Characters / X-Men: Villainous Organizations

WARNING: There may be unmarked spoilers on these sheets for all but the most recent comics

X-Men Main Character Index
The X-Men
The Original Team | '60s Members | '70s Members | '80s Members | '90s Members | 2000s Members | 2010s Members | 2020s Members
Other Teams
Children of the Atom | Excalibur | Generation Hope | Generation X | New Mutants | New X-Men: Academy X | S.W.O.R.D. | X-Club | X-Corp | X-Factor | X-Force | X-Statix | X-Terminators
Antagonists
Rogues Gallery A To I | Rogues Gallery J To R | Rogues Gallery S to Z | Villainous Organizations | Acolytes | Arakko | Brotherhood of Mutants | Clan Akkaba | Children of the Vault | Externals | Hellfire Club | The Hellions | Marauders | Mojoverse | Morlocks | MLF | Orchis | Sentinels
Other Characters
Supporting Characters | Mutants | Xavier Institute | Krakoans | The Savage Land | Shi'ar | The Starjammers | NYX | Cable's supporting cast | Deadpool's supporting cast | Wolverine's supporting cast

Alliance of Evil

In General

A strike force created by Apocalypse.

Frenzy

Joanna Cargill / Frenzy

Nationality: American

Species: Human mutant

First Appearance: X-Factor #4 (May, 1986)

A former enemy of the X-Men, devout Acolyte of Magneto, and one of Apocalypses' earlier minions, with the mutant power of being functionally invulnerable. She declared her intention to join the X-Men after the Age of X event, becoming a staff member of the newly reopened Jean Grey School for Higher Learning.

After the mutant nation of Krakoa was founded, Frenzy eventually joined S.W.O.R.D., reformed as a Krakoan space agency, as Earth's mutant ambassador due to the number of alien species that valued strength and fighting skills.

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See X-Men: 2010s Members

Tower

Edward Pasternak / Tower

Nationality: American

Species: Human mutant

First Appearance: X-Factor #2 (March, 1986)

The size altering mutant known as Tower for the most part was a mercenary for hire, which led him to join the Alliance of Evil. He was later killed by the X-Cutioner.

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• Asshole Victim: He was murdered by the X-Cutioner. Nobody was particularly sorry for him.
• Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: His mutant power.
• Came Back Wrong: One of the many mutants reanimated by Eli Bard during Necrosha.
• Even Bad Men Love Their Mamas: The one time he shows anything beyond greed is when he takes the time to say hi to his mom with a big smile on his face while hijacking a news broadcast.
• It's All About Me: He cares nothing for mutantkind and laughed in Jean's face when she suggested he could join X-Factor and work to make a better world for their people.
• Purple Is Powerful: His costume is purple-colored.

Stinger

Wendy Sherman / Stinger

Nationality: American

Species: Human mutant

First Appearance: X-Factor #5 (June, 1986)

A member of Apocalypse's Alliance of Evil, Stinger was a mutant terrorist and mercenary. However, she eventually mended her ways following M-Day, finding shelter on Utopia and later entering a relationship with the former X-Man Omerta. Their child was the first mutant baby born following the founding of Krakoa.

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• '80s Hair: Wears her hair short and spikey.
• Heel–Face Turn: She was among the many mutants who sought protection on Utopia and became a peaceful member of that mutant society. She later moved into a human neighborhood with Omerta and became friends with their neighbors.
• I Have Your Wife: Her and Omerta's child is kidnapped by Order of X cultists in the second issue of Cable (2020).
• Karma Houdini: She never answered for killing Source's girlfriend Susan, even if it was an accident due to her powers being out of control with Source's ability.
• Mystical White Hair: Her white hair is the result of her mutation.
• Ship Tease: Briefly with Bobby Drake while living on Utopia, but ultimately nothing ever came of it.
• Shock and Awe: Stinger can build static energy around her hands and discharge it as bio-electricity bolts. She is not particularly accurate with them though, especially when empowered by Source.

Timeshadow

Timeshadow

Nationality: American

Species: Human mutant

First Appearance: X-Factor #5 (June, 1986)

Former soldier with the US Army, Timeshadow developed his mutant powers later in life and went on to become a member of Apocalypse's Alliance of Evil.

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• No Name Given: His actual identity has never been established.
• Time Master
• What Happened to the Mouse?: Unlike his three comrades in the Alliance of Evil, Timeshadow hasn't appeared since the group disbanded.

Cerebro’s X-Men

In General

The “X-Men”

A group of mutants with all too familiar powers that seemingly came out of nowhere, because they did

• Composite Character: Cerebro's X-Men are all artificial constructs molded together from traits belonging to different mutants.
• Confronting Your Imposter: The real X-Men fight Cerebro's fake X-Men and stop their plans in their two-parter.
• Evil Knockoff: Cerebro molds them after real, existing mutants, and they go to confront the real X-Men.
• Impostor-Exposing Test: A captive Kitty Pryde retorts that her captors, the fake X-Men, don't even know the names of the original X-Men. To her surprise, Grey King provides the correct answer, including their secret identities/real names.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: In Uncanny X-Men #364 (part 5 of "The Hunt for Xavier"), Cerebro dilutes the corporeal forms of his fake X-Men and explodes the base where he was storing them, deciding he has no use of this artifice.

Cerebro (The Founder)

Cerebro

Alias: Charles Xavier

Species: Robot

First Appearance: Uncanny X-Men #360 (1998)

Xavier’s mutant detection machine that was given consciousness and a body by Bastion’s nanotechnology.

• Big Bad: He was the main threat in "The Hunt For Xavier" storyline.
• Demonic Possession: One of his avatars, the Cerebrites, oozes from the ceiling on Colossus and possesses him to conclude its mission in "Tajikinistan".
• Grew Beyond Their Programming: Was once just a computer designed to detect and locate mutants. Then Bastion found it.
• Human Disguise: Impersonated Charles Xavier in its first few appearances.
• Mechanical Abomination: During "The Hunt for Xavier", his avatars, Cerebrites Alfa and Beta, assume a monstrous configuration, with a metal skull for a face and a visible vertebral spine. In the final part of the crossover, he becomes one himself.
• Oddball Doppelgänger: When Kitty Pryde is glad to see Xavier, whom she mistakes for the real one, she goes to hug him, but notices there is something wrong with his robotic, unnatural response.
• Spock Speak: His Xavier impersonation is detached, dispassionate, unemotional and frigid, and uses technological jargon in his speech.
• Villain Has a Point: Cerebro's mission was to destroy the Benassi rocket, which would launch a satellite in orbit that would allow the American government to monitor every mutant on Earth.

Grey King

Addison Falk

Nationality:

Species: Nanotech “Mutant”

First Appearance: Uncanny X-Men #360 (1998)

Leader of the "X-Men".

• Composite Character: In-universe. Cerebro created him based on its information from Jean Grey/Phoenix and Sebastian Shaw.
• Evil Redhead: He is an amalgam of Phoenix, a redhead heroine, and Sebastian Shaw, and one of the villains.
• Smart People Play Chess: He is "introduced" in Uncanny X-Men #360 playing simultaneous chess against several people - and cheating by using his telepathy. Cerebro-as-Xavier then checkmates him.
• Telepathy: He uses his powers to force Kitty Pryde out of her intangibility state.
• Unholy Matrimony: Despite his brief existence, he developed a romantic connection with Rapture.

Rapture

Sister Joy

Nationality:

Species: Nanotech “Mutant”

First Appearance: Uncanny X-Men #360 (1998)

• Amazing Technicolor Population: She has blue skin.
• Evil Redhead: She has red hair and is part of a team of fake X-Men that attack a cruise ship.
• Nun Too Holy: Cerebro-as-Xavier meets her, in nun's garb, in a convent of nuns. The next scene she is in, she is with a team of mutants, sword in hand and attacking a cruise ship.
• Token Religious Teammate: Due to being a nun, she cites the Bible and uses religious jargon (e.g., "Judases").
• Unholy Matrimony: Despite her brief existence, she developed a romantic connection with Grey King, declaring her love for him in one scene and holding on to him after her team's defeat in another.
• Winged Humanoid: She has feathered wings like Warren Worthington III.

Chaos/Xaos

Daniel Dash

Nationality:

Species: Nanotech “Mutant”

First Appearance: Uncanny X-Men #360 (1998)

• Alliterative Name: Daniel Dash.
• Composite Character: he was created from files of Havok and Cyclops.
• Glowing Eyes: Even uncostumed, his left eye always sports a red glow.
• Glowing Eyes of Doom: His destructive blasts come out of his left eye.
• Hollywood Autism: Cerebro's narration describes him as autistic, and he can only utter words at random.

