Welcome back to an insidious entry of Mutantversity, a class offered to those who are filled with questions about villainous mutants, but are afraid to ask. “House of X” #5 was a tremendous issue, and we’re going to discuss it at length in a later installment. For today though, I’d like to focus on a sequence that occurred towards the end of the issue. With Krakoa recognized as an independent nation, Mutant amnesty has been declared- and that means the arrival of a whole mess of mutants that readers might know as villains. So today we’re going to identify each and every one of them.
Welcome, to Krakoa villains. I hope we survive the experience.
The villains, from left to right:
Random: A protoplasmic shapeshifter, Random can rearrange his body and shoot parts of it like projectiles. Usually, he makes his arm into a gun. Did you guess this dude was created in the 90s? What gave it away? (It was the gun hand). Random isn’t deeply driven to villainy. He’s often portrayed as a lost soul looking for a cause, and he’s fought alongside X-Factor almost as much as he’s menaced them.
Wildside: One of those mutants with claws and a pointy haircut,. You know the type. Wildside is a founder, and occasional leader of the Mutant Liberation Front, a radical Mutant supremacist organization with the unfortunate acronym MLF. He’s a real nasty operator, and would you believe me if I told you a Rob Liefeld creation?
Mister Sinister: You know this guy. Nathaniel Essex was a 19th century mad scientist given superpowers by Apocalypse. Along with Moira, he’s one of the preeminent geneticists in the Marvel universe. He’s also a psychotic glam rock mastermind. I put the odds on him being a traitor to Krakoa at 150%.
(Lady) Mastermind: Regan Wyngarde is the daughter of the original Mastermind, Jason Wyngarde, one of the skeeviest bad guys in the Marvel universe. Both of them have illusion powers and a real problem with amorality. Regan briefly rolled with the good guys in the early 2000s, but they never really learned to trust her. Fun fact: she’s probably the half sister of the young X-Man Pixie. Other fun fact: her costume has been used by artist Chris Bachalo something like a half dozen different characters.
Mesmero: Simply known as Vincent, Mesmero is a painfully Silver Age villain. He has the mutant power of hypnosis and since he was created in the late 60s, he put on a garish costume and hypnotized rich people at high society parties. He’s also one of the least memorable members of Magneto’s Brotherhood, and considering that he has to compete with Toad, that’s pretty embarrassing. He used to wear a cobra-like hood, but now he’s dressed in pretty good Brainiac cosplay.
Mentallo: Another victim of Silver Age sensibilities, the mutant called Mentallo was born with the human named Marvin Flumm, so that’s something. He’s a telepath like Professor X or Emma Frost, but what makes him fascinating is that… he’s not that great at it? He can read surface level thoughts, create illusions, and send telepathic messages. Considering how comparably weak his powers are, he’s done alright for himself as a villain, knocking over a few banks and once being selected by MODOK to be part of an epic heist. Of course, he was on a team with Puma and Rocket Racer, so that gives you an idea of the level that Mister Flumm operates on.
Animax: A more recent creation. Blake Schiel can manifest monsters from her imagination, which is sort of rad. She’s also got that ostentatious face tattoo, so you know she’s not messing around. Including this issue, she’s appeared in less than 10 issues of comics, so Animax is still an up-and-comer. Fun fact: she was co-created by Brian Michael Bendis’ daughter, and the son of Matt Fraction and Kelly Sue Deconnick!
The villains from left to right:
Sebastian Shaw: The sometimes Black King of the Hellfire Club, Shaw has got the power to absorb hits and then to convert the damage into a burst of physical strength. But his real power is being a rich one percent-er. He’s constantly losing everything and then clawing his way back up to the top. It looks like he’s going to remain ostensibly loyal to his old frienemy Emma Frost, while looking for the first chance to stab he in the back.
Selene: A 17,000 year old mutant vampire sorceress who used to hang out with Julius Caesar, Selene is one of those bad guys that has a lot going on. She was the ruler of Nova Roma, a recreation of Ancient Rome in the Brazilian rain forest. She was a member of the Hellfire Club. She rolled with the Upstarts, a group of rich mutant assholes who really wanted to play the most dangerous game. She was also one of the Externals, who were immortals with terrible follow-throguh. Like I said, a lot. Selene’s biggest moment was as the mastermind of Necrosha, an Event where she enslaved an army of mutant zombies.
Emplate: Not that you should judge people based on their appearances, but if you looked at Emplate and thought he looked like a nasty dude, you were right on the money. Marius St. Croix has little freaky mouths on the palms of his hands that he uses to slurp up mutant bone marrow. He’s a sadist and he consorts with demons. He ate his mother and then trapped his sister, Monet St. Croix, in her Penance form. Of this collection of bad guys, Marius stands out as one of the scariest.
