There is no Marvel Comics property that gets involved in time travel shenanigans more than the X-Men. From “Days of Future Past” and “Age of Apocalypse” to the more recent “Age of Revelation,” the Marvel mutants have been involved in some horrific and terror-filled alternate timelines and futures. Through it all, there have been mutants who have the power to travel through time, as well as those who have made their names by moving through time to achieve their goals. Dystopian futures, time-displaced soldiers, and messiah prophecies have been at the core of the X-Men’s DNA like no other hero or group of heroes in Marvel Comics history.
From Omega-level mutants and complicated members of the Summers family to one of the most dangerous villains the X-Men ever faced, here are the most powerful mutant time travelers in Marvel Comics.
10) X-Man (Nate Grey)
Nate Grey, the mutant known as X-Man, debuted in X-Man #1 (1995) by Jeph Loeb and Steve Skroce. He was the “Age of Apocalypse” counterpart to Cable, making him that world’s version of Scott Summers’ cloned son, but this time with Jean Grey rather than Madelyne Pryor. He was a genetic creation of Mister Sinister from Earth-295 who never had the techno-organic virus that limited Cable, so his raw psionic potential was unrestrained.
X-Man has massive levels of telepathy, telekinesis, precognition, and energy manipulation that later escalated into reality warping. Rather than a time machine, his power lets him bend reality and dimensions, and he crossed over from his Earth to Earth-616 when his world finally collapsed. His most powerful feat came in the “Age of X-Man” 2019 event, when he seized control of Legion and used his power to build an entire fabricated reality, rewriting the memories and history of every mutant he pulled into it. However, what holds him down is that his power was always self-destructive and not sustainable.
9) Tempus (Eva Bell)
Eva Bell has a chance to become the most powerful time-traveling mutant in history, but she is still young and is still learning full control over her powers. Tempus debuted in All-New X-Men #1 (2012) by Brian Michael Bendis and Stuart Immonen, and she became a core X-Men member the next year. She was a teenager from Australia who Cyclops recruited to help him when her powers manifested, causing her entire town to fear her after she froze time there.
Tempus creates time bubbles, which are spheres in which time freezes or slows. She can actually stop it so strongly that someone inside would need a hundred years to take a single step. At the full strength of her powers, she could manipulate the timestream itself. She is not an offensive weapon, although her power can be used in that form, but she is instead mostly a hero who can stop terrible things from happening by freezing time until it can be fixed. Marvel has teased in future timelines that Eva could become the most dangerous time-traveling mutant in the world when she finally matures.
8) Hope Summers
Hope Summers is not related to the Scott Summers family, despite her name. Instead, she was raised by Cable and took his last name as her adoptive father. Hope was the first mutant baby born after M-Day, which put her in great danger from allies and enemies. Known as the messiah baby, she debuted in X-Men #205 (2008) by Mike Carey and Chris Bachalo as part of the “Messiah Complex” storyline. Bishop showed up from the future to kill her, and Cable showed up to protect her.
It ended when Cable took her into the future to keep her away from danger and train her, and when she returned to Earth-616, she was a grown young woman. She mimics and amplifies the powers of nearby mutants and can jump-start dormant X-genes. There is no limit to how many mutant powers she can take on at once, making her an Omega-level mutant. Hope also channeled the returning Phoenix Force and is responsible for reigniting the mutant X-gene worldwide, reversing Scarlet Witch’s actions.
7) Stryfe
When Nathan Summers was taken into the far future to save his life, Stryfe was created by the Clan Askani as Nathan’s clone in case the baby died from the Legacy Virus. When Nathan survived, Stryfe was no longer needed and was discarded. Created by Louise Simonson and Rob Liefeld, Stryfe debuted in The New Mutants #86 (1990), and he had his first full appearance in the next issue, the same one where Cable debuted.
Because he’s Cable’s clone without the techno-organic virus draining his strength, his telepathy and telekinesis run unchecked. He was a villain from the start, hating Cable and wanting revenge for being treated like nothing while Cable became a hero. He was the architect of the 1992 line-wide crossover “X-Cutioner’s Song,” which ran through all the mutant titles. He showed his power from the start, almost killing Professor X and framing Cable for the deed. He even traveled back in time to alter history to ensure he was always going to be a time-war threat.
6) Bishop (Lucas Bishop)
Bishop debuted on the final page of Uncanny X-Men #282 (1991) by Whilce Portacio and John Byrne. He is from the dystopian future of Earth-1191, a member of the Xavier’s Security Enforcers (X.S.E.), in a timeline where Sentinels killed Xavier and most of the X-Men and interned mutants in camps. In his world, what caused the apocalypse was when the Mutant Messiah killed over a million humans in the “Six-Second War.” As a result, he traveled back in time to Earth-616 with the goal of killing Hope Summers while she was still a baby in “Messiah Complex” and “Messiah War.”
Bishop’s mutant power is absorbing energy and redirecting it as concussive blasts. For time travel, he relies on technology. His first time to come back was through a portal opened by the villain Trevor Fitzroy, and he later used a timeslide device. His powers are immense, as he seemingly killed Professor X at one point and chased Cable and Hope across eras in a manhunt that lasted for thousands of years. However, Cable beat Bishop in the end, showing who was more powerful among the time-traveling mutants.