Mercury

Mercury

Nationality:

Species: Nanotech “Mutant”

First Appearance: Uncanny X-Men #360 (1998))

• Cigar Chomper: In his introductory scene, he steals the cigar from an Arabian who tried to hire his services and smokes a bit.
• Chrome Champion: He can turn into Liquid Metal.
• Hired Guns: An Arabian man tries to hire his services for an assassination, but Mercury refuses, on the basis that he is a mercenary, not a terrorist, and has no interest in making a killing for the Arabian's "holy war".

Crux

Cristal Lemieux

Nationality:

Species: Nanotech “Mutant”

First Appearance: Uncanny X-Men #360 (1998)

• An Ice Person: She controls ice.
• Playing with Fire: Her other power is pyrokinesis.

Landslide

Lee Broder

Nationality:

Species: Nanotech “Mutant”

First Appearance: Uncanny X-Men #360 (1998)

• Acrofatic: He’s on the big side but he’s the most agile member of the team.
• Big Eater: He's shown plowing through "All-You-Can-Eat" barbeque and gets enraged when the diner owner refuses to keep serving him.
• Distinguished Gentleman's Pipe: In another scene, he is seen smoking a pipe, while the team holds Kitty Pryde captive.
• Fat Bastard: The heaviest member of the group and the most unpleasant.

Church of Humanity

In General

Church of Humanity

A paramilitary organization of a religious bent (supposedly Catholic Christianity) who have the goal of wiping out Mutants. Despite the name, they have no relation to the Friends of Humanity.

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• Artistic License – Religion: A big part of their plan in Chuck Austen's run was trying to break the spirit of Catholics the world over by faking the Rapture.
• Beware the Silly Ones: Utterly over-complicated and poorly written though their plan is, they have managed to kill several Mutants (over two hundred, according to House of X), including Generation X member Skin, and they nearly got Jubilee too.
• Christianity is Catholic: In theory, but see Artistic License – Religion.
• Complexity Addiction: Their plan with Nightcrawler is... yeah... they rig his installation as a priest, with the end goal of eventually getting him made Pope, so that when he is sworn in, they can reveal he's a Mutant by sabotaging his image inducer, thus inducing suicidal despair and anti-mutant hate everywhere (bwa-ha-ha-ha?)
• The Fundamentalist: Similar to Reverend Stryker and his Purifiers.
• Gratuitous Ninja: During X-Factor vol 3., they send a bunch of ninja over to attack X-Factor Investigations, as you do.
• Rape as Backstory: Originally, their leader, the Supreme Pontiff, was presented as being a mysterious and ancient man who had attained cosmic power, which he was inspired to use to purge the world of anything "inhuman" after his father was killed by his mother and her demon lover, but in the Church's final appearance, it was revealed that this was all just an elaborate smokescreen and that the Supreme Pontiff was really just a normal human woman, a nun who was raped by a priest and disgraced by him and his cohorts, which made her want to get revenge by destroying and then taking control of the Roman Catholic Church. Her persecution of mutants was just a means to an end.
• Shout-Out: Their initial outing has a few references to the then-contemporary X2: X-Men United, with one of their main weapons being an illusion-casting mutant labelled "143".
• Villain Decay: When written by Chuck Austen, they were a credible physical threat to the X-Men. The ones in X-Factor manage to get horribly killed by Pip the Troll. Pip the Troll.

Coven Akkaba

In General

Coven Akkaba

Nationality: British

Species: Human

First Appearance: Excalibur (2019)

Coven Akkaba is a group of magic practitioners that boast descent from the original settlement of Akkaba, the birthplace of Apocalypse. Unlike Clan Akkaba, descendants of Apocalypse, Coven Akkaba is formed by baseline humans who boast descent from those who cast out Apocalypse after his birth. They are enemies also of Betsy Braddock once she becomes Captain Britain because they fear a mutant being the mystical champion of Britain.

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• "Ass" in Ambassador: In addition to being a witch who hates Excalibur, Reuben Brousseau is also the United Kingdom's ambassador. At the "Hellfire Gala" he arrived on Krakoa with diplomats from Russia and Madripoor, both of which are countries that are united in opposition to Krakoa.

Freedom Force

In General

A short-lived team consisting of the Mystique-led Brotherhood of Mutants (Mystique, Destiny, Pyro, Avalanche, Blob) operating under the authority of the US Government and the command of Valerie Cooper in exchange for full governmental pardons for past crimes. They temporarily employed Spider-Woman (Julia Carpenter), but she left them after her first mission. The team was was then rounded out with the former mutant vigilantes Super Sabre, Crimson Commando, and Stonewall. They primarily served the government by attempting to enforce the Mutant Registration Act, which brought them into conflict with the X-Men and other superheroes, including fellow Commission agent John "USAgent" Walker. The team would begin to fall apart after Destiny and Stonewall were killed during a mission to Muir Island; a depressed Mystique would be seemingly assassinated by a Shadow King-controlled Valerie Cooper, whilst a mission to Iraq would see Super Sabre killed, Blob and Pyro stranded, and the survivors heavily injured, after which the government disbanded the team. Valerie then replaced them with a revamped X-Factor team.

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• Boxed Crook: They were mostly former criminals working for the U.S. government in exchange for leniency on their crimes. Besides enforcing the Mutant Registration Act, they performed other missions like rescuing Senator Kelly from a South American drug lord and capturing The Avengers for trial.
• Enemy Mine: Teamed up with the X-Men during "The Fall of the Mutants" story arc to fight against the Adversary's attempt to end the world.

Crimson Commando

Frank Bohannan / Crimson Commando

Nationality: American

Species: Human Mutant

First Appearance: Uncanny X-Men #215 (1987)

A veteran of World War II, Crimson Commando and his fellow mutant soldiers Super Sabre and Stonewall never reached the same level of fame as fellow heroes like the Invaders during the war and were subsequently forgotten. The three turned to becoming vigilantes who hunted and killed criminals before running afoul of the X-Men and agreeing to turn themselves in. They were subsequently recruited into Freedom Force, although Commando was the only one of the trio who survived his stint with the task force.

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• The Ageless: Commando's powers were essentially a mutant version of Captain America's Super Soldier serum. Despite his advanced age, he retained the same strength and prowess he had in his youth, almost to the peak levels possible for a non-powered human.
• Alone in a Crowd: He was depicted feeling lonely among his team members, since he had failed to bond with them. He also felt sad that he had no family, unlike most men of his age.
• Cyborg: Received extensive cybernetic replacements after a bomb nearly killed him while on a mission in the Middle East.
• De-power: He lost his powers after M-Day. Unfortunately for him, his cybernetics were designed to function alongside his powers and began killing him.
• Domino Mask: Wears one, although he isn't really even trying to hide his identity.
• Even Evil Has Standards: Despite being the most ruthless of his trio, Commando had some standards and was horrified when a group of Cheyenne warriors who came to fight the Adversary were cut down without warning by a group of trigger happy Texans.
• Hunting the Most Dangerous Game: He and his fellow veteran teammates would hunt down criminals, capture them, then release them in the woods of upstate New York to hunt for sport and reduce the criminal population. They were stopped by Storm and Wolverine after mistaking the former for a criminal and attempting to hunt her.
• It Is Beyond Saving: Wondered if this was true for humanity after witnessing the massacre of a group of Cheyenne warriors by paranoid Texans during "The Fall of the Mutants" event.
• Psychic Block Defense: Telepathy and illusions were of no use against him as he was capable of acting without thought and could easily sneak up on psychics without them detecting his presence.

Super Sabre

Martin Fletcher / Super Sabre

Nationality: American

Species: Human Mutant

First Appearance: Uncanny X-Men #215 (1987)

A fellow mutant and veteran who served with Commando, Super Sabre was a speedster.

