Published Aug 24, 2026, 9:00 PM EDT
Nicolas Ayala is a Senior Writer for the Comics team at ScreenRant, with over five years of experience writing about Superhero media, action movies, and TV shows.
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For the first time in X-Men history, one major villain becomes a key member of the team. Several mutants' official tenure as X-Men concluded almost as soon as it began. Among the briefest stints is ForgetMeNot, whose tragic mutation causes everyone to instantly forget his existence the moment they look away. During the lethal Krakoan era, Synch experiences an agonizingly short stint during a Vault infiltration mission where he's brutally killed in mere minutes. Other mutants like Lifeguard and her brother Slipstream joined during the early 2000s X-Treme X-Men run only to abandon the team after a handful of issues.
Besides their temporary recruits, the X-Men have a controversial tradition of integrating some of their most ruthless antagonists directly into their rosters. Extreme mutant supremacists and assassins like Mystique, Sabretooth, and Lady Mastermind have all been granted provisional X-Men status on tactical strike teams where their lethal pragmatism is weaponized for the greater good. Apocalypse himself has fully joined the civilization's ruling ranks during the Krakoan age, fighting side-by-side with his former victims to protect mutantkind. Most famously, Emma Frost, Gambit, Rogue, Magneto, and Juggernaut have become permanent fixtures of the X-Men, leaving their villainous origins behind for good.
One more classic X-Men villain joins this list of former antagonists, teaming up with Wolverine, Cyclops, and other iconic mutant heroes as a brand-new X-Men squad.
Destiny Joins The X-Men
What If...? X-Men #1; Written By Ashley Allen; Art By Sumit Kumar & Sonia Oback
Marvel's next chapter in its 2026 What If...? anthology series replaces Charles Xavier with Cassandra Nova, who also grows up to become a leader figure for mutantkind and establish a school for gifted youngsters. In this continuity, telepaths become a target for Cassandra Nova, and recruits like Emma Frost and Jean Grey feel so oppressed by their mentor that they attempt to escape the school at night, only for Cassandra's X-Men team to intercept them. Cassandra Nova's X-Men team is composed of Rogue, Wolverine, Psylocke, a Cyclops with a single-eye visor, and none other than Irene Adler a.k.a. Destiny, of Brotherhood of Mutants fame.
Cassandra Nova's alternate-universe X-Men team isn't as extravagant as Apocalypse's Horsemen, but they still communicate the dark nature of this timeline right from the beginning. Their grey uniforms strip the colorful hope of Charles Xavier's original squad, Rogue and Wolverine's wild hair convey a hint of dystopia, and Scott Summers' halved superpower makes him more akin to a mythological Cyclops. And while Irene Adler may have good intentions in this reality, her presence in the X-Men may be a sign that Cassandra Nova is also adding infiltrated mutants into the heroes' ranks for nefarious purposes.
Cassandra Nova's X-Men Team Features A Rare Duo
Rogue And Destiny Had Never Been Together In A Heroic Team
In the first pages of What If...? X-Men #1, Cassandra Nova reveals that she has been "collecting telepaths who paled in comparison" to Charles Xavier's psionic potential. With Jean Grey and Emma Frost kept in Cassandra Nova's school as prisoners in everything but name, it certainly isn't a coincidence that Cassandra has two other telepaths in her X-Men line-up. This universe's Psylocke seems to be the traditional Kwannon, whose psionic abilities make her ideal for combat situations. Meanwhile, Destiny could be an extremely useful asset both for the battlefield and for Cassandra's search of other mutant telepaths.
While What If...? X-Men #1 is a self-contained story, it presents a unique dynamic that's rarely explored in most X-Men comics, with Rogue sharing a team with Destiny, her foster mother and Mystique's wife. Destiny had a closer relationship with Rogue as she raised the young mutant, but Destiny's precognition powers also affected the way Rogue saw her own fate growing up. Curiously, Marvel Studios' Avengers: Doomsday is exploring a similar duo, with Rebecca Romijn's Mystique and Alan Cumming's Nightcrawler working together in the same X-Men team on the big screen. With enough time, What If...? X-Men #1 could also feature Rogue's other foster mother and her foster brother.
Which X-Men villain would you like to see join the team?
What If...? X-Men #1 is available August 26 from Marvel Comics
TV Show(s) X-Men: Pryde of the X-Men, X-Men (1992), X-Men: Evolution (2000), Wolverine and the X-Men (2008), Marvel Anime: Wolverine, Marvel Anime: X-Men, Legion (2017), The Gifted (2017), X-Men '97 (2024)
Video Game(s) X-Men: Children of the Atom (1994), Marvel Super Heroes (1995), X-Men vs. Street Fighter (1996), Marvel Super Heroes vs. Street Fighter (1997), Marvel vs. Capcom (1998), X-Men: Mutant Academy (2000), Marvel vs. Capcom 2: New Age of Heroes (2000), X-Men: Mutant Academy 2 (2001), X-Men: Next Dimension (2002), Marvel vs. Capcom 3: Fate of Two Worlds (2011), Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 (2011), X-Men Legends (2005), X-Men Legends 2: Rise of Apocalypse (2005), X2: Wolverine's Revenge (2003), X-Men (1993), X-Men 2: Clone Wars (1995), X-Men: Mutant Apocalypse (1994)
First Film X-Men (2000)
Character(s) Professor X, Cyclops, Iceman, Beast, Angel, Phoenix, Wolverine, Gambit, Rogue, Storm, Jubilee, Morph, Nightcrawler, Havok, Banshee, Colossus, Magneto, Psylocke, Juggernaut, Cable, X-23
Comic Release Date 213035,212968
English (US) ·