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Outcasts, even among the X-Men?

By Staff | Feb 26, 2020

I’ve listed the most unlikely Avengers and Justice Leaguers, but the X-Men are different.

Actually, different is the entire point of the X-Men, who strive to protect a world that hates and fears them, as well as defend fellow mutants from the violent tendencies of hate- and fear-filled humans.

The X-Men and their spinoff teams used to have pretty defined rosters. After Grant Morrison made Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters an actual school instead of an oversized clubhouse for core characters, things got a little hazier. Pretty much anybody who attended the school, dropped by or had access to Spandex was considered an X-Man. About the only requirement was being a mutant.

Except when it wasn’t.

10. Warlock – A member of the alien Technarchy, Warlock is considered a mutant because he developed emotions and did not want to battle his father to the death in a traditional rite of passage. Kids today.

9. Mimic – The first non-mutant to join, a lab accident gave Calvin Rankin the ability to duplicate others’ abilities. He became fixated on copying the original X-Men’s powers after a chance encounter.

8. Longshot – The genetically engineered Longshot was granted extraordinary abilities, including a supernatural streak of luck, by his creator in hopes that he could rebel against the despotic ruler of television-dominated Mojoworld. He was never technically considered a mutant, although the revelation that he was cloned from Shatterstar, who is also his son (time travel!), may have changed that.

7. Danger – When upgraded with alien Shi’ar technology, the X-Men’s Danger Room training facility somehow became sentient, which Professor X hid because, hey, a good action gym is hard to find? Anyway… “Danger” came to life and tried to exact revenge before joining the team, which has a pretty open-door policy for reformed enemies.

6. Broo – Among the X-Men’s most vicious enemies are the Brood, hive-minded, insectoid aliens that implants hosts with their offspring. Broo is a young, mutant Brood whose instinctive bloodlust is (mostly) suppressed by a brilliant mind and kind, outgoing nature.

5. Kid Gladiator – An alien whose powers of super-strength, flight and energy blasts are native to his species, young Kubark was sent to the X-school by his father, Gladiator, leader of the Shi’ar Empire, who grew to respect the X-Men over years as an ally and enemy.

4. Tom Corsi and Sharon Friedlander – A police officer and nurse magically transformed from Caucasians to Native Americans during a New Mutants kerfuffle, they joined the Xavier School staff because they didn’t know where else to go. They were later pressed into service in a ragtag group of X-Men defending Muir Island from the Reavers.

3. Spider-Man – Offered membership back in 1966’s “X-Men” #27, the non-mutant hero joined the faculty following Wolverine’s “death” and served as a mentor to a class of wayward youths, while also searching for a suspected traitor.

2. Deathlok – There have been many versions of this time-traveling zomborg, one of whom gave a guest lecture while the school was being run by Wolverine and just sort of stuck around, lending his black-ops skills to X-Force.

1. Kavita Rao – Taking the top spot is a human who invented perhaps the greatest existential threat to the team: a cure for mutation. Although she wanted to help mutants whose powers posed a genuine threat to themselves and others, her work was supported by an alien who was trying to wipe out mutants, so, awkward. The Beast eventually brought Rao into the X-Club, a group of scientists working to reverse the magical effects of M-Day, which depowered most of the world’s mutants.

Evan Bevins is the writer of the webcomic “Support Group.”