Brotherhood of Mutants
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| Brotherhood of Mutants | |
| Publication information | |
|---|---|
| Publisher | Marvel Comics |
| First appearance | Uncanny X-Men #4 (March, 1964) |
| Created by | Stan Lee Jack Kirby |
| In story information | |
| Base(s) | Various |
| Roster | |
| See:List of Brotherhood of Mutants Members | |
The Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, also known as "The Brotherhood" and Brotherhood of Mutants, is a fictional character group, Marvel Comics supervillain team devoted to mutant superiority over normal humans. They are among the chief adversaries of the X-Men. The original Brotherhood was created by writer Stan Lee and artist/co-writer Jack Kirby and first appeared in X-Men #4 (March 1964).
The group's roster and ideology have varied from incarnation to incarnation, ranging from world domination to serving as a terrorist group that targets anti-mutant public figures. They are almost always at odds with the more peaceful X-Men, though on rare occasions the two sides have allied against a common threat.
The Brotherhood was founded by Magneto and its members were his primary allies in his early battles with the X-Men during 1960s. The original Brotherhood ultimately disbanded, with Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch going on to become members of the Avengers.
In 1981, the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants was revived under the leadership of Mystique while the group's most visible incarnation during the early 1990s was led by Toad. With each additional incarnation, the group abandoned its political ideology and regressed to the status of "hired goons" by the end of the 1990s, though the most recent incarnations have sought to return the political roots.
The Brotherhood of Mutants has also appeared in several animated series featuring the X-Men and has been Magneto’s group in the recent X-Men film series.
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[edit] Ideology
While later incarnations of the Brotherhood promoted the group's existence as a political and ideological rival to Professor Charles Xavier's dream of peace with humans, the group was originally conceived as simply a small, but powerful army of minions gathered by Magneto to aid in his schemes for world domination. But since the group's second incarnation, the group has become a much more politically motivated group designed for use of violence to provide justice and lead the so-called 'mutant revolution' against mankind.
One of the greater ironies of the group has been its use of "Evil" in its name. Since the early 1990s, writers have attempted to explain this away by having Toad describe it as irony, based upon the perceived notion that all mutants are "evil." Later writers have opted instead to simply drop "Evil" from the group's name and refer to the group as "The Brotherhood."
Many of the group's members have been shown to be past victims of anti-mutant prejudice, which has made the group a haven for many mutants who feel they are outcasts and pariahs. While many of these outcast mutants have willingly embraced the violent aspects of the Brotherhood's ideology, several have ultimately rejected it and left the group because of it. Most notably, Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch left the group due to their disdain for Magneto's various schemes for world domination to join the Avengers, a group of heroes dedicated to help save the world as opposed to ruling it.
[edit] Fictional team biography
[edit] Magneto's Brotherhood
The original leader of the team was Magneto, a mutant with the ability to control magnetic fields. It would be later revealed that Magneto was a Holocaust survivor, explaining his distrust of humanity and its inability to accept those who are different. The other members of the original team were Quicksilver, who can run at incredible speeds, the Scarlet Witch, who has the power to affect probability fields, the Toad, a sniveling villain with incredible jumping ability and a medieval costume, and Mastermind, with the power to create illusions of sight, smell, taste, touch and sound. Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch are twins, and also Magneto's children, although at the time of the original Brotherhood all three of them were unaware of it. Time and again, the Brotherhood clashed with the original X-Men team (consisting of Cyclops, the Angel, the Beast, Iceman and Marvel Girl), until Magneto was captured by an extraterrestrial being called the Stranger. Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch left the team and joined the Avengers, and the other members dispersed. Later, back on Earth, Magneto reorganized the team three times, including such mutants as the Blob and Unus the Untouchable, and creating a team that was later alternately called Mutant Force and the Resistants.
