This is a sequel to my other effort post, perhaps the second in a trilogy but probably not. I was going to write a criticism about the more ridiculous elements of longtime X-Men scribe, Chris Claremont's legendary run on the book, but I figured someone would come in and just under mind the entire post by saying something like “of course it was ridiculous, it was the 80's!” So, I decided to write about villains that should be used more or that were misused that have faded into obscurity or otherwise.

The X-Men over the years have probably one of the best rogues galleries in comics, arguably the best for a team of super heroes. Their villains are at most times just as interesting to read about as the X-Men themselves and a lot of them would grow and change themselves along with the X-Men. Whether it was Emma Frost redeeming herself, Donald Pierce going from underling within the Inner Circle to psychotic leader of the Reavers, Cameron Hodge from corrupt, mutant loathing businessman to weird robot body Genosha dictator, The Brotherhood becoming government officials in Freedom Force etc. There was always an evolution that flowed with the villains as it did the actual X-Men team.

As of 1991 you can see the villains they had amassed in this famous picture by Jim Lee.

However, after this, as popularity and commercialism gripped the X-Men franchise, most villains didn't really shine anymore. They became uninteresting bad guys that just existed for the X-Men to beat up. Admittedly, there are still runs that exist with some good villains running around, however, as of the present, the X-Men don't even fight villains anymore and just really battle each other and other heroes most of the time.

So, this thread is dedicated to villains you would like to see used more or villains you think were wasted potential......

Claremont & Simonson's Version of Mr Sinister.

I don't know how many people are aware of this but, the original version of Mr. Sinister is far different from the one we would come to be familiar with. The original idea behind the character is that a boy Cyclops knew at the orphanage he grew up in, named Nathan, was really a mutant whose ability was that he aged slowly.....so in reality what looked like a young boy was a being who had been around for at least the turn of the century, and to fulfill his nefarious purposes he builds some sort of robot/android thing that presumably wields some sort of mystical power and names it Mr. Sinister.

However, I assume later writers that this idea was a bit quixotic and turned him into a generic mad scientist character, which is fine, some people like that trope. I just feel that there was a lot more weirdness and intrigue in his original concept as a villainous psycho trapped in a boy's body operating a powerful nightmare man robot.

You also get a lot of half assed explanations for a lot of his original plans, like what is his fascination with Cyclops?? Or his kid?? It was later retconned that he was obsessed with their genetics, but originally it seemed like he just out and out hated Cyclops and wanted to dismantle the X-Men. There was even the idea that Gambit was supposed to be a mole on the team working for Mr. Sinister in some capacity, which was later retconned into him being apart of the Marauders assault on the Morlocks.

Then there was things that sort of went unexplained, or given small glances of an explanation somewhere down the road....like what the heck was up with the orphanage Sinister was running?? There was a vast military style complex underneath it that was staffed and run by people that were in zombie like states. Were they clones?? Did they work for him willingly?? And probably strangest of all... why the hell does he have a veritable harvest of baby bodies?? Are these the kids that comprise the orphanage??

The original version of this character was far more creepier and all out terrifying than what we would wind up with, which is predominantly just a cackling villain who is obsessed with genetics.

Then of course there was intended connection to groups like the Upstarts. If you don't remember the Upstarts were a group who took part in “a game” to kill mutants and earn points or some such nonsense, and the winner of the game, out of all of the most derivative ideas was given “eternal life”. This was all arranged by the most cleverly named character of all time, the “GamesMaster” However, the original benefactor behind the group was supposed to be Mr Sinister....hence why him and his henchmen were always talking about “the game”.

Also, the The Marauders killed mutants much like the Upstarts were tasked with doing...so what was “the game” supposed to be exactly?? Just some sort of death frenzy?? Stoking the flames of mutant vs mutant violence?? I think the original idea for Mr Sinister was supposed to play him as the X-Men's Dr Doom. Their Magneto for the new millennium. The ultimate chess player manipulating events in the X-Men's lives from behind the scenes. However, I feel like this was wasted and he just comes off like any another evil geneticist in anyone's rogues gallery. He is no different than Miles Warren, Apocalypse or even Magneto himself who also demonstrated some bio genetic knowledge when he created the Savage Land Mutates. I wish that we had seen the original version that Claremont had intended is all.

Hey.....speaking of the Upstarts.......

