Marvel comics are jam packed with a large array of dynamic villains and baddies.
While teams like the Avengers have had their hands full with some of the most difficult
big bads that the marvel multiverse has to offer, other major teams the likes of the
X-Men have crossed paths with antagonists that not only make us quiver in terms of power,
but also have managed to scare the crap out of us over the years.
So today, we’re taking a look at a handful of the mutants’ most terrifying foes with
our list of the top 10 scariest X-Men villains.
We’re looking at villains who are aesthetically scary rather than ones who are terrifyingly
powerful.
So with that in mind, let’s get to it!
10 Barnacle Barnacle was a character who was first introduced
in 1999 in X-Men Magneto War issue 1.
He’s a mutant terrorist who has one of the nastiest powers – moisture solidification.
He can initiate a chemical reaction that turns moisture into a solid shell, which he uses
for various things – it can contains person in a constrictive turtle like shell with their
own bodily fluids, he can create indestructible armour for himself, and he can spray a stream
of hardened barnacle crust through the air (which most likely comes from the moisture
in his own body.
Gross).
He once tried to screw with Storm and her claustrophobia by encasing her in a hardened
shell, but luckily Nightcrawler was there to intervene.
Dude is just flat out NASTY.
9 Deadbolt Deadbolt is another smaller villain to make
our list, and aesthetically is a very different kind of scary in comparison to our last number.
Deadbolt is a living skeleton, contained within an energy field, who could remove pieces of
his bones to use as a weapon – his body would immediately regenerate if he did.
He was a member of the Dark Riders, an organization that worked for X-Men big bad Genesis.
He was initially seemingly killed off by Wolverine, but later it was revealed that one of his
fellow Dark Riders was the culprit behind his death.
His skull is also split in half, creating devilish-like horns atop of his head.
He’s definitely not the kind of villain I’d want to run into in the middle of the
night, that’s for damn sure.
8 Peeper Peeper aka Peter Quinn is one of the weirder
villains on our list.
He was recruited by Magneto to be a member of the new Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, but
was abandoned with his new teammates when failing their first mission together, and
getting defeated by Captain America.
From there, he and his band of rejects became the Mutant Force and worked for Mandrill,
which got them arrested.
Then after that, Red Skull became their new sponsor.
Years later, he would die at the side of a road, being devoured while screaming by Predator
X.
So if anything, based on all of that, Peepers doesn’t seem all that scary now, does he?
But in terms of his appearance, those large eerie eyeballs of his are super unsettling.
They give him various optical powers, including telescopic vision, microscopic vision, x-ray
vision and optic blasts.
7 Onslaught First appearing in X-Men vol 2 issue 53 in
1996, Onslaught is a sentient psionic entity created from the consciousness of two of the
most powerful mutants – Charles Xavier, and Magneto.
During a prior battle, Xavier would become catatonic when using his abilities to shut
down Magneto’s mind- he was prompted by Magneto ripping the adamantium from Wolverine’s
skeleton.
This caused the darkest parts of Magneto’s mind to enter into Xavier’s consciousness,
merging with the hero’s own darkest tendencies, everything he had repressed for the last 30
years, which eventually grew into an individual persona – otherwise known as Onslaught.
After he was defeated the first time, his consciousness lingered, and later would return
in the Onslaught Reborn storyline, with a brand new but equally scary second form.
6 Xorn Xorn is a bit of a confusing character thanks
to a series of retcons surrounding him – long story short, he worked as a teach for the
Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngers, but then it was revealed that he was actually
Magneto all along (at this point in time, the mental manipulator was dead.)
But then it was retconned again, revealing that Xorn was just a Magneto imposter and
not Magneto himself.
Le sigh.
Anywho, the reason why he gets a spot on our list is thanks to his dandy little helmet
– it’s a skull like helmet that’s meant to contain the massive amounts of energy coming
off of his head – he has a star for a brain.
5 Dark Beast Dark Beast is an evil alternate version of
Hank McCoy from earth 295, the Age of Apocalypse reality.
Because of Charles Xavier’s absence, this version of Hank disregarded all sense of ethics,
becoming a mad scientist who worked under Apocalypse.