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• Badass Fingersnap: By snapping his fingers as superspeed, he could create microsonic booms that could disorient or even knock out people.
• Early-Installment Weirdness:In his first story arc, Martin seemed to be gleefully sadistic, and he also verbally taunted his opponents. In most of his later appearances, he was trying to incapacitate his opponents without killing them. He also seemed to have lost both his sadism and much of his mirth.
• Hunting the Most Dangerous Game: He and his fellow veteran teammates would hunt down criminals, capture them, then release them in the woods of upstate New York to hunt for sport and reduce the criminal population. They were stopped by Storm and Wolverine after mistaking the former for a criminal and attempting to hunt her.
• Not Quite Dead: He was thought dead by his teammates after he was buried by an avalanche in his first appearance, but actually survived and went into hiding to recover. When he learned Commando and Stonewall were recruited into Freedom Force, he decided to go break them out or join up depending on what they wanted.
• Off with His Head!: He nearly got his head severed by Storm's booby trap when he and his friends tried hunting her. He was beheaded for real by Aminedi, a mutant with Razor Wind powers and a member of Desert Sword, the Iraqi government's superhuman operatives.

Stonewall

Louis Hamilton / Stonewall

Nationality: American

Species: Human Mutant

First Appearance: Uncanny X-Men #215 (1987)

The third member of a trio of World War II mutant veterans recruited into Freedom Force. He was killed by Donald Pierce when Freedom Force helped defend Muir Island from the Reavers.

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• Barrier Warrior: He used his invulnerability to shield his weaker teammates from enemy attacks.
• Came Back Wrong: Was one of many deceased mutants who was brought back during the Necrosha event to serve Selene before returning to death at the end of the event.
• Hunting the Most Dangerous Game: He and his fellow veteran teammates would hunt down criminals, capture them, then release them in the woods of upstate New York to hunt for sport and reduce the criminal population. They were stopped by Storm and Wolverine after mistaking the former for a criminal and attempting to hunt her.
• Meaningful Name: He was as tough and resistant as his namesake. Most physical attacks coudn't hurt him, but energy attacks were another story.
• Nigh-Invulnerable: Zigzagged. He was all but immune to kinetic attacks like punches and gunshots, but not energy. Donald Pierce electrocuted him to death.
• Retcon A curious one. In one of his missions for Freedom Force, Stonewall posed as a lawyer. Though he admitted to have only learned legal terms from television shows. Some time later, the story where he dies depicted him as an actual lawyer.
• Token Good Teammate: The only one of the trio of veterans who had doubts about whether killing for sport was heroic, and who wanted to spare Storm's life. In most of his appearances, he was primarily motivated by his loyalty to his friends and/or teammates and was the least aggressive member of the entire team.

The Future Brotherhood

In General

A new Brotherhood of Mutants, who came back from the future to forcibly return the O5 to their own time.

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• Depending on the Writer: Whether they're legitimately working together or just brainwashed into it. Battle of the Atom goes with the former. Bendis's later writing went with the latter, but Blue goes back to the first instead.
• Uncertain Doom: At the end of the "Cross-Time Capers" storyline, Magneto confronts them before they go back in time again. He intends to do "what the X-Men would not" in order to end the Brotherhood's threat. The issue ends right after that, leaving the Brotherhood's fate ambiguous, but it is heavily implied that Magneto planned to kill them all.

Charles Xavier II

Charles Xavier II

The son of Charles Xavier and Mystique, Xavier is the leader of the Future Brotherhood, who has all the powers of his father.

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• Boisterous Weakling: For all his talk, he's not got his father's telepathic mojo. Teen Jean is able to keep him out with no real problem - though it should be noted Teen Jean is monstrously powerful, and once she realises it, her main issue is a lack of control/experience, and he managed to simultaneously fight her and overpower Emma Frost and the Cuckoos. Additionally, it also turns out that he's simultaneously brainwashing his Brotherhood save for Raze and possibly maintaining the psychic construct of Xorn as well as everything else, he actually stacks up reasonably well.
• Entitled Bastard: He's convinced himself that being the son of Charles Xavier gives him the final say regarding the fate of mutantkind.
• Evil Cripple: Future Colossus severs Xavier's spine with his Soul Sword, ironically leaving him crippled as his father was. By the time of Blue, he's managed to heal himself.
• Hypocrite: He claims the X-Men have "made a mockery" of his father's legacy, yet he freely indulges in things the original Charles Xavier would never do, such as mind-controlling people to kill each other, or brainwashing his Brotherhood into following him, and ultimately brainwashing his own father. In Blue, he claims the X-Men don't have the right to speak for his father, despite the fact that he never even knew the man.
• Manipulative Bastard: It turns out only Raze was with him willingly; the other members were either brainwashed or psychic constructions.
• Never My Fault: In Blue, he says that really, the mass murder he and his Brotherhood keep causing is the X-Men's fault for stopping him.
• Never Recycle Your Schemes: Averted, he keeps trying the exact same plan over and over, just moving to different times whenever the last plan fails.
• Pretender Diss: In Blue, everyone, including two different versions of Magneto, tells him he's nothing compared to his dad.
• Retcon: In Battle of the Atom Xavier claims to be Charles Xavier's grandson. However, when he returns later he reveals that he's actually Xavier's son. Word of Bendis is that he was intended to be Xavier's son in Battle of the Atom before Executive Meddling forced him to revise this.
• Set Right What Once Went Wrong: Claims this is the reason he's traveled into the past in Battle of the Atom, and that the presence of the O5 in the present leads to a Bad Future. When the Brotherhood returns it turns out his entire motive was much more It's All About Me.
• Villainous Breakdown: He starts to absolutely lose it in the second encounter with the X-Men when his plans for vengeance are foiled by Jean and X-23.

Raze

Raze

The shapeshifting son of Wolverine and Mystique, and half-brother of Xavier, Jr., possessing both of their mutations. He's the only member of the Brotherhood who has not been brainwashed and controlled by Xavier.

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• Big Bad Wannabe: He makes constant plays for dominance but although he can make really effective schemes his ego leads him to self-sabotage because he cannot help showing off to his opponents somehow.
• His Own Worst Enemy: As Magneto points out in the No More Humans story, he had the X-Men dead to rights in his scheme to remove all humans and relocate oppressed mutants from parallel Earths, but blew it all tipping his hand to force a needless confrontation he expected to win exploiting something he couldn't possibly control in the Phoenix Force. All because he wanted to make a show of dominance to the refugee mutants.
• It's All About Me: When Jean Grey reads his mind it's just a repetition of "me me me me and mine" with declarations that everything else can burn and die because everything else is nothing.
• The Lancer: He's the right hand and half-brother of Xavier, Jr.
• Manipulative Bastard: He's the son of Mystique. It's In the Blood.
• Not-So-Well-Intentioned Extremist: Unlike some other leaders of Brotherhoods it's increasingly transparent he couldn't care less about mutant rights or supremacy. Everything he does is just a twisted exercise in him showing off his success and dominating others.
• Ominous Message from the Future/Fling a Light into the Future: Uses this after the Brotherhood is defeated in Battle of the Atom, sending himself a message afterward that arrives before the Brotherhood puts their plans into motion that they're going to fail and recommending a new course of action. When they're defeated the second time it's hinted he tries to do it again. It straddles both tropes, as Raze sends a message from the universe's past to the future, but is then received by his past self before he travels through time.
• Self-Made Orphan: At some point before meeting Xavier he killed and replaced Mystique.
• Superpowerful Genetics: Inherited a blend of both his parent's powers. His shapeshifting is said to be stronger than Mystique's, but his claws seem shorter than anyone else in his family.
• Wolverine Claws: He inherited them from his father.

Xorn

Xorn/Jean Grey

An adult version of O5 Jean Grey who never returned to her own time. Broken by her experiences and more than a little crazy, she's returned to the past with Xavier to try and force her younger self to return where she belongs.

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• Chained by Fashion: Xorn's outfit is covered in chains and padlocks.
• Killed Off for Real: Maybe. Xorn was shown overloading and exploding at the end of Battle of the Atom, but then she returns during the Brotherhood's assault on the New Xavier School. At the end it's revealed the armor is empty, and it's never made clear whether she actually was killed in the previous encounter, that she never existed and was always a construct of Xavier's, or if her younger self changed history to prevent herself from becoming Xorn. Her reappearance in Blue doesn't help. Bloodstorm snaps her neck, but Xorn gets back up again, only to vanish in a flash of light later on in the fight.
• No Ontological Inertia: After the Brotherhood is defeated the second time, Xorn removes her mask to reveal that she doesn't actually exist. It's never made clear whether this is because Xorn was killed at Cape Citadel, never existed and was always a psychic construct of Xavier's, or Jean learning to harness her powers responsibly during the second encounter changes her future, and she no longer grows up to become the violent and unstable woman who appeared in Battle of the Atom.
• Power Incontinence: Xorn can't go longer than a few minutes without her mask, which regulate and control her powers.

