Most of the famous X-Men villains, like Magneto or Apocalypse, are products of the 60s to 90s. But the 21st century has given us one of the deadliest X-Men enemies of all time: Cassandra Nova Xavier. The Crown Emma Corrin played the character with a sense of delicious, evil joy in Deadpool and WolverineHere is the comic book story of one of the X-Men’s most dangerous enemies.
First appearance of Cassandra Nova in Marvel Comics
The Genocide is a creation of writer Grant Morrison and artist Frank Quitely. New X-Men Early 2000s. The story in which she was introduced, “E is for Extinction,” was a turning point for the X-Men. First appeared in the 2001s New X-Men #114, she has appeared several more times since then. Usually, her appearance makes life hell for the mutant race each time.
Cassandra Nova’s origin story and Charles Xavier
Cassandra Nova is the tried and true archetype of fictional villain—the evil twin. But in Grant Morrison’s imagination, “evil twin” has an even darker meaning. Cassandra is what the alien Shi’ar Empire calls a Mummudrai. A Mummudrai is something the Shi’ar believe every living being in the universe has, an astral “shadow self” without form. Cassandra began her existence in the same womb as Charles Xavier, but without a physical body. She then copied her twin brother’s DNA, essentially becoming his physical twin, and attempted to strangle her brother in the womb with her mother’s umbilical cord. But Charles’ fetus uses its powers for the first time with a psychic explosion that results in a stillbirth.
However, the essence of the Mummudrai survived as “chaotic cell matter.” This clump of cells clung to a sewer wall for years, slowly regaining its physical form, rebuilding itself and copying human features. One thing drove this evil being, and that was revenge on her twin brother Charles Xavier and everything he held dear. In particular, his dream of mutants and humans living together. When she was an adult, Cassandra activated a Sentinel Master Mold that unleashed the Homo Superior hunting robots on the mutant nation of Genosha. There, it murdered 16 million mutants in one fell swoop.
Cassandra Nova and the X-Men
After the Genoshan genocide, Cassandra fought against the X-Men and they thought they had defeated them. In fact, she switched minds with her brother Charles Xavier and allowed him to be shot and seemingly killed when he was in her body. After months of posing as Charles and causing chaos, Xavier finally regained control of his old body thanks to Jean Grey, who stored pieces of his psyche in every mind on Earth and then transferred them back to his original body, thus expelling them. Cassandra’s essence then went into a newly created body with a synthetic brain that was now trapped in a self-repeating program for all time. Or so they thought.
It was once believed that Cassandra Nova was released from her mental prison a few years later. Amazing X-Men, but it turned out she was a mental projection of Emma Frost. She eventually escaped her imprisonment by jumping from one host body to another. Once free, she used Sentinel technology implanted in normal humans to kill mutants. A human with this Sentinel technology would freak out in rage at the mere sight of a mutant. Jean Grey eventually used her considerable psionic abilities to enter her mind and thwart her plans. She did this by giving her human empathy for the first time, causing her to surrender.
Cassandra Nova in Marvel Comics X-Men Spin-off, marauder
When the mutant community formed their own nation on the living island of Krakoa, Cassandra Nova was relocated there. Hoping that she had reformed, she joined Kate Pryde’s Marauders, a sort of corsair group of X-Men on the high seas. Pryde and Emma Frost never believed that Nova had reformed and still harbored a lot of animosity towards her for the Genosha genocide. Especially Emma Frost, who was the only survivor. At some point, the Marauders became stranded on a time travel mission over two billion years in the past. Emma and Kate decided to leave Cassandra Nova there to seek revenge for her heinous actions. What became of her after that remains a mystery. We seriously doubt this is the last we’ve seen of her in the pages of the comics.
Cassandra Nova’s powers
Cassandra Nova is one of the most powerful opponents the X-Men have ever faced. As Mummudrai, she imitated all of Charles Xavier’s powers, including his telepathy, but also all of his latent mutant powers. Powers that lay dormant in his DNA. Cassandra can do things he never could, like telekinesis, and also pass through solid matter. She has regenerative abilities comparable to Wolverine’s. She can even evolve latent mutants to their true potential with a thought.
Emma Corrin as Cassandra Nova in Deadpool and Wolverine
In Deadpool and WolverineCassandra Nova’s origin is pretty close to her comic book counterpart. She is still the twin sister of Charles Xavier, who tried to kill him when they shared a womb by strangling him with her umbilical cord. The MCU version does not appear old and retains the appearance of a younger woman. However, there is no mention of anything alien in her creation. Cassandra Nova tells Deadpool and Wolverine that Xavier telepathically tried to kill her before she could walk and that’s how she caught the TVA’s attention. All we know is that sometime after that, the TVA removed her existence from the Earth-10005 timeline and she ended up in the Void. It is presumed that she grew up there.
Like her brother Charles, Cassandra Nova is an Omega-level mutant with strong psychic abilities. Unlike her brother, however, she also has enormous telekinetic powers. While most of the others were sent to the Void Wasteland, Deadpool and Wolverine Cassandra Nova saw it as a curse, but she loved it there. She could use her power with impunity and force the exiles to obey her commands. During her time in the Void, she killed several versions of her brother Charles Xavier, who was exiled there, as well as a version of Stephen Strange and took his sling ring. Using this sling ring, she could leave the Void whenever she wanted. Deadpool and WolverineHowever, Cassandra Nova made an agreement with the TVA that allowed her to rule the Void with an iron fist and take care of their “waste”.
In the end, Cassandra Nova proved too unpredictable, so Mr. Paradox of the TVA arranged for his spy in the Void, Pyro, to kill her. When she discovered his betrayal, she set out to use a TVA Time Ripper to destroy all timelines except the Void itself. Fortunately, Cassandra Nova was stopped by Deadpool and Wolverine and atomized in the resulting explosion. However, a being with such powerful psionic energy should not be ruled out. Her brother Charles Xavier also survived the destruction of his body more than once. It’s quite possible that we haven’t heard the last of her yet. Deadpool and Wolverineis Cassandra Nova in the MCU.
Originally published on April 22, 2024
