There have been a lot of heroes gone villains in the X-Men, to the point that it's actually part of a mutant gimmick to be Horseman of the Apocalypse. But lets focus on characters that are for the most part heroes.

So:

1) Which X-Man, (given their backstory, powers, personality, etc...) would've made the most interesting villain if they were introduced/reimagined as one?

2) Which X-Man would make a good villain if they turned now?

BONUS- Which X-Man was the best villain?

1) I'm gonna go with Dazzler for the most potentially interesting villain. I mean considering the level of dominance that Pop Stars have over todays media it would be fitting to see the power she could weild. But more so then that what would seperate her from other Villains with good publicity in similar roles, would be the fact that she's a public mutant icon. She'd essentially be impossible to differentiate from Xavier's dream. It would actually be a great challenge for Xavier himself as the question would be "Who has more power "The President" or Kim Khardasian?

2) Beast

Cable Or BIshop

Wow there are quite a few.

1. Beast is a good one. In fact that is a development I'd like to see. One in which Beast gets like a Sinister/ Doom God complex. Maybe he becomes obsessed with mutant genetics and goes High Evolutionary after getting celestial tech or something. He wants to create and recreate life. Morrison had parts of an interesting idea with his Here Comes Tomorrow portrayal of Beast.

2. Elixir could also be a good villain. I could see him being like Magneto back in the day.

3. Hope- the mutant messiah/Antichrist would be great as well.

4. Iceman could be an all-powerful villain. His brief brush with it in Liu's run was gold. With his humor potentially being dark humor and casting him as a main foil for the xmen he could become like the Joker for Marvel.

I know you mentioned Horsemen of Apocalypse and that has been a bit of gimmick to restore powers or whatever. But even still the idea of doing whatever to regain something that was lost is still an interesting and real-life premise. I've always wanted Namor to become a horseman. Maybe as pestilence causing Tsunami's and having full control of all water even in the human body. Maybe Iceman could be famine causing a deep freeze ice age scenario. That's just a couple but I'd want big overwhelming horsemen that pose a true and serious global threat

1. To be honest it would have to be Cyclops He's already the next Magneto
2. Quinton Quire: If given the right motivation he would be a fantastic villain.
3. Magneto obviously.

Cyclops is a good one too. Him becoming a new Magneto and taking the "by any means necessary" approach and thinking humans are the problem would be a huge change. If they could somehow set Havok up even more as the Xavier type figure the dynamic of Xavier/Magneto and the competing philosophies could be even more heightened because now it would have actually progressed and taken on a deeper meaning being that Xavier and Magneto were like brothers whereas Cyclops and Havok are brothers

@hawk2916:I think that the Deathseed incarnation of Iceman took him to the highest level so i'm not sure whether another horsemen role would work for him...unless of course it's like Apocalypse comes back with the power of a celetstial and needs planet level horsemen.

Lol i was trying not to plug in the Dark Messiah idea again, but i'm pretty sure evil Hope is the greatest missed opportunity in history. Though i'm curious how you'd do an Evil Elixir?

@jeremy1989: I feel like they've burned through so much with Quire that the only thing left for him is to become a full on good guy. I mean he's been downgraded from Anarchist to rebel to Mildly Exacerbated Teammate. I think his next step lies in the great hero side of things.

I'm in total agreement with Hawk's points, but i think that if Cyclops had been introduced as a villain it would also work. He was literally tortured by Sinister as a child, just take it to the next level and have that shape him into a sort of twisted student/rival of Sinister but with some of the good ol' fashioned leader of "mutant kind" potential.

1. Probably Nightcrawler. A religious man who believes he is a child of the devil.

2. ... Krakoa.

@hawk2916: @koays: turning Beast into a villain kind of seems like a colossal waste considering there's already Dark Beast, who's already a great villain. I know he's dead, but with that character there's no reason to assume that has to stick.

then there's the future Beast from Battle of the Atom.. I mean, with a character who could travel from an alternate future and/or clone himself, there's always a way to have an evil version without having the original Beast go completely out of character..

Still, within the X-Men universe, anything can happen.