Deadpool

Deadpool/Wade Wilson

The Merc with a Mouth has joined Xavier's New Brotherhood on their mission to forcibly send the O5 back to their original time by any means necessary. He's just as loony in the future as he is in the present.

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• Brainwashed and Crazy: Is actually being controlled by Xavier, and is not acting willingly. Which accounts for the "brainwashed." The "crazy" is all him, though.
• Heel–Face Turn: When Xavier's control over him is broken.

Bruiser

Molly Hayes/Bruiser

Once one of the Runaways, Molly retains her mutant powers of enhanced strength and durability. She's also grown very, very large, and lost her innocence along the way.

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• The Big Guy: Physically the largest and most powerful of the Brotherhood. She still has her enhanced strength and durability, as well.
• Brainwashed and Crazy: Is actually being controlled by Xavier, and is not acting willingly.
• Heel–Face Turn: When Xavier's control over her is broken.
• My God, What Have I Done?:Seems to be hit pretty hard with this briefly after the mind control is broken. Not hard to imagine when she has essentially been unwittingly fighting her childhood heroes.

Beast

Beast/Henry McCoy

A future version of the adult Hank McCoy, whose body has mutated even further and has grown obsessed with his failure to return the O5 to their proper time.

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• Brainwashed and Crazy: Is actually being controlled by Xavier, and is not acting willingly.
• Heel–Face Turn: When Xavier's control over him is broken.
• Madness Mantra: Has a habit of muttering to himself while examining his board, desperately trying to figure out how to return the O5 home.
• Sanity Slippage: Future!Beast isn't exactly in his right frame of mind due to his obsession with trying to figure out the timeline.

Ice Hulk

Ice Thing/Ice Hulk

Originally one of Ice Wizard (Future Bobby Drake)'s copies. He attained a crude sentience, and fell under the thrall of Xavier II.

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• An Ice Person: Has all the powers Iceman does.
• Brainwashed and Crazy: Is actually being controlled by Xavier, and is not acting willingly.
• The Brute: A near-mindless thug that can do little else but destroy.
• Future Me Scares Me: Before they discovered the truth, both 05 and present day Bobby were horrified at the thought that they would end up as him.
• Heel–Face Turn: When Xavier's control over him is broken.
• Monster Modesty: Wears a pair of shorts.
• Retcon: In Battle Of The Atom, it was said that Xorn had ensnared his mind. This was later changed to Xavier.

Ghosts of Cyclops

In General

A gang of mutants in the Chicago area running around with Cyclops masks claiming to be following his example, but mostly that means harassing and beating up locals and stealing stuff.

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• Cult of Personality: They've built one around the adult Cyclops, teen Scott notes however that it's just an excuse for general hooliganism.
• What Would X Do?: While beating up Scott when he tries to interfere with their crime spree, and threatening a librarian who tries to come to his aid, the leader of the group asks "What would Cyclops do," not realizing that he is Cyclops (sorta).

Hell's Belles

In General

A all-female mercenary group trained by Silas Burr, aka Cyber, an old foe of Wolverine. They clashed with X-Factor when one of their former members was set to testify against the drug cartel they worked for. Most of the group lost their powers on M-Day, but continued to act as mercenaries using tech to replace their lost abilities.

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• Karma Houdini: Although they are murderers, with Flambé having killed at least one federal agent, the Krakoan offer for amnesty extends to them and a team of X-Men end up assisting Briquette in breaking out her depowered teammates from prison.

Briquette

Briquette

Nationality: American

Species: Human mutant

First Appearance: X-Factor #80 (July, 1992)

A super-strong mercenary who could also enhance her the heat of her skin to burn anything she touched.

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• Hidden Depths: She was part of Nightcrawler's support group for mutants whose appearance was altered by their mutation.
• Super-Strength: Strong enough to go toe-to-toe with Strong Guy.
• Undying Loyalty: After learning that her depowered teammates had been captured and arrested after a bank robbery foiled by the Children of the Atom, Briquette left Krakoa and risked her amnesty to break them out of prison. The X-Men intervened and brought all of them back to the island with the implication that they could go through Crucible to regain their powers.

Flambé

Flambé

Nationality: French

Species: Human mutant

First Appearance: X-Factor #80 (July, 1992)

A pyrokinetic mutant mercenary.

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• De-power: She lost her mutant abilities due to Decimation.
• Immune to Fire: Thanks to her mutation, she cannot be hurt by flames.
• Playing with Fire: Much like Pyro, she could control fire by manipulating oxygen molecules but could not create it.

Tremolo

Tremolo

Nationality: American

Species: Human mutant

First Appearance: X-Factor #80 (July, 1992)

A member of the Belles who could generate sonic waves and fly using them.

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• Ambiguously Gay: While attempting to capture Shrew, Tremolo seems personally scorned by her and states that it hasn't been the same without her. Shrew also calls her Trem and states that there is nothing between them anymore.
• De-power: She lost her mutant abilities due to Decimation.

Vague

Vague

Nationality: American

Species: Human mutant

First Appearance: X-Factor #80 (July, 1992)

A member of the Hell's Belles who could turn invisible.

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• De-power: She lost her mutant abilities due to the Decimation.

Homines Verendi

An anti-mutant organization made up of teenage prodigies. Spiritual successor to the Hellfire Club, they wish to bring down the mutant nation of Krakoa and increase their own financial and political power in the process.

In General

• Teens Are Monsters: Besides Chen Zhao, all of them are teenagers with some serious psychological issues.
• War for Fun and Profit: They want to destroy mutantkind mostly out of amusement and to get money.

Kade Kilgore

Kade Kilgore / Black King III

Nationality: American

Species: Human

First Appearance: X-Men: Schism #1 (2011)

I told you it would work, didn't I? Kade Kilgore always delivers.

The insufferable pre-Teen Genius who took over the Hellfire Club at a point where no one else really wanted it. Only son of an Arms Dealer, he wasted no time in becoming a Self-Made Orphan and taking over his father's business. From there he seized control of the Club and retooled it into an Academy of Evil, but after being defeated by the X-Men he fell out of favor. After Emma Frost resiezed control of the Hellfire Club and transformed it into the Hellfire Trading Company on behalf of Krakoa, Kade and his allies reorganized themselves as Homines Verendi, a human supremacist organization operating out of Madripoor that continues using the Hellfire Club's titles.

