| Brotherhood of Mutants | |
|---|---|
Cover art for X-Men: Legacy #209. Art by David Finch. |
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| Publication information | |
| Publisher | Marvel Comics |
| First appearance | Uncanny X-Men #4 (March 1964) |
| Created by | Stan Lee (writer) Jack Kirby (artist) |
| In-story information | |
| Base(s) | Various |
| Roster | |
| See:List of Brotherhood of Mutants members | |
The Brotherhood of Mutants, originally known as the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, is a fictional 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 the 1960s. The original Brotherhood ultimately disbanded, with Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch going on to become members of the Avengers.
In 1981, the Brotherhood of 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.
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 of Mutants" or simply the Brotherhood. In Earth-X, Uatu explained that Magneto chose it so that, as the opposing side, Charles would be forced to assume the role of "Good," and that Magneto believed that by locking Charles into absolutes of morality, he could manipulate him.
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.
The original leader of the team was Magneto, a mutant with the ability to control magnetic fields. It would later be 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, his twin sister, 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 Magneto's children, although at the time of the original Brotherhood all three of them were unaware of it. They had joined after Magneto saved Wanda from a mob who believed she was a Witch after she accidentally made a house burst into flame. She joined to repay the debt, and Pietro joined to keep her safe. Time and again, the Brotherhood clashed with the original X-Men team (consisting of Cyclops, the Angel, the Beast, Iceman and Marvel Girl), in their first appearance taking control of a small country with the aid of Mastermind creating an illusion of an army. They captured the Angel and took him to Asteroid M, but he was rescued. They tried to recruit the Sub-Mariner, and then the Blob, but the X-Men succeeded against them. Finally Magneto and Toad were captured by an extraterrestrial being called the Stranger, who they at first believed was a powerful mutant, but he revealed himself to be an alien. Mastermind had been turned to a block of solid matter by the Stranger, Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch left the team and later joined the Avengers. 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.
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.
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 electronics 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.
Havok, after being captured and subjected to intensive brainwashing by the Dark Beast, formed his own short-lived Brotherhood of Mutants whose membership included himself, the Dark Beast, Fatale, and, briefly, Aurora, Random, Ever and X-Man. Despite Jean Grey's proclamation that Havok was acting of his own free will as well as the plot point of Dark Beast brainwashing Havok, it was ultimately revealed that Havok formed the team as part of a sting operation designed 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.
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, providing Magneto with the technology used to create Asteroid M and locating potential recruits, including Nightcrawler. Though she was in love with Magneto (and had encountered Professor X at some point), Magneto did not love her back and this rejection led to her quitting the team and served as the motivation behind her creation of the Magneto clone Joseph.
During the threat of the Legacy Virus, 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.
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).[1][2]
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 and took over the group, before it was defeated by the X-Men and Mystique sucked into another dimension by X-Corps recruit Abyss (ironically landing the two into the arms of Azazel, who was the father of both Abyss and Mystique's biological son Nightcrawler). Following her being rescued from her former lover's realm, Mystique would become a reluctant agent of Professor X, doing black ops missions for him. While employed, Mystique claimed that the second and third Brotherhood formed by her was actually formed by someone trying to frame her, something Xavier dismissed as lies designed by Mystique to gain sympathy from Xavier.
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 II, 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.
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 spying on the team), and Juggernaut (who was later revealed to be a mole). After Black Tom killed Juggernaut's friend Sammy Paré the "Fish-Boy" (whom was attacking Juggernaut for his "apparent betrayal"), Juggernaut lashes out and 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, for their freedom.
In Young X-Men, Cyclops gathers the Young X-Men to eliminate the new incarnation of the Brotherhood, which consists of Cannonball, Danielle Moonstar and Magma, all under the leadership of Sunspot, Lord Imperial of the Hellfire Club. However, Cyclops turns out to be a disguised Donald Pierce, who is using the Young X-Men for his own ends.
