PsiViners' Marvel/X-Men Telepath Tier List & Ranking

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Cable, more accurately "Base" Cable from the early 90s through Revolution Era where he had his Techno Organic virus but began to explore his psionic powers more.

Cable may seem like an interesting choice for the highest Mid Tier telepath given he's mostly known for his guns and having to use most his powers to hold back his T/O virus. But it's important to note that before being repeatedly depowered in the 2000s, the Cable of the 90s was considered to be one of the most powerful telepaths on the planet even with most of his power being restrained, and was able to keep up with or surpass even Jean Grey as far as feats as she was depicted in that Era with some unique and impressive feats.

While he eventually would cure himself of his Techno Organic Virus and become his God Tier incarnation known as "Savior Cable", it's important to note that even prior to reaching that level and after his powers were broken, Cable's telepathic power and skill were considered to be among the best.

Reasons why Cable deserves this spot:

• Onslaught considered him to be one of the strongest telepaths on the planet and a direct threat to his plans.
• With Nate Grey's power out of control and effecting telepaths across the entire planet, Cable was still able to restrain him and put his mind back together
• He reversed Onslaughts mind control on Hulk and the X-Men
• Even depowered, he's shielded his mind from Xavier, Jean Grey and Emma Frost.
• Stryfe, his clone who has had his powers augmented to be at their very peak, was so scared of Cable's growth by the end of the 90s that he came to the X-Men for help (and Cable still mindscrewed him for his trouble)
• With 90's Jean's help, they shielded themselves and the X-Men from a fully powered and amped Onslaught's telepathic assaults
• His power as a Teen was enough to break the connection between Apocalypse's soul with Stryfe and even bridge the gap between Other World and Earth to reach Jean Grey telepathically.

Cable's Respect Thread

https://comicvine.gamespot.com/cable/4005-2157/forums/mutant-soldier-future-savior-a-cable-respect-threa-2021084/

Some Highlights

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What? Nate Grey? Below Cable? Impossible!

Usually you'd be right, but we've seperated Nate Grey into his Pre-Shaman appearances and his post Shaman appearances when he gained control of his powers.

What's important to note about Nate is that while in the 90s he was hailed as the most powerful psychic to ever exist, he kept running into 2 problems.

1) He was having his powers and life force drained by everyone including Threnody and his recreation of Madelyne Pryor.

2) He was a novice and rarely used or his telepathy to great effect or much at all, usually favoring his telekinesis.

While Nate certainly impresses in a few flashy moments, his showings against other telepaths bring him down a lot: Cable getting past his defenses during Nate's most powerful feat, Sinister mapping his mind and handwaving his telepathic attacks, Madelyne Pryor (a novice in her own right) nearly defeating him when they had their telepathic confrontation.

Nate's a powerhouse able to shake the psychic plane with his presence, but ultimately suffers whenever he faces more skilled or comparably strong telepaths who know how to defend against his power even when he's in some of his most powerful incarnations.

Despite Nate having raw power that matches or even surpasses that of most High Tiers, it isn't enough to make up for his poor skills, lack of stamina and lack of factors other than the power that he brings to the table.

Nate isn't a scrub and he can give a hard time to anyone he fights, but his position can be summed up as being exactly where insane raw power and no skill stop carrying you up the ladder.

Reasons why Nate belongs here:

• Consistently said to be the most powerful psionic the X-Men (including Xavier himself) have encountered, and even the most powerful in existence
• He quaked the astral planes in AoA and again in the 616 when he arrived on Earth
• He dragged Xavier's astral form into the real world and nearly overwhelmed his defenses
• When his powers went out of control he damaged the astral plane enough to harm Jean, Xavier and Psylocke on the other side of the world
• He's pretty damn strong despite not actually using telepathy often
• He was able to shield himself from Professor X's scans for weeks

Nate's RT:

https://comicvine.gamespot.com/x-man/4005-15051/forums/shaman-of-the-x-a-nate-grey-respect-thread-2021066/

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The Goblin Queen of Limbo.

Maddie has been a consistent thorn in the side of the PsiViners collective since it's inception as she's had more powerset (and power source) changes than most characters who are ranked. This makes it hard for us to nail down where she falls on the list given her raw power has gone from being supported by the Phoenix, to supported by Nate Grey to "She's a ghost so idk how strong she's supposed to be".

Suffice to say, the PsiViners collective has butted heads and shrugged shoulders a lot in the past over this character, but feel like they've nailed down where she is in this current iteration. Because while the power behind her has often changed, Maddie has consistently shown a certain power level, and that she is a uniquely skilled and creative telepath often using whatever powers she has to do things rarely or never done by other psychics....which considering she also has a pension for using magic, is something that makes her stand out among the X-Men psychics.

Maddie does have some big downsides, mostly in regards to combat, but also in that most of her high end skill feats require extremely vulnerable opponents to be as successful as they were.

Reasons Maddie deserves this spot:

• She is the clone of Jean Grey, which says a lot
• She's got a unique psychic bomb attack that took Rachel Grey out by surprise,
• Was able to trap Jean Grey and Magik in a psychic dreamscape
• Pulled Cable onto to the Astral Plane twice, once through Apocalypse's most busted shielding
• Her death and resurrection sent out a psychic wave that everyone connected to the astral plane felt.

Maddie's RT:

https://comicvine.gamespot.com/madelyne-pryor/4005-10981/forums/all-powerful-queen-of-all-xerox-a-madelyne-pryor-r-2016278/

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Jason Wyngarde, the Mastermind.

