The Most Powerful X-Men Ranked

The world of the X-Men is one in which super powers don't inspire as much as they threaten, regardless of the users' intentions. The mutants are feared by the world around them, but what exactly is it that people are afraid of? If the paranoid nightmares of every mutant-hater came to fruition and the X-Men turned on humanity, who would be the ones most worthy of human terror?

We've ranked the X-Men from the least to most powerful based solely on what we've seen in the films (since there are many discrepancies between comic books and movies). We're only looking at actual X-Men — mutants in the films who have been, at least at some point, on the side of the angels. There are a few we're skipping because we didn't see enough of them in the films to judge — for example, Yukio from Deadpool 2 or Sunspot and Warpath from X-Men: Days of Future Past — but we've done our best to rank the movie versions of these Marvel mutant heroes.

In the comics, not only was Warren Worthington III, a.k.a Angel, one of the founding X-Men, but his family's deep pockets had a lot to do with the mutants being able to fund matching uniforms, danger rooms, and space-age aircraft. In the films, unfortunately, he's been largely absent. He appears first in 2006's much-hated X-Men: The Last Stand played by Ben Foster, while Ben Hardy plays a more heavy metal version in Apocalypse. 

Being able to fly because of giant, angelic wings sprouting from your back would be nothing short of miraculous in the real world, but compared to the rest of the X-Men's abilities it's pretty tame. In the case of a battle with the Brotherhood, Angel could fly someone more useful into the fray. Or just... fly away very quickly. Which would be personally helpful to him, but wouldn't exactly contribute to the larger struggle.  

Of course, the Archangel version in Apocalypse boasted more power, but he was only ever a bad guy and isn't eligible for this particular list.

While Mystique's (Rebecca Romjin, later Jennifer Lawrence) ability to change her appearance may not be what you picture helping someone win a super-brawl, its power does show in another way. Specifically, it gives her political power. As early as the character's first film appearance in 2000's X-Men, she uses her ability to gain a position of power by disguising herself as the deceased Senator Kelly (Bruce Davison), where she's instrumental in getting the government to back off its hardnosed stance on mutants. She also uses her abilities to infiltrate a covert government facility as a faux William Stryker (Brian Cox), the lab of the Sentinels' inventor Bolivar Trask (Peter Dinklage), and high-level peace negotiations as Vietnamese General Nhuan (Thai-Hoa Le). 

Disguising herself as a senator might not help her dropkick a Sentinel, but it gets Mystique access to another type of power mutants desperately need. 

Caleb Landry Jones' relatively short time as Sean Cassidy, a.k.a. the sonic hero Banshee, in First Class is noteworthy for an embarrassing lack of control. The Irishman's sonic blasts might be able to circumvent armor and super-tough skin, but Banshee isn't always great at wielding it. Thankfully, at the end of the film, he finally figures out how to use his sonic powers for flight, and so survives to the end credits. 

Whether it's because of his lack of control or not, Banshee is one of the unfortunate victims of Bolivar Trask's experiments whose deaths are mentioned as little more than a footnote in Days of Future Past. While his comic book counterpart is likewise deceased, the much older hero spent many years in and out of the X-Men, preferring leisure to superheroics but never backing down from an important fight.

Negasonic Teenage Warhead's (Brianna Hildebrand) powers offer one of the biggest differences between the comics and the movies, so it may be that we haven't seen the full range of her abilities on screen. Regardless of what we've seen in 2016's Deadpool and its sequel, she's already a formidable member of the X-Men. Her powers are largely kinetic, allowing her to shield herself from harm — as she does when Rusty (Julian Dennison) attacks her in Deadpool 2 — or to send other objects or people flying.

Negasonic could be much higher on this list, but she only seems able to use her powers for brief bursts. They're effective, particularly in Deadpool, when twice she wails on Angel Dust (Gina Carano), despite the villain repeatedly humbling the super-strong Colossus (Stefan Kapicic). But just as her patience has its limits with Deadpool (Ryan Reynolds), Negasonic's powers have their limits as well. 

Like Blink, we don't hear a lot from Bishop (Omar Sy) in Days of Future Past, but his actions speak for him. We see enough of his abilities to infer that they function similarly to the comic book version — he absorbs energy and is able to redirect it at his opponents. We see him battling the Sentinels this way, and early in the film he has Sunspot (Adan Canto) blast him to give him a power boost. 

The very nature of Bishop's power makes him a powerful X-Man. How can you hurt someone who can just keep turning your attack back on you? As we eventually learn at the end of Days of Future Past, there is a way to do it — you fill him with so much power he can't contain it. Still, a single vulnerability doesn't make his powers any less impressive, or the mutant any less dangerous an adversary.

Laura (Dafne Keen) of Logan proves herself to be at least equal to her father in terms of power and ability, if not superior. You could argue we don't get a fair comparison in Logan because Laura is much younger and isn't suffering from the same adamantium poisoning that's eating away at Logan, but it doesn't take too much imagination once you remember Wolverine's other appearances. 

