he believes that they're too attractive and privileged for mutants who claim to be discriminated against.
  • Freudian Excuse: He grew up reviled by everyone, even his own parents, due to his condition and had to work alone for everything. One day, he heard of a team of mutants who had gathered to together to fight against the prejudices they faced. He went to America expecting to find people like him only to discover the X-Men were made up of athletic, attractive people with superpowers living in a mansion. This caused him to snap and go on a secret crusade to destroy them.
  • The Grotesque: Downplayed, but his mother was pregnant with him during the Hiroshima bombing. Instead of giving him superpowers it simply caused him to be born with disfiguring and debilitating mutations.
  • Last Disrespects: Stole corpses of deceased mutants from Genosha, extracted their X-Gene from their bodies and used them to create his Bio-Sentinels and his warships.
  • Mad Scientist: A genius from childhood, he spent years secretly cloning the X-Men's most monstrous enemies. After stealing Beast's research on extracting the X-Gene of dead mutants, he managed to quickly figure out to use it to create organic Bio-Sentinels.
  • Mutants: Describing himself as a "textbook mutant", he's one of the few mutants in Marvel Comics whose condition didn't give him any kind of special ability.
  • Non-Action Big Bad: Like Black Womb above, he's far too old and frail to stand a chance in any direct combat.
  • Outside-Context Villain: He had been watching and observing the X-Men since shortly after they were formed without them knowing of his existence until he attacked them after M-Day.
  • "The Reason You Suck" Speech: During his Motive Rant, he calls out the fact that for all their claims of being downtrodden and outcast, the X-Men are all attractive, flamboyantly dressed people born with super powers who live under the support of a billionaire and have great social lives while he spent his life struggling and suffering due to his appearance and disabilities.
  • Selective Obliviousness: Kaga apparently turns a blind eye to all violent protests, mass murders and genocides mutants with the X-Gene have had to endure. He also ignores the fact that the X-Men frequently help and protect mutants who have abnormal appearances or whose powers are detrimental to themselves and others.
  • Viler New Villain: Kaga is essentially a more evil take on the Morlocks, being a physically deformed mutant like most of them were but instead of simply resenting the X-Men, he is consumed with murderous hatred for them. He also has resources the Morlocks can only dream of, though the tradeoff is that any single Morlock could beat him in direct combat.

    Khan 

Khan

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/khan_1.jpg

First Appearance: X-Treme X-Men #10 (2001)

Khan is the tyrannical dictator of a vast extra-dimensional empire, which consists of alternate versions of Earth. Using otherworld technology, he and his armies travel from world to world via dimensional portals, conquering everything on their path. He launches an invasion of Earth starting with the island of Madripoor (at the time under control of Madame Viper) until he run into the X-Treme X-Men lead by Storm.


  • Aliens Are Bastards: He has some redeeming qualities, but alas, he leads an expansionist alien empire in a X-Men comic.
  • Amazing Technicolor Population: He has purple-skin.
  • Amazon Chaser: He becomes attracted to Ororo after seeing her display her superpowers, and it was only increased after witnessing her strong spirit. This seems to be Khan's type since his concubines are all warrior women.
  • And Now You Must Marry Me: Khan expresses his desire to make Storm his queen. No, not add her to his harem, but to actually have her rule by his side as his Hot Consort. While Storm seemingly goes along with it at first, she actually works to undermine Khan's invasion from within.
  • Badass Normal: Unusual for an X-Men alien foe, he doesn't display any obvious superpowers and seems to be about as strong and durable as a normal human, but he still manages to beat Madame Viper (one of the deadliest hand-to-hand combatants that the X-Men had faced) and hold his own against Storm. He also has beaten all heroes from the worlds he has previously conquered.
  • Battle Harem: His concubines were women from worlds that he previously conquered, and each one of them were deadly fighters. Unfortunately, the women are revealed to be jealous as well and they don't like being surpassed by a favorite.
  • BFS: He wields a large ceremonial sword, though its just for the show.
  • Evil Overlord: Albeit a fairly personable and affable one, he is pretty ruthless in conquering everything on his path and absolutely nothing will dissuade him from getting what he wants.
  • A Father to His Men: One of his redeeming qualities is that he leads his men through respect and genuinely cares about his soldiers, becoming greatly upset with their deaths. In turn, they are unflinchingly loyal to him and may as well revere him as a god.
  • Go-Go Enslavement: He has Storm dressed in many sexy outfits, as he desires her as his bride.
  • Multiversal Conqueror: He has conquered countless dimensions and plans on conquering Earth next.
  • Names to Run Away from Really Fast: Not only his name is a Mongol / Turkic title for warlords, his most important henchmen is named Shaitan, one of the many names for Satan.
  • Noble Demon: While he is a villain, he has many sympathetic traits such as being willing to reward worlds that surrender to him and allow them to prosper with the use of his advanced technology.
  • Never Found the Body: The X-Men manage to close off the portal when his entire fleet is about to cross over to Earth. He is presumed death by the characters as the ships were destroyed when the portals were closed, but the readers never see him going down in flames. On the other hand, he never made any appearance in comics beyond that point until now, so the its possible he may not have survived after all.
  • Pointy Ears: He has them, though you could only tell if seeing them up close.
  • Really Gets Around: His harem is... really massive.
  • Royals Who Actually Do Something: Instead of commanding his invasion of Madripoor from his behind the lines, Khan is introduced leading his own team of soldiers in the front.
  • Rubber-Forehead Alien: He could very well pass for a human in heavy make up.
  • Stalker with a Crush: Oh yeah. The man abandons all reason and becomes determined to have Storm at any costs.
  • A Villain Named Khan: Naturally.
  • Villainous Crush: On Storm, being just one in the long line of villains including Doctor Doom and Dracula that fall in love with her.
  • White Hair, Black Heart: While he is not necessarily pure evil, he is still a silver-haired Evil Overlord.
  • You Have Failed Me: Khan personally executes his main concubine Jalene by snapping her neck for trying to kill Storm.

    Krakoa 

Krakoa, the Island that Walks Like a Man

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/krakoa.jpg

First Appearance: Giant-Sized X-Men #1

A living island with human-level intelligence. It was Krakoa who was responsible for the establishment of the All-New X-Men team, in more ways than one, when it captured the original X-Men. Together, the old and new X-Men team managed to send Krakoa hurtling off into space. Many decades later, however, the living island would return... and not necessarily as the X-Men's enemy.