Exodus: Bennet du Paris has a running problem where he doesn’t want to be a leader, but he’s always disappointed with the people that he follows. He was a 12th century crusader from France, and has the most powerful telekinesis of any mutant in the Marvel universe. He really wants Magneto to lead him, but then can’t handle when Magneto doesn’t live up to his vision of mutant supremacy. Basically, he claims to believe in Magneto’s vision so thoroughly that he’d be happy to kill him in order to carry it out.
Gorgon: More of a Wolverine villain than anything else, Gorgon as his name would imply, turns whoever he sees into stone. He can also read the thoughts of the people around him, so he wears a blindfold and gets into crazy swordfights because he is on the one hand totally freaky, but on the other hand, kind of a baller? He’s been the leader of the ninja clan The Hand a few times, and also part of the Hydra High Council. I guess those things are pretty unfortunate. Well, he is a villain after all.
Callisto: One of the least villainous characters in this gallery of villains, Callisto is most famously the leader of the Morlocks. She used to have a generally-better-than-humans powerset (super strength, speed, endurance, senses, healing, that whole package). Even without her powers though, she’s legit one of the best hand-to-hand combatants in the Marvel universe, quite a feat for someone who mostly lurks in the sewers. Most other elite fighters were in the military or something like that. One could argue that her relationship with Storm isn’t sexual, but it isn’t not sexual.
Apocalypse: Ah, En Sabah Nur, the first mutant, the mortal god who is called… Apocalypse! He’s got a lot of history, but if you hold on to a few key facts, he’s not too tough to understand. He was born with a mutant shapeshifting power, including the ability to alter his size and mass, hardness, sharpness, anything. But he’s also got a crazy strength of will, and he seeks to augment his power at any cost. So he’s messed with the Celestials (who built his armor), and earned himself Thor-level strength and immortality. He claims to believe in one fundamental principal: only the strongest deserve to survive, and they prove their strength through conflict. He’s proven that he has a decent follow-through too. There are many alternate universes where Apocalypse conquers the Earth to rebuild it in a hellscape of eternal war. The biggest thing holding him back is his vulnerability to powerful psychics; he’s been known to fear Professor X. But then again, he’s also been known to overcome Jean Grey with his aforementioned willpower. Some writers have used him as a more generic evil dude, so this “House of X” #5 works hard to restore his motivation to see mutants inherit the Earth.
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The villains from left to right:
Azazel: Probably the most notorious villain in this scene not because of something he’s done, but because of how reviled his first story was. Azazel is part of a group of mutants who look like demons and yup, he’s Nightcrawler’s dad. He eventually embraced his inner goofiness and become a sort of celestial pirate, leading a raid against Heaven. He was stopped by his son and the X-Men obviously. Judging by his shoulder-skulls, he’s back to being a supreme edgelord.
Masque: One of the more bloodthirsty Morlocks, Masque can carve flash like the Tzimisce in Vampire: The Masquerade. Sometimes he likes to appear as an attractive blonde lady, but he’s tormented by the knowledge that his natural form is that of a disfigured dude. That’s probably a worthy topic of some thematic exploration, but Masque tends to be one villain in a larger group. Maybe his presence on Krakoa will give him a chance to be more of a character. Chris Claremont had plans to explore Masque’s gender non-conforming identity, but as with a lot of similar ideas, editorial didn’t let him take it all the way.
Black Tom Cassidy: The cousin of Banshee is one of the greatest soap opera characters in “X-Men.” The scumbag of the Cassidy family, he dutifully raised his niece while Banshee was hunting serial killers as part of interpol. But when Banshee’s wife was killed in an IRA bombing during The Troubles, he took hid the young mutant Theresa from her father, leading to years of family drama. As a villain though, Black Tom could not be more simple. He’s a professional. Not a nice guy, but not deeply evil either, he’s in it for personal gain with his partner-in-crime (and probable partner-in-marriage) Juggernaut. Also, his powers are awesome, not to mention very handy on Krakoa. At first he could make heat from plants. As in, shooting fireballs out of wooden sticks. Later, his plant mastery expanded, and now he can turn into a tree-man with super strength and healing.
Frenzy: Joanna Cargill is deeply ideological, and deeply angry. Unlike a lot of villains on this list, she’s more of a savvy activist than an unhinged terrorist, and spent a good amount of time as Magneto’s right hand. She believes deeply in a mutant separatist state, and has been a part of every effort to form one. From Genosha to Utopia and now to Krakoa, this is clearly Frenzy’s dream and I can’t wait to see her achieve it. The Utopia experiment didn’t end well for her though; she caught a bad case of love for Cyclops. Hopefully this time she’ll hold on to her agency, and grow into the leader she’s clearly destined to be.
Marrow: After Callisto failed her Morlocks numerous times, leadership went to Marrow. As you might have guessed, she’s got bone powers, she’s a cranky jerk, and she was a so-so pick for a fighter in Marvel Vs Capcom 2.
See you again real soon, with the rest of our Mutantversity coverage. On October 7th we’ll be back with an even more in depth look at “Powers of X” #4 & 5, “House of X” #5, and our Mutantversity Monthly Medals of Merit!
