Villain Profile: Toad

He's Magneto's #1 Fan.

I mentioned last time that Fire manipulation is a pretty common superpower. Another is animal characteristics. Strength of a bear, speed of a cheetah, senses of a bird of prey, spider clinging and silk weaving, and so on. I won’t list off a bunch of those, since you probably can think of a half dozen examples of animal powered heroes and villains on your own. Usually, these kinds of powers would be cool regardless of what you get. But then you’ve got someone that’s stuck with a negative aspect of the animal that they have powers akin to, such as with out next character, Mortimer Toynbee aka Toad. Let’s get to it.

The one time he's a competent threat is also the one time he's
played by the same actor as the best character of the Prequel
Star Wars movies. Coincidence? I think not.

Morty was born and raised in York, England. He was abandoned by his parents before he was old enough to walk and spent years in an orphanage. He was relentlessly bullied by the other kids for his less than pleasant appearance. Like Beast and Nightcrawler, even before his powers fully manifested, he had a slightly physical deformities that hinted at his later abilities. He walked with a hunch, had gangly limbs and a squashed face. Not only that, but he had some unspecified learning disability that made school difficult for him, so he was thought to be stupid as well as ugly. Not a fun combo. He dropped out of school before getting out of primary school and fended for himself on the street. Shockingly, his physical abnormalities coupled with the years of abuse gave the poor guy a pretty severe inferiority complex, and he basically worshipped anyone that showed him the slightest bit of kindness. It sucks that the first person to really do that was Max Eisenhardt, aka Magneto.

He devoted himself to pleasing Magneto, believing that the master of magnetism loved and appreciated him like a son. In truth, Magneto really just tolerated his Toady. I’m not apologizing for the pun. He also did his best to woo teammate and Magneto’s then unknowing daughter Scarlet Witch. She was completely uninterested as he was gross, sycophantly devoted to Magneto, and ugly. Can’t really blame Wanda for rejecting him, just saying. He served Magneto for years, suffering his abuse when Morty failed him. The change in their master servant relationship occurred when they were kidnapped by an alien calling itself the Stranger. The alien being, with powers on par with Galactus, nabbed them both to study. Magneto flew the coop once by using his powers to repair a smaller vessel that the Stranger had, but he ditched Toad. He was recaptured, and the second time he and Toad escaped together. Toad had realized in this endeavor that he fell low on his master’s priority list. He fled along with Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch when they decided to quit dad’s team.

Kind of blows my mind that he was in comics for forty years
before getting that tongue.

Afterwards, Morty tried his best to run a solo villain career. He used technology he stole from the Stranger to make a man with amphibian-based powers more threatening. Unfortunately, his career was fraught with mistakes, setbacks and more mistakes. Along the way he realized that he was too depended on others to ever work solo. He developed depression and suicidal tendencies after that realization, a mental illness he’s dealt with for decades. In order to combat his shortcomings, he created his own version of the Brotherhood, which included Blob, Pyro, Sauron, and a new mutant named Phantazia. His version of the Brotherhood battled the X-Men branch team X-Factor on several occasions, but were repeatedly defeated.

Toad was forcibly recruited by an advanced alien AI called Prosh to stop a plot by his old foe the Stranger. Mystique, Juggernaut, Iceman and Jean Grey were also recruited to help. They had to jump to different points in the X-Men timeline in order to stop him. Along the way, they came across the Black Womb Project. It was a secret government project to research genetics and Mutants. The project’s staff included Xavier and Juggernaut’s fathers, and was run by one of Mister Sinister’s aliases. They witnessed an embryo that they determined to be a developing Toad to be deemed unfit for the project due to genetic flaws. They took the time to correct these imperfections, which caused current Toad to go through a metamorphosis. He grew taller, not that you could tell much given his love of crouching, slimmer, and his powers got a noticeable boost. Jump higher, fight harder, that sort of thin. It also caused him to develop his signature prehensile tongue. Yeah, Toad went YEARS without having the distinguishing characteristics of Frogs and Toads. Weird. He helped defeat the Stranger, but he amscrayed when they got back to their own time.

In the years following M-Day, Toad did his best to mend his ways. He worked with the X-Men on several occasions defending the Mutant nation of Utopia. He tried to take it over after a few years, so it didn’t work out super well. He went on to work for Wolverine at his new Mutant School, the Jean Grey School for Higher Learning… as a janitor. Eh, he’d never get a teaching degree without at least a GED anyway. Unfortunately, Toad went back to villainy a few years later. Dude can’t seem to mend his ways.

This is one of the things I hated about the X-Men movies.
Toad got a poster, like he was going to be a big deal.
But is only in it for a five minute cameo. Stupid!

Toad has a number of superhuman powers related to his namesake. He can leap upwards up to 25 feet, or forward about 37 feet. He can kick with superhuman force. His bones are incredibly flexible, allowing him to bend and contort without hurting his back. It’s also how he can crouch on all four’s for hours at a time without spinal damage. He’s got superhuman stamina, agility, endurance and reflexes. He’s got a minor healing factor, which lets him recover from most injuries in a relatively short time. And allow his tongue to grow back if it’s ever cut. Which has happened. He can see into the UV and infrared spectrum, but this has left his eyes super sensitive to light, requiring him to wear glasses or goggles in daylight. He’s got a prehensile tongue that can shoot up to 30 feet. His tongue can hit with superhuman force, enough to dent steel, and can lift a ton. He can secrete an acidic saliva that can dissolve most material with relative ease and a resin that lets him stick to surfaces and paralyze individuals if touched. His more recent mutations have turned his skin green and give him a more amphibians look.

Of the Brotherhood of Mutants’ characters, I’ve covered this week, Toad is for some reason the most popular. Or, maybe it’s more accurate to say that he’s more consistently used. He’s at least had one appearance in every X-Men related series since the X-Men animated series of the 90s.

He had only a single appearance in X-Men: The Animated Series. He was the number two of a villain named Solarr, as part of a cowboy movie plot. No, seriously, Solarr and his crew were forcing a town to harvest gold for them from a nearby mine. The only real difference is that Solarr and the entire town have superpowers. The status quo was only interrupted by Cyclops, who’d come to town looking for a doctor that had helped him with his eye issues when he was younger and whom he’d later befriended. He’s beaten and arrested along with the rest of Solarr’s goons when the towns folk rises up, due in part of Cyclops being a noble, near suicidal hero, even without his eyebeams.