See Krakoa

    Living Diamond 

Jack Winters / Living Diamond

Aliases: Jack O'Diamonds

Nationality: American

Species: Human mutant

First Appearance: X-Men #39 (October, 1967)

A criminal and one of the first foes of Cyclops.


    Living Monolith 

Ahmet Abdol / Living Monolith

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/monolith_0.jpg

Aliases: Living Pharaoh

Nationality: Egyptian

Species: Human mutant

First Appearance: X-Men #56 (1969)

Bow to me, Children of the Sun! Kneel and give thanks, for the Monolith lives again!


A mutant Cult leader with delusions of grandeur, Ahmet Abdol claims a lineage that stretches back to the pharaohs of antiquity and believes it is his destiny to usher in a new golden age for his nation. In truth, he has been an Unwitting Pawn almost his whole life, earning himself the attention of Apocalypse and Mr. Sinister through his accidental discoveries as a humble professor of Egyptology. With the ability to absorb cosmic energy and use it to increase his size, the Monolith is always a dire threat, both to the X-Men and the world.

He appears as a boss in the X-Men (1992) arcade game.


  • A God Am I: When on a power high, declares himself the living incarnation of the gods. Given he's able to go up against Thor, he can at least back that part up.
  • Alliterative Name: Ahmet Abdol.
  • Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: Ever since his first appearance this has been the primary manifestation of his mutant ability. His size varies depending on how much energy he's absorbed, ranging from a few stories to full-fledged Kaiju territory. Interestingly, he averts the usual Artistic License – Biology of this trope — after growing to a certain height he will simply collapse, rendered immobile the way an actual living creature of that size would be.
  • Bald of Evil: As the Living Pharaoh he openly flaunted his baldness, but since becoming the Monolith he prefers to go helmeted (or headdressed, as seen in his updated redesign on this page).
  • Big Bad Wannabe: The Living Monolith dreams of founding a new Egyptian dynasty but has been a pawn of Apocalypse and Mr. Sinister practically from day one. His great power still makes him a considerable threat, though.
  • Energy Absorption: His mutant ability, which was recessive until forcefully activated by Mr. Sinister. Sinister also enhanced it by splicing his genes with those of Havok.
  • Evil Genius: He started out researching Egyptian history to find proof of his ancestry to the ancient pharaohs and as time went on discovered evidence of mutancy in the Egyptian royal line. This research, while earning him the scorn of his countrymen, was pioneering enough to draw the attention of Apocalypse himself.
  • Freudian Excuse: Ever since he was a boy Abol was scorned and mocked by his peers, but the point of no return was when his wife was killed in a car crash caused by his political enemies.
  • From Nobody to Nightmare: From a humble professor of Egyptian history to a cult leader who can grow to Godzilla-sized heights.
  • Genius Loci: Once wound up getting turned into a living planet.
  • Helmets Are Hardly Heroic: In his original design he wears a helmet that could only have come from The Silver Age of Comic Books. As a fan put it, "Who knew that an aluminum sombrero would compliment Borat's bathing suit so well?"
  • I Have You Now, My Pretty: With Havok mostly, though Cyclops sometimes got in on the fun by virtue of being Havok's brother.
  • Inferiority Superiority Complex:
    • A special issue that showed his childhood revealed that he has one of these, to the point where he goes to the trouble of kidnapping one of his childhood bullies just to show off how powerful he has become. When his daughter is captured by the heroes the captured bully actually taunts him with If You're So Evil, Eat This Kitten!, goading him into executing his own daughter.
    • When he becomes the Juggernaut (and the size of a mountain), this is used against him by the X-Men, who are far too tired and bored to deal with this. So he spends about ten minutes glorifying in his newfound power... then realises that the X-Men aren't even paying attention to him.
  • Last-Second Chance: At one point during one of his many rampages Captain America actually manages to start a dialogue with him and almost manages to talk him down... only for a Mook soldier to shoot the Monolith with a bazooka, prompting him to go berserk again because he thought Cap lured him into a trap.
  • Living Statue: As a boss in the 1992 X Men arcade game. He's flanked by two lesser Monoliths the players have to fight, and after beating them he wakes up to trash the heroes.
  • Magic Staff: The Staff of Horus, a relic of some mystical connection to the Egyptian deity of the same name. During one of his many off-planet bus trips one of his followers finds it and is imbued with a portion of his power (and his insanity).
  • Morality Pet: Tragically subverted with his daughter Salome. He agonizes at the thought of killing her, and clearly doesn't want to do it, but after relentless goading from a childhood bully he's captured he vaporizes her remotely to prove he's "not a wimp".
  • Mind-Control Eyes: Has these whenever he uses the Staff of Horus.
  • Nepharious Pharaoh: His first title for himself was the 'Living Pharaoh' and he has always styled himself as one of these.
  • Path of Inspiration: The Cult of the Living Pharaoh, later called the Children of the Sun.
  • Power Incontinence: An unwanted side effect of Mr. Sinister's tampering with his genome. Because his genes were spliced with those of Havok he is unable to effectively utilize his powers when Havok is around, as Alex's powers 'override' his.
  • Psychopathic Manchild: It's unclear if he was always emotionally underdeveloped and unstable or if he regressed to this state after the death of his wife.
  • Put on a Bus: Another frequent Marvel villain bus passenger, as he's literally just too big to use for more than the odd annual here and there.
  • Rogues' Gallery Transplant: By and large, he typically tussles with the X-Men (and Havok in particular), but he once had an encounter with Power Man and Iron Fist (with some X-assistance) during the Heroes for Hire days, and a tussle with Spider-Man and Thor in some issues of Marvel Team-Up.
  • Schizo Tech: His cultists frequently make use of advanced tech such as ray guns, flying cars and personal teleporters... all crafted in an Ancient Egypt theme.
  • Stripperiffic: On occasion, Abdol's been known to go around in a tinfoil bathing suit... thing. Naturally, an encounter with Spider-Man did not let this go uncommented upon.
  • Took a Level in Badass: In a more recent appearance he was not only a contender for the power of the Juggernaut, but actually managed to claim the gem that gives Juggy his powers, briefly becoming one of the most powerful heavyweights in the Marvel U.
  • Unwitting Pawn: Of Mr. Sinister and Apocalypse.
  • Used to Be a Sweet Kid: In a flasback shown of his childhood from a 1985 graphic novel the young Ahmet Abdol was shown to be a goofy kid wearing a toy crown and carrying a staff made of sticks tied together, regaling the other kids with grand proclamations foreshadowing his future egomania but also promising to treat his 'loyal subjects' (the other kids) fairly.
  • Walking Shirtless Scene: Even as the Living Pharaoh this guy never met a shirt he liked.