[edit] Mystique's Brotherhood
The shapeshifting mutant terrorist Mystique later organized her own Brotherhood of Evil Mutants. Members included Pyro, the Blob, Avalanche, Destiny and Rogue. This team (minus Rogue, who had defected to the X-Men) later became the core membership of the government-sponsored team called Freedom Force. As Freedom Force, their membership briefly included Spiral and the second Spider-Woman, and later included Super Sabre, the Crimson Commando, and Stonewall. This group both fought and teamed up with several heroic groups, including the Avengers, but ultimately disbanded after Destiny, Super Sabre and Stonewall were killed in action, Mystique faked her death, the Crimson Commando was crippled and the Blob and Pyro were abandoned on a mission in Iraq.
[edit] Toad's Brotherhood
The Toad also organized a Brotherhood of Evil Mutants of his own at one point, including the Blob and Pyro, a woman named Phantazia who could disrupt machines and superhuman powers, and the vampiric humanoid pterodactyl called Sauron, who is not an actual mutant. Toad's Brotherhood was concerned mostly with hatching revenge schemes against the X-teams, but was repeatedly defeated by X-Force, X-Factor, Darkhawk, Spider-Man and Sleepwalker.
[edit] Dark Beast's Brotherhood
Havok, while suffering from the effects of a nervous breakdown, was the leader of a short-lived Brotherhood of Mutants whose membership included himself, the Dark Beast, Fatale, and, briefly, Aurora, Ever and X-Man. This team turned out to be a setup by Havok to find out the illegal experiments the Dark Beast was performing and fell apart when Havok and the Dark Beast finally clashed. This incarnation was the first Brotherhood to omit the "Evil" from its name.
[edit] Professor X's Brotherhood
The following incarnation included new members the Mimic and Post as well as the Blob and Toad. They freed Charles Xavier from prison and helped the X-Men against the animated Cerebro, who had created a team of fake X-Men. They later cooperated with Mystique in an attempt to capture the Machine Man. The team disbanded shortly afterwards.
During this time period, it was revealed that the teleporter named Astra had been a member of the original Brotherhood, but had quit before the team fought the X-Men.
[edit] Mystique's Second Attempt
Mystique organized another Brotherhood, drawing members from nearly every incarnation, and adding Sabretooth and Martinique Jason, the new Mastermind to the lineup. A training session also showed a new Super Sabre and Commando, but they were not included on the mission. This Brotherhood managed to assassinate Moira MacTaggert before they were disbanded.
[edit] The Brotherhood
Later, a short-lived Marvel series called The Brotherhood featured a large group of mutant terrorists, unrelated to any other version of the Brotherhood. The group was founded by the mutants Hoffman, Orwell and Marshal, but Marshal left the group and became a government agent. Hoffman hid his identity under the alias "X". Marshal had the orders to take down the Brotherhood, but was really planning on killing Hoffman and becoming the new "X". This series was cancelled after nine issues, at which point all members had either been killed in the power struggle between Hoffman and Marshal or by the publicity-driven X-Force (later renamed X-Statix).
[edit] Mystique's Third Attempt
The next incarnation of the Brotherhood was led by Mystique again and included the new member Fever Pitch. This Brotherhood had infiltrated the X-Corps. Later Mystique would claim that she had not been involved with this incarnation and possibly the former incarnation as well, but that an imposter had taken her place.
[edit] Xorn's Brotherhood
Another Brotherhood was formed by former X-Man Xorn, who thought he was Magneto. His brotherhood were his former students Beak, Angel Salvadore, Martha Johansson, Basilisk, Ernst, Esme and old Brotherhood member Toad. Most members rebelled against Xorn after he accidentally killed Basilisk and his insanity became too obvious to ignore.
