Latest / Vigilante Vibes Podcast / Ep. 203. Who are the Dark X-Men in Marvel Comics?

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Ep. 203. Who are the Dark X-Men in Marvel Comics? · Vigilante Vibes Podcast

• 0:10
  Hello Marvel fans, my name is Megan from Vigilante Vibes and I
• 0:14
  am here today with not really a character breakdown but a team
• 0:17
  breakdown. So someone in my comment section
• 0:20
  told me that the Dark X-Men absolutely do not exist because
• 0:25
  he never heard of them. So today we're going to talk
• 0:28
  about the Dark X-Men and I hope this one commenter really enjoys
• 0:32
  it and I hope you guys do too. So this particular team of Dark
• 0:37
  X-Men, as I said that the name Dark X-Men has been used a few
• 0:42
  times, but this one is the one I was referencing to when someone
• 0:46
  told me that Neymour has had nothing to do with the X-Men,
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  that he has never been on any X-Men team.
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  And I'm here to show you the team Neymour was on, which is
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  the Dark X-Men, which was Norman Osbourne's X-Men.
• 1:01
  So let me get right down to it. And yeah, hope you learned
• 1:05
  something here. The original Dark X-Men debuted
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  as part of the Dark Rain event, the Marvel status quo, where
• 1:12
  Norman Osbourne took over the United States and SHIELD.
• 1:15
  That team was Osbourne's answer to the regular X-Men, consisting
• 1:20
  of a combination of anti heroes, super villains, and press ganged
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  mutant misfits. The original team did not last
• 1:28
  beyond Osborne's tenure as in Dark Rain, though the name has
• 1:32
  been used since For a while, this X-Men team actually ran
• 1:37
  missions targeting crime Lords and drunk drug operations.
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  At first, Osborne wasn't allowed to interfere in mutant affairs
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  due to the fallout from End Day. That changed when riots erupted
• 1:49
  in San Francisco and Sacramento over Proposition X and mutant
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  rights, which gave Osborne permission to step in and deal
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  directly with the mutant community and the X-Men.
• 2:01
  He sent his Avengers out to patrol the streets and keep
• 2:03
  order, but behind the scenes, he also secretly recruited Emma
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  Frost, the White Queen, to lead her own X-Men.
• 2:11
  Well, his X-Men, but you know, it's Emma Frost.
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  Just like with The Avengers, Osborne shows every member
• 2:19
  himself. The team consisted of Mimic,
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  Omega, Cloak, Dagger, Mystique posing as Professor X, and
• 2:27
  occasionally Gene and Dakin acting as The Wolverine.
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  Osborne also attempted to recruit former Alpha Flight
• 2:34
  member Aurora, but that plan didn't work out.
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  So is it even worth mentioning? Emma agreed to take charge as
• 2:42
  the Black Queen on the one condition Neymour the submariner
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  had to be included on the team. Osbourne rolled them out to the
• 2:50
  public as the official X-Men, carefully managing the media to
• 2:54
  keep the public opinion in their favor.
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  At the same time, the real X-Men were painted as dangerous and an
• 3:01
  extremist group. While working with Osborne, Emma
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  uncovered the Dark Beast had built a machine designed to
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  torture captured mutants and funnel their powers into Weapon
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  Omega. In response, Cyclops sent X
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  Force to Osborne's Alcatraz base to rescue the prisoners and
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  confront Osborne's X-Men. When the two teams were about to
• 3:24
  clash, Emma and Namor revealed they were actually double agents
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  and helped X Force defeat Osborne's team.
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  Before leaving, Emma invited her former teammates to join the
• 3:34
  real X-Men. Only Cloak and Dagger accepted.
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  Which is which is, you know, it's Cloak and Dagger.
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  They're just, they're good guys, you know?
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  And then travelled with them to the newly established island
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  base of Utopia. After the disaster in San
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  Francisco, Osborne dispatched his X-Men to investigate the
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  town where most of the residents had fallen into a trance,
• 3:57
  believing themselves to be X-Men.
• 4:00
  While there, the Dark X-Men witnessed the resurrection of
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  Nate Gray, also known as X-Men. Seeing how corrupted the world
• 4:08
  had become in his absence and learning about Osborne's role in
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  it, Nate immediately went to Avengers Tower to confront him.