This version of Toad really just needs to brush his teeth, shower
significantly more than once a month and hide the fact he's
constantly hacking up mucus to seem normal. No one suggested that?

Like Avalanche, Toad appears in X-Men: Evolution but he’s heavily altered for the series. In this one he’s known as Todd Tolansky, but I think just about everyone refers to him as Toad, and is a teenager. He’s introduced in the first episode, Strategy X. He’s picking pockets at a high school football game when a group of players decide to beat him up for it. Scott Summers, also a teen, steps in to protect him, but accidentally blows a propane tank during the scuffle. Toad scampers, but thanks Scott for helping him. He’s approached a few days later by Principal Raven Darkholme, who recruits him as her first Brotherhood member and tries to implant him as a spy at the X-Mansion. He tries to slip in under the cover of darkness, but encounters Storm whom knocks him around with her weather powers, and then Nightcrawler. The two more feral moving Mutants fight across the mansion, but end up in the Danger Room. The training room’s many traps and weapons horrifies Toad, whom scampers. When he reports back to Mystique, it’s clear his memory was all but entirely wiped of what happened after Storm blasted him. He remains with the Brotherhood through it’s entire run, usually being the brunt of many a “Gross Toad” joke. He and Blob seem to be particularly close, as they’re both kind of gross. In season two, he develops an obvious crush on Pietro’s sister and their new teammate Wanda, but the Scarlet Witch isn’t interested. You know, because he is gross. He sides with the rest of the Brotherhood when Avalanche says they want to stay out of Apocalypse’s way, but joins in when the group goes to back up Wanda as she fought her mind-controlled dad, Magneto. He has a pretty good line about them having to steal a jet, get lost, but still had time to arrive and save the day. In Xavier’s epilogue vision, he’s shown to be part of SHIELD’s Freedom Force along with the rest of the original Brotherhood plus Pyro.

He’s a minor character in Wolverine and the X-Men. His main ‘thing’ is that he’s been arrested several times by the Mutant Response Division, to the point after one capture, team lead Quicksilver contemplates leaving him in prison rather then break him out again. This version of Toad has dreadlocks and rocks a headband. Because reasons.

Toad appears in 2000’s X-Men, portrayed by Ray Park. Whom also played Darth Maul in The Phantom Menace. He helps Sabertooth and Magneto kidnap Rogue from a train station near the film’s climax. Showing to be way more competent then normal, this version of Toad is able to subdue Cyclops, Jean and Storm almost singlehandedly. He locked Cyclops in a display case, knocks Storm into an elevator and sends her to a different floor, and slimes Jean in the face when she tries to stop him with her powers. Storm comes back in, though, and strikes him with lighting, knocking him into the Hudson and probably killing him. At least, we never see Toad again… which might just mean they couldn’t get Ray Park back again but… yeah…

Kind of nuts that the green skin look is an upgrade, isn't it?

Ray Park’s version of Toad must have been particularly popular, as this was around when the comic version of him was redesigned, more to match Park’s character, and nearly all animated versions of him keep to a similar look. Less Quasimodo ugly, and more green skin ugly.

He appears in the sequel/soft reboot Days of Future Past. He was an American GI along with Alex Summers. They’re nearly arrested as part of Bolivar Trask’s anti-mutant agenda, but are saved by Mystique. He’s shown working at a diner during the film’s climax while Magneto is giving an impassioned speech. Question… why would you hire Toad for food preparation?

Toad is a character that’s fun to hate. He’s a toady in every sense of the word, kissing up to people more powerful than him and parroting their beliefs. He’s gross, obviously, but he has been shown to be capable of pretty serious changes when given a chance. He was more or less a good, or at least neutral, character for years before a series of personal problems caused him to switch teams again. I personally can’t help but feel a little bad for the guy. It’s hard not to feel for a guy whose life problems could pretty easily be traced back to being abandoned as a kid and not being given the tools to succeed in life. His powers are pretty useful. Like you don’t think having the powers of a Toad would be useful, until you see him leaping around at high speed, crush rocks with his kicks or tongue, and scale a building with his slime. Hm… I wonder how much of Toad was an inspiration for Tsuyu Asui from My Hero Academia… it probably would be a lot more obvious if Kohei Horikoshi had stuck with his original idea of her being a dude. I’m getting off task. Toad, he’s gross and fun to hate, but like many an X-Men villain he’s capable of being good if given the chance. Sums up Morty nicely. 

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Villain Profile: Pyro

Burn baby Burn, disco inferno. Burn baby, Burn!

Fire manipulation is a pretty standard superpower. And by that I mean, there are a lot of characters that shoot flames, either as their main superpower or a secondary effect of their powers. There’s El Diablo, Heat Wave, Legion, Crystal, two Human Torches, The Phoenix, two Ghost Riders, Sunfire, Firestorm, Firestar, Harry Dresden, Molten Man, and Magma, to name a few. But, it’s one of those powers that’s useful enough to warrant such widespread use. Burning down buildings and capturing people in circles of fire will always be useful options. That all being said, there is no flame manipulator quite like Pyro. Because that’s literally all he can do. Let’s get to it.

I'm just picturing a bunch of fans swarming him and begging
Mr. Allerdyce for his autograph during a Mutant brawl.

 Pyro was born St. John (pronounced Sinjin) Allerdyce in Sydney, Australia. He discovered his mutant ability to control flames when he was a teenager, but never found a practical use for it. See, unlike any of the fire elementalists I mentioned above, St. John can’t create fire on his own. Literally everyone else in this category, excluding stupid M. Night Shyamalan adaptations of great cartoons, is able to generate their own fire. Either their bodies generate the flames like Human Torch, or they can ignite the oxygen in the air via their will like Sunfire, or they have magic powers like Dresden. Not the case with St. John. He can shape the flames and move them but he can’t make them. Weird, right? Not being able to use his powers for anything useful, he went on to be a journalist and novelist in the Outback. He was eventually approached by Mystique to join her version of the Brotherhood of Mutants. She outfitted him with a flamethrower to fully utilize his powers. He signed up to help her assassinate Senator Robert Kelly, the famous anti-Mutant senator. In one timeline they were successful, but that lead to the dystopian hellscape of the Days of Future Past timeline, but in the main one they were stopped by the X-Men.

