Since their debut in 1963, the X-Men have been one of the most dynamic, compelling teams in comic book history, battling legendary villains like Magneto, Apocalypse, and the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants. Unfortunately, not every X-Men villain is as gifted or talented as the youths at Professor Xavier’s school. In fact, some are downright idiotic, a rogues’ gallery of complete goobers with the mutant ability to be lame as hell in spite of all efforts to the contrary. Much like Batman and Spider-Man, the X-Men rogues gallery is full of some majorly WTF-worthy characters that you need to know about.
From the pinnacle of 1990s comic book excess that was Onslaught to a mutant so head-scratchingly dumb that his power is to turn his body into dessert, these villains can barely get out of their own way, let alone thwart the X-Men’s plans. So on today’s episode of The Dan Cave, we’re celebrating the weirder side of X-Men history with a rundown of the best worst X-Men villains of all time.
Onslaught
If you ever wondered what it’d look like if Professor X and Magneto had a baby, then it sounds like we’ve been reading the same fan fiction. Unfortunately, the result was Onslaught, the bastard child of Magneto and Xavier’s subconsciousnesses. It was bad enough that this overpowered goon seemingly killed the Fantastic Four and the Avengers, but the icing on the unnecessary cake.
Peepers
Jack Kirby was, by all accounts, the King of COmics, and we wouldn’t have had some of the most important Marvel Comics characters ever made without him, but even monarchs make mistakes. Case in point: Peepers, a goofy-ass mutant who looks like the unholy union of Dobby the house elf and Bat Boy from Weekly World News. His power? As his name might indicate, he was really good at, uh, seeing stuff. That’s all, folks.
Black Tom Cassidy
What could be more terrifying than a cackling Irish stereotype who is able to shoot concussive blasts through a wooden shillelagh? To be honest, pretty much anything. Like spiders. Spiders are way more terrifying than Black Tom Cassidy. Alas and alack, this doofus was Banshee’s crappy cousin with the power to control plant life. He is rumored to be one of the villains in Deadpool 2, but considering Deadpool defeated him with a fart-powered gasoline ass cannon in the comics, I’m not keeping my fingers crossed.
Sugar Man
With a powerful tongue, the ability to alter his mass at will, and superhuman intellect, Sugar Man somehow manages to just straight-up suck. With the design of an apocryphal Aaahh!!! Real Monsters character, this evil geneticist from the Age of Apocalypse timeline is really good at setting up sinister-sounding plans only to have them blow up in his face while the X-Men repeatedly dunk on him.
Eye-Scream
Finally there comes a villain who can give Condiment King a run for his preposterous money. Eye-Scream, as his name suggests, can turn his body into any flavor of ice cream he chooses. This delicious dingus even managed to infiltrate the X-Mansion and the Danger Room at one point, only to be defeated by getting trapped in a freezer and frozen solid. To make matters worse, a birthday clown decorated him like a sundae and presumably left him to die a delicious death.
Forearm
A character so preposterous and on the nose, I’m surprised I didn’t create him myself. A founding member of the terrorist group, the Mutant Liberation Front, Forearm is a mutant with–you guessed it–four arms! I wish I had four arms so I could give this Z-grade baddie four thumbs down.
Ahab
Was your first reaction upon reading Herman Melville’s literary classic Moby Dick, “Yo, that whale was cool and all, but what if Ahab was a racist cyborg from the future?” If so, you might be interested in the X-Men villain Ahab, a geneticist who got tricked into cutting of his own leg with a laser, and went on to become a cyborg mutant hunter in the Days of Future Past timeline. Sure you can try and tell me that he was a Horseman of Apocalypse, but so was Psylocke in X-Men: Apocalypse and she didn’t do a goddamn thing.
Jeb Lee
Speaking of preposterous, crappy, and preposterously crappy Horsemen of Apocalypse, how about a Confederate soldier who plays a drum that uses a special frequency to give people cancer? Yeah, yeah, I know, giving people drum cancer is all about states rights or whatever, but it doesn’t mean this murderous moron should get a pass.
Which of these lesser X-Men villains is your favorite? Who would you add to this list? Let me know in the comments below!
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Image: Marvel Comics
Sources: Marvel, Wikia, Comic Vine, Newsarama, Screen Rant
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Dan Casey is the senior editor of Nerdist and the author of books about Star Wars and the Avengers. Follow him on Twitter ( @Osteoferocious).