[edit] Exodus' Brotherhood
More recently, in the "Heroes and Villains" arc that concluded Chuck Austen's run on X-Men, a new version of the Brotherhood appeared. The team was led by the powerful mutant Exodus, who had once been Magneto's herald, and its other members included Avalanche, Sabretooth (who had simply been hired by Exodus), and new members Black Tom Cassidy, Mammomax, Nocturne (who was revealed to be a spying on the team), and Juggernaut (who was later revealed to be a mole). After Black Tom killed Juggernaut's friend Sammy Pare, the "Fish-Boy", Juggernaut tried to destroy the Brotherhood. After knocking Juggernaut and several other Brotherhood members unconscious, Exodus led his team to the Xavier Institute to claim revenge for the apparent death of Magneto. The entire team was defeated by the second Xorn, who sucked them into the "black hole" within his head; Nocturne was sucked in as well, and Juggernaut followed her. They eventually landed in Mojoworld, where the others sold Nocturne and Juggernaut to Mojo.
[edit] Sunspot's Brotherhood
In the upcoming series, Young X-Men, a new incarnation of the Brotherhood will appear. It was revealed in the first issue by Cyclops that this new incarnation consists of Cannonball, Danielle Moonstar, Magma and Sunspot. As far as is known, Sunspot is the leader of this new Brotherhood.
[edit] Known members
[edit] Other Marvel continuities
[edit] Ultimate Brotherhood
In Ultimate X-Men, the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants is called the Brotherhood of Mutant Supremacy, headed by a far more violent and genocidal version of Magneto. The original Brotherhood consisted of Blob, Mastermind, Magneto's twins Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch and Toad, though several hundred mutants also resided in Magneto's city in the Savage Land. When Magneto was seemingly killed by Xavier, Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch tried to use the Brotherhood in more useful ways of gaining mutant rights such as proceeding with talks to the UN. This caused many splinter groups, such as the Acolytes, to split off and attempt to continue Magneto's genocidal techniques. During this short-lived less violent phase, several mutant animal recruits rescued from laboratories were added (one of which was the mutated ape Prosimian), but Magneto rejected them upon his return, seeing them, like Homo sapiens, as lower species.
In the Ultimate War and "Return of the King" storylines, Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch defected to the Ultimates (mirroring their earlier defection to the Avengers in the mainstream Marvel universe) to help stop the resurfaced Magneto. The ranks of the Brotherhood were now strengthened by Destiny, Unus, Juggernaut, Hard-Drive, Rogue, Sabretooth, Vanisher, Forge and Multiple Man. After being defeated by the X-Men yet again, the Brotherhood receded for a time. Recently, they seem to have restarted their activities, beginning with the newly-introduced Mystique and Forge's plan to free Magneto from his plastic prison cell in The Triskelion with Mystique taking his place to prevent anyone from realizing that Magneto is free. After the events of the "Magnetic North" storyline, Longshot seems to have joined them. At the beginning of the "Sentinels" storyline, Mystique is replaced by Mastermind and his new girlfriend, Stacy (who is presumably also a mutant, though the nature and extent of her powers is not revealed).
In The Ultimates 3, the members have changed slightly, with Sabertooth leading Blob, Madrox, Mystique and a new member called Lorelei. Magneto again is the leader of the team, but doesn't join the fight.
[edit] Age of Apocalypse
In the Age of Apocalypse, Magneto never formed the Brotherhood, but the X-Men instead. However, Apocalypse is served a strikeforce of mutant fanatics calling itself the Brotherhood of Chaos. Its members are Copycat, Box, Spyne, Yeti and Arclight (who is not the same as the Earth-616 Arclight).
[edit] X-Men: Fairy Tales
In the first issue of the X-Men: Fairy Tales limited series, the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants appears as a group of Oni who have captured the Emperor's daughter (Jean Grey). Hitome/Cyclops subdues them. The team members used for this issue were Magneto, Quicksilver, Scarlet Witch, and Toad.
