Whose the Best X-Villian

Joss Whedon

Okay serious now I would say Mr. Sinister as "best at being evil" but Magneto for "most interesting and developed".

Kipe's right, I would say, despite her lack of appearances yet, Cassandra Nova devastated the X-men. 16 million mutants killed. Emma became diamond, Polaris went insane (again), Xavier Institute completely changed, Shi'ar nearly destroyed, Magneto lost an empire - lots of changes.

Anyway outside of that I'd definately put Mystique and Magneto up there. I was always a strong proponant of Apocalypse being one of the deadliest villians but I think his recent lack of interesting plots in comics that leads me to feel that right now (disregarding Messiah War right now since we don't know whats going to happen). But since XM:TAS Sinister has been pretty scary to me, his voice was amazing in that series and was enough to prove his creepiness

And recently I've begun to think, given the right motivation Spiral has the potential to lay some pretty big damage too. She's unpredictable, we don't know much about her motives, she's a powerful sorcecoress and we think she's insane - all the X-men need to do is p!$$ her off enough

Magneto is obviously the most iconic, but I've always loved Apocalypse. He's a little one-dimensional compared to some other villains, and his powers are never consistent, but unlike some of the others, he inspires fear and awe every time he pops up. AOA is still my favorite crossover event in X-Men history, as we truly get to see what the world would be like if Apocalypse was running the show. 

Prodigy.

Consider that after M-Day, the New X-Men had a fight with Nimrod at Eagle Plaza.  Instead of the kids having the decency and good sense to go ahead and die (why save Forge when he'd just get killed off 2 years later?), Prodigy blurts out a winning plan.  But what that does when implemented is to send Nimrod back in time so that it can hook up with Stryker, so he can form his Purifiers.

I can't think of another X-associate as personally directly responsible for the deaths of so many of the people around him as Prodigy.  He's in the same company as Cyclops, Wolverine, and Emma Frost, but Prodigy's definitely in the Top 5 of "team-killing jerks."

And sure, nobody realized what happened, but still.


Edited by Ciel - 23-Jun-2010 at 2:01pm

Another vote for Mystique followed by Apocalypse, who gave us Archangel

Magneto, Mystique and Shaw are three of my favorites too, but I don't necessarily consider them villains -- just mutants who have their priorities straight. Shaw earns bonus points because he's an unabashed capitalist. 

Nobody shows enough love to Arcade, and I'm sure its purely because he's the blatant inspiration for the now agonisingly awful Saw movies... he puts people in a situation where they have a chance to escape, but will die if they don't and gives people a chance to really take stock of their lives. Want to live? Fight your way out. Don't think you're really worth it in the long run? Just chuck yourself at the nearest obstacle, it's bound to be a trap in disguise.

Failing that, obviously Magneto and Mystique rock my world. Well, when Magneto's not busy bowing down to bloody Cyclops.

My favorite X-Villains have to be:

Spiral- she's so sociopathic and sadistic that she makes guys like Sabertooth and Apocalypse go "Good lord".  How can someone that crazy and uncaring not be bad ass?

Apocalypse- His Darwinist views, ability to convince powerful mutants to join him, and his history of followers (which includes the Hulk) make En Sabah Nur one mutant not to be messed with

Sinister- taking into account that not only did he create Madalyn Prior, Nate Grey (alternate version yes, but still counts,) but he has also made perfect clones of all his Marauders more times then he can probably count, he's had his hand in the pasts of many different Xmen, most notably, the Summers Brothers.

Dark Beast- in his home reality AoA he was among the most feared mutants who served Apocalypse.  Now looking at the fact that he became furry ON PURPOSE, was able to escape AoA, created the Morlocks using the genetics knowledge he was taught by AoA Sinister, and is by far more inteligent and stronger than the main time Beast, Dark Beast will always be a shadowed threat to the X-men     

I've always been a huge fan of Sabretooth. He's just nasty. I love the just primal evil. He'd slice you to peices & then take those peices home for leftovers. I really hate that they killed him off. He's my #1 followed closely by Sinister, the master of manipulation.

Like the one person said..... Professor Xavier is a Jerk!

Hydra Controlled Wolverine (Or the Hand, whichever) He was fun. But I'm going to have to go with Chris Claremont during his Exiles/ New Exiles run. Nobody has done more damage. Except maybe Cassandra Nova... Oh, and can we get some love for the Shadow King? Muir Island Saga age Shadow King.

Cassandra Nova strikes me as one of the most devastating villains the X-Men have ever dealt with, if only because her brief tenure as the premiere X-Villain changed the franchise in such a way that we'll probably never un-feel the effects. The now-public identity of the X-Men comes to mind, for example. Oh, and she was probably the only X-Villain that was all that creepy, and her mission / purpose was so pure and sinister that it actually gave me pause when I first read her. I had to stop and ask, "Is there anything this monster won't do?"

Of course, that the X-Men have become a less secure organization rather than a more secure one since Cassandra Nova's highly-destructive escapade says something about them in general, but I don't want to wax philosophical about that at the moment.

I'd say that Magneto has been a great villain much of the time, but sometimes I find him hard to buy. Like, I feel as though writers aren't quite sure of what to make of Magneto a lot of times, because he's highly complex, and some people just don't have the mental function available to them in order to pen such complexity. Still, when I think of X-Villains to be respected for all they've done, Magneto comes to mind.

That brings me to Emma. I don't think I'd qualify her as one of the X-Men's greatest villains by any means, but I will say that back during her mustache-twirling, whip-cracking days, she was refreshingly sinister (as was the rest of the Hellfire Club). While she never really succeeded in her evil plans, I think a lot of it was because Emma Frost and the other members of the club were "evil" in a very realistic way. Like, killing Butter Rum (rest in peace, angel bb), running as the queen bee of an ultra-powerful secret society, and being an expert in white-collar crime--all very cool stuff, but she'd probably read as a better villain in book form than in comic-book form. I mean, imagine an Emma Frost in the context of something like Atlas Shrugged or some other ridiculously long novel. Definitely a lot of room for character discussion and complexity.

Selene, on the other hand, was thin soup. She always struck me as a character who should have been a high-profile villain given her power and general creep-level. To me, she's the big-bad that never really was. Even Necrosha was generally underwhelming, like everything Selene has ever done. You'd think that being so old would give Selene a greater intellect and strategic capacity, but, no. She had the brain of a caveman / witch and all the villainy of an angry child.


Edited by InsipidLust - 15-Dec-2011 at 6:23pm