He stuck with the Brotherhood for several years, and remained with the group when it was rebranded the Freedom Force and started working for the US government. They performed well under the Freedom Force banner, but the group folded after a failed mission in Kuwait. One of the groups lesser members, Super Sabre, was killed, and Pyro and Blob were abandoned and captured in Kuwait. They were forced to work as bodyguards for a few of the country’s military commanders… not sure how that works but there you go. What? One’s bulletproof and one controls fire, how do you force them to do jobs they don’t want to do? No idea. They were eventually freed by Toad, who bought their release and had them join up with his version of the Brotherhood.

Fire Glove <  Full Flamethrower

A few years later, Pyro was infected with the Legacy Virus. The virus is fatal and has the nasty side effect of driving Mutant’s powers to run wild. That’s a pretty dangerous condition for a fire elementalist to contract. He got several former Brotherhood teammates and other infected to help him try to find a cure. Their efforts were less then effective. He eventually died from the virus. But it was actually a surprisingly noble end for the former Brotherhood mutant. See, in what turned out to be his last day. Pyro attended a rally for Senator Kelly, who’d been running for President. The current Brotherhood attacked Kelly and attempted to assassinate him. Déjà vu. Pyro chose to call in the X-Men for backup, and incinerated his former teammate Post. The X-Men arrived and handled the rest, while Pyro actually died in Kelly’s arms, and in classic last stand fashion, asked the senator to try and stop Mutant/Human hostility. Protecting Kelly at the cost of his own safety was, not only ironic, but the final instance of Mutant goodwill to turn Kelly from a bigot into one of the biggest Mutant supporters in the world. Way to go St. John.

He remained dead for several years, but was resurrected along with hundreds of other Mutants by the T-O (Techno-Organic) virus to serve in Selene’s army. Selene is the Black Queen of the Hellfire Club. She’s basically the opposite number of Emma Frost. He was forced to partake in the assault on the Mutant nation of Utopia. He survived the attack and was purged of the T-O virus, and has been on the loose ever since. Can’t keep a good bad guy down.

As stated above, Pyro’s only ability is mentally controlling masses of fire. He can cause an existing fire to grow exponentially, but not create it himself. Flames under his control can also be shaped into different forms, such as animals or people. Any fire in his line of sight within 100 yards or so of himself could be boosted in such a way. Any fire under his control can’t burn him, but if he’s knocked unconscious or something, he’s as flammable as anyone. In order to circumvent his limitation, he wears a kerosene-based flamethrower to fuel his powers. Considering he only needs a very small amount of base fire to create an inferno, the flamethrower contains significantly more fuel than he typically uses.

Pyro has been used a few times outside of the comics. He, Mystique, Toad and Blob are probably the most used members of that particular team. Not counting Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch, obviously.

I wish I could find something I love half as much as Pyro
loves burning things.

Pyro appeared as a member of Mystique’s Brotherhood in a handful of episodes of X-Men: The Animated Series. He works with Avalanche and Blob most often. Oddly, while this version of Pyro is a foreigner, this one is British. Which I just don’t get. It’s not like it’s hard to fake an Australian accent, am I right?

He appeared in the second season of X-Men: Evolution. This is the one time I know of where he’s Australian. He’s introduced in the season finale two parter “Day of Reckoning.” He’s part of Magneto’s elite team of Mutants, the Acolytes. It’s comprised of Sabertooth, Gambit, Colossus and Pyro. He works as one of the group’s ranged specialist. He often cackled with delight as he tried to burn things. He’s largely a background character. The most memorable moment, other then trying to incinerate a giant spider, was in “Cajun Spice.” In it, Gambit had kidnapped Rogue and was using her to help out his adoptive father. Wolverine, concerned about one of his kids missing and noted Gambit’s scent, finds the Acolytes base to find where he went. What he finds is Pyro watching a video of Magneto being obliterated by Apocalypse a few weeks back, cackling. Wolverine interrogates the Aussie, who explains that the team kind of fell apart after their boss died. Colossus went back to Russian (he was being forced to work with them from the start) and Gambit and Sabertooth vanished. When Logan leaves in a huff, Pyro starts watching the tape, saying it’s just “what [he] needs to turn a frown upside down.” Yeah, this version of Pyro is a sociopath.

Pyro is introduced in X2: X-Men United, portrayed by Aaron Stanford. He’s introduced as John, we know how I feel about all this Americanization of X-Men, and is a frenemy of Bobby Drake (Ice Man) and friend-friend of Rogue’s. He’s introduced in a museum where he used his powers to cause a cigarette to blow up in the face of a guy that stole his zippo. Bobby puts it out and Xavier mentally freezes the museum to cover it up. He, Rogue and Bobby are the only Mutant kids to escape the government raid of Xavier’s School with Wolverine. Over the course of the film, he meets and ultimately leaves with Magneto at the film’s end.

G'day, Mate.

He’s still around in X-Men: The Last Stand, and seems to have taken Mystique’s place as Magneto’s number two after the femme fatale was captured and then lost her powers. He’s been outfitted with a flame creating glove that he uses constantly. He and Ice Man end up going against each other in the final fight at Alcatraz Island. He tries to incinerate his friend, telling him that he “Should have stayed in school.” Ice Man reveals his Ice Armored form for the first time, and knocks Pyro out with a headbutt telling him “You should have never left.”

Pyro is interesting mostly for the unique limitation of his powers, and for having a kind of unusual background. I mean, he’s a best-selling author and journalist turned terrorist. How many of those are there? Not many. His genre was Gothic Romances, FYI. I’ve always enjoyed his design, his flamboyant (not apologizing) personality, and his accent. The whole “has a great power with a major limitation” thing is kind of interesting, though it seems like they don’t do much with it. Were he a hero in the X-Men mythos they’d probably explore how he can feel on top of the world one minute, and completely useless the next if his equipment was taken away. Include him in the list of underutilized Brotherhood members due to the fact his biggest roles were in X 2 and 3, but he’s so heavily modified he’s pretty much an original character. I hope to see him again in future projects, with his Down Under accent intact.

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Villain Profile: The Blob

Think we could appease him with cake?

By in large, tee hee, Superpowers would be awesome. Even something as simple as having inhuman hand-eye coordination, or comprehending all languages would be pretty cool. There are only a handful of situations where powers would kind of suck. Being a Powered in Super Powereds by Drew Hayes is one, where you had zero control over your powers. And the other is if your abilities were physically deforming. Like with out next villain, The Blob. How much would it suck to have superstrength and agility, but having the BMI of five people put together? I imagine quite a bit. Let’s get to it!

