The X-Men stand as the largest and most diverse superhero team of all time. While there’s the old joke that everyone and their mother has been an Avenger, there are easily more mutants who’ve fought under the X-banner than any other team out there. The team is constantly rearranging to include either legendary classic characters, criminally underrated heroes, or completely new mutants who are fighting for their lives. New mutants always have a built-in explanation for where they come from and why they’d choose to fight with the X-Men, so it’s extremely easy to introduce endless characters. Trust me, they have.
Still, out of all of these many, many X-heroes, there can only be one who stands as the number one hero of all. Today, we’re going to take a look at the seven strongest X-Men and rank them on pure power. Now, to be clear, this only includes characters who have fought alongside the X-Men as official members of the team. This list does not include all mutants, so no Franklin Richards, and not villains who have never officially joined the team, so no Apocalypse or Marquis of Death. With all that said, let’s dive right into ranking these heroes.
7) Storm
Image Courtesy of Marvel Comics
There is a lot of competition for seventh place on this list. Professor X and Magneto each made incredible cases for themselves, but ultimately, the Goddess of Storms herself won out. Storm is already an Omega-Level mutant with the ability to control the weather as well as an actual Asgardian god like Thor. That alone would make her a candidate for this list, but what pushed her over the edge was her recent incredible power boosts. It’s been revealed that Storm is an Avatar of Life, chosen by Eternity. This means that Ororo is capable of harnessing Eternity’s very essence and has shown her incredible might by hurting Infinity herself.
6) Juggernaut
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Cain Marko might not be a mutant, but he’s been an X-Men more than once. If you’ve heard of him, then you’ve heard the saying that is unilaterally true; nothing can stop the Juggernaut. Empowered by the Crimson Gem of Cyttorak, Juggernaut has the power to never stop once he starts moving. As long as he’s running, he can generate infinite momentum, meaning that he can tear through anything and everything. Combine that with his invulnerability and Hulk-level strength, and you have a recipe for one of the most utterly unstoppable monsters this side of Krakoa. Once Juggernaut gets moving, nothing stands in his way for long. If they do, they just get crushed.
5) Askani
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We have officially reached the Summers section of the list, and we start with the daughter of Scott and Jean from the “Days of Future Past” timeline, Rachel Summers. While she inherited a strong connection to the Phoenix Force from her mother, Rachel can more than stand on her own with her incredible psychic powers. With them, she can do everything that she sets her mind to. Without a doubt, Rachel’s strongest ability is her time manipulation, which stems from her status as being from an unstable timeline and using her vast power to influence the timestream because of that. Askani is almost as much of a threat as her mother, and that is about as dangerous as you can be.
4) Hope Summers
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Hope is a strange character to place here. At this point in the list, you can frankly switch these characters around in just about any order, as they all can make a case for being stronger than the other. Hope is the mutant messiah, being the first mutant born after M-Day wiped the X-gene from most of the world’s population. Her ability lets her enhance the powers of anyone near her, and mimic them, adding any mutant’s power she senses into her own repertoire permanently. Hope has the highest potential ceiling of anyone on this list, given that she can copy the power of everyone here but Juggernaut.
However, everyone else here has slightly better feats, and we haven’t seen Hope mimic their abilities quite yet. She should be more than capable of doing so, but she’s already more than powerful enough with the hundreds of combinable powers she’s mimicked and her connection to the Phoenix Force. When Mister Sinister took over the world in Sins of Sinister, Hope was the single greatest obstacle he had to overcome, even counting these others. So, if you gave Hope the top spot, I wouldn’t blame you.
3) Legion
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Much like Hope, there’s no true ceiling on what David Haller is capable of. He’s the son of Charles Xavier, but instead of inheriting his father’s telepathy, he developed an entirely new power to spontaneously mutate. Legion can adapt to any and every situation, generating new powers out of thin air to overcome any obstacle. He’s well and truly able to manipulate reality as he sees fit, and when he’s in total control of his powers, he’s all but unbeatable. The one thing holding Legion back is his Dissociative Identity Disorder. Every time he develops a new power, he gains a new alter alongside it. Legion’s one true limit is himself, cause without it, he could do anything.
2) X-Man
Legion was our only deviation from the Summers lineage for the remainder of this list, and that’s proven with our silver medal finisher, Nate Summers. Much like Rachel, Nate is from an alternate timeline, although instead of being Scott and Jean’s true child, he was genetically engineered by Mister Sinister using their DNA. He was built to be the most powerful mutant of all time, and he just might be. X-Man has psychic abilities unlike anything seen before. They are at a level where he can simply exert his will over reality itself and bend it to his desires.
There is truly no limit to what X-Man is capable of. He’s been stated to be able to go toe-to-toe with the Sentry, which is easily a hallmark of being on the next level of strength. Nate has willed himself across dimensions, made miniature stars in his hands, and even reconstituted himself from nothing. Nate has the credentials to be the number one on this list, certainly, but there’s exactly one person who definitively stands above him.
1) Phoenix
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Jean Grey is the strongest X-Men of all time, and there’s little debate about that. Even without access to the all-encompassing Phoenix Force, Jean was one of the world’s strongest telepaths and telekinetics, able to keep up with and surpass Professor X with a fraction of his experience under her belt. What sets Jean apart from everyone else, however, is her connection to the Phoenix Force. While many other characters on this list have a connection to the Phoenix Force, Jean Grey is the Phoenix Force. She’s evolved from being its chosen avatar to being intrinsically tied to it. There’s truly no telling where one stops and the other begins.
The Phoenix Force is one of the most powerful cosmic entities in all of Marvel, able to stand up to beings like Galactus and the Beyonder. It grants its host true immortality, nigh omnipotence, and practically infinite energy to save or destroy whatever they wish. Jean has even used its unparalleled might to defeat the Dominion Enigma, which was the highest evolution of intelligence in the universe and indistinguishable from a god. Jean is the Phoenix, and the Phoenix is unstoppable.
So there we have the seven strongest X-Men of all time. This list, however, can certainly be shifted around with how often characters get boosts or have powers stripped away. Which character do you think is the X-Men’s strongest? Leave a comment in the comment section below and join the conversation on the ComicBook Forums!