    Margali Szardos 

Margali of the Winding Way

Nationality: French

Species: Human (witch)

First appearance: Uncanny X-Men annual #4 (1980)

Nightcrawler's adoptive mother, the one who found him after Mystique gave him up and raised him alongside her own children, Jimaine and Stephan. Things turned sour when Kurt by all appearances murdered Stephan and fled, prompting Margali to hunt him down to America and put him through Hell in revenge — an easy task given Margali was also a supremely powerful sorceress. Once the matter was cleared up, she departed. In the years since, she has occasionally reappeared in Kurt and Jamnine's lives, often following her own agenda but always causing headaches for them.


  • Abusive Parents: As if Kurt didn’t have enough of those in Azazel, Mystique and Destiny. Margali’s most recent action was creating a virus that turned Kurt and other mutants into monsters for Orchis.
  • Canon Discontinuity: In Roger Stern's Doctor Strange, all of Margali's power is said to come from a magic wand which has been possessing her family for generations, and once Strange destroys it she turns back to an old crone. This has been pretty resolutely ignored by every writer since.
  • Heel–Face Revolving Door: Margali's usual alignment is herself. Sometimes she's antagonistic, sometimes manipulative. Sometimes, occasionally, she might even be on Kurt's side.
  • It Runs in the Family: Magic. Stephan had at least some magical power, and Amanda managed to become ruler of Limbo for a time.
  • Klingon Promotion: She got to the top of the Winding Way hierarchy partially by killing some of those above her. She came into conflict with Gravemoss when he had similar ideas.
  • Mama Bear: Points to her, Margali does love her children, and woe betide anyone who hurts them, because she will go scorched earth to avenge any perceived slight.
    • When Kurt killed Stephan, she went after him to put him through a decidedly un-metaphorical Hell, never once bothering to think why Kurt might've done that to his adoptive brother.
    • After Doctor Strange turned down Amanda as an apprentice, Margali attacked him for daring to snub her daughter.
  • Villain Cred: In her first appearance, she's able to give Doctor Strange, the Sorcerer Supreme, a hard time and can even casually snatch the Eye of Agamotto from him like it was nothing.
  • The Worf Effect: Legion of X states that at least some of Margali's power comes from a deal with Mother Righteous, who on calling it in chumps and effortlessly absorbs her into a magical sphere.

    Mikhail Rasputin 

Mikhail Rasputin

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/mikhailrasputin.png

Nationality: Russian

Species: Human mutant

First Appearance: Uncanny X-Men #285 (1992)

Isn't that what I have always done? Killed the people I cared for?


A powerful, dangerous and insane mutant Reality Warper, Mikhail Rasputin is a former Russian cosmonaut and the elder brother of Piotr (Colossus) and Illyana Rasputin (Magik). Originally a Russian cosmonaut, the Soviet government faked a shuttle accident to send him on a secret mission to another dimension. There, the use of his powers accidentally caused the deaths of countless beings (including his wife), traumatizing him and leaving him with a deeply-rooted martyr complex. Eventually, Mikhail would set himself up as a Dark Messiah of desperate mutants (specifically, the descendants of the Morlocks), and eventually even inadvertently causing the death of (one version of) his little sister Illyana.

His various attempts to help the Morlocks and others tend to end violently and badly, which brings him into conflict with the X-Men, mostly out of a desire to use his vast mutant powers for good, but his insanity tends to cause this to backfire. He has a tense relationship with his siblings but generally cares for them.