@oldnightcrawler said:

@hawk2916: @koays: turning Beast into a villain kind of seems like a colossal waste considering there's already Dark Beast, who's already a great villain. I know he's dead, but with that character there's no reason to assume that has to stick.

then there's the future Beast from Battle of the Atom.. I mean, with a character who could travel from an alternate future and/or clone himself, there's always a way to have an evil version without having the original Beast go completely out of character..

I sort of disqualified Dark Beast because he's so much more conniving then the regular Beast that it's hard to get the essence of Hank in it as much as you get a generic Supervillain. But BotA Beast sort of inspired my choice with him, in that even while the timeline is on the line and the X-Men of 3 time periods are brawling it out BotA Beast is still thinking that everything he's doing now is in the right and that it's his job to fix things no matter what the lengths. To me the obsessiveness of Beast even when he's just trying to save his teammates is what makes him a great villain candidate. Current Hank is not the villain you have to worry about gassing a city or building a gene bomb or even torturing someone in an experiment...he's a guy who makes up his mind to do something without informing others and when everything hits the fan he insist that no matter what he is the only one who could possibly fix the problem and he won't let anyone stop him and that unintentionally makes him the villain. To me taking that need for control and answers to it's extreme with a mess that keeps getting further and further out of hand to the point that he's got a team of X-Men or Avengers after him...thats not much of a stretch for in character Beast.

I loved Claremont's original plan for Gambit.

http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/2006/11/23/comic-book-urban-legends-revealed-78/2/

@sprior93 said:

Put me down for this as well. It would have been more interesting if he was a villain over the years then maybe at some point became like an on/off again ally. Instead he just turned into a random boring X-Man with no real direction for his character.

1. There is a number of characters that would make great villains. Wolverine would make a great villain seeing his knowledge of the X-Men, relationships he has with them, and how deadly he can be. Magik being the ruler of Limbo with considerable power and her blaming the X-Men for leaving her behind in Limbo all those years ago would have been an interesting motive.

2. Kitty Pryde.

Bonus--Rogue was a pretty good villain. She beat the crap out of the Avengers in her first appearance. Emma Frost was pretty great too, I at times still find hard to buy her as a good guy considering her past exploits.

Storm. We've seen her become a villain in X-men Forever.

She was also a scary version as Stormphoenix.

That wasn't really her thou.

@jhazzroucher: lol you really love Storm dont cha

@cattlebattle: Why Kitty?

I've never actually read Rogue as a villain. I mean flashbacks and stuff to the time sure, but i'm pretty sure those are all just playing up her naivete to legitimize the side switch sort of like Emma's repainting her as not being evil..just really effective.

@oldnightcrawler: In my opinion it would be better storytelling to show a natural progression of someone with good intentions become completely obsessed and end up as a villain in his own right.

I also want to get away from the over reliance on alternate reality, time travel, and magical spells/demon possessions for telling a story. So for me just having another version of Beast time travel or dimension hop is kind of a sloppy, lazy and cheap way to go about it.

@koays

kitty pryde is a good one

i was going to say ean but she was bad as dark phoenix and xorn. they should make jean go bad without having it be influences like the phoenix fault or xavier jr

true i still remember emma from the 90's cartoon ......she never turned good. also shes believable as a bad guy

@koays: I agree about Iceman but I think there's still potential in that story. And my idea was for Apocalypse to have planet level horsemen in this instance. I mean at some point we've got to make Apocalypse a real threat instead of this villain lurking with all this potential.

As for Elixir having death and life powers he could easily have a cult following in that he can cure whatever and even possibly alter and manipulate on a genetic level. I would have him get a godlike complex as well and the threat of him wiping out a while group of people or a country or government if they don't comply to his wishes would be huge. Remember how he did Vanisher and just imagine that on a larger scale. Coincidentally him providing medical aid to other countries would make them his allies. He could sort of shape the world as he sees fit or at least try.

I can see that, I guess.

yeah, I guess it's that I can see Beast becoming a character who's haunted by choices, maybe even so haunted that he makes worse ones, more than I can see him as being a strait-up villain. Taking the character in a direction that makes him unintentionally the villain, like Koays mentioned, sounds like it could be pretty organic, but seeing him be a black-and-white super-villain just seems out of character.