Right off the bat, we 'need to state for anyone thinking "hey he's not a telepath!" that theres only so much rewriting memories, placing mental blocks and battling on the astral plane that we can ignore before we're forced to let someone in.

Mastermind is an OG X-Villain with incredible capabilities, but more than that, he possesses impressive showings against some of the best High Tiers we have. In fact, if it weren't for the fact that his primary power is illusion based, we'd very clearly have to admit that he's underranked here.

He may be one of the most skilled psychics among the rankings.....but at the end of the day when forced to prove it, he tends to need a little time to set up before he can have a solid chance, which is why he ended up here....since this is about as far as sneak attacks and clever applications can get you without being able to take a solid punch.

Reasons he belongs here:

• On his deathbed, he pulled Jean Grey and her teammates into his mind and trapped them (and that's while trying to be nice)
• His surprise attack on Emma Frost left her in a coma for months
• Rewrote the Sentry's mind to such a degree that it created the monstrous void entity
• Mindscrewed Phoenix Rachel Summers
• Trapped cosmic entity The Stranger in several illusions repeatedly.....although he got turned to stone for his trouble
• Was able to mind control Phoenix Force Jean Grey with the help of an amping device

Mastermind's Respect Thread

https://comicvine.gamespot.com/forums/gen-discussion-1/respect-mastermind-complete-respect-thread-2009563/

Some Highlights

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Xorn.....or Xorna.....or rather the future version of Teenage Jean Grey that appeared in the Battle of the Atom crossover Event.

Xorna showed off a handful of impressive abilities in her very short tenure in the books, but ultimately she is here because she defeated the combination of depowered Emma Frost, the 3 in 1 Stepford Cuckoos and the inexperienced Teenage Jean Grey.

This is actually a hugely important factor in dividing the top of mid tier from everyone else using the most important factor we have, "Scaling".

Xorna scales directly above the Xavier Jr. who was defeated by the Cuckoos and Teen Jean, and also above the 3 in 1 who are obviously less of a threat without Emma than they are with her.

This is pretty relevant as we go further down the list and see characters that have directly interacted with each other

Reason she deserves this spot:

• Mind screwed Magik during a time when we were told you shouldn't even go into her mind.
• Defeated depowered Emma Frost and the Stepford Cuckoos
• Frozen or taken out entire rooms of X-Men, including those with strong telepathic defenses like Magneto with his helmet, Cyclops, Magik, Storm, Future Quentin Quire w/ the Phoenix, teen Jean, Kitty Pryde.
• Implied to be more powerful than Xavier Jr.

Xorna's Respect Thread-

https://comicvine.gamespot.com/forums/jean-grey-334/the-psionic-ticking-time-bomb-a-xorn-jean-respect--2096333/

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Cable's weird little friend....Blaquesmith.

Blaquesmith is an interesting character in that he's been around since the 90s and that he's one of what we call the "Askani Psychics" telepaths from the future that Cable grew up in.

That makes ranking him interesting for 2 reasons: The first is that theres a massive shift in power levels and portrayals of psychics from 00's onward that make them more powerful than most 90s incarnations and secondly because the Askani psychics all scale to Mother Askani and/or a fully powered Cable in one way or another....

Regardless of the background details that may or may not confuse you, Blaquesmith helped raise and train Cable was a student of a future Rachel Summers himself and was consistently shown to be capable of giving a run for their money to the best telepaths in the 90s. That said time marches onward even for little weirdos from the future and his few feats in the 90s have long since been surpassed.

Reason he deserves this spot:

• Frequently snuck up on powerful psychics like Cable and Xavier.
• Froze and then rewrote the memories of Xavier, Jean Grey and all the X-Men after blocking them both out of his mind
• Briefly went toe to toe with Nate Grey when the latter was throwing a tantrum
• Onslaught was so concerned with him he tried to destroy him alongside his base.

Some Highlights

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Next up is the alternate future telepath and son (formerly grandson. lol retcons) of Professor X, Charles Xavier Jr.

Xavier Jr has very limited appearances that make his case for being VERY powerful short and sweet, but he also has a major defeat that drags him down immensely.

Xavier Jr is another perfect example of a mid tier, being capable of dominating multiple people at once, but ultimately not measuring up to a high tier getting serious as seen when he surprise attacked Rachel twice only to be one-shot, and when a Generation X era Emma Frost from an alternate timeline crushed him in a single panel.

Still his superiority over other telepaths with planetary reach makes him very much a solid telepath who's above most of his competition in the Tier

Reasons he deserves this spot:

• He telepathically controlled 4 members of his brotherhood and the Stepford Cuckoos while projecting a psychic construct of Xorn Jean to fight for him and telepathically dominating a Teenaged Jean Grey
• Even after having his power drained by Teen Jean's Pink form, being stabbed by X-23 and being dragged into the Stepford Cuckoos Hivemind, he was still strong enough to fight back psychically and cloak his escape from 2 teams of X-Men.
• When confronted by a more powerful and better trained Teenage Jean Grey, he completely no sells her attacks. She also claimed that her defenses would not keep him out for long
• Mind Controlled the entirety of Cyclops' team to fight each other, including the 3in1 Stepford Cuckoos, and people with high TP resistance like Cyclops, Magik and Kitty Pryde

Xavier Junior's RT:

https://comicvine.gamespot.com/xavier/4005-93832/forums/xavier-junior-respect-thread-2096409/

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A scientist who thought the best way to accomplish her goals was to download the knowledge and powers of Mister Sinister into her DNA....so of course she's very reasonable.

Miss Sinister is what could best be described as the telepathic equivalent of rookie of the year.

