The members of the X-Men have always been a diverse and compelling roster of characters.
It’s one of the reasons why the series is so beloved aside from the greater concepts,
themes and issues the team’s more prolific stories explored.
And, just like every other character in the Marvel universe, each one of them, for the
most part, has been given a slew of different alternates across the multiverse, explored
in various alternate timeline stories.
So today, we’re taking a look at some of the more intimidating and sinister variants
of the members on the beloved mutant team with our list of the top 10 scariest alternate
versions of X-Men.
Let’s jump in.
10 Mutant X Storm Mutant X Storm is a mutant vampire.
She goes by the name Bloodstorm.
After being captured by Dracula, who wanted her as one of his brides, Storm is turned
into a vampire.
She gets her revenge though, aiding the X-Men in defeating Dracula, although she felt it
was only right for her to leave the team now that she was infected with vampirism.
And you know, blood lust and what have you.
Later on, she would cross paths with Gambit, who pleaded with her to turn him into a vampire.
So she sired him, something that he would later resent her for in the long run.
9 Dark Claw Dark Claw is the amalgamation of Batman and
Wolverine from the Amalgam universe.
Why is he scary?
Just look at him!
Debuting back in 1996, this character was a meta-mutant detective whose origin story
is a combination between the two iconic character’s own beginnings.
Logan Wayne witnessed his parents murders as a child.
When he grew up, he would join the airforce, and eventually, was transferred to the Weapon
X program.
This is where he gains his Wolverine abilities - his adamantium laced skeleton and a super-charged
increase in strength.
Deemed a failure by those conducting the Weapon X program, he ended up going back home to
New Gotham City, and became Dark Claw, roaming the streets as a vigilante fighting crime.
8 Stormphoenix Coming at you from What If Vol 2 issue 79,
this alternate version of Storm is a version that had the power of the Phoenix rather than
Jean Grey.
The Phoenix Force possesses her after a mission in space with the X-Men.
When she comes back to Earth, she ends up creating a world wide organization to protect
the environment.
But instead of it just being a regular altruistic organization, Storm openly harms those opposed
to her ideals, suspending them in animation up in
the Earth’s atmosphere.
She ends up freezing an entire community after they violate an anti-hunting agreement.
Eventually, Storm-Phoenix is defeated thanks to Kitty Pryde phasing into her original body.
But all in all, things could have escalated to much darker territory if she hadn’t been
stopped when she was.
7 Red Queen – Jean Grey Earth 9575 This alternate version of Jean Grey hails
from Earth 9575 - an alternate reality that’s first seen in X-Man issue 5 from 1995.
This Jean has been depowered thanks to previous crimes she’s committed, and it’s a little
unclear as to whether or not she’s had access to the Phoenix Force in the past.
Having been banished from her own Earth, 998, she decides to reinvent herself by pretending
to be a reincarnated version of Queen Madelyne - Madelyne Pryor, her clone.
From here, she embarks on a quest to become the queen of Britain and eventually conquer
the rest of the planet.
And she had a plan to do it and restore her powers - by finding various different iterations
of Nate Grey from across the multiverse.
She would essentially lure them onto her earth, use them, drain them of their abilities until
they died, and then use another one.
Eventually, she tries this trick on the 616 Nate Grey, who ends up breaking free from
her powers, which results in her draining all of the life force of her other Nate Greys
in an attempt to defeat the 616 Nate.
But eventually, Nate creates a sun around her and burns her alive.
And, fun fact, later on in the 616 continuity, Madelyne Pryor would begin using the alias
of Red Queen, funny enough.
6 Age of Apocalypse Colossus Colossus of Earth 295, from the Age of Apocalypse
Earth, is not only frightening, but absolutely tragic.
During the Age of Apocalypse event, he was forced out of retirement for a second time
(the first was after he was so severely injured that he couldn’t transform back into his
human form).
The second time he came out retirement was thanks to him needing to go on a very important
mission to combat Apocalypse for Magneto – he and his wife, Shadowcat, led a team of mutants
to save Colossus’ sister, Illyana, who was the only mutant left alive with reality travelling
powers.
In the process of rescuing her, he and Shadowcat abandoning their team, leaving them for dead.