Keep in mind, despite his mass, he could probably keep pace
With Usain Bolt.

Fredrick “Freddie” Dukes was born in Texas and spent his early career as a member of a circus Sideshow. His shtick was that he could remain fixed in place regardless of how hard someone tried to move him. It’s more impressive than it sounds. Freddie was eventually discovered by Xavier and Cerebro, and brought to the X-Mansion. The Blob, as he was already known at his circus, was put through a battery of tests and was determined to be a Mutant. His powers include superstrength, durability, and the ability to manipulate gravity around himself. He could really only use it to make himself impossibly heavy, but it’s still impressive. Xavier offered Freddie a place on the X-Men, much to his team’s displeasure. Turns out, Freddie was a mean-spirited jerk with an overinflated ego on par with his immense girth. Thankfully, his inflated opinion of himself made him believe that he could do better than the X-Men and he told Xavier to stuff it. Realizing it was a lost cause, Xavier tried to erase Freddie’s memories of what had happened to him over the last few days and the X-Mansion overall. Unfortunately, the tubby titan legged it. Hank “Beast” McCoy tries to stop him, but the Blob proves to be too tough. He escapes through the sewers and returns to his circus.

He mutinies and takes over the circus. He reorganizes the circus into his new team and attacks the X-Mansion. He plans to defeat the X-Men and steal their technology to help him take over the world! Wow, Freddie went from zero to sixty on the crazy-meter. Blob’s circus attacks the X-Mansion in force. While the X-Men battled, Xavier was in the lab working on a device to erase people’s memory in mass. Shockingly, the Circus was able to overpower the X-Men and tie them up. They left the X-Men on the Mansion’s lawn and broke into the mansion. While they searched for Xavier, he used his telepathy to rally Jean and have her use her telekinesis to free herself and the others. Round 2 ends with the Circus performers getting their memories wiped and Dukes returns to the Circus.

He got a poster, but was only in it and recognizable as the Blob
for about five minutes. And is only referred to as the Blob once
by accident. This is why X-Men movies piss me off some times.

Shortly after, Magneto sought out the Blob and recruited him for the original incarnation of the Brotherhood of Mutants. Want to know how Magneto restored the Blob’s memories? He hit him hard on the head. He only remains with Magneto’s team for a short time, as it became apparent early on that Magneto wasn’t concerned with his safety. But, that kind of marked the end of his days as a Circus performer. He would regularly work as superpowered muscle for various groups, including a new Brotherhood, a group called Factor Three, and as part of the Secret Empire.

He’s eventually imprisoned, but freed by Mystique to be part of her Brotherhood. Blob just can’t seem to get away from that group. He joined up as part of Mystique’s plan to kill Senator Robert Kelly as punishment for his Anti-Mutant platform. Said attack would lead to the Days of Future Past dystopian future if it’d had succeeded, but the group was thwarted.

He sticks with Mystiques version of the brotherhood for several years, including when the group is reorganized into the Freedom Force. I imagine he was damn near giddy when he found out their first mission for the US government was to capture Magneto. He helped with several other missions, like capturing multiple X-Men, battling Daredevil, and stopping a jailbreak from the super-max prison the Vault. After Mystique left the team, and a disastrous mission during the Gulf War, the group dissolved and Blob became a free agent again.

And you thought comics didn't deal with dark topics like this.

Things took a turn for Blob after M-Day. Remember, Scarlet Witch first created a world where Mutants ruled, but then reset it minus Mutants. Unlike former teammate Avalanche, Blob lost his powers, which had kind of a weird side effect. Blob lost his hundreds of pounds of fat, and his skin didn’t shrink back down to compensate. Horrified by his loose floppy skin, Dukes tried to kill himself, but his skin folds made it impossible for him to cut deep enough to hit any major blood vessels. He would go on to join X-Cell, a group of depowered Mutants that blamed the government… somehow… for losing their powers. I don’t think Dukes knows how to function without being some kind of supervillain. X-Cell attacked Mutant Town; a district of New York filled with the worlds few remaining Mutants. A series of high jinx lead Dukes getting arrested.

A short time late Dukes returned, but somehow lost his excess skin. I imagine some plastic surgeon made a boat load on him. Now going exclusively as Freddie Dukes, Dukes became a weight-loss guru in Japan. I feel like that’s both fraud and yet a brilliant way to cash in on losing his powers. But, turns out that wasn’t fulfilling enough for him. He started working with Mystique again, whom started giving him Mutant Growth Hormone (MGH) which would temporarily reactivate his powers. Mystique was planning on turning the fictional country of Madripoor into a new Genosha, a Mutant Nation. When he’d heard that Magneto was in Madripoor, Dukes took his former boss to Mystique. He thought the master of magnetism would be into it. Magneto was instead infuriated by their actions, which included flooding the streets of Madripoor with MGH to fund their operations. He beat the crap out of the group and turned their bases into rubble.

Dukes was then kidnapped by Miss Sinister. She is kind of the daughter of insane geneticist Nathaniel Essex aka Mr. Sinister. Miss Sinister had been experimenting with Mothervine, a virus that was designed to be injected into pregnant women to turn their fetuses into Mutants. She’d been experimenting on adult Mutants with it, and she’d decided to see how it would work on a depowered Mutant. Turns out, it did reactivate his powers permanently, causing him to balloon up spectacularly. When the X-Men came to investigate, Blob woke up and attacked. Mothervine triggered a secondary mutation, giving Blob stretching powers. Things started going out of control, though, and Blob was reduced to a literal Blob and went down a drain. It took a while, but the Blob is back, baby.

The Blob’s powers are tied to his immense level of obesity. His body can absorb the impact of pretty much any projectile imaginable, bullets, cannonballs, missiles, and even a meteor once all bounce off. His skin can’t be cut or punctured by conventional means. He could alter and increase his personal gravity field. Basically, when he focuses and plants his feet, he can be virtually immobile. It’s difficult for even Marvel’s heavy weights like the Hulk or Juggernaut to move him. He’s superstrong, being able to lift up to five tons. Which is kind of necessary when you consider just how heavy his body must be. He’s also much, much faster than you’d expect a fat guy to be. More then once he’s gotten the drop on folks that assumed fat = slow. The Mothervine virus has caused him to develop the power to stretch his limbs to unspecified lengths. The power is somewhat unstable, though, and he’s been reduced to a liquid puddle at least once.

