10 Most Disturbing X-Men Villains

6. Cassandra Nova

Shifting attention from one terrifying telepath to another now, with Cassandra Nova of course ranking amongst the most notorious X-Men villains to have ever hit the page.

Created by Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely during their lauded run on New X-Men, Nova is something that's known as a mummudrai, a parasitic being that can manifest as a physical presence. Unfortunately for Charles Xavier, this occurs when he's in the womb he happens to be occupying. Cassandra copies Charles' DNA and, after developing hands, attempts to strangle the future X-Men leader with his own umbilical cord. This causes Charles to fend her off with a psychic blast, prompting a miscarriage, and several decades worth of feuding between the two.

Nova is effectively the anti-Professor X, and has committed some truly despicable acts over the years, most infamously committing a genocide on the mutant nation of Genosha.

Scarier still, Nova has access to all the abilities Charles has the potential to use but hasn't yet accessed, including telekinesis, physical intangibility and the ability to remain undetected by even the most seasoned telepaths.

These powers have led to all sorts of gruesome encounters, with a particular highlight being the time she phased her hand into Donald Task's face and ripped it apart. Lovely.

Ewan Paterson

WhatCulture's very own resident movie guy, Ewan has been working in the content creation biz for over 10 years now, having started as a freelance contributor to WhatCulture Gaming all the way back in 2015. After graduating with a First-Class Honours in History from Northumbria University in 2017 (where he won a prize for a totally killer dissertation on the Watergate years), Ewan took on the role of Comics Editor at WhatCulture and quickly developed WhatCulture Comics into one of the biggest superhero-focused channels on YouTube. He followed this with a brief hiatus at Screen Rant in 2021, where he worked across the Gaming and Film sections as a writer and editor, before returning to WhatCulture as a Senior Content Producer / Presenter in 2023. He started his own podcast, We Love Dad Movies, in 2022, and has contributed several written pieces to the Eisner-nominated comics website Shelfdust as well. In his current role, Ewan incorporates his love of cinema, comic books, and history into written pieces and video essays for WhatCulture's Film & TV channel, as well as WhatCulture Gaming and WhatCulture Horror, with a particular focus on nineties-era Dad Movies, old school Westerns, and Golden Age Hollywood Noir. John Carpenter is his fave, and he thinks Batman Beyond should never have been cancelled. If that's your vibe, you'll probably like his stuff.

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