When he later learned that the reality that Magneto was trying to save with her powers
and his plan was one in which his sister was dead, he went berserk, going on a rampage
that caused the deaths of several mutants, including his own wife.
He was eventually killed by Gambit as a last resort in trying to control the mutant.
5 Mutant X Beast - Brute Beast has a handful of scary alternate versions,
but this one looks like he crawled right out of a creature feature.
Here we have Hank McCoy of Earth 1298, the Mutant X earth, who is known as Brute rather
than Beast.
Brute came to be thanks to a series of deadly experiments he conducted on himself that not
only changed him into this aquatic-esque being, which allows him to breathe underwater, but
also reduced his intelligence down to the level of a child in kindergarten.
He is later further mutated, gaining hooves for feet.
While he may not have his smarts anymore, the character does have a berserker streak,
which, when unleashed, can be fatal for anyone in his way, especially considering his mental
temperament.
He’s a bit of a tragic character as well – he was falsely accused of the murders
of the Green Goblin and Ben Reilly, and was executed for it.
4 New Sun Gambit From Earth 9921, we have this insanely powerful
and terrifying version of Gambit known as New Sun.
New Sun has control of kinetic energy on a molecular level.
This means he can turn any object’s potential energy into kinetic energy, which in turn
makes it explosive.
And it’s a power without much limitations – he doesn’t need to make physical contact
with an object to do so, and can even do it to living beings, including humans.
His total kinetic control can also stop motion, and he can simulate other kinds of energy
with it, manipulating whatever kinetic energy is present in order to simulate energies like
infrared energy, all by molecular agitation.
In addition to that, dude can transform himself into an energy wave, which allows him to travel
through space and into other dimensions.
He’s also killed his reality’s Phoenix, which is no easy feat.
He dies in Gambit volume 3 issue 23 when he’s impaled and then explodes, which also caused
his world to explode in the process.
3 X-Men Forever Storm X-Men Forever Storm is also known as Perfect
Storm, and resides on earth 161.
She’s a clone of the original Storm, who was created in order to restore the powers
of heroes who were trapped on Genosha.
But, the clone became unstable, rapidly aged, and, during an incident with the Shadow King,
absorbed the darker less friendly aspects of his personality, to say the least.
She ended up becoming malevolent, and ambushed the X-Men team during a mission.
She would then kill wolverine and betray the team entirely, fleeing to Wakanda to seek
out T’Challa’s protection.
T’Challa, who had previously been in a relationship with the regular Storm, believed that she
was good, and saw that she was making an effort to help the people of Wakanda, changing the
weather, helping the innocent, you name it.
But eventually, after the two got married, Storm betrayed him too, letting Killmonger
into their quarters, kill the rest of the royal family, and kill T’Challa, all so
she could rule Wakanda.
2 Age of X Cyclops This Cyclops hails from Earth 11326, an earth
in which anti mutant propaganda is on the rise, and anti-mutant protests eventually
leads to the decimation of mutants by the US government.
As you can imagine, Cyclops didn’t fair well in this sociopolitical climate.
Scott operated under the name Basilisk, and after being captured by the government, his
eyelids were removed in order to prevent him from having any sort of control over his optic
blasts.
He was then forced to wear a mask by the prison he was kept in, and was used by Alcatraz as
a mutant executioner.
Dark.
He eventually managed to escape, and managed to save some other mutants in the process
too, but he’s forever haunted by the guilt of what he was forced to do, and the lives
of innocent mutants he ended.
1 Ruins Charles Xavier I feel like any time Professor X has an alternate
that’s evil, that particular Earth suffers big time because of it.
This version of Charles Xavier comes from 1995’s Ruins, one of the most depressing
and dark alternate reality stories in the Marvel multiverse.
Taking place on Earth 9591, this Charles was elected president of the US rather than creating
the X-Men - he ends up becoming corrupted, and set out on a political crusade against
mutants, despite having Warren Worthington the third as one of his security staff (although
Warren kept his mutations a secret in general).
Xavier creates a prison in Texas for mutants, in which mutants are deformed, experimented
on or tortured as a means of controlling their mutations - something that he states is done
for their own good.
There we have it friends!
What other versions of the X-Men do you find particularly scary?
Give us a shout in those comments below and let us know!