Within days of getting her powers, she was sneaking up on Xavier and putting him on edge as she could sense his powerset and abilities. She even set traps for him in someone's mind.

Suffice to say, she's got Sinister's powers so what she does is expected, but she's also very limited in her showings so she can't climb up higher even with the trouble she gave Xavier without much experience.

Reason she deserves this spot:

• Being a pain in the ass to top tier psychic Prof. X
• Resisted domination of Mr. Sinister for an extended period of time when his persona resurfaced....something Prof. X struggled with in the same situation

Miss Sinisters respect thread:

https://comicvine.gamespot.com/miss-sinister/4005-56522/forums/female-failsafe-miss-sinister-respect-thread-2021312/

Some Highlights

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Welcome to Teenage Wasteland....up first The 3 in 1 Stepford Cuckoos.

We are in an area of the tier where psychics are so close together in powers and abilities that the only things that truly make them above or below each *``other are their unique factors.

The Cuckoos in this incarnation aren't dominating but they are certainly showing off their powers in the most balanced way. The girls have some of their better showings of troubling High Tiers and showcase exactly what a mid tier telepath should be capable of at minimum on the regular. They've got great range and some amazing power feats, but where they shine is skill and showcasing it, with them having taken a couple of mid tiers down a peg and taken a lot of minor feats off high tiers without much trouble. The fact is though, with the 5 in 1 back and active again, it's hard to remember that a lot of what makes them a factor among high tiers is what the girls could do when they were at their weakest here.

Reasons they deserve this spot:

• Blocked out both Emma and Xavier's telepathy
• They ripped Quentin Quire's astral form out of Cerebro and mind controlled him another occasion.
• Invented a psychic attack that utterly devastated Legion's mind with just a touch
• Dragged Xavier Jr into their mind
• Saw through Emma Frost's illusion's during Death of X.
• They linked minds of people around the planet on several occasions

Cuckoos' RT:

https://comicvine.gamespot.com/stepford-cuckoos/4060-4443/forums/sisterhood-of-the-hive-a-stepford-cuckoo-respect-t-2015688/

Some Highlights

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Here we have Quentin Quire, the Kid Omega, and the reason for the rule about Omega Level not really meaning too much.

Quire as a telepath initially comes off as pretty impressive. Omega Level, thinks pretty fast, potential Phoenix host, has given some trouble to high tiers.....why not be higher on the list?

Well the consensus is mostly that Quire's fails are too numerous. He's been repeatedly stomped by the Cuckoos, left bloody by Rachel Grey, made to shit him self by Emma Frost and recently caught a case of chronic death syndrome.

However, the Krakoan Era has given us the most consistent Quentin Quire we've ever had and opened up the door for a lot of potential growth in the future.

Quire's growth has seen him accept his failures in the past and confront the overconfidence and under performance that has plagued him his entire existence. He still needs better feats to reinforce it, but it's clear Quentin's past feats seem a lot less like one offs. Suffice to say he is solidly mid tier since this new attitude might make it easier to put his skill to use, but he still needs to prove himself better than some of those old failures a bit more before he can even top out Teenage Wasteland.

Reasons he deserves this spot:

• His surprise attacks have taken down Emma, the Cuckoos and an entire school of X-Men.
• Blocking Emma Frost's TP
• He's blocked out Red Onslaught's psychic hate wave for an entire night.
• Was able to fool the Pale Girl for hours despite her previously getting the drop on X-Force and being called the closest thing Xavier had felt to Jean Grey.
• Blocking out Rachel Grey from his mind while he was busy running a very intricate illusion on Wolverine which he had been doing for days
• Created a complex psychic construct in his mind to pull people into
• Trapped the Stepford Cuckoos in a psychic loop.

Quentin's RT:

https://comicvine.gamespot.com/forums/gen-discussion-1/respect-quentin-quire-the-kid-omega-2010213/

Some Highlights

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The Time displaced teenage version from the All New X-Men runs

While she's more hyped as a telepath than her limited showings might support, (a lot of lines are blurred between this version's abilities and what she'd one day become) she nonetheless possesses impressive showings.

There's a lot that could be said about the positives and negatives of how her powers were written, but at the end of the day she's quite possibly the most solidly mid tier psychic we have, capable of swinging up to the border of high tier but still being vulnerable to some of the shenanigans in Low Tier. Ultimately, she's going to give a run to any of the other people in the tier even if she doesn't succeed in the end.

Why Jeen deserves this spot:

• She couldn't affect Xavier Jr with her powers, but she managed to shield herself and the other X-Men from anything he wanted to do to them for a while
• Has defeated the likes of Karma and Lady Mastermind
• Was able to fight off Emma Frost's mental defenses in the deepest, darkest corner of her mind
• Psylocke was able to get around her Psi-Shields but ended up with a bloody nose for her trouble when Jean kicked her out
• She was able to stalemate Cosmic shard amped Emma Frost and free teen Cyclops from her brainwashing.
• 5 seconds after finding out she was a telepath, she broke through the psychic blocks Xavier had placed in her mind and left Wolverine unconscious on the floor
• She was able to mask her and Cyclops presence from Xorna and Xavier Jr for a good amount of time, despite them working together and Xavier Jr. being amped by a Cerebro Pill

Jeen's RT:

https://comicvine.gamespot.com/forums/gen-discussion-1/current-jean-grey-respect-thread-updated-120417-1885489/

Some Highlights

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Remember him? No? That's ok.

Gamesmaster is an omnipath, capable of linking with everything from people and animals to plants and machines. He is constantly connected to everyone and everything on the planet and he wears headgear in order to contain his immense psychic power.

So why is he so low down here?