5) Magik (Illyana Rasputin)
Magik is Illyana Rasputin, the younger sister of Colossus, who made her first appearance in Giant-Size X-Men #1 (1975) by Len Wein and Dave Cockrum. However, her powers were revealed years later in Uncanny X-Men #160 (1982) by Chris Claremont and Brent Anderson. As a young child, she was pulled into the hell-dimension Limbo, where time runs differently. She was stuck there for seven years, was trained as a sorceress, and developed her mutant stepping discs.
It is these stepping discs that not only allow Magik to time-travel but also to hop between different dimensions. She can also move others using these discs, and has teleported moments, days, or centuries into the past and future, using Limbo as a midpoint. Her power is even greater than the stepping discs, as her magical training allows her to wield the Soulsword and Eldritch Armor. At her full power, she transforms into the demonic Darkchylde, making her a sorcerer-mutant hybrid. Magik is also the Sorcerer Supreme of the Limbo Realm.
4) Cable (Nathan Summers)
Cable debuted in The New Mutants #87 (1990) by Louise Simonson and Rob Liefeld. The character of Nathan Summers actually debuted four years earlier as an infant in Uncanny X-Men #201 (1986). He is the son of Cyclops and Madelyne Pryor, infected as a baby with a techno-organic virus and sent into the future to be saved, where the Clan Askani raised him into the soldier Cable. He is a powerful telepath and has telekinesis, although much of his powers are used to keep the techno-organic virus at bay.
However, out of all the mutant time-travelers, he is the one who embodies the idea more than any other. Cable uses bodyslide teleportation tied to his Greymalkin base, letting him jump across both space and time. His hardware, not just his mutant gene, is the engine of his time-hopping. His biggest feat was time-hopping with baby Hope to protect her from Bishop, and then beating his fellow time-traveling mutant to save the child.
3) Apocalypse (En Sabah Nur)
The most important time travel story in mutant history came in the 1990s with “Age of Apocalypse.” Apocalypse is En Sabah Nur, and he debuted unnamed in Marvel Graphic Novel #17 (1985) with his first full Earth-616 appearance in X-Factor #6 (1986) by Louise Simonson and Jackson Guice. He was born 5,000 years ago in ancient Egypt, and Marvel often refers to him as the first mutant in recorded history. It was Kang who awakened his mutant powers when he journeyed back as Rama-Tut, knowing Apocalypse would become the most powerful mutant alive.
He has Celestial-tech-enhanced control over his own molecular structure, which grants him near-immortality, shapeshifting, and regeneration. Rather than time travel, he survives across time, hibernating for centuries to skip forward through the ages. He sired Clan Akkaba, a bloodline he seeded across thousands of years to do his bidding while he slept. He is the main villain in the “Age of Apocalypse” event, where he conquered the world in that timeline.
2) Rachel Summers
Rachel Summers debuted in Uncanny X-Men #141 (1981) by Chris Claremont and John Byrne. She was part of the “Days of Future Past” two-part storyline, the daughter of Cyclops and Jean Grey from the dystopian Earth-811 future. In this timeline, Jean was never corrupted by the Dark Phoenix and never died, which allowed her and Scott to have a child. This gives her powers from her mother, including telepathy and telekinesis, and a bond with the Phoenix Force.
She also has the ability to chronoskim, which projects her consciousness across time, which actually powers “Days of Future Past.” Her most powerful feat came when she used her power to send Kate Pryde’s adult mind back into her younger body to warn the X-Men. This was the original act of mutant time travel that became Marvel’s entire time-travel template. She was also sent through time and founded the Clan Askani, and as Mother Askani, masterminded Cable’s rescue and upbringing, bringing him into existence. She is also the one who brought Scott and Jean to the future to raise Cable, making her responsible for the entire Summers family time loop.
1) Legion (David Haller)
Legion is the son of Professor Charles Xavier, and he made his first full appearance in The New Mutants #26 (1985) by Chris Claremont and Bill Sienkiewicz. David Haller is an Omega-level mutant whose dissociative identity disorder splits his power among countless alternate personalities, each wielding a different ability. He has the ability to alter reality on a cosmic scale, and with his fractured mind, he is the most uncontrollable time-warper in Marvel Comics history.
In the “Legion Quest” arc, Legion traveled back in time to assassinate Magneto before he could oppose Xavier’s dream, but he messed up, and Xavier ended up dead, which ended Legion’s existence and created “Age of Apocalypse.” No other entrant changed Marvel so totally with a single act. Legion didn’t just travel through time. He accidentally deleted reality and replaced it, and his reality-altering ceiling rivals or exceeds every other time-traveling mutant in Marvel Comics history. This has made Legion someone that Professor X and the X-Men have had to deal with ever since to ensure he doesn’t do something like this again.
What do you think? Leave a comment below and join the conversation now in the ComicBook Forum!
Leave a Reply