There are a lot of reasons why the X-Men are so popular and one of the biggest has always been their villains. It all began with bad guys like Magneto, an enemy who represented the antithesis of everything that the X-Men represented, and just went on from there. We’ve gotten best of all-time villains like Apocalypse, Mister Sinister, the Sentinels, Sebastian Shaw, the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, the Brood, Mystique, Destiny, Sabretooth, and so many more, helping build the team’s legend. Their villains have redefined what a popular comic book villain can be, with the biggest of them joining the heroes and even getting their own solo books. Becoming a top rank X-villain is a recipe for success. Well, most of the time, at least.
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One of the problems with the X-Men having so many amazing villains is that some of them fall between the cracks. Over the years, loads of great antagonists have been introduced, characters with all the potential in the Marvel Universe, that have never gotten to reach the level they should have. They’ve had some good stories and been set up for success, but no one ever pulled the trigger with them. One of the best examples of this is Selene. A mutant psychic vampire with powerful magical talents, she’s a character who has positioned for greatness, yet never really got her big break. The X-Men books are sort of rudderless lately, and a return of Selene can be just the thing that the team needs.
Selene Is the X-Men’s Best Kept Secret
Selene was introduced in the early days of the New Mutants. She was a part of Nova Roma, the hidden Roman colony where the team found Magma, and soon became a member of the Hellfire Club, becoming the Black Queen for a time and getting the look that would define her for years. Right away, she was established to be something different from the mutants we were used to; in fact, you could look at her as an example of something of a proto-Apocalypse. She was the OG ancient mutant with a shadowy past, trying to make her mark on the modern world, laying the groundwork for more villains like her to show up.
She was positioned as a powerful foe for the X-Men and their allies, but when it comes right down to it, it’s plain to see why she didn’t make the splash that villains like Apocalypse and Mister Sinister made in the ’80s, even though she was a precursor to both of them in numerous ways. If you go back and take a look of the early days of both characters, they were given major storyarcs almost immediately, with Apocalypse getting involved with Angel after he lost his wings and Sinister being linked to “Mutant Massacre” and becoming one of the driving forces of “Inferno”. Selene doesn’t really have anything equivalent and wouldn’t until “Necrosha” in 2009, almost thirty years after she debuted.
For a long time, Selene felt like a character without any kind of direction. Magneto had mutant supremacy, Sinister had Summers genetics, Shaw had greed, Mystique had Destiny and the Brotherhood, et cetera. Selene has never had anything like that. The closest thing she got to anything like that was the Externals, a secret society of immortal mutants that was positioned as important in the early ’90s. However, that concept never really caught on with readers and since then, Selene has been a cool but underutilized villain.
Right now, the X-Men are a lot like Selene has been for most of her existence. The team really doesn’t have any kind of direction and it’s hurt them overall in the eyes of fans. The group needs some kind of threat, some kind of villain, that could make fans take notice and Selene may be just what the doctor ordered for them. While you can say that Marvel never giving Selene any kind of defining story has been the biggest problem with her, it’s the one that allows her to fill any kind of role you can imagine.
Selene is a villain with a great look, amazing powers, and the kind of past that can allow you to take her in any direction. She’s a lump of unformed clay and any kind of creator can take her and mold her into anything they need. She’s a magic-using mutant; you can position her as an enemy of Magik, building her up even more. You can have her show up as some kind of mutant leader, creating her own society of her people for her own reasons. You could use her to bring back the Hellfire Club in a new way, setting them against the new Hellfire Brotherhood. She has the power to be an excellent big bad and the potential to take the X-Men in new directions.
We Want More Selene!
I started reading the X-Men in 1991 and I was all-in on the various Marvel card sets, which was our version of the Marvel wiki. These sets would always have a Selene card or one showing her as a member of the Hellfire Club and the like. These cards gave me the impression that she was a much more important villain, but reading the comics showed me the truth – she was a minor yet awesome villain that didn’t really have the stories to hang with the big boys. In 2026, this hasn’t changed all that much; even “Necrosha” isn’t exactly fondly remembered. However, that doesn’t mean we should give up on Selene.
While one of the problems with the villain has been her lack of defining story, that’s actually a strength right now. She’s an open book and can be used for basically anything that creators want; in fact, that’s what happened with her in the Krakoa Era twice (I bet you don’t even remember she was in X-Corp, do you?). Unlike some other X-villains, she doesn’t have defining stories that can sometimes fence characters in. This is exactly the kind of bad guy the team can use right now, one who can fit anywhere and do anything. She could be the next big Marvel villain if the publisher plays their cards right.
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