Well, Gamesmaster showed up in the 90s to be a sneaky psychic threat, kidnapped Jean Grey and erased the X-Men's memories of her, and then promptly ran away as soon as she broke free and only showed up again to vaguely imply interest in X-23.

Suffice to say being afraid of early 90s Jean makes you a mid tier, but seeing as Cable, Nate, Maddie, Mastermind and Blaquesmith were all around in the 90s and none of them ran away when they saw early 90s Jean coming, it's kinda hard to give him the benefit of the doubt.

Reasons he deserves this spot:

• He's constantly in contact with every mind on the planet
• Controlled an entire town including the X-Men
• Read Cable's mind effortlessly despite everyone from Jean to Xavier and Emma not being able to in that Era.
• Tweaked Siryn's memories well enough that Xavier and Cable never noticed it
• Trapped Jean Grey in a psychic prison
• Broke free from Jean Grey's psychic hold.
• Mind Controlled the New Mutants which included Karma and Dani

Gamesmaster's Respect Thread

https://comicvine.gamespot.com/forums/gen-discussion-1/respect-gamesmaster-the-oppressive-omnipath-2021007/

Some Highlights

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It wouldn't be the Grey-Summers family without clones...and that includes our next entry on the list, Stryfe.

Stryfe is the poster boy for the "Expectation vs Reality" meme. He is the clone of Cable without the techno organic virus and thus should be what Cable would be at his full potential, which is a supposedly godlike psionic...but unfortunately that is not the case.

Despite his origin and statements calling him the most powerful telepath to walk the Earth and such, his feats do not match the hype. This is not to say he has not shown himself a capable telepath. He has done some great things like enthralling Professor X's mind, taking over Cable's body, and being strong enough that it took the combined effort of Xavier and Jean to break into the depths of his mind.

However, his anti-feats really hurt him a lot. From getting mind screwed badly by a Cable whose powers were at a lot point, to being unable to see Betsy who didn't have TP because she was able to defend her mind, to losing to Warpath on the Astral Plane...it's not a good look.

Ultimately, Stryfe lands in our mid-tier list. While it's nothing to scoff at as the mid-tier list is full of great telepaths, it unfortunately falls very flat from what he is supposed to be

Reasons for Stryfe being ranked here

• Multiple statements abut being one of the, if not the most, powerful telepath on Earth
• He was able to enthrall Professor X with his telepathy
• Able to block Dani Moonsters psi arrows which are extremely potent
• When Stryfe's mind was inside Cable's, he was able to take control of him
• Took the combined effort of Xavier and Jean to break into the depths of Stryfe's mind
• It took all of Cable's effort to be able to cloak from Stryfe

Stryfe's Respect Thread

https://comicvine.gamespot.com/stryfe/4005-7616/forums/stryfe-respect-thread-2243011/

Some Highlights

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Thena the Eternal! Among a race of telepaths, Thena is among a few who stand out.

Although her use of telepathy is rather limited despite her appearances, the little she's shown is very solid. Her ranking is mostly based off her encounters with Exodus. She managed to stalemate him multiple times throughout a prolonged scuffle between some heroes and the Acolytes. Even when an amped Exodus unleashed his full wrath in a telepathic outburst, she was able to protect the minds of her team from him. She was also able to join minds with Exodus and Man-Beast to take out the Higher Evolutionary.

While she did decently against Exodus, she is very limited in her showings and so can't really go much higher than where she is.

Reasons Thena deserves this spot

• Thena, along with Exodus and Man-Beast combine their powers to psychically assault the High Evolutionary to the point where his power is completely depleted.
• Shields her team's minds from an amped Exodus' telepathic assault that would have killed them
• Thena stalemates Exodus multiple times during their encounter

Thena's Respect Thread

https://comicvine.gamespot.com/thena/4005-13822/forums/prime-eternal-heiress-616-thena-respect-thread-2242032/

Some Highlights

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A telepathic dog in a space suit is what we needed, and that's exactly what Cosmo is.

You might think a telepathic space dog is just a meme character but Cosmo is actually a capable telepath. He has been able to telepathically scan all of Knowhere which is anywhere from city to moon in size. He has also shown a creativity in his telepathic attacks, being able to take out opponents using fear and desires, and even psychic hammer blows that can extinguish minds. Cosmo was one of the 3 telepaths, along with Moondragon and Mantis, to keep Thanos mindlocked after he was severely hurt by the cosmic cube. Cosmo also managed to gleam Silver Surfer's surface thoughts despite the latter's very formidable mental defenses. When Thanos' pain was radiating, Cosmo was able to dampen it, while it was too much for Mantis to bear. Cosmo was also able to figure out the lies being told by Cancerverse Wanda which Mantis failed to do. In an altercation with the Shi'ar, Cosmo was able to block out Oracle's attacks for a prolonged period while simultaneously blocking off the rest of the Shi'ar Imperial Guard with his telekinesis.

Overall, Cosmo is a decent telepath, showing a variety of applications for his telepathy and getting one-ups over fellow telepaths, and sits comfortably in the lower end of our mid-tier list

Reasons Cosmo deserves this spot

• Mindlocked a weakened Thanos with Mantis and Moondragon
• Scans the minds of everyone on Knowhere to find a bomb
• He managed to read some of Silver Surfer's surface thoughts
• Forced Adam Warlock to see Cosmo's side of things
• Can utilize a "psychic hammer" attack that can extinguish minds
• Has been able to block out Oracle's Tp for a prolonged time while blocking the Imperial Guard with hsi TK

Cosmo's Respect Thread

https://comicvine.gamespot.com/cosmo/4005-49203/forums/mans-best-friend-a-cosmo-the-space-dog-respect-thr-2021904/

Some Highlights

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Next up on our list is Mantis.

