Hell yes it is time for a new villian. Don't get me wrong I like Sinister and thought the story in Uncanny is good so far. But the tween version of the Hellfire Club really annoys me. I just cant see them as a major threat, I keep waiting for an adult like Shaw, Selene or someone else  to come put them to bed and take over. Maybe its just that most of the young X-Men have been pushed asside over the last few years and now we are suppost to take children seriously as a major villian. Now that being said the X-Men need some new blood in terms of the villians  they face. Problem is as long as the X-Men have been around they have faced almost every kind of adversary from mutant hating humans, rival mutants, corporate interest, corrupt government officals, crazy religions, dimensional travlers and aliens. Its takes some creativity to come up with a good villian to challenge the X-Men without having to retcon something so it fits into their history. Given the relatively poor guality of X-Men books in general over the last few years I am afraid any new villian created will just be as bad the junor Hellfire Club. Heres hoping  someone will bring their 'A' game if they try to create a major new villian for the X-Men.

Hell yes it is time for a new villian. Don't get me wrong I like Sinister and thought the story in Uncanny is good so far. But the tween version of the Hellfire Club really annoys me. I just cant see them as a major threat, I keep waiting for an adult like Shaw, Selene or someone else  to come put them to bed and take over. Maybe its just that most of the young X-Men have been pushed asside over the last few years and now we are suppost to take children seriously as a major villian. Now that being said the X-Men need some new blood in terms of the villians  they face. Problem is as long as the X-Men have been around they have faced almost every kind of adversary from mutant hating humans, rival mutants, corporate interest, corrupt government officals, crazy religions, dimensional travlers and aliens. Its takes some creativity to come up with a good villian to challenge the X-Men without having to retcon something so it fits into their history. Given the relatively poor guality of X-Men books in general over the last few years I am afraid any new villian created will just be as bad the junor Hellfire Club. Heres hoping  someone will bring their 'A' game if they try to create a major new villian for the X-Men.

I wonder more if there's a reason new villain's don't have staying power in the mutant world. I thought about your thread and I can't say there's ever been a lack of new villains introduced in the X-books. Working backwards, sort of, from now along a few: The new Horsemen (UXF), Legions identities particularly Styx, The Friendless, The Scorpius, Lobe, Sublime, Sublime Corp, The Evolutionaries, Daken, Romulus, The Red Right Hand, Lord Deathstrike, Danger (introduced a villain), The Purifiers, Dark Beast, Sugar Man, The Orphan Maker, Gene Nation, Emplate, The Neo, The Children Of The Vault, Onslaught, Tyler Dayspring, The Dark Riders, Martinique and Regan, The Isolationalist, Pandemic, Cassandra Nova, Vulcan, Predator X, X-Cutioner, Cerebro's X-Men, Project Purgatory, Witchfire, Xarus, Ord, Kruun, Bastion, Dr.Rot, Cortex, ect, ect...I could go with this endlessly. The point is they are consistently revealing new villains. The problem is A.) The turn them into X-men right away but more B.) The writers don't give villains that came into being after the classic ages the same respect, attention and character development as they do hero characters, and quickly turn back to reviving a classic villain or having a hero change sides.

I think it'd be good, seeing as how most of the mutant villains were depowered and the X-Men mainly face humans now as enemies.

I wonder more if there's a reason new villain's don't have staying power in the mutant world. I thought about your thread and I can't say there's ever been a lack of new villains introduced in the X-books. Working backwards, sort of, from now along a few: The new Horsemen (UXF), Legions identities particularly Styx, The Friendless, The Scorpius, Lobe, Sublime, Sublime Corp, The Evolutionaries, Daken, Romulus, The Red Right Hand, Lord Deathstrike, Danger (introduced a villain), The Purifiers, Dark Beast, Sugar Man, The Orphan Maker, Gene Nation, Emplate, The Neo, The Children Of The Vault, Onslaught, Tyler Dayspring, The Dark Riders, Martinique and Regan, The Isolationalist, Pandemic, Cassandra Nova, Vulcan, Predator X, X-Cutioner, Cerebro's X-Men, Project Purgatory, Witchfire, Xarus, Ord, Kruun, Bastion, Dr.Rot, Cortex, ect, ect...I could go with this endlessly. The point is they are consistently revealing new villains. The problem is A.) The turn them into X-men right away but more B.) The writers don't give villains that came into being after the classic ages the same respect, attention and character development as they do hero characters, and quickly turn back to reviving a classic villain or having a hero change sides.