[edit] 1602
In Neil Gaiman's 1602, Magneto is the Grand Inquisitor of the Spanish Inquisition during the year 1602, with Pietro and Wanda Maximoff serving under him as messenger and assistant, respectively. After Toad, their spy at the Vatican, betrays the fact that they have been sheltering any 'Witchbreed' (1602 word for Mutants) that can hide their powers, he and his Children escape being burnt at the stake, capture Toad, and sail to the Americas; as Gaiman's characterization of Magneto is more rooted in Religion than Morality, here his group is named 'The Brotherhood of Those Who Will Inherit The Earth'. After a brief encounter with Carlos Javier, that world's Professor X, in which Iceman freezes their ship in the middle of the ocean, Magneto agrees to work with the other 1602 heroes. When the World is saved, he departs, entrusting Wanda and Pietro to Javier, and instructing him to take care of them until he returns, and never to tell them that they are his children. The fate of Toad in this world is unknown, but Magneto had promised to punish him for his betrayal, a punishment which was ultimately left unseen.
[edit] House of M
In this world, the Brotherhood was created as an NYPD strikeforce team to take down organized crime. Members included John Proudstar (leader), Frank Castle (who left, due to seeing how the Brotherhood are mistreating the human criminals[1]), Blob, Feral, Taskmaster, Avalanche, Boom Boom and Misty Knight (who had secretly infiltrated the "Avengers", and would later defect from the Brotherhood).[2]
[edit] In other media
[edit] Television
[edit] Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends
The Brotherhood made their first ever appearance in other media on Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends. In the episode entitled "The Prison Plot", the Amazing Friends are called into action when Magneto appears demanding the release of his "Brotherhood of Evil Mutants" from jail.
[edit] Pryde of the X-Men
Their next appearance would be in the 1989 animated television pilot Pryde of the X-Men, therein referred to as "The Brotherhood of Mutant Terrorists." This Brotherhood was a mix of Magneto's group and Mystique's along with the previously unaffiliated Juggernaut and White Queen, and, inexplicably, Kitty Pryde's pet dragon Lockheed (who was regarded as a pest by Magneto).
[edit] X-Men: The Animated Series
"The Brotherhood of Evil Mutants" appeared as its second incarnation in the animated series X-Men, with the Blob, Avalanche and Pyro being lead by Mystique, and Rogue being shown as a former member. The Brotherhood was shown also to be initially financed by Apocalypse, though only Mystique knew of this. Notably absent from the series was Mystique's longtime lesbian lover, the precog Destiny; as such, major changes had to be made towards the adaptation of "Days of Future Past", in which the Brotherhood attempts to assassinate presidential candidate Senator Robert Kelly.
[edit] X-Men: Evolution
- See also: List of X-Men: Evolution characters
In the animated television series X-Men: Evolution, "The Brotherhood of Mutants" is portrayed less as a group of terrorists and more as trouble-making teenagers. Brought together by Mystique (secretly working for Magneto), the core group consisted of teenage versions of Avalanche, Toad, the Blob, and Quicksilver. Due to the shifting loyalties of Mystique and long periods of absence from Magneto, these four teens were often left without any guidance, and as the series progressed they went from super-villains to standard criminals until the point where they simply stopped caring and just stayed home most of the time. Towards the end of the series they became a wild card that could be swayed to any cause, and often teamed-up with the X-Men, who remained their rivals while no longer enemies. Magneto's mentally-disturbed daughter the Scarlet Witch later joins.
- Magneto
- Mystique
- Toad
- The Blob
- Avalanche
- Quicksilver
- Scarlet Witch
- Rogue (temporary)
- Boom-Boom (temporary)
[edit] Wolverine and the X-Men
The Brotherhood of Mutants will appear in Wolverine and the X-Men. Among it's confirmed members are:
[edit] Film trilogy (2000-2006)
In 2000's X-Men movie, the Brotherhood included Magneto (Sir Ian McKellen), Sabretooth (Tyler Mane), Mystique (Rebecca Romijn Stamos) and Toad (Ray Park). In the film, Magneto with the help of his Brotherhood, devises a machine that can trigger mutation in human beings, and with which the former plans to wipe out the human race and replace it with a whole world of mutants. The Brotherhood's plans are, however, foiled by the X-Men.