The more unique incarnation is an all-female version called the Sisterhood, formed by the "Red Queen" -- revealed to (supposedly) be Madelyne Pryor -- who recruited Martinique Jason, Lady Mastermind, and the non-mutants Chimera, Spiral and Lady Deathstrike. The Sisterhood was able to capture and brainwash the former X-Man Psylocke, making her a member also.[3][4] Although being neither female nor a recruited member, former Hellions member Empath was revealed to be helping the team in their attack against the X-Men.[5] The Red Queen is later lured into a trap set by Cyclops (Madelyne's former husband) and defeated. Psylocke broke free from her brainwashing and rejoined the X-Men. The other Sisterhood members all escape.[6]
In miniseries "Magneto: Not a Hero", Joseph is resurrected by unknown circumstances and he forms a new Brotherhood of mutants with Astra, and mutated versions of Blob, Mastermind, Quicksilver, Scarlet Witch, and Toad after having killed 40 manifestants anti-mutants.[7]
In Amazing Spider-Girl #22, a Sisterhood of Mutants is featured. This group consists of Magneta, Impact (a superstrong mutant able to increase the size of any part of her body), Pirouette (who can rotate at high speeds), and Headcase (a powerful psychic).
The Brotherhood, led by Chief Detective Eric Magnus, is a cabal of corrupt and violent policemen, doing the bidding of Sebastian Shaw. It is formed by Magnus, Dukes and Wyngarde.[8]
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. It was originally formed by Professor X and Magneto in a plan to create a safe haven for mutants in a city within the Savage Land, but Magneto had other plans to make the mutants more dominant over the humans. The original Brotherhood first seen consisted of Blob, Mastermind, Magneto's twins Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch; Toad, and Wolverine. Soon after their first appearance, Wolverine was planted in the X-Men as a mole and later defected to the X-Men. Cyclops once sided with the Brotherhood during Wolverine's infiltration only to turn against the Brotherhood and assist the X-Men into fighting the Brotherhood of Mutants. When Magneto was seemingly killed by Professor X, 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 as lower species like Homo sapiens and wiped out the mutant animals. At some point, Toad defected to the X-Men.
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 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 X.
In "The Ultimates 3," the members have changed slightly, with Magneto leading Sabertooth, Blob, Unus, Multiple Man, Mystique, Pyro, Mastermind, and new member Lorelei. During a recent conflict, Unus is killed by Thor, Mastermind is killed by Valkyrie who also dismembers Pyro's hands.
As of Ultimatum, Magneto, Blob, Detonator, Forge, Hard-Drive, Longshot, Lorelei, and Multiple Man are dead. Juggernaut is hit in the eye by a poisonous dart shot by an anti-mutant soldier. Mystique and Sabretooth are the only members that survived.
In the Age of Apocalypse, Magneto never formed the Brotherhood, but the X-Men instead. However, Apocalypse is served by 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).
They would be sent to attempt to stop the Sentinel evacuation of surviving humans in North America. There they would attempt to stop the X-Men by altering the computer virus that was supposed to make the Sentinels consider the X-Men allies. Despite this, the X-Men would succeed, and members Arclight, Spyne, and Yeti were reported as being "dealt with" by Iceman. If they were killed or merely defeated remains unrevealed. Members Box and Copycat would manage to smuggle themselves aboard the extraction vessels and sneak into Europe. They would be discovered and killed by Weapon X and Jean Grey.
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.
In Neil Gaiman's 1602, Magneto is Enrique, the Grand Inquisitor of the Spanish Inquisition during the year 1602, with Brother Petros and Sister Wanda (Pietro and Wanda Maximoff respectively) serving under him as messenger and assistant, respectively. Enrique had been born a Jew in the ghetto of Venice, but he was taken away from his parents and raised within the Catholic Church. At some point Enrique befriended Carlos Javier, that world's Professor X, who crafted a helmet to protect Enrique from his psychic powers.
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 reinterpretation 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 in which Roberto Trefusis freezes their ship in the middle of the ocean, Enrique agrees to work with the other heroes. When the world is saved, Enrique departs, entrusting Wanda and Petros 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 Enrique had promised to punish him for his betrayal, a punishment which was ultimately left unseen.
In this reality, the Brotherhood was led by Magneto and consisted of Havok, Quicksilver, Scarlet Witch, Storm, and Wolverine.
In the House of M reality, the Brotherhood was created as an NYPD strikeforce team to take down organized crime. Members included John Proudstar (leader), Frank Castle (only human member who left due to seeing how the Brotherhood are mistreating the human criminals[9]), Blob, Feral, Taskmaster, Avalanche, Boom Boom and Misty Knight (who had secretly infiltrated the "Avengers", and would later defect from the Brotherhood).[10]
In this alternate future, Malcolm Colcord convinced people to hate mutants. In issue 4 (29 years from now), most of the surviving mutants gather to see the return of Magneto. One of the groups is the Brotherhood led by Sabretooth and consisting of Avalanche, Blob, Caliban, Hub, Mimic, and Scalphunter.
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