I HATE the new kid version of the hellfire club and i think they have alot of villians that need character development ASAP

Wouldn't mind seeing that dude from the 198 return as a major villian, Mr M was it?

@CATPANEXE: This is a common situation you see with writers coming onto new books. They basically have two agendas. First, they want to tell their stories featuring their favorite villains. Second, they want to create their own villains. Generally speaking, unless the new villain just catches fire with the audience, and the writers, you're probably not going to see them very much. This is why every writer on Batman tells a Joker story, but rarely bothers with one featuring Dr. Phosphorus. You do get the occasional break out new villain, like Venom or Hush, who start featuring regularly, but most new villains fall by the wayside very quickly. One need only look to Spider-Man for confirmation. After "Brand New Day", editorial instructed the Spider-Man writers to create a host of new adversaries for the webslinger, & put a moratorium on using his classic foes for at least a year. Flash forward to today. Spider-Man is once again gearing up to take on the Sinister Six. He just finished a two part fight with the Vulture. The Jackal factored heavily in "Spider Island". Kraven the Hunter was resurrected. All those new villains that were supposed to become regulars have been pushed aside in favor of the classic Spidey villains. Short of an editorial mandate forcing writers to push new villains, they will always resort to their classic favorites.

@jubilee042 said:

I HATE the new kid version of the hellfire club and i think they have alot of villians that need character development ASAP

Yeah... The kids are punks. I want to put them in a straight, just barely wide enough hallway with Colossus and have him just run them through.

I just hope that one, Sebastian doesn't become a good guy after being found my Hope, and two, that Hope doesn't become Dark Phoenix and the new main villain for the X-Men. I'm tired of Phoenixes. I hope Sebastian remembers who he is and starts tearing things up within Utopia.

No, the Hellfire kids are the best thing that happened to the X-Men in years, anything otherwise would be the next stereotypical "I hate mutant's, they must be destroyed at all costs !" villain and it's already getting boring. I for one do not want another fool with the same agenda to come a long and request war which will the lead to another Second Coming, it's quite pointless and not needed. The X-Men ATM need a rest from all that crap. (Which is obviously why we're going to have AvX LOL.)

New characters aren't as welcomed as they used to be. Back in the 60's, 70's, and maybe 80's and 90's, new characters could be introduced, and may eventually become icons. Now, there is little hope for any of them. Strangely, a new character that does have hope, is named hope. But they centered four years of stories around her.

- The X-Men, like any successful comic needs to have new advesaries brought in over time to keep things from getting stale, and to keep the existing ones from being overused to the point of fans tiring of them.

- The problem is the writers have converted or killed off many of the classic villains, and replaced them by new and revamped ones that were for the most part disappointing to terrible. Many of the recent creations have been one and done villains rarely seen again and given little to no development.

- Was the Hellfire Club a tired concept in need of change, absolutely. Is the Kid Hellfire Club better than the status quo? I would say hell no and from what I have seen on the boards many would agree.

- How many people like Sinister better now that he's a homicidal David Bowie?

- They need to have a less is more approach, create less new or revamped villlains and spend the time and resources to make sure its the best they have to offer and give them all enough screen time to make an impression.