He would conduct cruel and unusual experiments in Apocalypse’s name, and even managed to
escape that reality before it imploded, showing up on Earth 616 and becoming quite the threat
to the X-Men and Hank while he was present.
He’s twenty years older than the 616 Beast, and therefore isn’t as physically strong
as his counter part.
4 Mojo Mojo is
one creepy fella.
First appearing in Longshot issue 3 in 1985, Mojo is an absurdist parody of network executives
– he’s part of an alien race known as the Spineless Ones, and is the dictator and
a slaver of a dimension he rules called the Mojoverse, where all of the dimension’s
inhabitants are obsessed with Mojo’s gladiator television programs.
When he was created by Ann Nocenti and Art Adams, Nocenti specifically requested that
Adams make Mojo as disgusting and unpleasant as possible – he’s got wires that hold
open his eyelids, inspired by A Clockwork Orange, and because of his large size, he
rides around on a multi legged flying platform that’s armed with a bunch of deadly weapons
and particle beams.
In addition to his mastery of manipulation and several of his powers being derived from
magic, Mojo is also able to generate an anti-life force field that makes him capable of killing
things simply by touching them – he can wither plants and age humans.
3 Apocalypse Apocalypse is one of the X-Men’s most fearsome
foes.
He’s an ancient evil, the first mutant, who is practically immortal and sees himself
as the father of mutant kind.
He operates under very Darwinian principles, believing in the survival of the fittest,
killing off the weak in order to make the survivors grow stronger, for the betterment
of humanity.
He considers himself the Apocalypse of the modern man and the father of what humanity
will become – mutantkind.
He fully believes what he is doing is the right thing – he’s ensuring evolution.
The abilities at his disposal are tremendous – he has self-molecular control, a genius
level intellect, he can manipulate matter and energy, he can shapeshift, is capable
of accessing astral planes, is telekinetic, telepathic, is a technopath, can augment the
powers of other mutants and can transfer someone’s consciousness into another being.
In all of his appearances over the years, Apocalypse has always been one of the most
physically intimidating villains in Marvel’s comics, and considering what he’s capable
of, it’s definitely not hard to find the character down right horrifying.
2 Emplate Emplate may not be as well known of a villain
as our previous number, but he’s arguably physically more frightening.
Emplate is a mutant who physically looks like an emaciated corpse with purple artery-like
veins running across his grey flesh.
He’s not a looker, that’s for damn sure.
Emplate first came to be in Generation X issue 1 back in 1994, and when his mutant powers
first manifested, he was overcome with hunger and killed his mother, causing his father
to kick him out.
Emplate, who back then was known as Marius St Croix, sought out the dark arts out of
a desire for more power.
He would later be rejected by his sister as well, who he would magically trap inside of
the form of a mute creature with razor sharp diamond hard skin – Penance.
While he’s only fought the X-Men a handful of times, his powers are not to be taken lightly-
he has the ability to siphon mutant energy from the bone marrow of mutants; if he siphons
all of their energy, they die.
When he’s feeding from them, he cancels out their powers, and he often takes on some
of his victim’s attributes – if he feeds on them multiple times, he gains their powers
permanently.
In addition to this, when he feeds, he achieves a measure of psychic control over his victim’s
mind, making them his subordinates.
1 Shadow King The Shadow King is one of Charles Xavier’s
consistent foes – he was a human mutant from Egypt with vast telepathic powers, which
he used for evil, eventually taking on the alias of the Shadow King.
Through retconning, he was made into an ancient evil entity.
Aside from his bone chilling appearance, this character scores the top spot on our list
thanks to his possession abilities – while in the astral plane, he can possess other
beings and control them.
He’s an astral entity, who preys on the bodies of highly skilled and powerful psychics
which he then uses to enslave others with.
In the Shadow King’s native form, he cannot be harmed physically, and has lived for over
millennia.
Generally the Shadow King is depicted as a large creature with purplish skin, glowing
red eyes, sharp claws and even sharper teeth.
Luckily, in order to exist in reality, the shadow king needs a host – if that host
is killed, it will disperse the Shadow King’s astral essence, which can take up to months
or years for him to re-manifest his astral form again.
Alright, there we have it!
What other X-Men villains do you think should have gotten a spot on our list?
Let us know in those comments below!
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