If there is one thing Mantis is going to do, it's phone a friend from far, far away. Mantis has achieved planet hopping all across the cosmos by sending her psyche through plant life, communicating with people in different dimensions, to fighting her son telepathically from lightyears away.

Mantis doesn't stop at just having great excellent range. She has shown a wide array of telepathy. She can mindwipe entire communities of people, turn off pain receptors, boost people's powers and shield minds, cloak the presence of herself and others, transfer her consciousness into foliage, and scramble brains. Some of her best showings include reading the mind of Silver Surfer, mindlocking a weakened Thanos with Moondragon and Cosmo, and last but certainly not least, giving Thanos a hell of a fight telepathically.

However, her vast range and few high end feats don't really make up for her average/consistent levels, and so for now she remains at the lower end of our mid-tier list.

Reasons Mantis is ranked here:

• she read Silver Surfer's mind
• Has really massive range feats
• Managed to give Thanos a good fight mentally
• Managed to fight her son mentally from lightyears away
• Mindlocked a weakened Thanos with Moondragon and Cosmo
• Placed an unconscious Silver Surfer in an illusion to help him recover

Mantis' Respect Thread

https://comicvine.gamespot.com/mantis/4005-3324/forums/the-celestial-madonna-a-mantis-respect-thread-2079774/

Some Highlights

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Sersi is the second Eternal on our list.

Initially, we had her neck and neck with Thena in our rankings, maybe even slightly above her, because Sersi has a lot more showings of telepathy. She has achieved planetary range twice, scanning all the inhabitants on Earth. She has also been able to communicate with people across dimensions. At one point, she managed to create a Uni-Mind for an alien race. As far as combat, she has shown to block telepathy, including tanking a telepathic assault from Exodus. These feats, among others, show the amount and variety of feats she has are well above what Thena has shown.

However, upon closer inspection, we were able to draw a better comparison between them by looking at their fights against Exodus. Whereas Thena was able to stalemate him multiple times throughout a prolonged fight and even shield her team from his amped outburst, Sersi lost to him twice, with their 2nd encounter being a stomp in his favor.

This made it apparent that despite Thena's fewer showings, she is actually the superior telepath by our usual standards/rules, and the gap between them is larger than what he first thought.

Reasons for Sersi's rank

• Sersi is able to tank Exodus' mental attack
• Sersi creates a telepathic relay between Thane Ector (Brethren, not Inhuman) and Fool to connect with the race of the Brethren to become their own version of the Uni-Mind.
• Sersi overloads Black Knights Brain Mine through their telepathic link while she is held captive with her own brain mine.
• Sersi protects Black Knight from permanent brain damage induced by Apocalypse.
• Sersi scans the Earth twice to see check on reality when the universe blinked from existence.
• Sersi guides Captain America and his team in an alt dimension to her dimension while holding back the heat from the atmosphere of the dimension

Sersi's Respect Thread:

https://comicvine.gamespot.com/sersi/4005-2118/forums/eternal-mistress-of-matter-manipulation-616-sersi--2158567/

Some Highlights

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Mirage aka Dani Moonstar, one of the most underrated mutant psychics in the X-Men

As a member of the New Mutants Dani spent most of her childhood being picked on by Emma Frost, Shadow King, Brood Xavier, and Legion's wayward personalities. If that wasn't enough, she was also stalked by the Demonic Bear Entity that killed her family. So she's been around the block as far a telepathy goes.

Normally we would rank both Dani and her teammate Karma in low tier due to their powersets only being partially telepathy, however we went deep into every psychic put in front of us and were pleasantly surprised by Dani and Karma's abilities and how they measured up.

Dani possess a wide range of skill mostly in affecting mental connections and mental defense. But where she really shines is her ability to manipulate psychic energy, being one of the better psychics in this regard going as far as taking away and restoring life force using her psychic energy and emotions.

She's not to be under estimated, een if she is currently at the lower end of the tier.

Reasons she deserves her spot:

• Has repeatedly been able to defend against powerful psychics like Shadow King, Xavier and Emma Frost even in her least experienced state.
• Able to effect powerful minds despite their defenses like S'ym, Selene, Legion, Karma and Magik in her classic era.
• Psychic power is strong enough to create solid illusions
• Psychic attacks have killed people in the past.

Dani's respect thread-

https://comicvine.gamespot.com/moonstar/4005-1463/forums/the-psyche-of-a-valkyrie-mirage-danielle-moonstar--2113352/

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Karma....she possesses people.

The hard part about being on the lower end in a Tier is that you constantly have to fight to hold your spot against everyone in the tier below you to prove you're in a different league than them.

Karma is an above average psychic, with moderate showings of power and a handful of epic feats. She's got the depth of history and showings to back any claim she makes about being above the Low Tiers, but still isn't really winning many of the all out slugfest in this tier.

She's on the low end of mid tier, but is not weak by any stretch of the imagination.

Reasons she belongs here:

• Her mind control is stated to be as powerful as Classic Charles Xavier's
• She's fought off and beat back Shadow King as a child despite a full possession
• Was able to control Amora the Enchantress and force her to use her powers.
• Able to mind control Sage who's mind is incredibly resistance
• Broke Loki's control of Magik with her possession.

https://comicvine.gamespot.com/karma/4005-9849/forums/she-possesses-people-karma-respect-thread-2080292/

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XANDRA! THE DAUGHTER OF X MAKES THE CUT IN THE LAST SECOND!

