One of the MCU’s creepiest villains is back in comics, and she’s turning humans into mutants

The new X-Men line wide reboot rolls on as X-Men #5 picks up the mystery of X-genes manifesting in adults rather than adolescents, showing that there’s someone pulling the strings to make it happen – and it’s a villain fans will definitely recognize.

Spoilers ahead for X-Men #5

X-Men #5 by writer Jed MacKay, artist Ryan Stegman, inkers JP Mayer and Livesay, color artist Marte Gracia, and letterer Clayton Cowles sends Psylocke and Quentin Quire into the mind of Ben Liu, a man who suddenly manifested mutant powers that created an illusory alien invasion in San Francisco.

Since being rescued by the X-Men, Liu has been comatose. Psylocke and Quire’s mission is to venture into his psyche, discover what’s going on with his X-gene, and wake him from his coma. And while they are met by their share of psychic resistance, they manage to discover that Liu’s X-gene was activated on purpose by someone who abducted him and experimented on him.

(Image credit: Marvel Comics)

But before they can reach into Liu’s memories and discover who it is, the person in the memory actively engages with them, recognizing their presence, something which should be impossible.

And it would be, if they weren’t dealing with one of the most powerful psychic villains in the entire Marvel Universe – Cassandra Nova, who left a psychic remnant of herself in Ben Liu’s psyche as a failsafe against intruders.

Psylocke and Quentin Quire are able to barely escape with their lives by combining their psionic abilities, but they carry a warning to the other X-Men: Cassandra Nova has returned, and she’s doing experiments on humans to activate their dormant X-genes.

(Image credit: Marvel Comics)

Fans of Deadpool and Wolverine will recognize Cassandra Nova as one of the film’s primary villains. In comics, she’s a sort of psychic twin of Charles Xavier given form. She was last seen being stranded in the distant past after attempting another genocidal scheme, but it now seems she’s done what the best villains do and found her way back to menace the X-Men again.

X-Men #6 goes on sale October 23, 2024.

Stay up to date on all the new X-Men comics Marvel has planned for release.