  • Abusive Parents: He raised the Morlock orphans that would become Gene Nation and whatever he did to toughen them up made them all Ax-Crazy like him.
  • Aloof Big Brother: Being a fair bit older than his siblings, they tend to see him this way.
  • Anti-Villain: Type II. He means well, every time. It's just an unfortunate combination of vast amounts of power and a deeply, deeply troubled mind that keep putting him on the wrong side of things.
  • Ax-Crazy: In his very worst moments, though it usually takes the manipulations of others to push him to this state, such as the 2005 Colossus: Bloodline limited series where Mr. Sinister talks him into going on a spree of familicide.
  • Beard of Evil: A goatee and he's generally mentally unstable.
  • Big Brother Bully: Turned Piotr into a puppet via a mutant called the Chronicler, in to use him against Krakoa.
  • Cain and Abel: He is the older, insane brother of Colossus and Magik. Not on Mikhail's part, he lacks any true enmity towards them, but both of them have very legitimate reasons for their hatred of him.
  • Combo Platter Powers: His power is a kind of vaguely-defined Reality Warper ability combined with teleportation, and in the Age of Apocalypse at least is also used to transform himself physically much the way his brother does. Though they kicked in just in time to save his life from the botched Cosmonaut experiment, they also drove him into insanity.
    • Chrome Champion: Used only in the Age of Apocalypse, and could be related to Apocalypse amping up his powers in that continuity.
    • Reality Warper: Specifically stated at one point as being able to transmute matter from one state to another, as well as harness energy. He can use it to transform Iceman from his ice form back to normal, for instance... or to transform a luckless pizza guy into a tree.
    • Teleportation: His reality-warping powers allow him to open pocket dimensions and teleport himself there.
  • Dark Messiah: For the alternate dimension he was trapped in, later to the Morlocks and later still to Gene Nation.
  • Diabolus ex Nihilo: It was eventually revealed that at some point during his dimension-hopping Mikhail had become infected by something that can only be described as this, and that said creature was in fact largely responsible for Mikhail's Sanity Slippage, having formed a kind of symbiotic bond with him. It was eventually destroyed by the combined efforts of the two Rasputin brothers, but unfortunately Status Quo Is God led to Mikhail going crazy again later.
  • Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: That time he teamed up with his brother to fight a Diabolus ex Nihilo.
  • Dimension Lord: When he ruled his dimension The Hill, he forced the young Morlocks to compete in order to become top soldiers by training them to fight to the death.
  • Disproportionate Retribution: Shortly after being brought back to Earth, a pizza delivery guy runs into him on a bike. Mikhail's response? Turn the guy into a tree.
  • Drill Sergeant Nasty: A mix of this and Evil Overlord for the Morlocks in the parallel dimension known only as "the Hill."
  • Driven to Madness: He warped himself into another dimension when his powers first manifested and was adopted by that world's denizens as a hero, only to accidentally condemn most of them to death trying to save them. The trauma from that failure drives pretty much everything Mikhail does after.
  • Evil Mentor: For Marrow and the rest of Gene Nation, a generation of young Morlocks who became terrorists.
  • Hearing Voices: In his less sane moments. The voices tend to be victims of his past failures.
  • Heroic Sacrifice: Willingly threw himself into the Dark Zone, a dimension from no escape in which time stands still and nothing can ever die... in order to protect his siblings from their murderous ancestor, the mad monk Rasputin. Yes, that Rasputin.
  • Husky Russkie: He's fairly tall, but so wide with heavy muscles that he looks a lot larger than his actual 6'1". He's as strong as he looks, carrying Quintin Quire around in one hand.
  • Good Scars, Evil Scars: Has a long rectangular scar across his right eye, giving him a sinister look. Morally, he could go either way in any given situation.
  • In the Hood: In his first appearance, due to trying to hide his identity in his self-imposed exile.
  • Insane Troll Logic: His second plan to bring back Illyana, sadly, amounted to this. His brother even points this out, only for Mikhail to just shrug it off.
  • Kick the Dog: Prone to doing this in his fits of insanity. The best example is in the Storm miniseries, where he literally kicks a Morlock boy off the hill he just climbed up purely For the Evulz. He's wearing a Slasher Smile too, just to gild the lily.
  • Laughing Mad: Probably the only heroic example in existence, and without a doubt Mikhail's Moment of Awesome:
    Narration: Mikhail has no way of knowing how long he stands on the edge of the void. The voice in his head whispers, begs, cajoles him with empty promises. When he finally steps forward, the voice screams with rage... and Mikhail laughs.
  • Little Big Brother: He might be older than Piotr, but he's a few inches shorter than him. Mikhail is 6'1" while Piotr is 6'6".
  • Non-Malicious Monster: Mikhail is not malevolent, he's just so out of touch with reality that the concepts of right and wrong usually get lost in translation with him.
  • Power Copying: Of an unusual sort. In addition to warping matter, he can also warp energy, meaning that if someone with energy-based powers uses them around him, he can take control of it. He once used Jean Grey's telekinesis to shove the X-Men out of the way so that he could "save" the Morlocks himself. (see Training from Hell)
  • Powers Do the Fighting: To the point that when Storm manages to get in close to him, she is able to totally immobilize him with no more than a small knife at his throat.
  • Put on a Bus to Hell: With the conclusion of the 2005 Colossus: Bloodline story, Mikhail was trapped, apparently for all eternity, in the Dark Zone where time stands still and nothing ever dies.
  • Renegade Russian: A mild example — he was a Russian cosmonaut and it's a safe bet the Kremlin doesn't know what he's been up to since being declared KIA.
  • Sadist Teacher: The Storm miniseries shows him as being this to the Morlocks he rules over.
  • Ship Tease: With Storm in his first appearance. He finds her isolated from her friends when they arrive in his dimension and welcomes her into his home, leading to this exchange:
    Storm: And what of you? You have yet to tell me your place in all of this. Who are you?
    Mikhail: [smiling a guilty smile] Some say a legend. Some say a curse. It will be for you to decide which you believe.
    Storm: [with a knowing smirk] Then I shall bide my time, stranger... since in my day, I have been branded both myself!
  • The Social Darwinist: Becomes this in one of his more insane periods, after becoming leader of the Morlocks. He decides the only way to ensure their survival is to put them through Training from Hell, which resulted in most of them becoming as crazy as he is.
  • Stronger Sibling: Probably the strongest of the three Rasputin siblings in terms of mutant power, but also by far the least stable. Interestingly, he seems to fall in the middle morality-wise, somewhere between the incorruptible Colossus and thoroughly-corrupted Illyana.
  • Thou Shalt Not Kill: Even in his episodes of insanity, Mikhail usually has enough innate goodness that he can't bring himself to willingly take the life of another. The only time he has broken this rule is when he was driven to total madness by the combined efforts of Mister Sinister and his ancestor Rasputin (not that that excuses it, but it provides context).
  • Tragic Villain: His descent into madness and villainy started when he accidentally killed off a large part of the population of an alternate dimension, including his wife, when trying to close the portal that brought him there. He later had to try again because the portal was going to destroy the dimension.
  • Training from Hell: Mikhail saved the last survivors of the Morlocks from their tunnels as they were flooding... by teleporting them to an alternate dimension that was really a giant mountain known only as "the Hill." There, he left them at the bottom, making them climb through Acid Rain, fighting both native monsters (and each other) for the few scarce resources the dimension had, with the objective being, ostensibly, to get up the Hill to where he was, as an exercise in Social Darwinism (the idea was to cull the weak and weak-willed so that the Morlocks as a people could better survive and endure). It wasn't until Storm arrived that he started spotting the flaws in this plan.
  • Unwitting Pawn: The Storm miniseries teased him as being this to the Dark Beast, but it never went anywhere.
  • Well-Intentioned Extremist: Mostly, he just wants to put his powers to some kind of constructive use, partly to make up for all the damage they have caused in the past. Unfortunately, being Ax-Crazy makes him misinterpret what "constructive use" means.
  • With Great Power Comes Great Insanity: His high-order powers are part of his madness, but his traumatic history and an insanity-inducing Diabolus ex Nihilo are also to blame.
  • Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: In his backstory; see Driven to Madness above.
  • Year Inside, Hour Outside: Time passes differently in 'The Hill', the alternate dimension he sets himsellf up as a Dimension Lord over. The exact conversion is somewhat vague thanks to Comic-Book Time but it was long enough that Morlock babies that crossed over with him had enough time to grow into teenagers, despite not even a year passing on Earth.

    Mojo 

Mojo

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/mojo.gif

Aliases: Mojo the First, Mojo Lifebringer

Species: Spineless Ones

First Appearance: Longshot #3 (1985)

    N'astirh 

N'astirh

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/2886293_ohotmu_a_to_z__2___page_39.jpg

A demon lord of Limbo infected with a techno-organic virus.


See Demons

    Nanny and Orphan-Maker 

Eleanor Murch (Nanny) and Peter (Orphan-Maker)

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/6809a3af_1535_4166_a6c2_9055f7db7278.jpeg
Orphan-Maker (l) and Nanny (r)

Species: Human mutant

First Appearance: X-Factor #30 (1988) (Nanny), X-Factor #31 (1988) (Orphan-Maker)

A pair of bizarre mutants who have taken it upon themselves to "rescue" mutant children by kidnapping them and murdering their human parents. Nanny acts as a surrogate mother to Orphan-Maker, who is really a young mutant boy named Peter. The two have fought against X-Factor and Generation X, and were responsible for killing the mother of Ricochet from the Slingers. Despite their odd appearances and creepy behavior, Nanny and Orphan-Maker are both rather tragic individuals who were victimized and driven insane just because they're mutants.