The Blob's hairstyle always looks odd to me.
Be he bald, shaggy, or sporting a sort of Mohawk.

The Blob has appeared in a few series outside of the comics. Though it’s only the animated versions that he is anything more then a background character.

He appeared as one of Mystique’s regular henchmen in X-Men: The Animated Series. He usually worked with Pyro and Avalanche.

A teenage version of the Blob appeared in X-Men: Evolution. And unlike Avalanche and Toad, he got to keep his original name. He was introduced in “Mutant Crush,” as a strongman at a monster truck rally. He holds back and slams two monster trucks together with his pure strength. But then falls on his face, causing the crowd to laugh at him. After flipping out in his locker room, Mystique approaches him and offers him a place on her team. Just minutes before Wolverine and Jean were going to make an offer. He transfers to Bayville High, but doesn’t adjust well because he’s, well, a dick. Jean is nice to him and offers to help him out, but he takes that bit of kindness as romantic interest. Jean tries to set him straight, but Fred goes full crazy and kidnaps her to be his girlfriend. The X-Men try to free Jean but Blob is able to overpower them. He’s only stopped by Rogue stepping him. While being on the same team, technically, I guess even Rogue was fed up with Fred’s antics. She uses Cyclops eyebeam combined with Blob’s own strength to send him flying. He lands in a junkyard and ‘laughed at’ by seagulls. He remains part of the brotherhood as their strongman for the rest of the series. He is still a dick, but gets along well with the rest of the Brotherhood. He initially refuses to help in the series finale along with the rest of the Brotherhood, but joins in at the last minute to save teammate Scarlet Witch and stop Apocalypse’s Horseman, Magneto. In the show’s epilogue it’s revealed that Blob will go on to be part of a SHIELD taskforce with the rest of the Brotherhood.

He’s part of Quicksilver’s banished team in Wolverine and the X-Men. This iteration of the Brotherhood is trying their best to get back in Magneto’s good graces and return to Genosha.

Fred Dukes appeared as part of Team X in the abysmal X-Men Origins: Wolverine. He’s portrayed by Kevin Durand. He’s portrayed as a muscular super soldier with near invulnerability. His big contribution to the teams one shown mission was to stick his fist in a tank barrel and causing it to blow. After the team breaks up, he develops an eating disorder and get’s his usual physique. His friend and former teammate John Wraith got him into boxing to try and get back into shape. He and Wolverine duke it out when he mishears Wolverine’s usual “Bub” as “Blob.” Wolverine knocks him down and learns that his “brother” Sabertooth is working with former boss William Stryker on a Mutant experiment. He’s killed off screen by Sabertooth. Words cannot describe how much I hate this movie.

The Blob has a cameo in X-Men: Apocalypse as a defeated opponent of Warren Worthington. He’s portrayed by wrestler Gustav Ouimet. Not much more to say about this, other then pointing out the logical inconsistency of showing massive cuts on a man famous for being virtually uncuttable.

Much like Avalanche, Blob’s history is a bit spottier than I’d have expected before this write up. He’s a goon, though, so it’s not shocking that he hasn’t done much personally that’s noteworthy. That being said, he is one of the more visually interesting characters.  You don’t see many characters that are morbidly obese and yet still effective fighters. Honestly, I can only think of him and Kingpin off the top of my head. He’s got the same powers as guy’s like the Hulk or Juggernaut, but the physique of Dudley Dursley. I can’t think of a less fun combination. It’s a shame that he hasn’t been shown serving either of his big bosses on the big screen. But, considering how little he’s appeared in recent years, Disney’s acquisition of Fox might mean that he has another chance to be big and scary on the big screen. Here’s hoping.

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Villain Profile: Avalanche

Who's ready to shake, quake and possibly break?

Okay, so the lackluster Dark Phoenix made me realize something, that it’s been a LONG time since we’ve seen a member of the Brotherhood of Mutants. Sure, Mystique and Quicksilver were in the newer movies, but they were only briefly allied with Magneto in Mystiques case and not at all in Quicksilver’s. And there was that Toad cameo in Days of Future Past, but again, he really didn’t do anything. You could say any Mutant that serves Magneto is a Brotherhood Mutant, but I disagree. There are several iconic members of Magneto’s crew that were either never allowed to grace the silver screen or didn’t get the screen time they deserve. I think it’s fitting to explore a few of the more important members that I haven’t covered before. We’ll start with someone that I thought would have been useful as far back as Days of Future Past, Dominikos Ioannis Petrakis aka Avalanche. Let’s get to it.

Okay, I kind of love this design. You don't see a lot of characters
wearing functional helmets.

Dominikos Petrakis, shortened to Dominic Petros after he finished the naturalized process, is a man without much of a past. The only info that has been revealed about him before joining the Brotherhood is that he is a Greek immigrant from island of Crete. I feel like his name is a bit of a giveaway to his Greek roots, no?  He was recruited by Mystique to join the second generation of the Brotherhood of Mutants. His powers, to create powerful seismic waves from his hands to create localized earthquakes and shatter pretty much any inorganic material made him a natural and powerful choice for Mystiques team. The new Brotherhood’s first mission was to kill Senator Robert Kelly. Senator Kelly was the one spearheading the original Mutant Registration Act. They attacked Kelly at a rally, but were swiftly stopped by the X-Men.

While he continued to work with the Brotherhood for several years, he did have one solo scheme. Basically, he tried to blackmail the state of California. If they didn’t pay him an few hundred million, he’d use his powers to trigger a massive earthquake and dump the entire state into the Pacific Ocean. Think like the movies San Andreas or 2012, he was threatening to do that.  He was stopped, and had both his arms broken, by the Hulk. Props to Dr. Banner for having a little restraint with a man that had the power to kill millions with a wave of his hand.

After several years of being villainous muscle, Petros was still part of the Brotherhood when Mystique tried to take their group in another direction. They became mercenary contractors for the US Government under the new codename Freedom Force. The reorganized group was moderately successful in their missions. Some were snatch and grabs of criminal mutants like Magneto, that must have been a little weird, and hostage recovery, like when they had to save Senator Kelly from a drug cartel that had kidnapped him. I wonder if anyone pointed out the irony of that situation? The team, after several dangerous and deadly missions, disbanded after a failed mission during the Gulf War. He remained on the government’s payroll as a free agent for a while, until his friend and former Teammate Pyro told him that he’d contracted the Legacy Virus.