@jubilee042 said:

I HATE the new kid version of the hellfire club and i think they have alot of villians that need character development ASAP

I really don't understand why they made those kids the "Hellfire Club." There was really no reason to attach them to an older, classic set of villains. I don't have a problem with those characters, but why couldn't they have had a different name. I think if a writer wants to make a new villain, they should really make a new villain. There's really no reason to tie him or her to some existing character. Kid Hellfire Club would be just as effective as enemies if they were called The Douchelord Supremes or some other more terrifying name.

@WarMachineMarkV said:

- The X-Men, like any successful comic needs to have new advesaries brought in over time to keep things from getting stale, and to keep the existing ones from being overused to the point of fans tiring of them.

- The problem is the writers have converted or killed off many of the classic villains, and replaced them by new and revamped ones that were for the most part disappointing to terrible. Many of the recent creations have been one and done villains rarely seen again and given little to no development.

- Was the Hellfire Club a tired concept in need of change, absolutely. Is the Kid Hellfire Club better than the status quo? I would say hell no and from what I have seen on the boards many would agree.

- How many people like Sinister better now that he's a homicidal David Bowie?

- They need to have a less is more approach, create less new or revamped villlains and spend the time and resources to make sure its the best they have to offer and give them all enough screen time to make an impression.

Well said.

sigh.

I'm telling you if signatures are implicated mine will be " Why do I bother? " just so I don't feel compelled to post it 9 out of 10 times after I post anything.

-

The Hellfire kids, or specifically Kade for anyone who doesn't know yet is actually the original unused concept for Mr.Sinister. Personally I think it's poorly played. I'm hoping something

comes up eventually where all is not what it seems with that character.

- The X-Men, like any successful comic needs to have new advesaries brought in over time to keep things from getting stale, and to keep the existing ones from being overused to the point of fans tiring of them.

- The problem is the writers have converted or killed off many of the classic villains, and replaced them by new and revamped ones that were for the most part disappointing to terrible. Many of the recent creations have been one and done villains rarely seen again and given little to no development.

- Was the Hellfire Club a tired concept in need of change, absolutely. Is the Kid Hellfire Club better than the status quo? I would say hell no and from what I have seen on the boards many would agree.

- How many people like Sinister better now that he's a homicidal David Bowie?

- They need to have a less is more approach, create less new or revamped villlains and spend the time and resources to make sure its the best they have to offer and give them all enough screen time to make an impression.

It really is a shame that the X-men villains has been so underwhelming over the past few years. The best villains always were human supremesists or rogue mutants gone bad. But if they haven't died, or been overused and lost their lethal appeal, then they have been reformed into heroes. So i propose the X-men switch adversaries with the Avengers and take on characters like Dr. Doom or Ultron and the Avengers deal with the likes of the Hellfire Club or Marauders.

As for original villains for the X-men, i think after mutants are reborn and new character are created we might see new mutant threats arise like the Mutant Liberation Front again or the Reavers made up of depowered mutants. And I always thought that the X-men should be fighting gods and demons more. So there are tons of mythologies to pluck a good villain from or create a team of devils to try to challenge the power of the Uncanny X-men.

Selene if written right and with a lot more respect for the powers she possess would be a great villain but she's still treated as third or fourth tier threat. She is possibly the oldest mutant one Earth and supremely powerful sorceress yet she can be taken out by X-Force. WTF! What a waste of a character for that useless Necrosha story.

@Silver_Raven said:

Selene if written right and with a lot more respect for the powers she possess would be a great villain but she's still treated as third or fourth tier threat. She is possibly the oldest mutant one Earth and supremely powerful sorceress yet she can be taken out by X-Force. WTF! What a waste of a character for that useless Necrosha story.

It is the same thing with Apocalypse. It used to take the entire X-men team to deal with him, and now he has been reduced to X-force which is only a five person team.

the new hellfire club has got to be the lamest thing ever, although i do enjoy sinister being back, vulcan should come back, since blackbolt survived,

Brand new villains are set to premiere in this week's Uncanny

I want Exodus back.