Laura, a.k.a. X-23, shares Logan's healing power, his adamantium-laced bones, his claws (with slightly different placing), and his viciousness when provoked. Presumably his daughter will have a life as unnaturally long as her father's. In at least one area, she's seen to be superior to Wolverine — while he's a pretty agile guy, he's got nothing on her in that department. If she goes back to school once she gets to Canada, she's going to own the gymnastics team.

Iceman (Shawn Ashmore) may not be the first X-Man you think of in terms of powerful heroes, but few members of the team have evolved in terms of power, ability, and versatility as much as Bobby Drake. 

We see little of his power in X-Men, but in X2 we see him use his ice powers for defense, as a weapon, and even as a kind of prophylactic film on his lips so he can kiss Rogue (Anna Paquin) without exposing himself to her powers. In The Last Stand duels with Pyro (Aaron Stanford), having learned to form a shield over his entire body. By Days of Future Past, he's zipping around on the ice slides familiar to fans of the comics or the old Spider-Man & His Amazing Friends cartoon. 

Ice might not be the most intimidating thing in the world, but there isn't much Bobby Drake can't do with it.

Like Darwin, Rogue's spot on this list is earned with one word: potential. While she may not be the most powerful mutant, her ability to temporarily take the abilities of other mutants gives her the potential to be as powerful as any of them, at least for a time. Unlike Darwin, she doesn't have to wait for the right situation to arise for an ability to emerge. She just steals it. In X-Men, Rogue was the key to Magneto's (Ian McKellen) plan because her powers allowed her to take the Brotherhood leader's magnetic abilities and power a machine meant to turn the world's leaders into mutants.

A lot of superheroes suffer from their powers getting dialed down when they go from the panels to the big screen. That's not the case with Rogue. While in the comics skin-to-skin contact usually leads to nothing more serious than the victim (or volunteer) falling unconscious for a few minutes, in the films Rogue's touch is so traumatizing it can kill.

It may be a surprise to see Kitty Pryde (Elliot Page) so far up on the list. Kitty Pryde more powerful than Colossus? More powerful than Wolverine? Really?

Yes, really. Still, if it weren't for one of the films' most extreme deviations from the comics, Kitty wouldn't have made it quite so far.

In Days of Future Past, we learn that Kitty has learned to use her phasing powers to send people back in time into the place of younger versions of themselves. It's this new ability that allows her to send Wolverine back to the '70s to undo the events leading to mutants being hunted nearly to extinction. 

Granted, the explanation of how her power to phase evolved so drastically is shaky at best, but regardless, the power is there. So far, no one else in the X-Men's cinematic saga can lay claim to a time travel ability. 

Like Rogue, Quicksilver (Evan Peters) enjoyed a power boost when he was first brought to the big screen in Days of Future Past. In both that film and its follow-up, Apocalypse, Quicksilver has key scenes focusing on his unbelievable speed, moving so fast he's able to change the course of speeding bullets with the tap of his finger. In Apocalypse, during the final battle against the villain, he's the first hero to do so much as lay a hand on the guy.

In 1984's Swamp Thing #24, Alan Moore (a couple of years before he would write Watchmen) wrote of "a man who moves so fast that his life is an endless gallery of statues." Moore was writing about the Flash, but ironically no movie scene has better expressed what Moore was talking about than Quicksilver's time-stopping scenes in the X-Men films.

There are few adversaries in the X-mythos more dangerous than Magneto (Ian McKellen, later Michael Fassbender). His ability to manipulate metal speaks for itself. He can rip entire structures out of the Earth to lob at you. In The Last Stand, the Master of Magnetism lifts the entire Golden Gate Bridge out of the Earth and manipulates it with no more difficulty than Yoda mind-lifting Luke's X-Wing in The Empire Strikes Back. 

At the same time, he doesn't need huge landmarks to kill you. In X2, when Mystique seduces one of Magneto's prison guards and injects him with a small amount of liquid metal, Magneto extracts the stuff from the guard and — with no more metal than he can use to make three small spheres — escapes from prison and kills all the guards in the process.  

It's enough to make you wonder why the X-Men keep throwing people with metal skin like Colossus or metal-laced bones like Wolverine at the guy. 

Phoenix (Famke Janssen, later Sophie Turner) is unquestionably the most powerful member of the X-Men. With access to both telepathic and telekinetic abilities, Jean Grey is already one of the most formidable mutant heroes. The Phoenix Force dials those powers well past eleven and gives her new powers besides. In The Last Stand, Phoenix murders Professor X and Cyclops by bloodlessly exploding their bodies. Cyclops' death happens off-screen, but Xavier's body shatters like a glass vase.

Until Dark Phoenix is released, it's difficult to say for sure just how powerful the new version will be. In the comics, she's as close to a god as you get without being from a place like Asgard. Judging by the Dark Phoenix trailer, which shows her surviving in the vacuum of space and easily slapping around the rest of the X-Men — including swatting Magneto away like a bug — we're confident in her spot at the top of this list.