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• Academy of Evil: He follows in Emma Frost's footsteps by founding his own school dedicated to bringing up the next generation of mutants, though there is of course a catch.
• Big Bad Wannabe: He really, really wants to be a Big Bad in the vein of Sebastian Shaw before him, but never quite measures up.
• The Corrupter: He was able to recruit several of the Jean Grey School's more morally grey students, including Kid Omega's flunkies, Husk, and Toad, into switching sides.
• Crazy-Prepared: One quality about him that has to be given credit. He typically has multiple backup plans and prepares for contingencies such as his employees trying to shoot him (the guns didn't fire, because they were manufactured by his company and have a safety built in to never fire on him).
• Evil Counterpart: He's essentially an eviler version of Quentin Quire, lacking the latter's Psychic Powers but possessed of just as much genius and cranking the smuggery up a notch.
• Fantastic Racism: After the Hellfire Academy's fall he's decided to fill the void of anti-mutant racist villains since most of the others are dead.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: His story arc ended with him trying to shove Quire and his buddies into a Siege Perilous. Guess who actually ended up getting dragged through it?
• Gratuitous Latin: His mutant-hating organization is named Homines Verendi, which translates as "Feared People" or "Awesome People" (in the old meaning of awesome as "horrifying", as opposed to the more modern meaning of "cool").
• Guns Akimbo: Lacking in any powers, he tends to go at the X-Men like this. It ends about as well for him as you'd expect.
• Insufferable Genius: Somehow even more insufferable than Quentin Quire, and anyone familiar with that character knows that's a feat.
• Karma Houdini: Hasn't faced any serious repercussions for his crimes to date.
• Kick the Dog: He shot Broo in the head, reverting him to his baseline Brood nature.
• Let No Crisis Go to Waste: While Kade fancies himself The Chessmaster, in truth his real specialty is this. Typically what he does is engineer a crisis, then go in and do what he wants while everyone's distracted by whatever's going on. He kills his father this way and gets some mileage out of it during his early feuding with the Jean Grey School, but eventually they get wise to his trick and saw him off at the knees.
• Muggles Do It Better: He was able to beat freaking Magneto the first time they met. Sure, he had the element of surprise and a bottomless pit of gadgets to call on, but that's still impressive.
• Not Wearing Tights: Villainous version — unlike the theatrically dressed Hellfire kings who came before him, Kade dresses simply, usually just wearing a polo shirt in some shade of red with the Hellfire Club's logo. This is presumably to highlight his practicality, but in practice it just makes his character design bland and forgettable.
• Playing Both Sides: The catch to his Hellfire Academy is that his company is manufacturing Sentinels and by training new mutant supervillains he hopes to increase sales of his Mecha-Mooks.
• Plot-Irrelevant Villain: He's actually still around and still running the Hellfire Club, but the X-Men and every other mutant of importance left all have badder fish to fry than him. Emma Frost has even laid claim to the Black King title, and since she actually killed Sebastian Shaw, her claim is much more legitimate than Kade's.
• Running Gag: Like Quire and his shirts, Kade has a number of Crazy-Prepared plans he activates with various self-congratulatory phrases such as "Big Daddy Kade" and "Kade for President".
• Self-Made Orphan: Like Shinobi Shaw, he desired to become this. Unlike Shinobi, he was actually able to pull it off.
• Self-Plagiarism: He's barely even a character so much as he is a mishmash of other, better characters. He fuses Sebastian Shaw's Black King title and Playing Both Sides dealings with Emma Frost's Academy of Evil ambitions. Sprinkle in Shinobi Shaw's Self-Made Orphan origin and Quentin Quire's Smug Snake gloating, and voila! You have Kade Kilgore.
• Small Name, Big Ego: He considers himself the Hellfire Club's new leader (and in practice actually is), but is only holding onto his position because the Club's surviving leaders have left the penny-ante world of the Club behind for higher-stakes tables and don't even know or care that he exists.
• Smug Snake: Put it this way: he makes Quentin Quire look like a model of humility and kindness.
• The Team Normal: Aside from Donald Pierce, he's one of the only members of the Hellfire Club that's just a baseline human.
• Viler New Villain: Kade is essentially to Quentin Quire what Carnage is to Venom.
• The Worf Effect: Inflicted this on Magneto to establish his bonafides as a new X-Men villain.

Wilhelmina Kensington

Wilhelmina Kensington / White Queen IV

Nationality: American

Species: Human

First Appearance: X-Men: Schism #2 (2011)

Kade, look at my new kitty! Want to help me skin it?

The White Queen of Kade's iteration of the Hellfire Club. A competitive girl who loves martial arts, beauty pageants, mutilating animals, and killing people. Like Kade, she inherited control of her mother's company at a young age and joined the Hellfire Club as its White Queen to profit off fear of mutantkind.

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• Aborted Arc: At the end of the Hellfire Academy storyline she was in control of the Siege Perilous and disappeared into it with the Philistine. However nothing ever came of this and she was back alongside the rest of the Hellfire kids in later series.
• Art Shift: During her time as the White Queen, Mina styled herself like a young Emma Frost. Afterwards, she was drawn with a face much less like Emma's, seen in her profile image here.
• Bad People Abuse Animals: Quite fond of torturing animals. She is often seen carrying hurt or dead cats, and she likes to crush penguins with a large mallet.
• Badass Normal: She might be a powerless 12 year old, but underestimate her at your peril.
• Bullying a Dragon: She threatens to have Dario Agger's mother shot in her face. Never mind that his mom's dead, threatening the billionaire who can turn into a minotaur and has a Hair-Trigger Temper rarely works out for anyone that isn't Jane Foster.
• Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: Betrays Kade at the climax of the Hellfire Academy arc, and she gets bonus points for doing it literally as well as physically.
• Clingy Jealous Girl: She betrays Kade because he brings on Idie to be his Black Queen and starts giving the latter all his time and attention.
• Creepy Child: She's like if one of the evil ghosts from the first season of American Horror Story wandered into the X-Men universe somehow.
• Cute Kitten: Likes to carry them around. Oh, sorry, carry around the bodies of cute kittens. That she killed.
• Enfant Terrible: She isn't even a teenager yet but is already more evil than most Hellfire alumni, excepting Donald Pierce.
• Freudian Excuse: Her father molested her, and her mother was murderously ruthless to the point that she once had Wilhelmina watch as she keelhauled a beauty pageant judge who had criticized Wilhelmina's smile. This obviously did a number on Wilhelmina's mental health, and when the damage was alleviated by the Stepford Cuckoos, it caused Wilhelmina to break down and experience a Villainous BSoD.
• Gone Horribly Right: Her mother was just as evil as she is, once having a pageant judge keelhauled for saying her daughter's smile wasn't beautiful enough. That same daughter that eventually killed her.
• Laser Blade: Wielded one in her first appearance that was capable of chopping Badoon up into pieces. With a pink blade, of course.
• More Deadly Than the Male: She outplayed the rest of her allies and took control of the Siege Perilous at the end of the Hellfire Academy storyline.
• Self-Made Orphan: Implied, as her mother died from a mysterious fall from a great height.
• The Sociopath: She gleefully and casually commits murder and loves manipulating everyone around her, including her fellow Hellfire leaders.
• Sugary Malice: She exudes this to Cartoonish Supervillainy levels.

Manuel Enduque

Manuel Enduque / White King IV

The scion of an infamous slave trading family.

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• Only Sane Man: He's the least psychotic amongst the teenage members of the Homines Verendi.
• Self-Made Orphan: Strangled his father in his sleep to take over his family's businesses.
• Sibling Murder: As the youngest of eight brothers, Manuel wasn't in position to inherit the family business. He solved that issue by capturing and selling his seven older brothers into slavery on a planet inhabited by flesh-eating space trolls.
• Slavery Is a Special Kind of Evil: Manuel's family is originated as a dynasty of slavers based in West Africa, a tradition they continued into modern times by selling humans as slaves in a dozen different galaxies.
• Villain in a White Suit: As expected from the White King of the Homines Verendi.

Maximilian Frankenstein

Maximilian Frankenstein / Black Bishop V

Baron Maximilian von Katzenelnbogen is the orphaned prince of the Bavarian Alps, considered a true scientific prodigy, youngest student ever admitted to the University of Munich, and the last living descendant of Doctor Victor von Frankenstein. He was later expelled from the University of Munich because his methods were deemed "Most profoundly unsettling."

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• Anime Hair: His spiky hairdo.
• Mad Scientist: As expected from the last descendant of the original Dr. Frankenstein, Maximilian possesses genius-level intelligence and a penchant for disturbing biological experimentation.
• Oh, Crap!: His reaction when Bishop tells him not only he has disabled the security cameras of his lab, he has rigged it to explode.
• Sinister Shades: Always seen with his signature red goggles.

Chen Zhao

Chen Zhao / White Bishop IV

• Token Adult: She's the only adult among the Homines Verendi.

Hordeculture

A seemingly womens-only collaborative group of like-minded agrochemists, bio-technologists, and eugenic engineers who specialize in the genetic manipulation —and propagation— of all things botanical. Their goal is the radical depopulation of humanity and the return of the planet to what they would consider "a more pristine state".

In General

Hordeculture

• Amazon Brigade: They're all women and they're all very good at what they do.
• Enemy Mine: End up having to work with the X-Men against the Cotati during Empyre.
• Everyone Has Standards: While they want to cull mankind, they still consider it apart of the biome, and as such are opposed to just outright exterminating it, something which they make very clear when Augusta's grandniece, Harriet, presents them with her plan to simply genocide mankind using the Man-Thing. They call the scheme unpredictable (due to its reliance on magic rather than just science) and utterly wanton mass murder that is tantamount to playing God.
• Expy: They're essentially The Golden Girls if they were unrepentant ecoterrorists with horrid personalities. Edith especially is just Sophia Petrillo with no redeeming qualities, to the point of looking almost identical.
• Never Mess with Granny: These old ladies are though as nails.
• Screw Politeness, I'm a Senior!: They're utterly nasty old ladies, and especially go out of their way to call Emma Frost is a whore who needs to wash herself. Despite them not using curse words (except Edith), they're still thoroughly unpleasant.
• Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: They don't appear to particularly like each other. There's no love lost between Augusta and Edith, when the latter forces the former to take her pills by serving them in "diabetes flavored" pudding.
• Thematic Rogues Gallery: Inverted. They're villains but their enemies are always some kind of sentient vegetation. Krakoa, The Cotati and Man Thing.