Yes, there's definitely need for a new interesting and original villain, or a villain team. It's true that the writers are technically introducing new villains all the time, but the problem is that they're mainly just reusing old concepts (like the Hellfire club), which is why the newer villains are hardly memorable. What the franchise really needs is an entirely new kind of new threat for the mutants to battle, as in a type of character or characters with agendas they haven't dealt with before.

The Phoenix needs to return.

EDIT: War, Famine, and all the others were pretty cool villains. My favorite was the drummer dude.

I don't care for new villains, just give me cool stories and if it features somebody new than cool, if it features sinister again than heck yea. I mean if new villans are these Hellfire kids than please just make Magneto evil again or age Genesis a couple of years so he can turn into the big A.

Yes, there's definitely need for a new interesting and original villain, or a villain team. It's true that the writers are technically introducing new villains all the time, but the problem is that they're mainly just reusing old concepts (like the Hellfire club), which is why the newer villains are hardly memorable. What the franchise really needs is an entirely new kind of new threat for the mutants to battle, as in a type of character or characters with agendas they haven't dealt with before.

They def need new villians, I am sooo tired of Sinister and the new Hellfire Club has to be a joke.

Personally I like the Children of the Vault. I dig them as a concept, even if the execution wasn't everything I'd ever want. I dig their attitude as a group, especially seeing as they don't hate mutants. Or humans for that matter.To paraphrase Cyke they simply want the lesser races to "Get off their lawn."

Also while the concept of technology and genetics combining to make them more than either homo superior or homo sapiens is not new as a thing, they pulled it off surprisingly well in some spots. I'd like to see them with some stronger stories and members, but they were an interesting read in my opinion.

To answer the question at hand though I think the answer is actually yes and no. New villains aren't a bad thing, but they need to be handled a bit differently than they are.

I don't mind the new Hellfire Club, I mean sure they're all kids but something else has to be pulling the strings to give most of them the skills, knowledge they needed to be who they are. Plus the writers were successful in how they wanted me to feel about them, hate.

Put Skyler (Who doesn't go good guy) into the marvel universe .

Do it .

To answer the question at hand though I think the answer is actually yes and no. New villains aren't a bad thing, but they need to be handled a bit differently than they are.

Put back Apocalypse first. make him a majr villain again, and then after that, they can make a new powerful villain for the x-men

@jhazzroucher said:

Put back Apocalypse first. make him a majr villain again, and then after that, they can make a new powerful villain for the x-men

- Apocalypse should only be seen once a decade by the X-Men and the event should be of an epic scale, like many he has been neutered for no good reason I can see

- He is the X-Men's Kang or Ultron, the villain everyone says "oh shit" when he shows up

Put back Apocalypse first. make him a majr villain again, and then after that, they can make a new powerful villain for the x-men

@jhazzroucher said:

Put back Apocalypse first. make him a majr villain again, and then after that, they can make a new powerful villain for the x-men

Just been done via Archangel.

@Soulstealer said:

Personally I like the Children of the Vault. I dig them as a concept, even if the execution wasn't everything I'd ever want. I dig their attitude as a group, especially seeing as they don't hate mutants. Or humans for that matter.To paraphrase Cyke the simply want the lesser races to "Get off their lawn."

Also while the concept of technology and genetics combining to make them more than either homo superior or homo sapiens is not new as a thing, they pulled it off surprisingly well in some spots. I'd like to see them with some stronger stories and members, but they were an interesting read in my opinion.

To answer the question at hand though I think the answer is actually yes and no. New villains aren't a bad thing, but they need to be handled a bit differently than they are.

This would be wonderful! Lots of room for exploration there - I have a little soft spot for one of them too.

I believe X-Men need the classic villains, like Brotherhood, Sinister, Apocalypse, Acolytes etc. Of course, they need to be relaunched and have some new motives. Like Sinister.

Magneto couldn't be a villain with this situation. The key-word is motive. He fought for the superiority of the mutants. Now they need to survive. Thus, as long as mutants are in the brink of existence, Mags will be with the X-Men. Essesiantly, they want the same thing.