The newest character created to make Mid Tier, Xandra, was voted in by a large margin but her position was left in the air due to a very difficult combination of truly immense raw power and a interesting but small set of skill feats.

She's quite possibly the most powerful telepath in the bottom half of Mid Tier, but aside from some cool appearances and a lot of hype and potential, she hasn't done enough to break into the tier to make herself known.

Reasons she deserves this spot:

• When she was killed her telepathic scream was so powerful that psychics across the galaxy heard it and she made sure it not only contained all her memories but also her very genetic code so that her dad in another galaxy could hear her.
• Accidentally amping Rogue’s powers
• Busting past the mental defenses of Delphos
• Is stated to be very powerful by virtue of being the child of Charles Xavier
• Deemed to be a big threat, being called an “Omega-Level Weapon”

https://comicvine.gamespot.com/xandra/4005-151218/forums/legacy-of-the-shiar-throne-616-xandra-neramani-res-2287295/

Some Highlights

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Opening up the tier list in it's number 1 spot is the tricky Mesmero.

Mesmero is the perfect example of what's to come in Low Tier. For the majority of his existence, Mesmero's psionic abilities were limited to hypnotism. He was for the most part only able to control people when he made direct eye contact with them, and while he did have psionic energy at his disposal, he was very limited in it's use outside of mind control. But then Weapon X was able to increase his power levels to the point where he was considered one of the most powerful mutants on the planet with both telepathy and mind control being amplified to immense levels. Mind you. this was years after he'd managed to control teams of X-Men and 2 different Phoenix hosts, because he didn't need his amp to do that.

Now with all of that said, why isn't he higher up on the list? Well, Mesmero has a massive downside in that despite his great power, he was absolutely fodderized by Rachel Grey at her base power levels, and while he was later able to affect and control her, that was mostly due to outside forces making her vulnerable. In fact, while his mind control has always been exceptionally potent (see: controlling Jean Grey & Rachel Summers as Phoenix host) his actual psychic powers in a fair fight haven't given anyone trouble since the 60s.

Still, in any situation when you don't see him coming, you are in serious danger regardless of your tier.

Some reasons he belongs here:

• Mind controlled Phoenix Jean Grey and the X-Men
• Mind controlled Phoenix Rachel Summers and Excalibur
• After his amp controlled an entire Bosnian army to walk into the desert and commit suicide
• Shielded himself and his team from Rachel Grey & Cerebro
• After exploiting her damaged powers, was able to mind control Rachel Summers into taking out a whole team of X-Men.

Mesmero's Respect Thread

https://comicvine.gamespot.com/forums/gen-discussion-1/respect-mesmero-2017951/

Some Highlights

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The Black Queen of the Hellfire Club.

Selene is a unique character, in that her psychic powers stem from both her unspecified mutant powers as well as her status as a long lived semi-magical being.

While primarily mind control spells and hypnosis are her go to psychic powers, she has shown true telepathy and the ability to go at with psychics over the years.

There's no doubt that Selene is a force to be reckoned with, having several feats of fighting a young Rachel Summers, some one ups on Emma Frost and even an exchange with the Hulk under her belt. However, most if not all of her feats lean more toward skill then power, with a young and starving Rachel Summers fresh out of a Interment Camp giving her a run for her money even with surprise, while a young Dani Moonstar has repeatedly brought her down with illusions and psychic attacks that Selene really should've been prepared for.

The real problem with Selene is that her best psychic feats were against the 2nd generation of X-Kids and they've all massively improved over the years, whereas Selene's limited appearances have made it so even her most recent losses were 2 power ups ago for some of her opponents.

Still, with magic, hypnosis, illusions, and telepathy, Selene's got a handful of psychic tricks...it's just not her best bet.

Some reasons Selene deserves this spot:

• Was able to use her magic to battle Emma Frost telepathy for control of a man....his head exploded.
• Withstood several attacks from an enraged Phoenix Rachel Summers.
• Took control of Emma Frost, mindwiped her, and forced her to rejoin the Hellfire Club
• Locked Teenaged Rachel Summers and Magma in a mind link and had them fighting to defend her for a time.
• Brought Grey Hulk to his knees with a psiblast

Selene's Respect Thread

https://comicvine.gamespot.com/selene/4005-2176/forums/external-queen-of-hellfire-black-queen-selene-gall-2076070/

Some Highlights

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Another of the worlds oldest mutants, Apocalypse is number 3

With Apocalypse comes a challenging case of the 80s supervillain. He, like Selene, Magneto, Dr. Doom, and half the big name villains of the day had some form of mysterious psychic power to him in one way, shape or form that was eventually forgotten and mostly ignored in favor for his more standard powerset. However while Apocalypse's rare psychic showing would be forgotten about, he would become pretty well known for having incredible psychic defenses, able to block out the X-Men psychics even near death with showings against the powers of Jean Grey, Rachel Summers, Cable and others on his list of mental nosells.

Apocalypse would mainly be known for controlling people through unknown means of brainwashing when he turned them into his horsemen. This has never been shown to be telepathic as we've seen everything from his blood to Celestial technology be the driving force behind the transformations of the horsemen, but never a definitive reasoning for their subconscious connections to him afterwards. And moreso than that, we've seen him distinctly use technology to help him possess people or to transform them into his new host body.

At a certain point if you had asked any member of PsiViners if they seriously considered him a telepath of any note, most of them would've said "nope" and moved on.....I mean the guy didn't even have the power to enter the astral plane on his own at one point, so that should end the talk, no? No!

