The 8 Worst X-Men Ever
For every Cyclops whining about how he can literally kill things as soon as he looks at them, there are numerous genetic disasters sitting around Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters putting quotation marks around the word 'gifted.'
Gaining superpowers by having accidentally-mutated DNA is like gaining control of a combine harvester by grabbing a random part: It might work, but you'll probably end up looking like the Hellraiser sneezed. Which is why, for every Cyclops whining about how he can literally kill things as soon as he looks at them, there are eight genetic disasters sitting around Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters putting quotation marks around the word "gifted."
Cypher
Cypher leaps into action.
Power: OmnilingualismImagine charging into a fight against people with powers such as unkillability, lightning bolts and earthquakes, and you've got ancient Greek. Such is the plight of Cypher, who is like the cruel punch line to the riddle, "Which of Zeus's powers would be the shittiest?" He can translate any language, but this power is "innate," meaning he can't understand or explain how -- so basically he's the Rain Man of the foreign language department, minus the gambling ability. In the comics, he functioned as a reverse Universal Translator. While the other mutants couldn't speak other languages, all the aliens and foreigners have always spoken perfect English until he turned up, and the writers needed to justify his existence.Realizing they'd accidentally added "linguist" instead of "lasers," the writers behind Cypher started torturing the English language in ways even Cypher couldn't have justified to make him useful. He became a hacker because of programming languages, a master martial artist through body language and could even spot a building's structural weaknesses because architecture something something language
A relationship which accidentally invented Yaoi several years too early.
He was so useless that "feeling useless" became his character's story arc, which was even more annoying to read than cursive Cyrillic, and his lame powers made him do both while Wolverine was off-panel kicking ass.
Maggott
It would actually have been less embarrassing if those were 80s shoulder pads.
The worst superhero parents since Mr. and Mrs. Aquaman. His powers turned him blue and caused him constant pain, because very-easy-to-draw graphical differences and complaining are the X-Men
Sorry, Maggott -- as you can see, we're well stocked with hero material.
Skin
He also whined, but so did every X-Man with an X in their group name. Note how even his backpack has unnecessarily scrotal dangly flaps. Skin isn't a combat organ. It's so weak against damage we invented armor. Hell, it's so weak against nothing at all we invented clothes. When your mutant power makes you more vulnerable to Indian rug burns, you really shouldn't be calling attention to yourself. Advice Skin didn't take. He was eventually crucified on the lawn of the X-Mansion, the wrong name was written on his gravestone and then he was dug up and cremated. That's writing someone out of continuity with extreme prejudice.
Kylun
Power(s): Sound recording, catness.Kylun could mimic any sound, directly causing an outbreak of voice-activated locks in terrorist forces worldwide. He also had magic swords which could not harm the pure of heart and looked like a lion, because Excalibur's creators were all seven-years old and Lion-O doesn't have lawyers. (Excalibur was the British X-Team, as you can tell by the way they having an extra letter in front of the "X" despite it being pronounced the same.) They were just
The first. He became increasingly feral as time went on just for something to do, despite that being the exact opposite of what happens when you hang around with people all the time. His one glorious moment came when a squad of "Warpies" assumed his sound-mimicking powers were no threat because they'd never seen Police Academy
A more painful attempt to look cool than drinking liquid nitrogen.
Wraith (Hector Rendoza version)
The power of looking like really shitty tattoos. He can transfer his transparent epidermisery to other people, making him the only mutant so terrible that his own body is trying to offload the X-gene. He wasn't the only Marvel character called Wraith, so that's two ways he proves comic writers aren't very good at new ideas. But he was unequivocally the worse of the bunch. John Wraith had an extended lifespan, military training and could teleport. Spider-Man's Wraith was an ex-policeman psionic Punisher. Zak-Del Wraith is immortal and has a gun that can be any gun and destroy other guns. Hector Rendoza, the X-Men's Wraith, can temporarily hide embarrassing tattoos.
One of these Wraiths is not (cool) like the others.
Jubilee
Power: Fireworks.Because the world needed someone even weaker than Dazzler! At least Dazzler had roller-skates, which is like being the Flash compared to Jubilee -- who put all the rest of her skill points into "annoying speech patterns" and "desperation." Despite a range of powers that extend to "bright lights that can hurt a bit," Jubilee has been in every group and series with an "X" in the title except XXXtube (give it time). That's the same power set as a decent torch. She talks like she was bitten by a radioactive mall written by old white men. In history's worst misfire of the Wayne process for turning your kids into superheroes, Jubilee's parents were killed in front of her. But instead of fighting crime, she decided to live in a mall and hassle security guards. She discovered that her plasmoid fireworks could actually hurt people a bit, just like real fireworks. Unfortunately, she has chosen to live in the one place in the world where "colored blasts of light" are more frequent than raindrops. They've tried for years to make her kick ass, equipping her with everything from graviton gloves through Pym Particles to antigravity plates. They even -- no shit -- turned her into a vampire, going so far as to transfuse her with Wolverine's blood. They even got rid of her stupid original powers, but it's a lost cause: If traumatic orphanization doesn't make you kick ass at fighting crime, nothing will
Skintight leather and trying to bang Wolverine. And in one panel, Marvel had exhausted its list of ways to make female characters interesting. Her main function is now as a living museum of the superheroic fashion mistakes.
We think the fashion disaster is to distract from the genetic disaster.
Beak
With powers like these, I could lose a fight to a seagull! And that's still not the most terrible thing he's ever done. No, that was getting his insectoid girlfriend pregnant. And by "pregnant" we mean "they covered a room in horrorpods."
This is where the good guys arrive and torch the place, right? Beak and Angel Salvadore proved every anti-mutant hate group right in under a week. It took her five days to spawn a swarm of horrors that looked like The Fly was painted by Renaissance Artists. As irresponsible as their copulation was to begin with, the blame here has to rest mostly with Professor Xavier, the super-mutant genius who put all the physically deformed mutants into the same special class without even once thinking about contraception. Since his school's entire existence is due to genetic misfires, that's a pretty big oversight. We know Xavier doesn't get much action below the waist, but surely he doesn't think X-babies are delivered by an irradiated stork? He's a telepath in a building full of teenagers, for god's sake.
Choir
Even she looks bored to be here, and she's about to land on a naked Wolverine like a triple-remora. The most amazing feat she's ever managed was not turning up in any horrible Rule 34 pictures while gathering images for this article, but unfortunately this is now Schrodinger's Porn: The act of publicly observing that there are no guarantees someone will create some.Luke McKinney also tumbles, hates plankers, and has a website. He has also over-analyzed The 7 Most Hilariously Mismatched Superhero Battles and found The 8 Shittiest Transformer Disguises.
For more superhero flaws, check out The 9 Stupidest Superhero Secret Identities and 9 Superhero Powers That Would Be More Trouble Than They're Worth.