  • Aborted Arc: In the early issues of Generation X, Nanny had gotten out of her egg suit and Peter required a new suit of armor because he was getting older. By the Generation X Holiday Special, Nanny was back in her suit and there was no other mention of Peter's growing abilities. Hellions seems to be answering this mystery, when one of the Marauders tries to break up Peter's armor. At which point some odd liquid starts spewing out and melts off half of Scrambler's face.
  • Abusive Parents: Whilst these are presented as a mutual Berserk Button for the pair, in Hellions, Nanny shows some distinct shades of being an emotionally abusive mother towards Orphan-Maker. Especially after she rescues the baby Artificial Intellience against Quiet Council orders.
  • Badass Boast: In Hellions #18, Nanny gives a short, sharp speech that makes the Quiet Council sit up and listen to her.
    Nanny: I want everyone to listen to me very closely. I am Peter's nanny, and he will not go into a dark hole alone. You may stay out of my way, or you may watch, mouths agape, as I slay as many humans as it takes to rejoin my boy. I will sail on oceans of blood in the name of Krakoa. But where shall I start? Kate, how is Terri? Still living at 1412 Central Avenue?
    Kate Pryde: Wha-leave my mom out of this! What did I do?
    Nanny: You presumed to sit by while a ward of Nanny's is cast into darkness. You dared to dream that I'd let him go in alone. I failed him once. I won't do it again.
  • Berserk Button: Nanny doesn't like it when people point out she does look kind of like a walking egg.
  • Beware the Silly Ones: In Hellions, Nanny deeply disturbs Sinister, which is initially Played for Laughs... until at one point, she asks how many children he has. When he asks why she's asking, she says very calmly that she just wants to know how many children she'll be orphaning, if she has to. Unusually, Sinister - who casually antagonizes power-houses like Exodus - does not laugh the threat off.
  • Body Horror:
    • It's implied Nanny was a full grown woman before her superiors put her in that egg suit, which horribly compressed her limbs and shrunk her to half her size. Even more horrifically, at some point she chose to go back into the suit.
    • Hellions starts to give us an idea of what's going on underneath Peter's armor. It seems Nanny fortified the suit not only to protect Peter, but to keep some sort of acidic fluid he generates inside.
    • Orphan-Maker's armor itself is shown in Hellions to consist of individual pieces of armor plating that are all bolted to his bones.
  • Clingy Costume:
    • Nanny's egg suit was originally portrayed this way.
    • Orphan-Maker's new armor suit after dying and being resurrected in Hellions is shown to be bolted into his skeletal structure to keep it from coming away.
  • Clothes Make the Superman: Zigzagged with Orphan-Maker's suit. On one hand, it's a perfectly functional suit of Powered Armor that comes in handy in his murderous business. On the other hand, that's its secondary purpose, and it primarily exists to be Containment Clothing.
  • Driven to Madness: Being trapped in her egg suit is what drove Nanny insane.
  • Enfant Terrible: Peter, who's been thoroughly twisted by the influences of Mister Sinister and Nanny that he doesn't have a problem killing people.
  • Even Evil Has Standards:
    • Their whole shtick is that they absolutely loathe abusive human parents who don't deserve their mutant children.
    • Nanny repeatedly demonstrates that she hates Mister Sinister with every fiber of her being because he's an unrepentant child murdering monster, and relishes getting to humiliate him by reminding people about Sinister's proclivities towards child abuse.
    • Mister Sinister initially acquired Orphan-Maker to try and weaponize his mutation, but found the results too devastating for even him to ever consider.
  • Evil Matriarch: A more well-intentioned example than most, but Nanny truly believes she's protecting mutant kids by raising them to become killers like Peter. She also uses her mild telepathic abilities and "Pixie Dust" to keep them in line.
  • The Faceless: Peter has never been seen without his armor, and the one time Nanny was seen outside her suit she was obscured by shadows.
  • Fire-Forged Friendship: During the Hellions run, Orphan-Maker is shown to increasingly bond with his fellow Hellions after fighting with them. By issue #14, when attacking the Locus Vile in an instinctual bloodrage, he does so whilst screaming "Keep away from my friends!"
  • Huge Guy, Tiny Girl: Non-romantic example, but Peter is 7'6"/229cm tall while Nanny is barely 3"/91cm tall.
  • Invasion of the Baby Snatchers: They're like something out of an extremely dark fairy tale, going around snatching kids to add to their army of "Lost Boys and Girls," leaving parents terrified for the well being of their sons and daughters if they haven't been killed in the process.
  • Living Emotional Crutch: The two of them can't function without each other.
  • Mama Bear: For as fucked up as she is, Nanny genuinely does care about Peter and would do anything to protect him. She just doesn't realize how badly she's warped him.
  • Mysterious Past: Nothing is known about Nanny's life before she worked for the Right, nor do we know who Peter's parents were or how he was acquired by Sinister.
  • Nothing Is Scarier: Something is going on underneath Peter's armor, and while it was initially believed his armor was fortified to make him stronger Nanny has alluded she did it to protect everyone from Peter's mutation. By Hellions #7, even Professor Xavier has explicitly described Peter's mutation as a curse and it could quite possibly damn the entire world if it isn't kept in check.
  • Only Known by Their Nickname: Nanny's original name was only revealed in Hellions while Peter's full name is unknown.
  • Parental Substitute: Invoked. Their modus operandi revolves around the idea that they need to rescue mutant children from abuse at the hands of their human parents, with Nanny then taking over the role of loving, nurturing maternal figure. It's just they execute this in a twisted manner by kidnapping the kids, ideally assassinating the parents in the process, and brainwashing the children into accepting Nanny's love.
  • Person of Mass Destruction: Hellions implies that Orphan-Maker's mutant powers would turn him into a Walking Wasteland of apocalyptic proportions if allowed to fully manifest. In Sabretooth & the Exiles #2, Nanny explicitly says that if Orphan-maker ever lost control of his powers, it would be an Extinction Level Event.
  • Pet the Dog: In Hellions, Nanny makes an earnest attempt to reach out to John Greycrow over whatever trauma he must've endured while working for Sinister.
  • Purple Is Powerful: Orphan-Maker's armor is mostly purple and blue.
  • Psychopathic Manchild: Subverted with Orphan-Maker. Despite the armor and his stature, you need to remember he is a child, at least mentally. Not that this stops him from being a killer.
  • Super-Strength: It's unclear if it's inherent or if it comes from his Powered Armor, but issue #17 of Hellions shows that Orphan-Maker is preternaturally strong, being able to tear human opponents limb from limb with his hands.
  • Tragic Villain: Nanny was a woman who realized her inventions were being used by anti-mutant hate group and when she rebelled they trapped her in that suit and drove her mad. Peter was stolen from his family and experimented on by Mister Sinister until Nanny rescued him and then turned him into the Orphan-Maker. The worst part is, at this point the two have been so thoroughly traumatized they can't function without each other.
  • Well-Intentioned Extremist: They both genuinely believe they're helping mutant kids by giving them new homes away from their potentially abusive parents, not realizing their actions might be more traumatic for the children then whatever their parents may have done.
    • They also automatically assume that human parents will automatically abuse mutant children. The idea that a human parent might not care if their child turns out to be a mutant never crosses their mind.

