The X-Men have become legends despite getting a pretty rough start. The formative years of the X-Men made them one of the greatest teams in the history of comics, combining brilliant superhero action, deft characterization, and real world issues to create something special. Over the years, some of the greatest heroes in the Marvel Universe have all been X-Men, showing the world that even the most looked down upon people can be heroes. However, not every X-Man has been a winner. While the X-Men have definitely created multiple new icons, they’ve also failed to create a lot of icons as well. When you’ve been an X-Men fan long enough, you have made a list of characters who you were hyped to join the X-Men that completely failed.
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The nature of team comics is that not every character can work out. This just seems to happen to the X-Men more than other teams. Not every character is going to be a breakout star. The worst X-Men run the gamut of villains who joined the team for evil reasons to heroes that are cool but just don’t work out on the big team. Some of these characters are great characters to read about, but their time with the X-Men just didn’t work. These ten X-Men all had a multitude of problems or just didn’t add anything to the team.
10) Jubilee
Jubilee isn’t a bad character at all. Her time with Wolverine made her into a legend for a certain generation of X-Men fan (my generation, actually), and she’s an amazing character to read about. She’s even helped the save day several times over the years. However, that doesn’t mean that she’s a good X-Man. More often than not, Jubilee was there as Wolverine’s comic relief or a built-in hostage, and she never really did much. Her powers took forever for her to master, and she was often a liability in combat. I will read any comic that Jubilee is in — if you want to see Jubilee as a great member of a team, go read Generation X or X-Terminators (Vol. 2) — and love her dearly, but she was never a good X-Man. However, she also wasn’t nearly as bad as some of the others, and that’s why she’s here at number ten.
9) Cecelia Reyes
1997 introduced three new mutants to the X-Men, and all of them are on this list. Cecelia Reyes was a normal person, a doctor in an emergency room, when the Prime Sentinels of Operation: Zero Tolerance attacked her. She ended up working with Iceman and Sabra, helping them battle O:ZT. She joined the X-Men after this, and was there until Uncanny X-Men #360/X-Men #80 cut the team’s roster down. She never really did anything, getting lost in the shuffle of the truly massive X-Men team she was a part of. Being a superhero was never really a thing that she was good at, and her powers — her body has a force field that keeps her safe from harm — weren’t very good in combat. She was a great doctor, and that’s basically the place she’s ended up every time she’s been a member of an X-team. She was a fine character, but she never took off.
8) Marrow
Marrow first appeared as a villain, the leader of the Gene Nation. The Gene Nation were a group of Morlocks who returned from the dimension they were sent to by Mikhail Rasputin, and started wreaking havoc on the human population. She ended up dueling Storm, and had her heart torn out. The end… but not really, as we found out that she had a second heart and survived. She helped out against Operation: Zero Tolerance, and joined the team. Her powers were pretty cool — her bones grow uncontrollably and she can pull them out to use them as weapons. She was basically the new Wolverine on the team, the edgy, mouthy loner who didn’t like anyone but desperately wanted to belong. I’ve always liked Marrow, but I can’t pretend that she was a good X-Man. She merely played a role in the team. She grew somewhat as a character during this time, but she didn’t become the new Wolverine, which is what everyone wanted for her.
7) Maggot
Maggot probably had the most potential of the ’97 X-Men recruits, but it took ages for him to actually grow into something interesting. Maggot was a great character design, and they did a good job of fleshing him out, even in his early days, but there’s a reason he was left off the team when the roster was pared down. When Maggot first appeared, it was assumed that he was Australian, but then he suddenly became South African. It was a funny little thing — it happened because of the transition from writer Scott Lobdell to Joe Kelly and Steve Seagle — but it showed how much the character was basically an afterthought. Maggot’s time on the X-Men wasn’t at all memorable for the vast majority of fans. He didn’t do anything interesting, and he never really shook out as a great character. It’s cool that he’s been getting more development as Omega Maggot in Storm (an excellent book that you should be reading), but don’t let anyone tell you that he was a good member of the X-Men.
6) Mimic
Mimic first appeared in X-Men (Vol. 1) #19, joining the X-Men after fighting them. Mimic wasn’t actually a mutant; he gained his powers from inhaling a red gas in his father’s laboratory. Mimic was able to copy the powers of the five original X-Men, and fought the team before realizing that they weren’t that bad and could help him out. Mimic was the first new recruit in X-Men history, giving him a place in the team’s legacy, but he was also never really all great as a member of the team. He was also one of the team’s first casualties, a rather ignominious honor. His powers were just copies, and he his personality can best be described as generic Silver Age character (in his first appearances with the team) and mentally screwed up hero after his resurrection. He’s ended up fighting the X-Men multiple times over the years after his resurrection, even joining Norman Osborn’s Dark X-Men. Mimic is a one note character, and while he’s definitely important to the history of the team, he’s also one of its worst members.