Lily Leymus

Lily Leymus

• Alliterative Name: Lily Leymus

Edith Scutch

Edith Scutch

• Screw Politeness, I'm a Senior!: She’s the oldest and by far the rudest and most foul mouthed of the group.
• Woman Scorned: Her husband left her for a younger woman. Before the divorce was finalized she claimed his social security benefits for herself and had him killed thus making sure his new lover only received his funeral bill.

Harriet Bromes

Code name: Harrower. The niece of Augusta Bromes, she's become a villainess in her own right.

• Darkand Troubled Past: As a child, she was expelled from seven schools. When she lived in the woods with her father, a fire started that took his life.
• Green Thumb: While she works with animals she is introduced exploiting the Man-Thing.
• Maker of Monsters: She combines science and magic to fuse test subjects into monstrous amalgams. Her introduction has her attempting to modify the Man-Thing to extinguish humanity. Her second appearance has her trying to create a monster from the Carnage symbiote to do it the old fashioned way.
• Meaningful Name: Her code name of Harrower refers to a gardening tool and the ability to cause fear.
• Never My Fault: She blamed everyone but herself for the actions of her own antisocial behaviour.
• Omnicidal Maniac: She wants to take over the world and multiverse, never mind how dangerous it would be to everyone (herself included).
• Post-Modern Magik: Her expertise combines magic and science.
• Rogues' Gallery Transplant: She was introduced as an enemy of the Man-Thing but later became a Deadpool villain.
• The Unfettered: She is more rebellious and maverick than her Hordeculture sisters.

Nasty Boys

Personal mutant enforcers for Mister Sinister, consisting of Ruckus, Slab, Hairbag, Gorgeous George and Ramrod. For further details, see X-Men: Marauders.

Phalanx

Phalanx

Phalanx

First Appearance: Uncanny X-Men #305 (April, 1994)

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.

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Purifiers

Religiously motivated anti-mutant zealots who believe an apocalyptic interpretation of Christianity that calls for humanity to seek out and purge mutants as agents of Satan.

In General

Purifiers

• Church Militant: They're a religious movement, though whether or not they are formally recognized as such depends, who believe they are called upon to fight a holy war against mutantkind, and as such they devote themselves to training in weaponry and combat tactics for the cause.
• Corrupt Church: The Purifiers are a Christian sect defined by its literally genocidal views and willingness to fight a racial war.
• The Fundamentalist: It's generally established that the Purifiers are drawn from very conservative or "Bible literalist" Christian stock, who justify their bloody crusade as being God's will.
• Knight Templar: To a man and woman, the Purifiers are defined as religious zealots who seek to fight a genocidal war against mutantkind, arguing that mutants deserve to be slaughtered because they are "tools/creations of Satan".

Reverend William Stryker

Reverend William Stryker

Nationality: American

Species: Demon (formerly Human cyborg)

First Appearance: X-Men: God Loves, Man Kills (1981)

A televangelist who saw himself on a mission from God to save humanity from the mutants, he and his Corrupt Church believed that mutants are creatures of the Devil. He led a Christian militia (the Purifiers), and was not above killing mutant children to see the Lord's will carried out. He was a fairly obscure character whose only appearance was in the graphic novel God Loves, Man Kills, but when the book was used as the basis for the second movie, he resurfaced in the comics and remained a recurring villain until his death.