The Krakoan Era (and the Age of X-Man before it if we're honest) gave Apocalypse some of his first solid TP feats in ages with showings of raw power, skill and some nice range feats to boot. While that's always an interesting addition, a big part of the reason he actually got ranked is because even without those new Telepathic showings, big blue still has some of the most insane mental defense on the list, which kinda makes it hard to argue around him even with limited showings.

A few solid TP feats + utterly ridiculous defense is a formula that can overcome a lot of the question marks on a otherwise generic 80's power use.

Some reasons he deserves this spot:

• Did I mention the sheer number of telepaths that he's defended from? Jean Grey, Onslaught, Psylocke, Cable, Rachel Summers...etc
• Telepathically connected to Rictor who was trapped between universes.
• Controlled hundreds of people in London to embrace love and affection in the Age of X-Man.
• Pulled Hulk into his memories.
• When separated from his body, his psyche has repeatedly dominated others for control of theirs

Apocalypse's Respect Thread

https://comicvine.gamespot.com/apocalypse/4005-7612/forums/external-god-of-the-fittest-616-apocalypse-respect-2239134/

Some Highlights

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Mastermind's daughter....Mastermind

The older sister of Regan, Martinique was actually first introduced to the X-Men books as a highly powerful psychic opponent and has consistently showcased power levels above and beyond what her Father was capable of.

In fact, Martinique may very well be the most powerful person in the low tier with some great defense to boot.

The downside for Martinique is that she doesn't even have half the appearances of her younger sister, and that's not saying much, so it really does hurt her when she gets anti-feats despite some truly impressive showings under her belt. She'd probably be much higher on our list if she had more appearances, but alas she's a one and done in most showings.

Reasons Martinique deserves this spot:

• Trapped the entire city of San Francisco in a psychic illusion of the 60's for days and possibly weeks with the effect growing as she went on. Only those with psychic shielding could resist the effects.
• Repeatedly blocked Emma Frost from contacting anyone in San Francisco, entering her mind or breaking her hold on the city for a time.
• Despite being trapped in a machine for months that used her powers to control X-Corps members half a country a way, was still powerful and aware enough to drag Chamber's consciousness into her mind and manipulate him.
• Able to trick Cable and the other X-Men team for a time despite his powers.
• Repeatedly stated to be more powerful then her sister and Father despite their feats.

Martinique's Respect Thread

https://comicvine.gamespot.com/martinique-jason/4005-15167/forums/daddys-little-mastermind-a-martinique-jason-wyngar-2079742/

Some Highlights

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Mastermind's other daughter....Lady Mastermind

The younger sister of Martinique, Regan is a different creature all together. Where Martinique has powerful feats on large scales, Regan seems to be more limited but far more creative in her applications of her powers.

While she's probably the weakest of the Mastermind's, she's got way more showings than her sister and a lot more interesting psychic exchanges to examine and unlike her dad and sister, we've got some confirmed growth in her power levels to support her case as well.

Ultimately though, she's not on her dad's level of skill or her sister's level of power, so she's not gonna make it far in a direct comparison to them.

Reasons Regan deserves this spot:

• Created a massive illusion of Fin Fang Foom attacking a city that led to the military being called.
• Trapped Lifeguard and Sage inside Sage's own mind using illusions so real they would both die if they were killed in the mindscape.
• Surprise attacks and locks down Emma Frost with an illusion of chains and restraints for a time.
• Forced a Mummumdrai out of her mind after breaking through it's mental blocks.
• Despite being near death from M-Pox, was able to enslave a building full of people so they would die with her when she did.

Lady Mastermind's Respect Thread

https://comicvine.gamespot.com/forums/gen-discussion-1/respect-lady-mastermind-daughter-of-the-illusionis-2047070/

Some Highlights

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Blindfold is....scary.

While her primary power is actually precognition, her abilities were found to be beyond that, and she's proved it more and more through her interactions with Legion. Between the two of them, they managed to make each other much more manageable, both as people and as characters with Blindfold having gotten some of her best feats against or with the help of Legion.

That said, she's VERY limited in her showings of telepathy, with on panel statements about her potential actual implying that she still had some work to do on her self before we actually saw what she truly capable of.

Why she should have this spot:

• She turned off Legion's powers with a thought.
• Resisted Legion's merged mind trying to absorb her astral form.
• With her full power, unlocked was able to temporarily down the 3 in 1 Stepford Cuckoos.
• Consistently able to sense things other telepaths like Emma Frost, the Stepford Cuckoos and Legion cannot

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Tessa aka Sage

Sage is a very difficult character to get a handle on in a Tier list. Her classic appearances had her sort of a psychic, but mostly a really analytical character who eventually evolved into a full blown psychic in the 90s. Claremont later wrote her as an X-Man who's computer brain let her do everything from downloading information from the internet, to processing the weak point in objects to, seeing and manipulating people's bio chemistry.....yea.

At a certain point Sage, became an unhackable, uncontrollable and unrivaled mind who was stated to have been born with indomitable willpower backed by training from Charles Xavier to give her unrivaled defenses, but of course we've seen her controlled by Karma, turned off by Esme Cuckoo, and mindscrewed for a time by Lady Mastermind. And that's just the mid & low tiers.

Add to that the fact that she rarely uses her telepathy and that by her own admittance she "is not much of a telepath" and we've got a situation where a strong mind isn't necessarily a powerful psychic but is capable of some really surprising feats.