The Upstarts

Look, I am not sure who exactly created the Upstarts, I think they just birthed out of the hodge podge of confusion from the very early 90s of X-men books, I think it was a combination of Lee, Byrne, Claremont and Portachio. Anyways, they were a group of supposedly young mutants who set out kill other mutants for personal gain, but instead of being a group with just a lieutenant and the rest of the characters just being, in a sense, lackeys, like The Brotherhood or the Morlocks, The Upstarts were a group where every member could and did function as an individual threat....

The problem with this group is that they were very short lived, and for all the power they wielded they weren't every effective. They were essentially a short blip in the X-Men's history that would just scheme behind the scenes and never really act on it, or what just be defeated within one issue or so, or just mysteriously turn up somewhere with no connection to the rest of the Upstarts anymore. I feel like they should have been a bigger threat to the X-Men overall, especially with a pretty appealing roster of interesting characters like this.....

Shinobi Shaw, Sebastain Shaw's bastard son who stole his accounts and attempted to usurp him as the head of the Inner Circle, potentially leaving him with a group of mercenaries and all sorts of contacts at his disposal.

The Fenris twins, who led their own personal splinter group of Hydra soldiers.

Siena Blaze, who was just overall a sardonic cunt and was extremely powerful but had the caveat of knowing how to use her powers, instead of being the stereotypical “not really evil, over confident youth” character trait that some characters get stuck with.

I think Siena Blaze has only actually appeared 5 or so times in X-Men chronology.

Fitzroy. Kind of a silly looking character (it's the hair) but none the less the most interesting. He is the only time traveling character outside of Rachel Grey in the X-Men lore that isn't some “Terminator” style character. He wasn't a wayward soldier back to prevent the dystopian future like Bishop or Cable, he wasn't some mutant hunting war machine like Nimrod or Ahab, and he wasn't a cyborg like the aforementioned Cable or Ahab either. He was just an asshole who wanted to use his veracious knowledge of the future to gain wealth and power and also used an indestructible power suit to kill lots of people, which was admittedly neat.

Fabian Cortez, who fooled a bunch of mutants using Magneto (whom he killed) as a martyr to following him to achieve his own goals. Cortez would eventually die and his Acolytes eventually joined Magneto, but still, the idea was legit.

Graydon Creed. Yeah, this guy was sort of uninteresting, I guess the fact that he was the human son of two mutants that hated mutants was a thing....but yeah, nothing more than a thing. I honestly would have just replaced him with somebody more useful.

Just saying, I feel like this group could have been tailored to be essentially what Hellfire Club was to the X-Men in the 1980's. A group that was a consistent thorn in the X-team's side. A group that fought among themselves while odiously killing mutants and whoever else gets in their way while simultaneously targeting the X-Men. As time went on the group could have splintered and wound up in different positions in the X-Men villain hierarchy. Instead, the team was just around for two or so years, if that, and then just sputtered out.

Vargas

There isn't a whole lot to say about Vargas. He appears during Claremont's run on X-Treme X-Men and apparently is killed at some point, though during his time when he opposes the X-Men he was an appealing and mysterious character.

His main goal was evidently to collect all of Destiny's Diaries, by which he would read and then find out things that would happen in the future and would try to prevent them by killing X-men apparently, well, that's why he killed Rogue at least.

Look, I don't have any really profound or well thought out reason to like Vargas. I think he just appeals to the 13 year old in me that liked to watch super heroes fight. Vargas was apparently some sort of super human who apparently knew “all da martial artz!” and could just dispatch a whole army by himself.

Image of Vargas murdering an army of intergalactic mercenaries by himself related...

In that sense I guess it's almost like answering the what-if question that what would happen if the X-Men had a Deathsrtoke like character, well, they have Deadpool, but Deadpool was always more of a parody character played for comedy. Vargas maintained an aristocratic air about him while being this mysterious super human that wields a broad sword in combat. Reminds me of old school, 80's “Deathstroke the Terminator” from the Teen Titans I enjoyed as a youth I suppose. Just would have liked to see the character be used more and taken as more of a large threat.

Gravemoss

This is a character not many have probably heard of, he briefly shows up in story arc during Warren Ellis' run on Excalibur and is obsessed with acquiring Magik's Soulsword. He seemed to have some mystical abilities and I feel like despite having many mystical characters within their lore, the X-men don't really have any villains that are exclusively mystical in origin. I mean, the X-men always feel like they are fighting some sort of random demon or some threat from Limbo related to Magik whenever encountering the arcane

I also feel it's weird that most villains in the Marvel Universe just usually want some form of political power or wealth and very few aim higher. There is literally demon and other sorts of Gods that they come into contact with regularly, so It makes sense that there would be a villain that schemes to take the powers of Cytorrak or some other inter dimensional being for himself or something along those lines, all the while being an opposition for characters like Magik, Amanda Sefton, Captain Britain, Pixie etc....