In a general sense I basically agree. Maybe I'm more likely to let it slide with a character like Beast because I already like Dark Beast so much as a villain (especially as a villain for Beast). And, even as a hero, it seems like it's his willingness to go to extreme lengths like time-travel or other weird science that would lead him down a dark path anyway.

Sort of like Wolverine, he seems like a guy who holds a high moral standard of the X-men, because of what they mean to him, more than he might hold it to himself outside the context of the group.

Kitty Prydes powers and ninja prowess make her a very adept assassin, not to mention her intelligence and cunning. Everyone seems to think that when they turn a hero into a villain they need to be "another Magneto" or some infallible powerhouse, when some of the best X-Men villains have just been "street levelers" with a personal connection to a certain character

She only actually appears as a villain about 3 or 4 times before joining the X-Men and every time she is depicted to be pretty powerful. She helps the Brotherhood defeat the Avengers in her first appearance by beating the likes of Thor and Iron Man, and then she shows up in X-Men eventually to pummel Storm and Wolverine after they break into the Pentagon. Admittedly, there wasn't a whole lot to her character at this point, but seeing her use her powers without restraint used to be cool.

She was one of the best villains of the 1980s.

@oldnightcrawler: yeah that's more of how I see it. Not as a just black and white evil for no reason supervillain but a more obsessed unintentional one going to extreme lengths to fix what he sees as problems.

Good ones, if there ever to be heroes swapping into villains, these are the guys.

Elixir, Iceman and Hope kinda due to the nature of their powers.

Josh turning into that Prototype-esque walking biokinetic madness, consuming biological mass (people lol), absorbing and adapting their memories and personalities, a living bio weapon whose bounds are unknown. Iceman turning into a force of nature due to the overwhelming pressure and him holding back his whole life, just letting it all out naturally. Both submitted to the nature of their mutations.

And Hope. Lol many of us wanted that right after AvX. It just makes sense perfectly.

Yeah, I'm with ya.

Not the fan of heroes becoming villains, but if done right, I can see those work.

All in all, villains shouldn't be necessarily evil, what makes them adversaries is just a mere conflict of interests, or bad image making, that can be interpreted in many different ways. Even evil can be necessary.

Now that you say that, I want to see Elixir and Zero collaborate. They could have been like the Evil Ultimate Duo! I wished they at least interacted.............

@ultimatekey:

I have a little problem with Zero, he's defined as something I fear to ever question....................

@cattlebattle said:

@koays said:

@cattlebattle: Why Kitty?

Kitty Prydes powers and ninja prowess make her a very adept assassin, not to mention her intelligence and cunning. Everyone seems to think that when they turn a hero into a villain they need to be "another Magneto" or some infallible powerhouse, when some of the best X-Men villains have just been "street levelers" with a personal connection to a certain character

@koays said:

I've never actually read Rogue as a villain. I mean flashbacks and stuff to the time sure, but i'm pretty sure those are all just playing up her naivete to legitimize the side switch sort of like Emma's repainting her as not being evil..just really effective.

She only actually appears as a villain about 3 or 4 times before joining the X-Men and every time she is depicted to be pretty powerful. She helps the Brotherhood defeat the Avengers in her first appearance by beating the likes of Thor and Iron Man, and then she shows up in X-Men eventually to pummel Storm and Wolverine after they break into the Pentagon. Admittedly, there wasn't a whole lot to her character at this point, but seeing her use her powers without restraint used to be cool.

@hopesummersforthefuture said:

true i still remember emma from the 90's cartoon ......she never turned good. also shes believable as a bad guy

She was one of the best villains of the 1980s.

the thing with emma is she knew she was evil and enjoyed it. also she tried to brainwash kitty into joining her hellions.....i have that comic

The more and more I think about it.... Cyclops becoming a villain would be a huge change in the status quo which is something Marvel always seems to be searching for.

I'd almost actually root for this to happen. It would be a nice way of bringing back or reintroducing or at least making relevant the New Mutants and Generation X characters if some of Xavier's original students and long time xmen decided to switch philosophies and be considered villainous. Then they would have to take up the mantle and fight against them. It would reignite the various different factions of mutantkind that made the xmens rogue gallery so interesting in years past.Plus the so-called villains or anti-hero or extremist or whatever you want to call them would be interesting on a whole other level. It would be more Magneto and Mystique like characters out there that people can identify with which gets away from the vanilla villain and makes things interesting on both sides.