  The Legacy Virus was a nasty plague engineered in the far future by the son of Apocalypse, Stryfe and released on the Mutant population in the early 90s. The virus caused Mutants to develop traditional plague symptoms; coughing, lesions, fever and fatigue, but with the added nastiness of causing their powers to flare out of control as the disease progressed. It only targeted Mutants, as it was designed to attack their “X-Gene.” It was engineered by Stryfe to ensure continued conflict between Humans and Mutants, which only benefitted Stryfe’s long term goals. Wanting to try and save his friend, Petros worked alongside Pyro and other infected Mutants as they raced around to create or steal a cure for their affliction. Interestingly, nothing I’ve read ever mentioned Petros contracting the virus himself. Must have had to walk around in his bubble helmet at all times to pull off that miracle. Unfortunately, they weren’t able to find a cure for him in time.

Think Alvin of the Chipmunks knows Avalanche stole his
shirt design?

A short time later, Petros popped up as part of a new European-centric X team called X-Corps run by former X-Man and regular ally Banshee. They were called in for handling Mutant related riots and the like across Europe. The X-Men tried to warn Banshee to disband the group, as Petros was one of several former villains in the group. He seemed confident his team could last. This was ultimately revealed to not be bravado, nor confidence in guy’s like Petros reforming their ways. Turns out, Banshee had imprisoned and coerced a powerful telepath named Martinique Wyndarde aka Mastermind, daughter of the original Mastermind Jason Wyndarde, and was using her powers to dull the X-Corps Ex-Con’s more violent urges. It worked until Mystique broke in, freed Mastermind and told the team what had happened. The villains rampaged across Paris, culminating in Petros causing a quake that toppled the Eiffel Tower. The X-Men arrived shortly later and took care of them. Petros quickly escaped, ran with another short-lived incarnation of the Brotherhood, but disappeared after the group disbanded.

Around this time, M-Day occurred. Quick summary, an emotionally unbalanced and damn near schizophrenic Scarlet Witch used her reality warping powers to completely rewrite history. In her new timeline, Mutants rule the world, her father Magneto is basically king of the Mutants and, more importantly for Wanda, she got her recently deceased twins back. Things fall apart rather quickly, with Wolverine remembering the original world and gathering a team of heroes to try and restore it. The fighting gets pretty intense, Petro is killed and Wanda seems to lose what shreds of sanity she had left. She utters the words “No more Mutants,” and returns the world to normal. With the added unpleasantness of 99% of Mutants losing their powers, and no new Mutants being born or having their powers manifest. Tough luck.

Modern Avalanche could use a nap.

Petros did not, in fact, lose his powers but seemed to have lost his willingness to fight. With Mutants being functionally extinct, he figured fighting for his and their rights was kind of a moot point. He changed his name to Nick and opened a bar. He would go on to work with the surviving Mutants on their Island home of Utopia, but never officially joined. He even kept up working his bar when Mutants began to regain their powers. It might have been a peaceful life for Petros, if the Red Skull hadn’t popped up again.

Using a team of super-powered Mutant Haters called the S-Men, Red Skull began trying to wipe out the resurging Mutant Race. The S-Men kidnapped Petros, lobotomized him and used him as a sort of Mutant weapon in New York. Obviously, his Earthshaking powers would be pretty useful there. He was confronted by and fought Captain America. During the fighting, Petros was tricked into jumping off a cliff, seemingly to his death. But we all know that for any comic book character, Death is more a vacation then a move. You want to know what was really screwed up about that whole thing, other then the forced brain surgery? It’s been since revealed that one of the S-Men, a water manipulator called Dancing Water was in fact Dominic Petros’ illegitimate daughter. I guess there was no love loss between those two, huh?

Avalanche’s power is referred to as Seismokinesis. He can generate powerful vibrations directed by his hands. The vibrations he created were powerful enough to crack the earth or topple buildings, but could be used with enough finesse to move sturdy objects across the ground. He could create massive crevices and craters with minimal effort. And his main mode of transportation was to basically create and ride a mudslide across the ground. Neat! The trade off is his vibrations have only a little effect on organic material like… people. And, while Petros is immune to the vibrations he fires off, once they shift into natural shaking, he’s as susceptible as anyone. Those broken arms I mentioned him getting while fighting the Hulk? Feedback from trying to shake the Hulk into oblivion. Shattered both his arms with that stunt.

Like I mentioned above, Avalanche hasn’t received much attention outside the comics. Sure, he mostly falls under the “lackey” umbrella, but a man that generates earthquakes really should have more chances to shine. His appearances to date have only been in animated form, and they were rather minor at that.

He was a background character in X-Men: The Animated Series. He mostly worked alongside long time teammates Pyro and Blob under Mystique’s leadership.

Think the helmet is to protect his eyes from debris? I can think
of no other reason why he'd wear something so silly.

His biggest role was in X-Men: Evolution, but he’s heavily modified for the series. In this version, Avalanche isn’t Dominic Nikos, but Lance Alvers a teenage bad boy. Not sure why he couldn’t have kept his name, but what are ya gonna do? He’s introduced in the second episode “The X-Impluse” opposite Kitty Pryde. Lance took a shine to Kitty, and her ability to phase through solid objects. He tried to convince her to help him steal test answers for the ACTs or something similar. Kitty ultimately rejects his offer and is recruited by Jean Grey to be part of the X-Men. Lance, whom had caused a major quake in the episode’s climax, is recruited by Mystique and given the codename Avalanche. Lance serves as the de facto field commander of Mystique’s Brotherhood, seen giving orders to Quicksilver, Toad, and Blob on most missions and butting heads with Cyclops on the rare occasions when the two groups are forced to work together. His major story arc involves him trying to win Kitty’s affection while still trying to pull off the bad boy thing, with limited results. He goes so far as to try and join the X-Men in ‘Joyride’ to try to get closer to her, but leaves after taking the blame one too many times for Joyrides and wrecked vehicles. The perpetrators being the second gen X-Men. He continues to clash with the X-Men on several occasions, but Kitty always seems to be outside his quake range when he fights. Despite his group initially saying “No,” he does arrive late with the rest of the Brotherhood to battle a brainwashed Magneto and stop Apocalypse in the series finale. The combined power of the Brotherhood mutants is enough to defeat the master of magnetism, and stop Apocalypse’s plan. Magneto is safely recovered and returns with his young Mutant team to the X-Mansion. It’s revealed in an epilogue ‘vision’ that Charles’ received from Apocalypse that Avalanche, the rest of the Brotherhood and a few other baddies would go on to work for SHIELD, a nice nod to the Freedom Force.