Plus, he has a lot of tattoos, and people think tattoos are kewl.

Bastion.

Bastion is a neat idea with poor execution....and I am not going to pretend that I am a expert on Bastion either, most stories that I have read that feature him I haven't read in a long time so...

...He is basically the Master Mold control unit built by Bolivar Trask merged with the highly advanced Nimrod Sentinel via the Siege Perilous, which means he has some sort of magical ingredients thrown into his biology as well. He emerges in the “Operation Zero Tolerance” crossover and reemerges once or twice before a major story arc within an X-Force book. Most of the time, during his representations he is written like a man, like any other mutant hating villain, just espousing prejudice and why mutants have to be wiped out. However, and oft forgotten detail is that in most dystopian futures that involve mutant genocide, the Sentinels usually turn on all humans due to their potential to create mutant offspring. Master Mold actually did that very thing and Nimrod used to often question what humanity is. Two traits that seem lost on Bastion.

I just think Bastion should be a very important villain in the X-Men's rogues gallery. I mean, if it turned out that he was responsible for some of the many terrible futures the X-Men encounter then the X-Men would have to accept fault that they inadvertently created Bastion in the first place, a big weight on their conscience. Not to mention that as Nimrod, he would have been capable of handling any form of super human rather easily, like when he beat the piss out of the likes of the Juggernaut and knew every attack the X-men would throw at him before they did back in X-Men #194.

People often think Apocalypse should be the “big bad”, “end boss” Darkseid-esque character of the X-Men franchise. I think it should be Bastion. He should be this cold, humanoid/robot entity that is just hellbent on ending all life on earth no matter what, because effectively that's what he was created for. He should speak in a monotone, robotic, almost alien like voice. He should be able to create and control any kind of random Sentinels out of any form of technology lying around, he should be virtually unstoppable in combat, unable to reasoned with and the greatest challenge the X-men have ever faced.

Something maybe like the iteration of Brainiac from the DC cartoons..... (best video I could find, other ones had terrible music in them)

So, what villains do you guys think need to be used more....or how do you think the writes should have used some villains that didn't live up to their potential??

While I love a maniacal villain from time to time, I would like to see more different factions.

Have various X-Men teams with different views, various Brother/Sisterhoods, various government sanctioned teams from different countries, different braches of the Hellfire Club with different agendas, outspoken religious groups both human and mutant (some benevolent and some not so), politicians, celebrities and businesspeople. Make the X-Men about social issues and grey areas.

With the rise of superhero movies, a lot of people are complaining that the villains are shallow and hard to relate to. We need more complex antagonists with different worldviews that can't be defeated with a punch in the face.

Well honestly i always like to get more Sinister and Bastian.

I feel Fabian Cortez had the capability to be a major player (were talking if Magneto was Malcolm X and Xavier is MLK, he'd be like the leaders of the nation of Islam swaying their supporters and messages to the point where hes so big the other two must work with him). And while that level of potential for his character is long gone, i've always felt that hes one of very few characters outside maybe the Hellfire Clubs inner workings whose ability to manipulate and control situations makes him more of a threat then anything else.

And while I think that his end was exactly what ultimately should've happened to him. I think that a modern Fabian Cortez who plays to the hearts and minds of people but is sectetly just manipulating and gaining power for himself....thats an enemy who could represent a threat that cant be beat with a mutant power, because his mask is to well crafted to be exposed or deposed.

Really my next pick? Ahab. Or the 616 equivalent of him. Not just because of what he represents to Rachel Grey and my need for more of her stories... but because there is this idea that by fighting more badguys and saving the day the X-Men can stop bad futures from happening.

But tell me does that mean that all the evil and twisted people we see in those timelines are "For want of a nail"? Would they have all been peaceful happy people instead of sociopathic monsters if the X-Men had done one thing different? Ahab is a guy who wouldve been a shit head in an alternate future, tried to avoid it in the current timeline, but was Ultimately destined to be a shithead of a different type. Combining elements of the original versions personality, skillset and way of operating with the 616 versions strength and what quams he had about his destiny. And you can make a very complex character who (without involving time travel, or a world level event) represents the threat of a bad future becoming real. And the fact that his methods include ruthless genetic experiments that takeaway humanity from a person...well honestly it makes him a much simpler but far deeper plot device then Apocalypse doing the same with his horsemen.