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5) Archangel
Archangel was one of the original five X-Men, and has played an important role in the history of the X-Men. However, let’s be real — he was always one of the worst X-Men. His powers never really allowed him to make any impact before getting his techno-organic wings. Even after getting his cool new edgy form, he was better in combat, but still wasn’t actually a good character. There’s only a couple of kinds of Archangel stories, and they stopped being interesting years ago. Archangel will always be a major member of the X-Men, but calling him a good member of the team is definitely a road too far, and that’s even before we get to that time when he gained healing blood and had sex with Husk in midair while her mother watched. Plus, his Apocalypse programming means that he can go crazy and attack the team any time creators want him to. Archangel has almost always been a wasted space on the X-Men’s roster.
4) Goldballs/Egg
Goldballs is the worst of the new mutants introduced in Brian Michael Bendis’s run on Uncanny X-Men/All-New X-Men, and that’s saying something. Goldballs was basically a joke character — his powers didn’t seem super useful (at first, at least, but we’ll get there), and he was mostly just the butt of jokes and a patented Bendis quip machine. However, eventually he became very important to the mutant race in the Krakoa Era, as it was revealed that his gold balls were eggs that could be used to facilitate Krakoan resurrection. While this made him a much more useful character to the X-Men, he wasn’t built as a character very much during this period. In fact, I’m pretty sure calling him a character isn’t exactly correct either. At best, he’s a plot element, and at worst, he’s just another new mutant that didn’t shake out.
3) Longshot
Longshot is the most ’80s character ever, but that isn’t the problem with him. Longshot was created in the Mojoverse as cannon fodder for Mojo’s violent games and joined the X-Men after breaking free. His powers were pretty much just that he was luckier than everyone else. He had cool throwing knives, but other than that, there’s really not anything cool about the character. His relationship with Dazzler gave him something to do on the team, but eventually he just sort of faded away. Longshot is another character whose use is extremely limited. He’s just an acrobatic dude who is lucky, and his girlfriend was always a thousand times better than him. In fact, let’s be real — the only reason anyone actually likes Longshot is because he was often standing next to Dazzler, whose aura rubbed off on him. Without Dazzler, there’s really no reason to have Longshot around. He was even replaced as the main Mojoverse hero when Shatterstar’s origin was finally revealed.
2) Sabretooth
So, just to be clear, we’re not talking about The Age of Apocalypse Sabretooth, who was actually a pretty great X-Man. No, this is 616 Victor Creed, and that’s why Sabretooth is here. Sabretooth has been a member of the X-Men several times, and it’s never because he actually wants to be there. The first time, he was forced to wear special restraints that wouldn’t allow him to hurt any members of the team, and was mostly kept in the Danger Room as a prisoner, only helping the team against the Phalanx because there was no one else Banshee could recruit. After Wolverine gave him a one-claw lobotomy in Wolverine (Vol. 2) #90, he pretended to be a harmless kitty, and almost killed Boom Boom and Psylocke escaping. He laterr joined Rogue’s rapid response team, taking the Wolverine spot on the team, and ended up not really doing anything of note before Wolverine decided that it was time to kill him in Wolverine (Vol. 3) #50. Sabretooth is always a detriment to the team when he joins; sure, when he’s allowed to kill anyone he wants, he’s useful but eventually he’s going to try to kill one of his teammates.
1) Mystique
Mystique is a vital part of X-Men history, but no one is ever going to mistake her for a good X-Man. Mystique has all of the same problems as Sabretooth whenever she joins the group. Usually, the only time she’s on the X-Men is when it’s part of some scheme. So, far example, there was that time that she pretended to a mutant named Foxx, all so she could Gambit to cheat on Rogue and prove she was right to hate him. She also joined Rogue’s rapid response team, but she only did so as part of a scheme by Mister Sinister, who she was working for at the time. Some people would point to Mystique’s time on the Quiet Council to prove that she was a good X-Man, but that was as much self-preservation as it was anything else. Even then, one time out of the rest doesn’t make her a good X-Man.
Who do you think are the worst X-Men? Sound off in the comments below.