He’s a background character in Wolverine and the X-Men. This version, interestingly, is the only version of Avalanche to date with a Greek accent. How odd. He works with Blob, Toad, Domino, and Rogue under Quicksilver. The son of Magneto had been banished from Genosha, Magneto’s Mutant Kingdom, due to several never expanded upon blunders. Their main goal seemed to be trying to get ol’ Pietro back in Daddy’s good graces and get back home. Well, everyone except Rogue who was playing mole the whole time.

Avalanche is a lot like Scorpion, in that their fictional biographies are way lighter on details then I’d have thought. Granted, both are more ‘goony’ in terms of their status in the villain hierarchy, but somehow, I assumed that they’d both contributed more then just a few ‘villain of the week’ escapades. Maybe I thought this because I grew up with shows like the Animated Spider-Man and X-Men series, where both guys appeared several times, and later X-Men Evolution where a version of Petros was a main character. Nevertheless, he’s a powerful mutant that has been loyal to the Mutant Supremacy cause since his introduction, so I’d like to see more of him. He’d have been super useful in the future half of Days Of Future Past, lobbing rocks at the Sentinels or dropping a mountain on them, but I guess Quicksilver was enough in some peoples minds. With Disney’s acquisition of Fox and the Marvel properties they owned, maybe he’ll get a chance to shine now that the X-Men should be freed from their isolation. Seriously, it’s been over a decade since we got an X-Men focused show, and I think we’re long overdue to see this Greek cause some collateral damage. 

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Review: X-Men: Dark Phoenix

The... conclusion.

What a long strange trip it’s been, hasn’t it? Keep in mind, despite the soft reboot that occurred in X-Men: First Class and X-Men: Days of Future Past, these movies have been going off and on for nearly twenty years. Some have been good, Like X1, X2, X: First Class, X: Days of Future Past, Deadpool, Wolverine, and Logan, some have been bad like X3, and X: Origins, and some have just been kind of meh, like Apocalypse, and, sadly, Dark Phoenix. Let’s get to it.

The Phoenix will rise! Again. And only be slightly better then
the last time.

 We open in 1975 with the Grey family. An eight-year-old Jean is on a road trip with her Mom and Dad. Things start going off the rails when Jeans powers start acting up, she loses her control over her telekinesis which causes a major car accident, killing her parents. In the hospital, she’s introduced to Charles Xavier, who I think has just gotten back into the swing of things after that Days of Future Past fiasco, whom takes her to his school for Gifted Youngsters.

Flashforward to 1992, and the X-Men are called in to help a disabled Space Shuttle Endeavour. The shuttle had been damaged due to a ‘solar flare.’ The team suit up and take the Blackbird into the upper atmosphere. Using Cyclops’ eyebeam, Jean’s Telekinesis, Storm’s atmospheric control, Nightcrawler’s teleportation, and Quicksilver’s speed, they’re able to save most of the crew. Unfortunately, the crew’s captain wasn’t in the hold when PIETRO (damn it) supersped in, he’d been out trying to fix the stabilizers. And to make matters worse, the totally-not-a-solar-flare cosmic storm is almost upon them. Jean and Nightcrawler teleport over to try and save the captain. With seconds to spare, Jean forces Nightcrawler to bamf away and takes the brunt of the space storm alone. She absorbs the energy of the storm, saving her team and the astronauts. Once the danger is passed, Kurt bamf’s over and grabs her. The Blackbird touches down, and the X-Men are lauded as heroes again. All in a day’s work.

Back at the mansion, the team is celebrated for being heroes, but Raven and Charles have a fight in his office. Raven feels that Charles is forcing to keep taking bigger and bigger risks, not for the greater good, but because he’s addicted to the lifestyle being the leader of a team of superheroes has garnered him. And Charles is of the opinion that the team has to keep showing how useful that Mutants can be, as they’re always just one bad day away from a revival of the Mutant Response Division, Sentinels and Mutant Concentration Camps. While that is going on, Hank McCoy is giving Jean a medical check-up. Absorbing a TON of cosmic energy like that can’t be good for a person. But, to Hank’s shock, while there seems to be changes Jean’s DNA, he doesn’t see anything particularly wrong. He wants to keep running tests but lets her go celebrate with Scott.

Meanwhile, a group of alien’s crash land in upstate New York. One of them seems to kill a woman and take on her form, and then murder her party guests. The alien, who’s name is Vuk but I don’t remember ever hearing anyone saying, and her team are looking for the cosmic force that Jean absorbed. It destroyed their home world and is the key to restoring it.

I think it's safe to say that it's damn near impossible to make
a movie as awesome as this story. So maybe stop trying?

While at a party that the X-Kids are throwing, which Dazzler is singing at (what a weird cameo), things start off fine but start to escalate as Jean’s powers begin to flare out of control. At the same time, Raven is trying to convince Hank that the two of them should go away for a while. To get away from Charles and missions for a while. Hank convinces her to stay, just before they see Jean basically burst into flame. Jean’s powers flare out of control, with extreme heat being fired off and her telepathy cranked to twelve. It’s through this power flare that she’s able to learn that her father is still alive. Furious that Charles kept that from her all these years, Jean flees. Hank and Charles try to chase after her alone, but the rest of the team convince them that they should come along.

In Red Hook, New York, Jean meets her father again for the first time in close to twenty years. She reads his mind and learns he willingly gave her up because he couldn’t handle raising her after his wife was killed. This sends Jean into a fury, just as the team arrive. Charles tries to talk her down, but Jean isn’t in a talking mood. The rest of the X-Men attack, trying to subdue her long enough to try and suppress the entity within her. Pietro gets rocked, all of his limbs are broken. And she’s only slightly gentler with Kurt. Raven tries to talk her down, but a power flare up causes Jean to knock her back and Fridge her… I mean, impale her on a bit of debris. She flies off as the cops begin pulling up.