Sienna Blaze needs a resurgence...i just dont know if theres any story potential with her...or if there even should be.

Shinobi Shaw...but mostly because the Hellfire Club needs to be completely fleshed out and explored from top to bottom to give them some non "remember these guys?" Weight to their name and apperances in modern stories....continuity be dammed.

And that chick who cloned Magneto. Because i dont understand her or that plot but she liked effing with Mags and just imagine if she shifted her attention to Storm? Or even one of the Grey/Summer kids and set off some villain beef with Sinister and other evil X-Scientist.

Smh i dont even care that some(most) of them are dead. Theres so much potential villains and threats.....and were fighting other heroes or eachother or an unwinnable, unhittable battle against morality and hatred. I need to be reminded that the X-Men CAN and DO save the world. Because they havent done it in a very long time.

Seems like a logical outcome with so many mutants running around.

Interesting take with the Nation of Islam thing.

I think originally Cortez was supposed to have something to do with SHIELD. If you remember when he debuts in the Mutant Genesis story Claremont was playing around with SHIELD a lot. They were featured heavily in that story and they had been featured in the story with Rogue and Magneto in the Savage Land before that. They also were featured a lot in X-Men Forever which was supposed to be a continuation of Claremonts run and Cortez also showed up in that as well. I think the original idea was for him to lead some sort of SHIELD sleeper cell which is what the Consortium sort of was in X-Men Forever.

I was fine with him manipulating the Acolytes, but I wish they would have kept Magneto dead and left with him with the his group of Acolytes. I liked the idea of most of the Upstarts commanding their own groups and facilitating roles as super villains along with being part of a faction, much like, as I said, the Hellfire Club did.

You're speaking my language. The fact that things will end badly for mutants is essentially written in stone at this point and I like the idea that the X-men can't prevent it, but only delay it further or change it so instead of it being mutants murdered by Sentinels, it's mutants being murdered by meta-humans or whatever. Basically instead of a future like Days of Future Past they alter it to get Age of X or something....you get what I am saying....

I like Ahab, and he almost made this list, but they couldn't really bring him back because they.....er...."solved" Rahel's timeline. There is also the fact hat Fitzroy basically took his place and, as I wrote in my post, I just think Fitzroy has a more interesting agenda than Ahab had.....which was generic "I HATE MUTANTS!!!". Not to mention cyborg fatigue begins to set in.

Also, the Hound process was a weird thing that leads to convolution......It was something taken from the Shadow King who was shown to basically "invent" the process. Even in Rachel's future, it was shown that Shadow King ran the Hellfire Club. So you would have to dive into connections with Ahab being connected to Shadow King or what he effect he had on him and do something that so many writers fail to do...which is try explain Claremont story danglers.

Fun Fact: Fitzory actually did Ahab's place in the early 90's as Siena Blaze took Zaladane's (who had acquired magnetic powers from Polaris, similar powers to what Siena Blaze had). I believe the further development with Ahab in the past was that he was going to turn the remaining Morlocks from the Mutant Massacre into his hounds. Possibly where the idea fore Gene Nation was ripped off from.

I am not necessarily saying the Upstart characters should have a resurgence. I mean, I would hate it if they brought all these characters back and were like "OK, we are the Upstarts again!!" That would be retarded. I am saying the Upstarts should have been a decade, possibly longer than a decade recurring threat to the X-Men. As the Hellfire Club was in the 80s with Shaw making political maneuvers, Selene and her bid for power, Emma and her Academy, Sunspots father and his affiliation and Pierce turning renegade and forming the Reavers. I am just making a case that they were a good idea that should been more effective and should have been being quasi manipulated by Mr Sinister. Would have been neat.

@koays: I never liked the MLK/Malcolm X analog.

MLK abhorred violence, even in self defense. Xavier uses a group of trained freedom fighters to shut down anyone he deems a threat to his people. That sounds a lot more like Malcolm X to me.

Magneto and his ilk are basically Hamas. Bunch of crazy fruit loops with a bloodlust.

@sprior93: its not a good comparison when you dig into it. Just on the surface of the roles in their community. Really getting down to what Magneto wants does and says his goals are, it makes the comparison as asinine as saying Tupac and Biggie are the Malcolm X and MLK of rap.

Also the early Brotherhood as Hamas....yea pretty accurate. Same with the asteroid M. Crew.