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  During that confrontation, Nate appeared to die, but in reality,
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  he took over Osbourne's body. Osbourne's will turned out to be
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  too powerful for Nate to fully control, leading into a fierce
• 4:28
  psychic struggle. Once Mystique realized what was
• 4:31
  going on, she led the team into Osbourne's mind to try and free
• 4:36
  him. Inside Osbourne's psyche, X-Men
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  and the Dark X-Men came face to face with the Green Goblin, who
• 4:43
  you know who's Osbourne's twisted alter ego.
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  The Goblin used Omega and Mimics abilities to drain Nate's
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  psychic power, weakening him enough for Osborne to retake
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  control of his body. After the fight, Nate was
• 4:57
  captured and taken to the Omega machine where he was tortured
• 5:01
  and had his power siphoned off into Omega.
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  So after that it never really became clear exactly when the
• 5:08
  group broke up. They didn't really take part in
• 5:12
  Osborne's Sage of Asgard, with the exception of Dakin, who was
• 5:17
  operating as part of the Dark Avengers.
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  So it's likely the team had already split up by that point.
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  But we have heard the term Dark X-Men time and time again.
• 5:25
  It's been used plenty, but the most recent one we heard was
• 5:29
  last year. I think it was in the Sentinels
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  miniseries. I want to say it was #4 where
• 5:36
  the Dark X-Men where someone was predicting the future.
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  And he said the Dark X-Men will rise.
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  And I'm very, very interested to see what he meant by that
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  because he gave no other no other context.
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  And I want to see the Dark X-Men return so.
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  So again, the Dark X-Men that absolutely do exist consists of
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  the Black Queen, Emma, Frost, Cloak, Tyron, Johnson, Dagger,
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  Tandy, Bowen, Beast or Dark Beast, which is Doctor Henry
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  McCoy of a different universe. Mimic, who is Calvin Rankin,
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  Mystique who played Professor X and Jean Grey, Namor the
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  Submariner, Omega and Wolverine who was Daikin.
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  And I guess you know what it it could have had Aurora, but it
• 6:24
  didn't have Aurora. So there you go.
• 6:28
  Now keep in mind, as I said, the term Dark X-Men has been used
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  quite a few times and the most notable time was when it was
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  Madeline Pryor, the Goblin Queen who created her own Dark X
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  during Marvel's Fall of X events.
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  We all remember that wild time. It LED straight into the Dark
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  X-Men number one that came out in August of 2023.
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  And her lineup was pretty incredible, if I do say so
• 6:55
  myself, and I would have liked to see that keep going.
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  So Maddie, Maddie the baddie, Madeline Pryor, my girl.
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  Her lineup for her Dark X-Men were actually really, really
• 7:06
  great. It had Albert, who is there,
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  Wolverine, he's a Cyborg. It had Chasm, who's Ben Riley,
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  probably easily his coolest suit of his entire life, and plates.
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  It had a Zazel, who you don't really see enough of.
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  Archangel, Gambit, Gambit, the Raging Cajun.
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  I mean, Zero, who's he's OK, it's fine.
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  Havoc. Havoc's a big deal.
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  I like that. And of course, led by the
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  wonderful Madeleine Pryor. So to say that the Dark X-Men do
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  not exist is a wild thing to say in my opinion.
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  But not all of us know every single thing about Marvel
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  Comics. I certainly don't.
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  And you know, there's just so many better ways to say, hey, I
• 8:00
  didn't know they existed. Tell me more instead of making
• 8:04
  fun of someone in their comments section.
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  That's kind of weird. You're kind of weird for that.
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  But I love the X-Men and I like the Dark X-Men team.
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  So thanks for giving me this opportunity to make this video.
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  So yeah, I hope you learned something today.
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  The Dark X-Men are interesting no matter what team you're going
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  with. It also leads off to if you also
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  didn't know, there's Dark Avengers too.
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  So there's a lot of things in Marvel Comics that a lot of
• 8:32
  people don't know about, and I think it would be cool if they
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  all knew. So yeah, thanks for giving me
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  this opportunity to talk more about mutants, because a lot of
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  you know, that is my love language and I love them.
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  I love the mutants. I hope you enjoyed this episode.
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  I hope you will like and subscribe, and I hope you have a
• 8:49
  marvelous day.