At the X-Mansion, they bury Raven. Hank and Charles start fighting in the kitchen, Charles thinking Hank is just lashing out from grief, and Hanks being certain and furious that Charles’ ego got her killed. He leaves in a huff.

Really wish the movie was as cool as this poster. 

 Jean flies out to Genosha, an island refugee camp run by Magneto. She asks Erik how he controls his powers and his desire to kill people that make him furious. Erik is suspicious about why Jean is there asking about such things and whose blood is on her shirt, but does answer her. Basically, the killing never made the pain go away, so he just tried to find other ways to handle his grief and fury. They’re interrupted by a US military force landing to arrest Jean. Jean tries to kill the crew, but Erik is able to save them, before telling Jean to leave. She does, and is approached by Vuk a short time later. Vuk takes her to her building in New York. She explains some of the background of the Phoenix Force (No, I don’t think they ever said the name,), how it’s the embodiment of destruction and creation, and how it destroyed the D’Bari homeworld. No, I don’t think they ever said their species was called the D’Bari either.

Meanwhile, Hank goes to Erik, tells him what happened with Jean and the two agree to work together to kill Jean as vengeance for Raven. They arrive at the same time as Xavier and his crew. A mutant brawl ensues between Magneto’s team and the X-Men. Oh no, can Storm, Cyclops and Nightcrawler defeat Beast and… evil telepath, and… Dreadlock whips? Somewhere, probably Greece, Dominikos Petrakis aka Avalanche is fuming he wasn’t included in yet another X-Men movie. Just saying.

While the fighting is going on Magneto gets into the building and confronts Jean. He tries to kill her, but Jean’s enhanced powers are too much for him, she even shatters his helmet into pieces. Scott and Charles make it in in time to save Erik. Jean attacks them, but Charles begs her to read his mind. Reading his mind and being reminded of the better parts of her past allows Jean to reassert control over herself. She asks Vuk to take the Phoenix Force away, which Vuk agrees, but it becomes clear pretty quick the transfer will kill her. Vuk doesn’t stop and keeps drawing the Phoenix Force out. Scott is able to eyebeam her away, just as some US soldiers burst in and arrest them.

And because I’m reasonably sure anyone who wants to see this movie has already, and this is the final Fox owned X-Men movie, I’ll talk about the ending. Stop reading here if I’m wrong.

As the Mutants awaken, they’re being taken by train to a containment facility. I swear, the US government never works faster than to oppress Mutants (and other non-white guy groups). Charles admits to a still furious Hank that he was wrong to have used his telepathy to repress Jean’s powers without her knowledge. They seem to make up just in time to fight off a D’Bari attack. While everyone else use their combined skills to fight the D’Bari off, Scott and Charles try to get to Jean. Charles is able to get to Jean and the two together are able to get her full control of her powers. Jean gets up and decides to wreck the place. She protects her allies during the train crash and then vaporize the D’Bari, which had proven to be nigh impossible to kill at that point. Jean unleashes her full power and she and Vuk are consumed in Phoenix Fire.

If this movie did only one thing right, it was making the Phoenix
Power look really cool.

In the aftermath, Charles Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters is renamed the Jean Grey School for Gifted Youngsters. It looks like the surviving team has recovered to one degree or another. Hank has taken over as Dean. Charles, meanwhile, has retired to Paris. It’s there that Erik meets up with him, and the two old friends play a game of chess. While a giant Phoenix flies across the sky.

I want to stress that everyone in this movie is trying their damnedest to make a good film. I don’t think any member of the cast gave less then 110%. But, it’s just… really… average.

I will say, while they rehash a fair amount of the Dark Phoenix stuff from X-Men: The Last Stand, they did a massive improvement in giving Jean some agency. Instead of killing her beloved Scott, and her mentor Xavier and then just following Magneto around, this Jean is trying up until the very end to control herself. Way more interesting than just having her be menacing. The D’Bari are a bit of a disappointment. Film makers, if you don’t ever mention the NAME of your villains or even what species they are, you need to go back and write that in. Come on. I know Jean is kind of the villain here too, but if you’re going to have a secondary antagonist to take over for your primary antagonist once she does a heel face turn, they have to be just as interesting!

I think a major flaw of this movie is that it happened too soon. Think about it. Jean was just introduced one movie ago, as a minor character at best. We only saw a bit of who she was, and most of that was in relation to being the girl Scott was instantly smitten with. Not much to go on there. Actually, she seems to have the same issue as Angel had in Apocalypse, in that the film makers seem to think that the name was enough. That we, the fans would be drawn in by use of the Dark Phoenix name. And, like with Warren, they were hopelessly wrong.

That all being said, I do like how most of this ended. Sure, Mystique getting Fridged was a little disappointing, but I wasn’t a fan of good-Mystique to begin with so I can’t force myself to get worked up. Oh, right, I should explain. Fridged is a reference to Women in Refrigerators. The trope earned its name during a Green Lantern storyline where the girlfriend of the Lantern in question, Kyle Rayner, was brutally murdered and stuffed into a fridge by villain Major Force. It’s a term most folks use when a character, usually a female, is killed to enrage or otherwise motivate a protagonist into acting. Mystique getting impaled to motivate Xavier, Hank and Jean to one degree or another fits that description fairly well. So yeah, that part isn’t good. But to see Hank take over as Dean of School and see Charles and Erik in retirement, but neither of them being bitter about it does seem like a fitting way to end this run of movies. Just saying.

This one gets a C. It’s not the worst X-Men movie I’ve ever seen.  That’s still easily X-Men: Origins. But, unfortunately, the story felt really phoned in. The acting talent of actors like Michael Fassbender, James McAvoy, and Jennifer Lawrence isn’t enough to carry the film. I read somewhere that they had changed the ending, as if felt too similar to Captain Marvel. I hope that isn’t true, though, because that means that they decided that copying the ending of Ang Lee’s The Hulk was a better bet. Such a shame. I hope that Marvel has been watching the X-Men over the last few years. So that, when the X-Men are introduced into the main MCU, their films will start good and end good. And given Marvel studios track record, I think that’s a reasonably safe bet.

I feel like I need to say that, despite the ups and downs, I’ve overall enjoyed the Fox X-Men movies. These were some of the first films to show that Marvel superheroes could be brought to the big screen and be a smashing financial success. It’s the end of a founding era, and a part of me is sad to see it go. But hopeful for what is to come next. Have a good one.

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