@cattlebattle- Will break down reply later

I miss this fine young lady. Vertigo was one of my favorite Jobbers of all time.

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Azazel, Astra, Hellfire Academy

Nice thread. Some good insights here. Hopefully I can post more in depth shortly

@cattlebattle: Ok.

1. I feel like those X-Men Sheild stories sort of come and go out of left field and really arent what I wanted to read about(as a fan of some of the other plotlines going on and a person who is sort of bored by Sheilds presence) so I cant really say if that was the exact implication with Cortez from the beginning though that may just be because of how Lobdell's (?) alternate take on him as more selfish and blatantly "Starscream'ish" takes sort of takes "Sheild plant" out of the equation.

But i definetly feel like keeping Magneto "dead" and upping Cortez' use of him to gain power and control of the Acolytes is where the longevity is. I mean each of those lead villains needs to be judge seperately...but Cortez and the Acolytes very easily make a case for how relevant they could of been just by even prolonging any of Magnetos many absences from the late 80s onward and replacing his appearances with the Acolytes. Like Magneto doesnt have to return until Fatal Attractions...or even Eve of Destruction/ Claremonts New Excalibur . Just have the Acolytes do everything that he did, in his name...hell Genoshas Magneto fanatics would make sense in a world where the Acolytes have made the laws.

2. Honestly i like the idea of an ongoing battle between the X-Men and time. Maybe not the way its been presented with constant visitors...but like they get a package delivered and the mailman makes a passing comment that he was joining this new MRD division that hints at Rachels future. Or Xavier starts a special addition to the school that he names the same thing as Bishops police unit. Just the idea that they are on guard by the thought that they might not have averted a future they thought they did.

3. Idk about Fitzroy. Just because hes more fleshed out then i prefer a new major villain to be. (I mean we can simplify Ahab to just science and Hounds and wouldnt lose much) And while we know he has a instant focus enemy in Bishop...its hard to say he could show up tomorrow and be treated with the level of threat he actually is. Hes like Stryfe, super deep heated rivalry with Cable and awesome in that context...but if he shows up in Magnetos book he'd just be a really strong badguy antagonizing because he is the villain.

Ahab to me just has the sense that if he was schemeing something and the X-Men knew about it he'd be a top priority. Idk its more about the character mystique then anything else. Like he can get away with having hounds because he's Ahab and he turns people into his hounds. While Fitzroy requires a booklet to explain his powers.

I think what hurts Fitzroy is that so much was done with him. We know everything about him and why he was a great character but hes been gone for so long that if we wanted to reintroduce him as a character it would be feat.

4. Honestly though i can agree 100% with your last post. They are a bunch of characters who couldve defined an era....but for the most part were very limited in their uses and success and inadvertently contribute to the fatigue and lack of standout villain arcs from that era.

Also Sunspot and the Hellfire Club will remain the greatest missed opportunity in X-Men comics...but these younger more ambitious and colorful characters not prominently defining the era that relied on that very description to form an identity...thats now gonna have to make my list.

I was never a fan of the SHIELD inclusion particularly. I am just saying that I believe that the was the idea behind Cortez originally. A lot of Claremont's characters names bared weight to the actual character that possessed them, like Callisto, Caliban, Malice, Nimrod etc. and Cortez was likely named after the famous conqueror and explorer.....so there was likely a larger story to be told for him. I also remember in one of the issues from the Mutant Genesis stories that Cortez was able to punk Psylocke in hand to hand combat. So he was likely going to advance to a larger role in the X-Men's rogues gallery.

I think the Acolytes were supposed to be a one and done thing. Just as Magneto was supposed to stay dead. I mean, it's strange that Magneto would call the mutants that follow him, who sees as equals, "Acolytes", seeing that term is more akin to describing a lackey or henchmen. It would be like if a terrorist introduced himself and instead of saying that he was part of a group like ISIS or something he just said, "I am _____ and these are my lackeys!!" It's dumb. It isn't so dumb however if you take into context that Cortez fooled a bunch of mutants into religiously following Magneto all the while plotting to kill him, then it makes a little more sense.

Lol at the Starscream reference. Yeah, most villains turned into whiny unlikable knobs under Lobdell and Nicieza's pen. So did a lot of the X-Men too unfortunately.

I agree, and I wish they did more of that. However, the problem lies with the constant fluctuation of writers. One writer will establish an idea and some other writer comes along and has a different idea for how things will proceed. So anything set up will eventually be discarded.