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• Anti-Villain: As originally written by Chris Claremont in God Loves, Man Kills, where he was portrayed as a Well-Intentioned Extremist military veteran, American patriot and man of faith who feared the increasingly powerful and dangerous mutants of the Marvel universe. He was Nice to the Waiter, personally brave and caring and a true believer; the only real problem with him (though obviously a major one) was his apocalyptic anti-mutant religiosity. Averted in several later stories, where the writers massively increased his villainy, making him personally unsympathetic and even hypocritical, as well.
• Artistic License – Religion: Pleasantly averted in his initial appearance, at least largely; Chris Claremont did his research and wrote a quite believable Evangelical/Fundamentalist villain. Unfortunately, later writers play the trope totally straight, to the point that some versions of Stryker (a Fundamentalist—i.e., arch-Protestant—preacher) resemble Anime Catholicism more than anything else... as his image here attests.
• Back from the Dead: Bastion briefly revived him for his council of anti-mutant extremists. He's killed again by Archangel, but then later reappears in "Weapons of Mutant Destruction."
• Badass Bookworm: Can apparently quote whole chapters of the Holy Scriptures by heart. He is shown to study them with great passion (in the King James Version, of course) in his original appearance.
• Badass Normal: Stryker is just a normal, elderly man, albeit with military training and in fairly good shape. Thus, he rarely fights the X-Men fist to fist, but those examples where he's forced to fight show that he's still a very tough old man, competent and cool under fire.
• Badass Preacher: A much more depraved example than most. Before his congregation was written as an outright Church Militant. The iconic image is where he smites down Magneto with a Bible quote, but this applies generally with Stryker. Standing up against superheroes when all you have is your own two hands and maybe a pistol in them takes courage, and not getting promptly smashed doing it takes serious competence. Especially for a man who was in his sixties in the 1980s. Stryker's chief villainous virtue is his bravery, fueled by his faith, but he's also a military veteran who knows how to handle a gun.
• Bait the Dog: Stryker does indeed have his moments of seeming kindness, such as treating his minions well enough and even sparing his own mutant son rather than kill him, but he always subverts these potentially kind acts in some horrible way or another, such as executing the same minions he claims to have "respected" if they go against his ideals, or using the same son he spared as a guinea pig for horrible experiments before brainwashing him into a fanatic like himself.
  • Furthermore, what is perhaps so eerily genuine about Stryker's villainy is that, much like many fanatics, he doesn't perform kind acts for the sake of others, but rather to make himself feel superior to everyone else in his "righteousness."
• Black-and-White Insanity: As part of his religious interpretation. As seen below, he is actually very tolerant about many other things, at least for a fundamentalist, but the one group he is utterly hostile to is the mutants. All mutants are evil in his eyes, being creatures of Satan rather than God. If they appear otherwise, they are merely faking it. He even disowned one of his own most trusted and loyal followers when she turned out to be a mutant.
• Breakout Villain: He was originally a non-canonical character, but due to him and the story he was in being just that good he was eventually promoted to canon and brought in to be a regular villain. Then the movies got ahold of him, and today he might just be one of the X-Men's best-known villains. And certainly Wolverine's.
• Canon Immigrant: Stryker was originally written as the villain of a dubiously canon graphic novel. Because it turned out to be a really good graphic novel, it was eventually canonized, as was Stryker himself.
• Church Militant: Leads the Purifiers, an anti-mutant militia with strong Christian/fundamentalist undertones.
• Composite Character: The character seen in the films is more or less a combination of Stryker and Andre Thorton/Truett Hudson from the pages of Weapon X.
• Deader than Dead: His soul is destroyed when Sabretooth decapitates him in hell, ending him for good. The other tropes describing him on this page will detail how he more than deserved it.
• Deliberate Values Dissonance: Chris Claremont said in an interview that when he originally wrote the character, he wanted to make Stryker a real man of faith, unlike the Straw Hypocrite stereotype of the insincere Christian minister in fiction. His Stryker really, truly believes, and is an honest, moral, hard-working, unselfish and indeed admirable man in many ways—Whose actions nevertheless clash severely with the moral beliefs of most readers. However, not all writers agreed with Claremont's interpretation, and regardless of Claremont's original intent, Stryker ultimately comes off as a monstrous fanatic more than the upstanding individual Claremont may have originally intended.
• Equal-Opportunity Evil: He has nothing against other races, and accepts them as equals in his organization. His views on women appear remarkably egalitarian as well, given his ultraconservative politics otherwise. And in spite of his strong, fundamentalist Christian faith, he respects sincere believers in other religions, and has no trouble working with them or being friends with them. Of course, he also has zero problem brutally murdering these same people if they do something he deems "sinful" or simply to further his goals.
• Even Evil Has Standards: Stryker tries to paint himself as having honor and standards, in just one case shooting down Dr. Alba's offer to begin performing horrifying experiments on unwilling subjects, but when the chips are down, Stryker shows time and time again that he can and will cross any line in his quest for mutant genocide, having zero issues blowing up an entire building of said subjects when it suits him.
• Evil Old Folks: Stryker was in his 60s when he debuted.
• Evil Virtues: Regardless of his wickedness, Stryker does have his "positive" traits, such as bravery, determination, resourcefulness and, of course, over above all else — burning, passionate faith. This for the original version; in subsequent appearances he became progressively less impressive as his true, more evil side reared its head more and more.
• Fantastic Racism: Against mutants.
• Half the Man He Used to Be: Complements of Archangel's razor-sharp wings, though he somehow recovered.
• Hate Sink: If mutants represent LGBT, racial minorities and other persecuted groups in society then William Stryker represents the very worst of those who use religion as a platform and excuse for their bigotry. He has killed his wife, his newborn child, innocent families, his own subordinates, and several children all in the “name of god” and most of the time with a smile on his face. Oh and when he ends up in hell for all his actions he decides God was wrong for not siding with him in his effort to end mutantkind so he just decides to do it with the help of Satan. He is possibly the worst of the anti-mutant side of the X-men’s enemies racking up an even higher body count than Donald Pierce. Humans are also not safe from him if they don’t share in his extremist racism as he killed Jay Guthrie’s girlfriend who was a teenage girl and then gloated about it to Jay before killing him as well.
• Heel–Face Turn: In Chris Claremont's X-Treme X-Men follow-up arc to God Loves, Man Kills, he had Stryker meet a mutant minister whose bias against humans was similar to his own in some ways, experience My God, What Have I Done?, and earn Redemption Equals Indefinite Stasis. It didn't last, predictably.
• Humans Are the Real Monsters: In a world full of mutants, giant robots, and supernatural threats a simple human televangelist is one of the X-men's most dangerous and iconic villains.
• Knight of Cerebus: Possibly the single darkest X-Men villain, surpassing even Cassandra Nova. Yes, Cassandra has a much higher body count than Stryker (16 million versus 474, at last toll), but Stryker is arguably scarier just because of how realistic his threat is. He also commands a faithful following even in death.
• Knight Templar: One of the most classic examples in comics. Stryker is completely fanatical over his belief that all mutants are abominations deserving of genocide, claiming they are the spawn of Satan himself. His hatred of mutantkind is so strong that he murdered his own wife for giving birth to one, and raised the mutant boy as a lab rat and turned him into a psychopathic fanatic like himself. Stryker is fully convinced that he is in the right, and this is what makes him all the more wicked. Stryker has no compunctions with killing humans, either, as he regularly murders any who stand in his way, or even just as distraction. As long as it enables him to more thoroughly kill as many mutants as possible, Stryker will go to any lengths, innocent casualties be damned.
• Motive Decay: Mixed with Insane Troll Logic. Convinced that lack of support from the Lord was the reason why he continually failed to wipe out mutantkind, Stryker decided in the 2017 Weapon X series to stop killing mutants in the name of God... and start killing them in the name of Satan... even though the reason why he hated mutants in the first place is because he was convinced that they were Hellspawn. To add to the insanity, his new Religion of Evil cult is managed by Mentallo, a mutant.
• My Death Is Just the Beginning: He planned for this in the form of the Predator X program.
• Non-Action Big Bad: Of a sort. Stryker is an elderly man and usually has to get his followers to fight on his behalf, but after he acquired a Nimrod gauntlet he was more than happy to enter the fray with it.
• Nothing Personal: Claims this before coldly executing his lieutenant, Anne, when they find out that she is a mutant and will have to die along with the others when he exterminates them with his psychic superweapon. Beforehand, he genuinely seemed to like and respect her, but the second she shows signs of being a mutant, Stryker viciously rejects her for being an abomination and flings her to her death, showing that it truly was nothing personal; in both his murder, and relationship with her.
• Not-So-Well-Intentioned Extremist: While Stryker believes himself to be an agent of God, simply trying to save humankind from the plague of mutants, he is actually just a classically delusional Knight Templar, and since he considers the mutants (who view themselves as a superior race, or at least the villainous ones do) the literal Synagogue of Satan, the children of the Devil of whom Jesus spoke in the Gospel of John, he will do anything to wipe them out and assert his fanaticism. In short, he's an extremist who only thinks he has good intentions.
  Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it. (John 8:44, King James Version)
• Obliviously Evil: From Stryker's perspective, he is fighting a war to save all humanity from a non-human and, indeed, literally Satanic threat. He knows his side are the good guys, and derives great strength from this conviction.
• Offing the Offspring: In Claremont's original run, the simple young noncom Stryker and his beloved wife were unknowingly exposed to nuclear fallout, and later involved in a car crash. With his wife severely injured, he delivered her child—Which turned out to be a horribly deformed mutant. Horrified and disgusted, the uneducated young man killed it, then snapped his own wife's neck for giving birth to a monstrosity, after which he finally attempted to commit suicide himself. He survived, suffering a crisis of faith, but found new purpose in the belief that God had chosen him to lead humanity's struggle against the mutants. This was later retconned, however; turns out he didn't actually kill his son, he instead raised him in secret to follow in his footsteps, while also having A.I.M. apparently stabilize his mutation with dangerous experiments so that he was no longer disfigured by or dying from it.
• Politically Incorrect Villain: What makes Stryker so scary is how you can easily imagine a guy just like him running for president in the real world, just with mutants getting swapped out for the real-life minority group of your choice. Next to him, Graydon Creed practically looks like a choir boy.
• Real Men Wear Pink: Or use a pink robot's arm as their weapon, either or.
• Red Right Hand: Reverend Stryker stumbled upon a disoriented alternate Nimrod and uses the robot's glowing pink hand as a glove and an apparent weapon. When Bastion brings him back, he continues using it.
• Right-Wing Militia Fanatic: He secretly controls a uniformed anti-mutant militia, the Purifiers.
• Sergeant Rock: Used to be one as Master Sergeant Stryker, before he became a minister.
• Shoot the Dog: From his point of view, the death of his wife and son are this.
• Sinister Minister: He has shades of this.
• The Sociopath: A sadistic religious fanatic who feels nothing but hatred in his heart. Greg Pak even described him as one in a Q&A.
• Suspiciously Similar Substitute: Weapon X turned him into one for Cameron Hodge (who, by that point, had been M.I.A. for about a decade) by having him become a cyborg whose anti-mutant fanatacism prompted him to make a Deal with the Devil.
• Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: Stryker and Alba; he hires her to create a new Ultimate Lifeform to wipe out mutants and their allies, and while the project advances relatively smoothly for a while, it eventually becomes clear that the reverend and the doctor hate each other and are just barely cooperating because Stryker needs Alba's intellect (but not her attitude or complete disregard for collateral) while Alba needs Stryker's resources (but not his fanaticism or hindering morals, as flip-floppy as they may be). So it's unsurprising that the two eventually turn on each other, with Stryker emerging from the conflict a mangled mess, reduced to begging the Weapon X team for help in dealing with her and Weapon H because, as he explains, "You think I like this, mutant? You and all your kind repulse me! But we have one thing—and one thing only—in common... a shared enemy. And you must be prepared for her! I have looked into her eyes—and seen nothing there. Her focus is inhuman and unwavering. She will not be satisfied until she has proven her perverted scientific dogma has birthed the perfect predator!"
• Troubled Sympathetic Bigot: When written by Claremont. God Loves, Man Kills showed him very disturbed when his right hand and personal friend, Anne, turned out to be a latent mutant (though still not enough so to call off his indiscriminately mutant-eliminating master plan), while in the sequel story in Xtreme X-Men, he was even willing to sacrifice his own life to save the sympathetic mutant Kitty Pryde, after he had come to respect her. Some other writers ignore this aspect of his personality, however, making him a completely one-dimensional cardboard cut-out of frothing insanity.
• Villain with Good Publicity: His original Christian crusade is very popular with at least some sections of the American people, and not just because of his opposition to the mutants, but because he is so obviously sincere in his faith and his zeal for the poor and humble.
• Villainous Valour: Confronted Magneto without fear in the original comic. Also in later appearances. Once, aboard a crashing plane, a more superhuman villain asks him whether he is afraid. Stryker answers to the effect that no, he is not, for his own life... But his work is not yet finished.
• White Hair, Black Heart: Like fellow anti-mutant racist Bastion, Stryker sports white hair and has a heart as cold and steely and deadly as a discarded refrigerator with the door still attached.
• Working-Class Hero: A villainous example. Stryker comes from a humble background, and was formerly an enlisted man in the Army. It is his own ability, faith and hard work that have made him a major religious and political figure by the time of God Loves, Man kills.
• Would Hit a Girl: Would break her neck, actually. Just ask his wife or lieutenant.
• Would Hurt a Child: He killed his own monstrous mutant child as a young man, in shock after a car crash. Later he tried to shoot Kitty Pryde, who was a teenager at that time. He also arranged the deaths of several of the X-Men's students after M-Day, personally shooting Icarus in the head.