    Onslaught 

Onslaught

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/onslaught20.jpg

Species: Psionic entity

First Appearance: X-Men #53 (1996)

Know my name and fear it: I AM ONSLAUGHT!


A psychic entity with the combined powers of Professor X, Magneto, Franklin Richards, and X-Man.
  • All Your Powers Combined: He possesses both Charles Xavier's and Magneto's powers, and later gained those of Nate Grey and Franklin Richards to boot.
  • Astral Projection: One of the powers Onslaught inherited from Charles Xavier. Initially, it was limited to an astral form, but later gained a body made of pure energy.
  • The Assimilator: He assimilated Franklin Richards and Nate Grey in order to absorb their powers.
  • Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: When manifested into a physical form, he is huge.
  • Back from the Dead: Onslaught was thought destroyed at the end of the Crisis Crossover, but he returns in the Onslaught Reborn arc thanks to the Scarlet Witch. Rikki Barnes sacrificed herself to destroy him, but he's resurrected again thanks to the Red Skull tampering with Xavier's brain.
    • Aaand he’s back again in 2021 when Orchis put a sliver of him in the mutant Lost as a Trojan Horse for Krakoa. Going by the name Patchwork Man he begins feeding on the lost time between when mutants are killed and redirected by the Five, growing more powerful and nurturing their negative thoughts. He’s eventually defeated by Nightcrawler, Legion, Lost, Fabian Cortez, Pixie, Dust and others.
  • Big Bad: Of the Onslaught Crisis Crossover.
  • Combo Platter Powers: He possesses powers derived from both Charles Xaver and Max Eisenhardt, as well as abilities of his own.
    • Deflector Shields: He can create force-fields of electromagnetic energy, just like Magneto.
    • Extra-ore-dinary: He can use electromagnetism to manipulate metal.
    • Mind over Matter: He possesses Xavier's psychokinesis as well as Magneto's magnetokinesis.
    • Reality Warper: He can create pocket dimensions at will and even formed a second sun from nothing.
    • Super-Strength: He tore through the Juggernaut like he was made of plasticine.
  • Cosmic Entity: In the minor leagues as such beings go, but that still put Onslaught at the top of the heap on Earth.
  • Dark Is Evil: Gathered a coterie of mutant servants whom he called his "Dark Descendants". They consisted of Post, Holocaust, Fatale, the Dark Beast and Havok.
  • Demonic Possession: He possessed Rikki Barnes when they were both sealed in the Negative Zone. Later on, the Red Skull finds out the hard way that Evil Is Not a Toy while messing around with Xavier's brain.
  • Dystopia Justifies the Means: This was his original motivation, more or less. He quickly graduated to an Omnicidal Maniac, though.
  • Energy Beings: Onslaught was initially an astral manifestation, but later gained a body made of pure energy.
  • Generic Doomsday Villain: All power and threat with little plot significance or appearance outside of big Crisis Crossovers.
  • Humanoid Abomination: It's a psionic entity of pure hatred, and as Red Onslaught it even manifests a bunch of tentacles.
  • Literal Split Personality: It is the incarnation of Xavier's pent up rage and hatred, manifested as a demonic entity clad in armor resembling Magneto's.
  • More Teeth than the Osmond Family: Onslaught has a wide mouth full of fangs.
  • Mecha-Mooks: He picks up a small army of Sentinels from a random government depot to be his cannon fodder.
  • Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Oh, boy...
    • First off, there's his very existence, the result of Xavier mindwiping Magneto allowed a piece of Magneto's mind to latch itself to Xavier's, planting the seed of Onslaught. Additionally, showing Xavier learned nothing from the first two times his tendency to repress his darker emotions and thoughts led to him forming a split personality, the stress of a mutant kid being murdered right outside of the X-Mansion by an anti-mutant mob fueled in the wake of news of Moira MacTaggert contracting the Legacy Virus going public, his failed attempt to reform Sabretooth, and Sabretooth's subsequent escape and near murder of Psylocke while doing so fed Onslaught's creation.
    • Then there's the fact that he was able to operate independently of Xavier was the result of Nate Grey forcing pulling Xavier from the astral plane into the physical world gave Onslaught the means to form a psychic body for himself.
    • Thirdly, Thoe managing to tear Xavier form Onslaught's body not only didn't end his threat, it only freed Onslaught from any restraint Xavier provided.
    • When Hulk destroyed Onslaught's physical form, the entity turned into an incorporeal energy state. Still, it also became a case of Nice Job Fixing It, Villain as all the other heroes of the Marvel Universe combined were helpless before it, whereas Hulk excels at raw power (and not much else), and somehow made it vulnerable to (admittedly contrived) alternative approaches afterward.
  • Omnicidal Maniac: Not at first, but after reading the mind of Nate Grey and seeing a mutant-dominated Bad Future he decides that no one, human or mutant, will survive his coming.
  • Power Nullifier: Makes use of one of these to interrogate Nate Grey before absorbing him.
  • The Social Darwinist: His original goals were nebulous, but seemed to be some kind of spin-off of Magneto's 'mutant revolution' endgame.
  • Stalker with a Crush: Toward Jean Grey, who he tries to play The Corrupter with before giving her a stock We Can Rule Together speech. This was a rather unfortunate callback to one of the earliest issues of the X-Men run, where Professor X had a brief, gross Dirty Old Man inner monologue about wanting Jean for himself (and keep in mind that Jean was well under the age of consent at the time).
  • Superpowered Evil Side: He is the manifestation of Xavier's rage and hatred.
  • Tin Tyrant: His red and black armor is more than a little reminiscent of Magneto's.
  • The Worf Effect: Has his origins in this, as he was literally born from the idea of "wouldn't it be cool if someone punched the Juggernaut halfway across the country?" As of his first issue where he did this, no one even had any idea who he was going to be yet! The Reveal that he was a corrupted Xavier turned this worfing into an It's Personal moment between Chuck and his bully-turned-supervillain stepbrother.
  • Would Hurt a Child: He stalks and absorbs Franklin Richards, and it's implied if he survived long enough he would have assimilated him (and his Reality Warper powers) permanently.

