Listen up, bub! The Gifted, the new X-Men television series, premieres on FOX this October 2. Bonus good news: The pilot was directed by none other than Bryan Singer, the man we thank daily for, shall we say, most of the watchable X-Men films (Singer is also a producer of the show). The series is centered on a family who, upon discovering the mutant abilities of their two children, must flee the government and go on the run, becoming hunted along with other persecuted mutants as they fight to survive.
In a refreshing spin, the show may largely ignore the X-Men (or at least, the more popular ones you’re used to seeing), the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, and the other usual suspects from that universe, giving audiences the chance to see ordinary folks coming to grips with their powers. While we don’t know a ton of details about the new series yet, we can probably expect at the very least to see the robotic Sentinels used as enforcers against the growing mutant population, as well as a Morlock-esque mutant underground railroad.
For seasoned readers of the X-Men comic books, all this mutant-hunting should sound familiar. So as we prepare for The Gifted, let’s look back at some of the notable stories featuring the hunters of homo superior which, in directing focus a little to the side of the behemoth X-Men presence, also allowed readers to step into the shoes of those terrified average joe mutants. Just like The Gifted looks like it will be doing!
After Magneto takes over Charles Xavier’s school (and, by extension, the new incarnation of the X-Men), the original X-Men reunite to form their own superhero squad. In X-Factor #1 (1986), Angel, Iceman, Cyclops, Beast, and a magnificently retconned Jean Grey come together under their new X-Factor banner in response to growing anti-mutant sentiment among the general populace. The idea, along with an extensive PR campaign that, suspiciously, predates the mutants’ participation in the project, comes from one Cameron Hodge, an old college friend of Warren Worthington/Angel. Funded by Worthington’s vast wealth, the X-Factor team poses as a human task force which detects and neutralizes dangerous mutants. In reality, these mutants are trained to control and understand their powers so they can reintegrate into society.
X-Factor is able to offer invaluable help to troubled and scared mutants, like Rusty Collins, a young man who accidentally sets a woman on fire after his powers manifest uncontrollably. But their PR campaign causes more harm than good, fanning the flames of anti-mutant sentiment. It turns out Hodge is secretly anti-mutant himself, orchestrating the X-Factor crusade in order to turn the public against mutants, thus making the former X-Men into unwitting mutant-hunters and figureheads for the anti-mutant movement themselves.
Eventually, the team manages to oust Hodge (which is putting it mildly) and undergoes a series of lineup and funding changes, with many of their rescued young mutants being merged into the New Mutants series. So overall, theirs was a best-case scenario of mutant-hunting. Not so much with the entries below.
The Marauders make their first appearance in Uncanny X-Men #210 (1986), tracking a female mutant back to the underground Morlock mutant community after murdering her Hellfire Club boyfriend in front of her.
Like X-Factor, the Marauders are a group of mutants using their powers and experience to locate other mutants, but that’s where the similarities end. These mutants massacre a huge number of the Morlocks during this brutal crossover storyline (which also spans comics in the X-Factor, New Mutants, Power Pack, and Thor series), and leave the X-Men critically wounded as well as emotionally scarred.
Led by Mister Sinister and constantly reappearing as clones of themselves like some murder-happy game of whack-a-mole, the Marauders differ from many of the other mutant-hunting groups on this list in that they don’t appear to have any kind of strong ideological reasons for doing what they do. Some of the fallout of the Mutant Massacre storyline includes the splintering of surviving Morlocks into subgroups who distrust the X-Men and still more heated anti-mutant sentiment among regular humans.
In the Marvel graphic novel X-Men: God Loves, Man Kills (1982), we’re introduced to Reverend William Stryker and his Purifiers, a group of paramilitary fundamentalist Christians devoted to wiping out the mutant race in what they believe is a righteous holy war.
In a storyline that heavily influenced the 2003 film X2, Stryker captures Professor Xavier and attempts to harness his powers in order to eliminate mutants around the world in addition to utilizing the Purifiers as hunters and assassins of mutants. It’s another instance where a malevolent force turns the mutants’ abilities against them and builds upon the fears regular humans harbor for those gifted with mutant powers, and we’ll likely see some similar anti-mutant crusades in the forthcoming television show.
The Purifiers make several more appearances throughout the X-Men franchise, most notably in the Messiah Complex crossover event, where they compete against the X-Men, the Acolytes, the Marauders, and several other entities in what’s essentially the most important event for mutantkind since the Decimation story which dramatically reduced the worldwide mutant population.
Predator X is the result of a series of gruesome genetic experiments devised by none other than William Stryker, who sought to create a living weapon to use against mutants. It was brought to life by the Facility, who also created X-23, and while Predator X is devoid of any of the reasoning capability we see in most other mutant hunters, it is driven solely by a biological need to kill and devour beings with the x-gene. First appearing in New X-Men #34 (2007), albeit without skin, Predator X is soon grafted with the mutant Mercury’s metal skin and turned loose.
What makes Predator X such a dangerous and effective hunter is its ability to track mutants by sensing their genetic makeup, not to mention its nearly indestructible skin. And like the Marauders, Predator X has a habit of popping back up whenever we think the last one’s been killed, presenting a near-constant threat to mutants all over the world.
Okay, we could honestly devote an entire article to all the different types and iterations of Sentinels to appear throughout the X-Men franchise (and for a closer look at the history of these robot death-machines, check out our recent Sentinels Explained piece here). And as cool as it would be to get some of those mecha-like “Sentinel Force” machines from Ronin onto our small screens, it’s likely The Gifted will eventually feature the version of the Sentinels most of us are familiar with: giant robots engineered for the express purpose of hunting mutants. The things were created by Dr. Bolivar Trask, a character who proves some anthropologists do more than just teach other anthropologists (looking at you, Sterling Archer).
Debuting way back in 1965’s X-Men #14, the giant, mutant-neutralizing/capturing/killing Sentinels represent the extremes to which humans are willing to go in order to feel safe from the unknown; specifically, our willingness to hand over complete control to AI. In the seminal Days of Future Past story arc, we glimpse a future where the Sentinels have taken over North America, herding the few living mutants into concentration camps and bringing the world to the brink of nuclear holocaust.
From the standard gigantic flying Sentinels to the Cylon-esque (if we’re talking the modern Battlestar Galactica) Prime Sentinel sleeper agents to Nimrod, a time-traveling Super Sentinel, there’s a seemingly never-ending stream of resources and fear poured into the manufacturing of anti-mutant machinery.
It remains to be seen just how far the paranoid humans of The Gifted will go to suppress and maybe even eliminate the growing presence of mutants among them. If the comics tell us anything, it’s that these mutants have a tough road ahead of them.
The Gifted premieres on FOX on October 2.
Lauren Lavin isn’t quite the best she is at what she does, but a few more Danger Room sessions should fix that. Follow her on Twitter @YasBruja.
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