Jason Stryker

Jason Stryker

Nationality: American

Species: Human

First Appearance: X-Men: God Loves, Man Kills (1981)

"The public focuses on our quest to end the mutants as if it were just a cleansing... as if we hate them simply because they are different. We don't hate them. We pity them. We would put them down simply out of pity. It would be an act of kindness. But it is as if our love and our hate and our pity do not matter at all. The only thing that matters is that they are a danger to us. Their existence is endangering us. My father saw this coming. He told the world this was coming. They are not human. He told me every day. They are not animal. They are an abomination."

The son of Reverend William Stryker, Jason was born a sickly and horribly deformed mutant who was supposedly stabbed to death at birth by his horrified father. In actuality, Stryker merely raised the child in secret, while also having A.I.M. work on ironing out the debilitating kinks in the boy's mutation. After Stryker's second death, Jason took over his paramilitary group the Purifiers, which brought him into conflict with X-23, Kitty Pryde, and the time-displaced "O5" X-Men.

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• Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: He was built up as the new leader of the Purifiers, but he never appeared again after his three-part storyline, and for all intents and purposes appears to have been totally forgotten.
• Circus of Fear: He and his gang were for some reason based in a creepy abandoned carnival.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Jason's a mutant, but his father apparently still loved him enough to spare and save his life, even telling A.I.M. that money was no object when it came to finding and fixing whatever it was that was causing Jason's mutation to turn him into a terminally ill monster. Of course, Stryker still felt it pertinent to keep his son's existence a secret to most of the world while at same time engendering sympathy for himself through the use of a sob story about how he was "forced" to euthanize the boy.
• Expy: Of Larry Trask, being the oblivious mutant son of an anti-mutant extremist who followed in his father's footsteps by declaring vendetta on the X-Men.
• Fantastic Racism: Obviously, though it also extends to Inhumans, given his outraged reaction to Monica Rappaccini's offhand mention that she's been trying to splice mutant and Inhuman DNA.
  Jason: You are taking these abominations and those abominations and making more abominations?
• Give Me a Sign: He took the O5's presence in the... present to be God's way of giving him a personal thumbs-up.
  Jason: I found myself full of doubt. You see Scott Summers dressed as the Devil on the cover of magazines being toasted as if he were a God. Treated like a rock star. A hero! And I wonder, is it me? Do I just not see the world for what it is? Has my father, the great William Stryker, brainwashed me into feeling this way? I said to God: Give me a sign! Show me why the mutant is a danger to us. And just like God spoke to Moses... God spoke to me. He delivered unto me the original X-Men.
• Kick the Dog: He forces X-23 to watch looped footage of the berserk rampage that she went on during Avengers Arena. By the the time the other X-Men find her, she's a total wreck.
• Light 'em Up: His mutant power is being a living flashbang grenade, capable of emitting bursts of light powerful enough to knock people senseless.
• Light Is Not Good: Holy man with an angelic radiance. Also wants to commit genocide.
• Morally Ambiguous Doctorate: In what might have just been a goof, he's at one point referred to as "Dr. Stryker."
• Named by the Adaptation: Stryker's son originally went unnamed. "Jason" originates from the live-action film series.
• Overlord Jr.: Stryker's dead again. Let's replace him with his dead son who, as it turns out, was never really dead at all.
• The Sleepless: When Monica Rappaccini asks how he has been sleeping, Jason's response is a curt, "I don't sleep." Whether this is due to simple insomnia or some kind of weird medical condition or ability is left unsaid, but either way Rappaccini's reaction is, "That's not good."
• Sophisticated as Hell: He ends a long, exact recitation of a Bible verse with, "NOW LET'S GUT THESE &#$% SONS OF SATAN!"
• Villainous Friendship: With Monica Rappaccini of A.I.M. She mentions knowing Jason since he was a child, she's the one who he calls for an opinion on what to do with the O5, and she at one point expresses concern for his well-being, even advising him to visit her personally for a "tune-up" to whatever it is that was done to him to fix his mutation.
• "Well Done, Son" Guy: Teen Jean rattles him with a vision of his father calling him a disappointment. Stryker raising his son in secret also implies that he was ashamed of him. Or merely overprotective. Or some odd combination of the two, as it's clear that he was grooming the boy to be his heir.
• Worth It: He was all gung-ho about executing the O5 (especially Angel) up until a minion pointed out that doing so could destroy the universe. When the heroes breaks free of their restraints, though, Jason throws all caution to the wind and tries to slaughter them anyway, even yelling, "I don't care what happens to the world!"
• You Are What You Hate: Jason and the other Purifiers are totally unaware that he's a mutant, and are convinced that his powers were given to him by his father and A.I.M. as a kind of "trump card" for their mutant jihad.

Reverend Craig Sinclair

Reverend Craig Sinclair

Nationality: Scottish

Species: Human

First Appearance: Marvel Graphic Novel #4 (1982)

A Christian minister from Scotland and biological father of Rahne Sinclair, better known as Wolfsbane. Not that he ever admitted this; though he raised her for the first thirteen years of her life, he claimed only to be her foster father and told her she had been abandoned at birth by her mother, a prostitute. Literally beating his doctrine of religion into her, to the point he convinced her that she was a worthless sinner who deserved death, the breaking point came when her mutant gene activated and transformed her into a wolf-like being; Reverend Craig shot her, then led the mob that tried to burn her at the stake. After she escaped him, he disappeared... until he resurfaced as a fanatical member of the Purifiers, founded by Reverend William Stryker. Fittingly, his bedevilment of his daughter cost him his life when he brainwashed her and accidentally triggered the conditioning, causing her to kill and devour him.

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• Abusive Parents: To Wolfsbane. He's pretty much solely responsible for her long list of emotional issues, thanks to his god-awful treatment of her.
• Beard of Evil: Had a beard a was a truly despicable man.
• Burn the Witch!: He's fond of this, trying it on a disoriented Cable and later his own daughter.
• Death by Irony: Reverend Craig falls victim to the psychological conditioning The Purifiers put Wolfsbane through, when they were only able to capture her because she was trying to "save" him.
• Eviler than Thou
• Fantastic Racism: Not exactly a friend towards mutants.
• The Fundamentalist: The reason behind his abuse of his daughter, and why he went on to join the Purifiers.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: Craig brainwashed Rahne into attacking Angel whenever she saw his wings. When Rahne saw her father standing in front of Angel's mutilated wings, the brainwashing kicks in and she attacks and kills Craig believing him to be Angel.
• Hate Sink: Craig Sinclair is abusive, hypocritical, sexist, anti-Catholic and anti-Mutant.
• I Have No Son!: Refuses to acknowledge Rahne as being his daughter. Which, all things considered, is the nicest thing he did for her.
• Karmic Death: Brainwashed Wolfsbane and then tried to murder her, instead causing her to attack and kill him.
• Laser-Guided Karma: His death at Rahne's hands couldn't have happened to a nicer guy.
• Never My Fault: Blames Rahne's mother getting pregnant on being a sinner, when he was trying to "save" her.
• Offing the Offspring: Attempted this repeatedly against Wolfsbane. Until she succeeding in eating him first.
• Politically Incorrect Villain: A truly vile, sexist bastard. He's also vigilantly anti-Catholic as well. And he's not too fond of mutants either.
• Reassigned to Antarctica: Rahne figures the reason he was on Muir Island (all alone, funnily enough) was a case of this, after his little dalliance with her mother.
• Scotireland: Just like Rahne he's Scottish.
• Sinister Minister: A truly evil minister.

Reavers

Cybernetically augmented mercenaries. Originally created by the Hellfire Club from human mercenaries maimed by Wolverine.

In General

• Cybernetics Eat Your Soul: The Reavers play with the trope rather than playing it straight, as while they are all some mixture of machine and man, they're considerably saner than their boss, swinging between an elite mercenary unit and a Quirky Miniboss Squad Depending on the Writer.
• Cyborg: They are all cyborgs with various cybernetic enhancements.
• Quirky Miniboss Squad: The Reavers are a gang of cyborg mercenaries led by Donald Pierce. Initially played deadly straight, their camp nature led them to inevitable Villain Decay and most of them haven't been seen since the nineties.

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