Reason Sage deserves this spot:

• Contained the memories of Roma and all of the minds from the multiverse that Roma had absorbed.
• Restrained Shadow King and trapped him in her head and then inside his host body.
• Broke into the mind of Nate Grey empowered Madelynn Pryor
• Blocked and later broke the control of Bogan over herself and others despite Bogan controlling Emma Frost and Rachel Summers at different points.
• Her psi scream overwhelmed 90s Jean Grey and Psylocke

Sage's Respect Thread

https://comicvine.gamespot.com/sage/4005-4559/forums/the-mutant-memory-file-a-sage-respect-thread-2046726/

Some Highlights

M. aka Penance aka Monet St. Croix.

Monet is a funny story. For years, Monet has been highly critiqued by the PsiViners group for being one of the least powerful psychics among X-Men characters by showings and isn't helped that a good deal of her early appearances aren't actually her. Srangely enough, this has actually helped her to stand out a bit more compared to her contemporaries.

A student of Emma Frost, a lot of her early feats that we examined seemed to vaguely or directly scale off of Emma while alluding to her own special knack for telepathic shenanigans that often surprised Emma.

As we moved later down her history, M's got a handful of notable skill feats and impressive defenses that make a good case for her. And it kinda helps that she's got the confidence to mock High Tiers like Jean Grey and Rachel Summers for not measuring up to her standards.

Monet might be surprising, but ultimately her telepathy is limited heavily by a lack of use, with some of her best runs mentioning it only in passing or using it for everyday things. Hopefully we'll see more use in the coming years. But for now, this is the appropriate spot for M on the list.

Reason M deserves this spot:

• Broke free of, and later freed Emma from Adrienne Frost's psychic memory trap.
• Read the minds of the X-Men team despite Teen Jean Grey shielding their thoughts
• Broke through Exodus' mental blocks put on his mindslaves.
• As a child, repeatedly blocked Emma Frost from reading or manipulating her mind.
• Discovered memories in Polaris' head that had been blocked and rewritten by Mastermind as a child despite Jean Grey, Emma Frost and Xavier having previously worked to repair Polaris' mind.

Monet's Respect Thread

https://comicvine.gamespot.com/m/4005-40460/forums/supergirl-meets-veronica-lodge-penancemonet-st-cro-2261592/

Some Highlights

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Martha Johanson aka No-Girl aka Cerebella.

Martha Johanson is....tricky.

Years of background appearances and only small periods of attention have left her power levels inconsistent and even her best showings with question marks on how consistent she is.

The low showings are massively low, with things like being bullied by a Quentin Quire who was utterly curbstomped by the Stepford Cuckoos. Or being unable to hide her presence from a room full of guards. We have to take the bad with the good and there is a lot of good....she just isn't as impressive as even her debut would've led you to think.

Reasons Martha deserves this spot:

• Her "psychic chafe" attack negates mutants powers and even shut down Emma Frost in diamond form.
• She was able to steal the knowledge of Spiderman's secret identity from Rachel Summers mind.
• Her psibolt killed Zero one of Hope's Lights.
• Was able to mind swap 5 people at once repeatedly and later to possess a dead body after training with Shadow King.
• Powerful enough to burn out 4 of Mojo's psychics that were trying to restrain her powers.

Cerebella's Respect Thread

https://comicvine.gamespot.com/no-girl/4005-41121/forums/psi-brain-in-a-bowl-616-cerebella-no-girl-martha-j-2224484/

Some Highlights

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Context is key, and there's a lot of context to Oracle's best feats.....mostly that she needed surprise or help to pull off what ultimately was something pretty minor to begin with.

She's the victim of being surpassed by the telepaths she was originally introduced to compliment and then being toyed with by their students.

Her best showings would barely rank for even most people among mid tier and unlike most of them, she doesn't have a High Tier name to drop to defend her case. So Oracle is lower on our list compared to when we initially assessed her.

Reasons she deserves this spot:

• Destroyed a room with telepathy after making psi contact with a brood.
• She shut down Teen Jean's pink form briefly
• Shielded the Imperial Guards mind from Phoenix Echo boosted Rachel
• Blocked out Mantis and Cosmo the space dog's telepathy
• Defeated Cosmo in a TP battle

Oracle's RT:

https://comicvine.gamespot.com/oracle/4005-6093/forums/the-imperial-espur-oracle-respect-thread-2054356/

Some Highlights

Last but not least comes the biggest problem child of our list, the new Psylocke, Kwannon the psychic ninja.

Kwannon's ranking here comes with the understanding that in the very near future, she will likely shoot up the list and make any reasoning we make for this current placement seem inaccurate. That said, until that happens, we need to be honest about what we're working with, which isn't too much.

Kwannon's best showings are mostly against people who aren't that notable, or usually done with the help of High Tiers in some large way. She lacks raw power and skill feats beyond her psychic knife and, well, the psychic knife doesn't do much to help her considering the lack of notable feats that her's actually has. She's really not done too much so far, even considering her classic appearances.

Still, we accept that Kwannon is one of the most prominent mutants on Krakoa at the moment and certainly in the franchise, getting huge levels of exposure across the x-titles as a headliner since the beginning. Suffice to say, any day could be the day her ranking shoots up on our list, but until then, she's rounds out our low tier section of telepaths

Reasons she for her ranking:

• Took her some time, but she broke free of Mastermind's control
• Broke through to and contained a traumatized Betsy's Psi-ghost
• Was able to stun Malice controlled Emma Frost with her psychic knife.
• Was able to partially undo Emma Frost's mindwipe on Wolverine.
• Her death from the Legacy Virus sent a psychic shockwave around the world

Kwannon's Respect Thread

https://comicvine.gamespot.com/psylocke/4005-9709/forums/psychic-ninja-assassin-revanche-psylocke-kwannon-r-2021120/

Some Highlights

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