I mean just imagine some of the characters we are talking about suddenly being against the xmen.... Cyclops,Dazzler, Iceman, Gambit, Kitty, Emma, Hope, Elixir. That would be a whole new class of villain and it makes room for other characters to step up and get development

@hawk2916: I could never really see Cyclops as villainous in the 616. We got a little too much depth with his character over the last decade for me to just see him going completely rogue, but definitely as someone seen as completely unpredictable and unallied philosophically with the X-Men. He, like Beast, would be great just because we'd be seeing an extension of what we already no about the characters controversial traits. Though I think the boat has kind of sailed and I'm more interested in Cyclops' redemption arc then i am in his edgy arc.

Yea and really considering the time period where Kitty was introduced and the character depth of the stories from that period, i think that had Kitty just decided she didn't like the safe respectable route of the X-Men, or even just went the route of Mystique and did what she wanted with her powers it would've made for an interesting, almost "Red Hood", approach to her relationship with the X-Men especially Logan.

@koays: Yeah.. I guess I shouldn't say villain. Personally I don't really consider Magneto to be completely villainous. However being unallied with the xmen, perhaps forming his own brotherhood with a different philosophy, no longer interested in peaceful coexistence because of the belief that its not possible would place him on a different side from the xmen. Which could be an interesting direction for a while. I think his redemption story would be even better after going this route.

By the way...on the subject of Kitty going bad you mentioned Red Hoods approach. I don't read DC so what is Red Hoods relationship to Batman and the Bat family. How would it work for Kitty?

Cyclops easily they treat him like he single handedly brought every problem to the mutant community so if he finally snapped with the dark phoenix and he slowly gets worse and worse which causes Jean to come back would be a decent story if done right

lol a villainous Kitty? Aren't Marvel Jews already in a terrible shape? Current Kitty is dreadful, yeah, but at least she's still a positive figure.

@hawk2916: My thing is that even if Cyke does give up on peaceful coexistence, and is separated from the X-Men...I'd see him as the type thats just exclusively saving mutants more then coming up with any plans against humanity so it kind of paints what would be a run as a social terrorist of sorts into a corner. LIke I can see him kidnapping politicians and forcing them to pass bills and sign over Utopia and stuff...but i just don't know what actions he'd take in that role of full villain for an extended amount of time.

Basically Red Hood's current relationship has him completely allied with the BatFam even though he keeps his distance and the relationship is strained because he's willing to kill criminals. But i guess traditionally (hasn't really been long since his inception...but oh well) his role is that of a angry student mad at their mentor for sticking to their moral code even in a moment when a greater good would arguably be served. That would be like Kitty losing a parent to someone like Arcade, and Wolverine holding her back from killing him. Kitty just gets fed up with living with some of the strongest people in the world who keep letting the Magneto's, Hell Fire Clubs and other villains of the world get away with things like that because of "morals". And then you've got Wolverine who tries to bring Kitty back, but at the end of the day he's the one she still can stand to be around because he actually isn't scared to kill people.

Just imagine Wolverine's face when 15year old Kitty is quoting his catch phrases while phasing her hand through someones chest.....at least that's my interpretation of @cattlebattle's idea

@adamtrmm Ok so Magneto (Polaris?), Kitty....and then i just don't remember many other jewish ppl in Marvel

Just read the Kitty Pryde and Wolverine mini from 1984. While she didn't actually kill anyone, she showed that she could very dangerous if turned down the wrong path. X-Men Forever and Age of Apocalypse also had a more aggressive, Wolverine influenced Kitty.

The Thing, Moon Knight, Gabrielle Haller, Legion (half), Justice, Sasquatch, Gertrude Yorkes.

