10 Most Interesting X-Men You've Never Heard Of

The X-Men are one of Marvel's longest running and most popular teams. The group has appeared consistently throughout the years, starring in multiple titles and even spawning several spin-off groups. The team itself has also been through periods of great expansion, taking in members from mutant communities all across the globe.

The point is, the X-Men and their associated teams have had a lot of members. Now, not everyone can be a Storm or a Nightcrawler or a whatever that guy with the claws is called and, inevitably, some of these new faces fall into obscurity.

Certainly, when they're first introduced, a big deal will be made of these characters. But they'll soon get pushed aside for more familiar faces. If they're lucky, some of these characters might fall into the hands of a writer who likes them and spend a brief period back in the limelight, but then they'll just get shoved right back into the background.

That doesn't mean they aren't great characters though. Indeed, often some of the X-Men's most interesting heroes are the ones who don't get used that often. Other times though, they're characters who probably deserve to hang out with the guy who can control maggots.

Sage was first introduced in the 1980's as Tessa, a member of the Hellfire Club and personal assistant to Sebastian Shaw. However, it was later revealed that she was really a spy, working for Professor X.

Tessa had met Charles Xavier years ago when she helped him get to a hospital after a battle with the evil alien Lucifer (some bad guys aren't exactly subtle) left him crippled. Tessa was one of Charles' first recruits for the X-Men but, instead of adding her to the team, he sent her to spy on the Hellfire Club, suspecting they could be a problem in the future.

After her cover was blown, Sage joined the X-Men proper. She helped a team led by Storm (the abysmally named X-treme X-Men) find diaries written by the prophetic mutant Destiny before leaving to help Sunspot take over the Hellfire Club. Since then she's appeared on the spin-off team Excalibur and travelled to alternate realities with the Exiles and a new team of X-treme X-Men (some sadist decided we can't just let that name die). She hasn't been seen since that series was cancelled.

Part of what might make writer's reluctant to use Sage is how vague and arbitrarily thrown together her powers are. Apart from telepathy, she has "superhuman mental processing" which usually translates to "is good at computers" and can "jumpstart" other mutant's powers, which pretty much gives them the ability to resolve whatever plot they're in.