In the sequel X2: X-Men United (2003) the lineup was greatly reduced to Magneto and Mystique only. However at the end of the film, they were joined by Pyro (Aaron Stanford).
The third installment of the series, X-Men: The Last Stand (2006), depicted a much larger Brotherhood including:
- Juggernaut (Vinnie Jones)
- Callisto (Dania Ramírez)
- Arclight (Omahyra Mota)
- Multiple Man (Eric Dane)
- Quill (Ken Leung)
- Psylocke (Meiling Melançon)
- Dark Phoenix (Famke Janssen)
- Phat (Via Saleaumua and Richard Yee)
- Spike (Lance Gibson)
During a raid upon a government convoy, Mystique sacrifices herself (and ultimately her powers) when she takes a cure dart to the chest aimed at Magneto. Magneto deserts his most loyal ally, revealing, "You're not one of us anymore." Commenting that it was a shame to lose her "beauty", Magneto leads the remaining Brotherhood members away. Later in the film, Mystique, as Raven Darkholme (her human form), is seen providing the United States government with information regarding the whereabouts of Magneto's base of operations. With Multiple Man as the diversion for the army, Magneto leads his Brotherhood to Alcatraz to prevent the production of the cure. Among those seen taking part in the assault on Alcatraz are:
- Vanisher
- Glob herman.
- A lava-skinned man who exhales a superheated cloud of ash and cinders (named "Ash," according to the DVD commentary).
- A bald man who can re-grow his lost limbs
- A mutant who apparently makes copies of himself when he falls into the battle.
- Mutants with minor distortions (such as glowing eyes and rhinoceros-horn).
- Several mutants strong enough to leap over a large pile of debris.
The weaker Brotherhood Mutants were sent in first where they were hit by cure darts incased in plastic. The stronger Brotherhood Mutants later went in with some of them either killed or survived in their battle with the X-Men.
[edit] Video games
[edit] X-Men Legends
In the X-Men Legends games, the Brotherhood of Mutants appears as one of the primary antagonists in the first and reluctant heroes in the second. In the first, the Brotherhood is based on Asteroid M and initially led by Mystique until Magneto is rescued from jail. The Brotherhood in this game consists of (in addition to a substantial number of unnamed Brotherhood grunts):
Magneto's plan to blockade the Earth with asteroids is thwarted by the X-Men, but the Brotherhood escape. In the sequel X-Men Legends II: Rise of Apocalypse, Magneto has relocated to the island of Genosha. Though Sabretooth, Mystique, the Blob, Toad and Pyro remain members, there are new additions to the Brotherhood:
When Quicksilver is kidnapped by Apocalypse, the Brotherhood temporarily joins forces with the X-Men to defeat Apocalypse and rescue Quicksilver. Some members of the Brotherhood however, such as Pyro and Blob, do not accompany them, and Avalanche is not even mentioned throughout the game. Also, Destiny was a member of the Brotherhood before she quit due to her latest precognition revolving around Apocalypse.
[edit] References
[edit] External links
- BROTHERHOOD OF EVIL MUTANTS I - An in-depth profile of the entire first lineup, at UXN.
- BROTHERHOOD OF EVIL MUTANTS II / MUTANT FORCE / RESISTANTS - Another in-depth profile of the second lineup at UXN.
- BROTHERHOOD OF EVIL MUTANTS III / FREEDOM FORCE - Another in-depth profile of the third team, at UXN.
- BROTHERHOOD OF EVIL MUTANTS IV - A look at the fourth group, at UXN.
- BROTHERHOOD OF MUTANTS I - A look at Havok's Brotherhood, at UXN.
- BROTHERHOOD OF MUTANTS II - A look at Xavier's Brotherhood at UXN.
- BROTHERHOOD OF MUTANTS III - An in-depth profile of this team.