@koays: Yea but that would still be a deviation from the Xmen's philosophy and because of his actions he could be hunted by the Xmen. That would somewhat cast him in the villainous role. Like I said not an out and out villain but just not really allied with the Xmen and in some instances seen as dangerous to their cause. His plans against humanity would be more along the lines of what you said about the forcing of politicians to give mutants rights. But I'd extend it to actively taking down governments who deny mutants rights or persecute them and really just having a disregard for human life when it comes to mutants. Any enemies of mutantkind would be dealt with on his own terms. OS basically existing as an outlaw and the Xmen would be against his methods, which is why I mentioned him heading up his own Brotherhood. he would not really be a villian in the classic sense but many of the Xmen would see him that way. . Even the off-world (Europa) idea could take shape somewhat here for a few arcs or two.

That Kitty idea is growing on me for sure and seems like a great direction for her character. being more aggressive and assertive instead of how she's portrayed now. I wonder if its too late to go that route?

That Xavier died at the hands of his student, while pursuing his dream (even though he had kind of put hit on hold to help his kid) and it still hasn't worked out, would be a traumatic experience for any close to him. In life those types of experiences can set people on a different path than what was originally planned or at least change their philosophy in life. The effects are not always immediate either. Seeing a bit of a progression in which several of the characters we are mentioning break away from the Xmen to pursue their own path somewhat contrary Xaviers ideals and are considered as anti-heroes or or even as villains at least from the Xmen's point of view would be interesting to say the least

I hope the next writer makes Kitty Pryde a villain fast, then kills her off. Just to piss off Bendis.

Other tan that, Sai Klawps

Elixir would make a brilliant villain if he turned now. That's kinda why I love him so much.

This.

I want someone to completely undo everything Bendis has done with Kitty.......in like 2 issues. I would laugh myself to death.

@sprior93: undoing everything Bendix did sounds like awesome plan. Hell we can start with House of M and his Avengers stuff and bring it on up to this travesty he calls Xmen

Lol...I don't hate Bendis, but I do think his selfinsert Starlord/Kitty Pryde fix has gotten out of control.

@koays: Please don't be objective here!! Lol. We just want unbridled rage.

1. Havok

2. Hope As Lady Stryfe

@hawk2916: lmao sorry. What I meant to say is that we should pull a Tempus on him and go back in time to the day He read his first comic book and replace it with a science textbook, though considering his grasp on continuity, cause and effect, and morality..he'd probably build a blackhole machine start a war over the black hole machine, and when everyone's dead and they ask him what his plan to turn it off was he'd say "It was the threat of the of the off switch that was going to stop the black hole"

Lol Better?

Magneto's tribe, and yes Quicksilver and Witch included since their connection to Magneto basically made them who they are today. It Wanda's perfect allegory to that phenomenon that defined her character for very long. I don't think there's a need to elaborate, the whole family is messed up, from controversy to identity crisis to mental instability.

Moonknight - another mentally unstable son of a Rabbi who happens to worship a f@cking EGYPTIAN god of all pantheons. (everybody must be familiar with Exodus to understand where's the irony right here)

Songbird - a troubled girl from a troubled family who happened to kiss (maybe even more?) a Nazi. Not sure about this one, but it's on the cover of one of Thunderbolts issues.

Leonard Sampson - another one who ends up crazy, and dead as the result.

Legion - lol, no need to elaborate for sure.

Hell case can be made even for Justice, Thing and Wiccan.

So yeah, majority of Marvel Jews, as you can see, either struggle with identity issues, mental problems, or other type of convolutions.

Guys, I am so surprised nobody mentioned.......................HELLION!!!!!!!!!! There has been so many hints implying that he might become a megalomaniacal villain in the future. She-Hulk in Avengers vs X-Men, Blindfold in X-Men: Legacy, and Emma Frost in New X-Men dropped those hints and implications.

@ultimatekey: I actually forgot about him. Now that you bring him up wouldn't it be an interesting dynamic if most of the recent students trained at the school turned out to be villains and against humanity. It might bring into question what the xmen might teaching them and maybe somebody comes to shut down/blow up the school...Mwaahahahaha. But seriously talk about irony right?

Hellion would be pretty cool as a villain. Especially if they developed it right

That would be a perfect miniseries and it would be awesome if X-23 was the one who ended his reign of villainy and at the end, they come back together as boyfriend/girlfriend! Team Helix (HellionxX-23 4ever!)