    Phalanx 

Phalanx

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/phalanx_3.jpg

A techno-organic race that spreads through living creatures on a planet via a transmode virus until all life has been assimilated and all energy drained from the planet.

See Marvel Comics: Species for more info.


    Proteus 

Kevin MacTaggert / Proteus

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/proteus.PNG

Nationality: Scottish

Species: Human mutant

First Appearance: Uncanny X-Men #125 (1979)



Mutant son of Xavier's long-time ally Moira MacTaggert, Proteus was sealed away from a young age due to the danger his mutant powers posed to anyone around him. Unfortunately, this only fueled a psychotic personality that made a rampaging monster when he escaped from his containment.
  • Admiring the Abomination: Magneto speaks admiringly of him in Necrosha after dissipating him to the four winds and when asked how they can be sure he is dead, he replies that not only can they not be sure, they can in fact be sure he's not dead and that it is only a matter of time before he returns again.
  • Ambiguous Situation: It was said that he was evil since the moment he was conceived, but given recent revelations that could have just been Moira's justification for her own shitty parenting.
  • Antagonistic Offspring: To his mother, Moira. His debut story had her hunting him down to put an end to his killing spree, and at one point he even attempts to take over her body.
  • Arch-Enemy: Colossus has become this for him, being the one who stepped up to Shoot the Dog in the first Proteus story. When he has to face Colossus again in Necrosha he has a bit of a freakout, flinging him away rather than toying with him like the others and even yelling at him to "Stay away from me, murderer!"
  • Arc Villain: For the "Proteus" storyline.
  • Ascended to a Higher Plane of Existence: At the end of "Kings of Pain", Kevin chooses to go... somewhere. He eventually came back.
  • Back from the Dead: After being killed in his initial appearance, he has returned several times. Two key story lines involved with his resurrections are Necrosha and Astonishing X-Men Vol 4.
  • Bad Powers, Bad People: What do you get when you take a prepubescent child and give them a power that allows them to actualize Video Game Cruelty Potential in their actual life? You get Proteus, the villain who brought Wolverine himself to tears.
  • Big Bad: He was used as the main villain for an Intercontinuity Crossover between the X-Men and Star Trek, as well as the X-Factor / New Warriors / X-Force crossover "Kings of Pain".
  • Body Horror: Anybody possessed by Proteus can look forward to having their body literally burned up by his mutant power, with ordinary humans typically only able to endure his presence for a matter of days.
  • Body Surf: Due to the Possession Burnout, Proteus must constantly jump from one host body to another.
  • Chekhov's Gunman:
    • After the All-New X-Men's first and disastrous run in with Magneto, as they flee Wolverine notes one of the Muir Island center's cells labelled "Mutant X" is damaged, but he doesn't have time to tell anyone. Several issues later, Muir Island is still abandoned, and an angry Scotsman comes calling looking to blow up the facility over a boat Magneto destroyed, just as Proteus is in need of a body.
    • In true Chris Claremont fashion, Proteus was revealed as this in X-Men Forever 2 via his Possession Burnout. That series, which presented a continuity where Claremont had free reign, showed burnout as a mutant epidemic, exacerbated by the use of their powers and always fatal. This in turn made Proteus not just Mutant X but Mutant Zero as well, since he was the first mutant known to suffer from burnout.
  • Child by Rape: Moira's ex-husband, Joseph MacTaggert was physically abusive and in one argument with her, he punched her unconscious and then raped her while she was knocked out. And it's explicitly stated to be the reason why he's so screwed up too, as he was able to sense his mother's overwhelming negative emotions from in the womb.
  • Childhood Brain Damage: Because his mutant abilities manifested so early, his mind was irrevocably damaged by his mother's negative emotions, making him The Sociopath from birth.
  • Death Seeker: Thanks to the nature of his powers, he was actually pretty happy with The Nothing After Death, because it gave him peace and quiet he'd never had in life, and pretty damn pissed after A.I.M. resurrected him in the 90s. Not so much these days.
  • The Dog Bites Back: His first victim was someone trying to blow up Moira’s facility. His last victim was his abusive father.
  • Energy Beings: At some point his powers reduced him to this state.
  • Fetus Terrible: In his first major storyline it is stated outright that his mutant powers manifested while he was still in a fetal state (most mutants don't manifest until at least puberty) and that he sensed his mother's overwhelming hatred for his father (he was conceived in a rape), leading to his present-day insanity. His mother herself coldly pronounces that it was too late for him before he was even born.
  • Flat Character: Since his primary character trait was originally being The Sociopath and his Heel–Face Turn happened off-screen, throughout the Krakoan era he mostly exists as a Satellite Character with the rest of the Five.
  • Freudian Excuse: As noted in "Kings of Pain", his conception, childhood and powers have left him severely screwed up.
  • Freudian Excuse Is No Excuse: X-Factor, X-Force and the New Warriors get into a debate over whether, given Proteus's sheer power level, they can afford to try talking things out with him. Archangel and Feral aren't sympathetic.
    Feral: We've all pretty much lived miserable lives. Why should Proteus get special consideration if he can't handle the hand he's been dealt?
    Jean Grey: The very fact we have been through it should allow us some measure of compassion.
  • Funetik Aksent: A Scottish person created by Claremont, this was a given. It fluctuates Depending on the Writer, much like wi' his maw, going from perfectly coherent all the way to heavily accented Scottishism, aye?
  • Fusion Dance: His resurrection in "Kings of Pain" has him fused with an energy-absorbing Mutant raised by a psychotically abusive mother.
  • Godzilla Threshold: In his original appearance, Moira demonstrates the seriousness of the situation by telling the X-Men that even though Kevin is her only son, there's only one way to stop him - they have to kill him. Ultimately, it's Colossus, perhaps the most innocent of the X-Men, who does it.
  • Heel–Face Turn: In 2019's House of X, he's not only fully on the side of the X-Men and their new nation of Krakoa, his powers are key to their capability of resurrecting any mutant.
  • I Just Want to Be Loved: Along with I Just Want to Be Normal. Proteus has desired to experience actual love, and not be an outsider.
  • Meaningful Rename: Originally called simply "Mutant X", he rejected that name in battle with Wolverine and renamed himself Proteus, both after the changing Greek god of myth and the room his mother sealed him in.
  • Possession Burnout: The major drawback of his mutant power. Not only does it burn out anybody he possesses, it even burns out his own body, forcing him into an Energy Being state.
  • Random Power Ranking: As of 2019's House of X, Proteus is a confirmed Omega level mutant.
  • Reality Warper: Proteus can reshape matter and warp space at will, albeit his power is limited to whatever object or place he is currently focusing on. Operational range is a few miles, at most.
  • Retcon: Proteus's original origin was that he's a child by rape. Hickman's X-Men run changes this up a little so that his conception (if not the means this was accomplished) was planned by Moira.
  • Sealed Evil in a Can: His mother was forced to seal him in a cell on Muir Island after his mutant powers manifested. She kept his imprisonment secret and identified him to visitors as "Mutant X".
  • The Sociopath: Proteus is completely indifferent to his victims' plight, usually pretends to be a well-meaning stranger as he approaches his next intended host, rejoices in using his power to make an entire city "scream", has no qualms endangering his own mother and has delusions of godhood.
  • So Last Season: First time around, he's deathly vulnerable to metal, no matter the form. In "Kings of Pain", Beast tries hitting him with some metal gauntlets... no dice.
  • Superman Stays Out of Gotham: As one of The Five, he's not allowed to leave the Krakoan hatchery, and Hope pulls rank on him. So during King in Black, despite the fact he could be of help, he can't, and can only spend the event sulking about how he totally could've solved the plot if he wanted to.
  • The End... Or Is It?: During an issue of Classic X-Men, Claremont raised the theory that as an energy form, Proteus could eventually reform. While Chris never got around to exploring this, Nicieza ran with it for "Kings of Pain".
  • To Create a Playground for Evil: In the climax of his first storyline he transforms Edinburgh into his personal plaything and even asks the X-Men playfully if they've "ever heard a city scream".
  • Took a Level in Kindness: Claremont just wrote him as plain psycopathic. No "ifs, ands or buts". Nicieza dials down the psycho behavior several notches in his 90s appearance, and as of Jonathan Hickman's X-Men, he's fully reformed as one of The Five.
  • Transhuman Abomination: Once a sociopathic teen, now a body hopping entity who can shape reality to his violent whims.
  • Weaksauce Weakness: In most continuities, he is vulnerable to metal.
  • Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: Being locked up by one's own mother and kept in a cell for years as an anonymous prisoner can't be good for anyone's mental stability. Amazingly, his father was even worse.
  • The Worf Effect: The first time the reader gets a glimpse of Proteus' powers, he effortlessly curb-stomps the combined might of Wolverine, Nightcrawler and Storm. To further hammer home how horrific Proteus' reality warping powers are, the normally tough Wolverine is shown to be traumatized by their first encounter.