I always have liked the idea of the teasing you can do with future characters. Like showing a future where a character is missing his arm or turned evil, like the whole Gambit being the Witness character or something like that, and then it makes you interested in the journey of how that plays out. Until of course, some writer comes along and decides that is not the real future and Gambit isn't really the Witness, which kind of reinforces my first point.

I don' know. I liked Ahab but I think that's mainly because I fond memories of Art Adams drawing him the Days of Future Present arc. The character is kind of silly when you think about it.

When Rachel first starts appearing in the X-Men regularly all the images she has of her future show just regular men in uniform, hidden behind dark sunglasses and assault rifles and military gear holding her leash. It made it feel more ominous and realistic. Like you were seeing a really disgusting side of humanity. When it was revealed that Ahab was the Hound Master, the fact that this big, garish, primary colored cyborg was the guy behind it was sort of disappointing. And speaking of powers, his were sort of ridiculous too. He just kind of had plot device abilities where he could do anything. Like shoot energy blasts, teleport, shoot electricity etc. whatever was convenient. Not to mention he was somehow able to ensure that nobody else could travel back in time from his reality....like how would one even be able to do that??

His Hound process was silly as well. He would just strap some mutants to a machine and tada......hounds!!! At least the Shadow King would explain how he peeled back the inner recesses of a persons mind to find their more barbarous desires.

Fitzroy was at least fleshed out and you were able to take him a bit more seriously and for the second time, I am not suggesting we resurrect any of the Upstarts, my point with them was that they should have been used more and had a bigger role.

Well, we still have New Mutants #49

While I agree that comparing a crazy Holocaust survivor to a salty antisemite always looked ridiculous, I have to ask did Magneto ever shield himself with his own people? Did he burn infants alive at integrations?

I wonder...

@adamtrmm:

"Did Magneto ever shield himself with his own people?"

Yes

"Did he burn infants alive at integrations?"

Obviously we'd never see something like that in a Marvel comic, but I wouldn't put it past the Lee/Thomas version of Magneto.

@sprior93:

Yes

I can't think of any example right now, can you give me some?

Obviously we'd never see something like that in a Marvel comic, but I wouldn't put it past the Lee/Thomas version of Magneto.

As idiotic as SA Magneto was, I, one again, cannot think of any example that indicates he was that evillllllllllllllll, more like a mad marginal who cannot stop verbally sprinkling nonsense, more so than by actual action.

The Hellions. So much potential to become either a new Hellfire Club or group of new villains that are not affiliated with the X-Men. Squandered by consigning them once again to Comic Book Limbo.

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Worst part is that we know the Hellions that comprise the team are not the only students associated with the team at the Massachusetts Academy, with more powerful ones like Firestar being trained as individuals per on-panel mentions.

I liked them mainly because while the New Mutants were mainly taught to be goody-goods, the Hellions were capable combat specialists, each trained to analyze an opponent and take them down quickly just like the Hellfire Club. The whole idea that they "weren't ready" so were justifiably unable to defeat Fitzroy is a bit of a retcon since the implication was that they went on a variety of missions like the New Mutants. Oh well!

Madylene Prior.
Selene.
Hellfire Club.
And
Frankly..
It's interesting to me when Cyclops, Emma, Storm, Rogue, Jean, Magik, and other's have their dark/villain moments.

@phoenixofthetides: Indeed, one of the most 4th wall breaking ways of basically declaring "the Claremont stuff is over" was having Sentinels just show up with Fitzroy and murder like 14 or so characters he created despite all the characters being shown to handle tougher situations beforehand.

One problem I had with the Hellions is that some of them seemed originally just to be evil dopplegangers of the New Mutants, though, that changed as time went on.

As for where they might of went, I always imagined Empath would have just become a villain on his own, considering nobody liked him really, not even the White Queen, and he often reciprocated those feelings towards everybody. Characters like Roulette probably would have been affiliated with the Hellfire Club somewhere down the line, Tarot and Catseye are hard to make a call on, and I didn't know enough about Beef or Bevatron to really say, Jetstream was pretty worthless though...Thunderbird/Warpath was always a weird case because when he opposes the X-Men in X-Men 194 he is being manipulated to a degree, and then when he joins the Hellions he generally seems to be a nice, well meaning person, then when he joins X-Force he is a dark, brooding person that enjoys violence. It's almost like he was a different character.

@cattlebattle: Magma liked Empath. Kind of.

*walks in* *walks out*

Magma was kind of an airhead.

@cattlebattle: Airhead? More like hothead!

o/\o

-____-

Nitro