Also, they need to fight more teams. Make a new Brotherhood. Mystique, Sabretooth, Joseph, Toad, Astra, Kenji and some new mutants.

Make Apocalypse and the 4 Horsemen a real threat. Archangel is good, but I prefer the original stuff. Bring back the *real* Apocalypse not a copy of him. Of course, give him some true Horsemen from characters we know. Like Dark Beast and Gamit.

Sinister is back. He has a great look, he is deadlier than ever and with a right motive.

They should bring in the forefront the Children of the Vault. With a writer like Gillen, or Aaron, or even Liu, they could be a powerful villain team.

Last but not least, I love all these people and their groups who want to kill all the mutants. I want my Stryker fix! Exodus! Human Liberation Front. Now, more than ever, it's only logical that all these people would make everything to exterminate mutants (because they haven't remained many).

i would have to agree with you on that we need some new villian dont know what his motifs would be but some new villian how about a mutant hunter he goes after the big shots in the xmen crew he hunts mutants because of his bad past and ironically hes one himself he later develops a crew to help him because even though he gave the x team a run for their money taking out two before fleeing he cant do it by himeself

i would have to agree with you on that we need some new villian dont know what his motifs would be but some new villian how about a mutant hunter he goes after the big shots in the xmen crew he hunts mutants because of his bad past and ironically hes one himself he later develops a crew to help him because even though he gave the x team a run for their money taking out two before fleeing he cant do it by himeself

Of course we need new bad guys. The only traditional foes still active are Sinister, Mystique and Sabretooth. Most of the real threats like Shaw, Magento, Frost are now good guys. The rest are dead. So yes a dire need.

Of course we need new bad guys. The only traditional foes still active are Sinister, Mystique and Sabretooth. Most of the real threats like Shaw, Magento, Frost are now good guys. The rest are dead. So yes a dire need.

well theres a chance Kid Omega and/or Zero could be big bads but only time will tell I guess

@Mutant God said:

well theres a chance Kid Omega and/or Zero could be big bads but only time will tell I guess

Nah as long As Aaron is writing Kid Omega is good guy thanks to that flash forward we got in the last issue of WATXM. Zero though would make a good foe especially if he takes Martha with him.

I think the problems have been well-covered by the prior comments. I'd just add that once you build up an older villain into a big threat, and then have said villain beaten casually or indulge in schemes that aren't well written, they lose their sense of authority and danger. The same applies to good guys, esp. in the case of comic books since it is the villains that often give the superheroes a reason to exist so a good villain is often worth more than a bunch of heroes.

I'd also like to see the villains inflict real damage on heroes; as others have stated, you need to give villains a good background in order to make them either so evil that you love to hate them or so completely believable that you root for them because they have a point.

And any villain that can knock a few X-Men into the emergency wing deserves applause. There are a lot of them hanging around nowadays. It actually feels like a throwback to the first story after All New, All Different X-Men - "There are TOO MANY X-MEN!"

The X-Men used to have one of the greatest rogues galleries in all of comics 
 
Now.....not so much 
 
They also tend to bring in new villains and never expand on them...........like remember Pandemic?? What the heck ever happened to that guy??

I think the problems have been well-covered by the prior comments. I'd just add that once you build up an older villain into a big threat, and then have said villain beaten casually or indulge in schemes that aren't well written, they lose their sense of authority and danger. The same applies to good guys, esp. in the case of comic books since it is the villains that often give the superheroes a reason to exist so a good villain is often worth more than a bunch of heroes.

I'd also like to see the villains inflict real damage on heroes; as others have stated, you need to give villains a good background in order to make them either so evil that you love to hate them or so completely believable that you root for them because they have a point.

And any villain that can knock a few X-Men into the emergency wing deserves applause. There are a lot of them hanging around nowadays. It actually feels like a throwback to the first story after All New, All Different X-Men - "There are TOO MANY X-MEN!"