    Ricochet 

Senator Steven Shaffran / Ricochet

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/ricochet_shaffran.jpg

Nationality: American

Species: Human mutant

First Appearance: X-Factor #72 (1991)

You, my genetically-challenged friends, are about to choke down a three course helping of trouble.


A Corrupt Politician and secret mutant with high-order probability manipulating abilities. Seeking to become President Evil, he allies himself with Mr. Sinister, only to be quickly Out-Gambitted and disgraced before the American people.
  • Alliterative Name: Steven Shaffran
  • Big Bad Wannabe: He aims to become President Evil but comes nowhere close, though Mr. Sinister says he would have gotten there eventually had he not intervened.
  • Combo Platter Powers: His mutant power is essentially a stronger version of the Scarlet Witch's probability manipulation (or what was her level at the time) with a few neat extras that verge on making him a Reality Warper. Indeed, this combo is so effective that Mr. Sinister considers him Too Powerful to Live and sets him up for a fall.
  • Emotion Control: Per his own explanation, he can "unsettle the minds of others and cloud their thinking and abilities."
  • Evil Counterpart: He's explicitly compared in text to the Scarlet Witch and even has plans to take her out once he's done with X-Factor. Luckily he never gets that far.
  • Face Death with Dignity: Sinister offers him this, giving him a gun with one bullet after disgracing him and telling him it's a more reliable option than slitting his wrists as disgraced senators in Ancient Rome used to do. An incensed Ricochet turns the gun on Sinister, but the bullet bounces off the latter's cape and hits him instead.
  • Fantastic Racism: He refers to Havok and his X-Factor team as "genetically challenged" but has no problem working with Mr. Sinister's mutant miscreant team, the Nasty Boys.
  • Foreshadowing: An unintended case, but Mr. Sinister's concern that Ricochet's mutant power could reach Reality Warper levels nicely dovetails the Scarlet Witch's power being increases to Ricochet levels and then well beyond...
  • Hoist by His Own Petard: He attempts to discredit X-Factor before the public, only to be himself discredited by a shapeshifted Mr. Sinister pretending to be him.
  • Irony: His mutant codename is Ricochet and he's killed by a bullet ricochet.
  • Just Between You and Me: He's polite (and gloaty) enough to explain the full scope of his abilities to the Nasty Boys (and by extension to the reader).
  • Killed Off for Real: In X-Factor #75.
  • Living a Double Life: He's Happily Married with a wife and daughter, neither of whom know that he is a mutant or in league with Sinister.
  • Out-Gambitted: By Sinister, who disgraces him by abducting him and posing as him in DC via his shapeshifting ability.
  • Pretty Little Headshots: The bullet that kills him leaves a neat little hole in his head, exactly the definition of this trope.
  • Sabotage to Discredit: He uses his mutant powers to discredit X-Factor under instructions from Mr. Sinister, only to get a taste of his own medicine when Sinister sets him to look like a power-mad supervillain.
  • Sinister Silhouettes: He's first introduced this way, speaking with a similarly silhouetted collaborator (spoiler alert, it's Sinister) to obscure his identity as well.
  • Take That!: When asked by the Nasty Boys why he didn't use his powers on George H. W. Bush during the 1989 election, he says, "I did. Why do you think he nominated Quayle?"
  • Too Powerful to Live: And when Mr. Sinister thinks so, you know there's something to it.
  • Unknown Rival: He plans to eventually take out the Scarlet Witch, who he considers his only rival. Wanda has no idea he exists, and when he goes to his grave she still doesn't know him from Adam-X.
  • Unwitting Pawn: He thinks Mr. Sinister is guiding him into the White House, when really all he guides him into is an unmarked grave.
  • We Hardly Knew Ye: An extreme case. He appears in 4 issues, and in 2 of those 4 issues he's only seen in shadow.

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