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A terror threat capable of ending the world in an instant or the super-powered saviors of us all, no matter where you stand on the “Mutant Problem” inX-Menyou have to admit one thing, there’s a lot of them. Despite numerous moments in the comics that wiped them out, brought them back, wiped them out again, retconned their renewal, and so on, it seems Marvel’s Mutants are here to stay.
Since there are so many, you can get lost for hours just reading about all their powers and what they get up to. So to help with the information overload the writers introduced a classification system. It’s a little long-winded and overly complicated at times, but we’ve streamlined it somewhat to give you a nice primer on the X-Men franchise. So to get you up to speed, here are the X-Men Mutant levels, explained.
What Are X-Men Mutant Levels?
The Mutant Levels are pretty self-explanatory, but we’ll go into it anyway as it’s an interesting system that can really help withkeeping character power levels ranked in your mindas you read or watch something X-Men-Related.
So to elaborate, Mutant Levels are essentiallythe ranking of a Mutant Threat Levelthrough the assessment of their powers using particular qualifiers. So this can be things like theirthreat to society or reality itself, the amount of force required tosubdue or kill them,and their general deadliness.
It sounds more complicated than it actually is. As an example, take Jean Grey. She would be classed as anOmega Type Mutantbecause of her ability to literally burn worlds when thePhoenix Forceis around and her Telepathy is borderline unstoppable.
So she gets the big and scary ranking.
As does Magneto as he cancontrol metaland since everything in society is made from it, he can do a lot of damage.
However, at the low end of the scale, which isEpsilon, you get people like Beak,a guy with a Beak, that’s it. Or Bailey Hoskins,a mutant who can explode but it will kill him, permanently. They’relow-end threats bordering on useless, so their Mutant Level is very low.
How Many Mutant Levels Are There?
Now this is where things get a little tricky and prone to causing arguments. The Mutant Level system has had abit of a nightmarewhen it came to what it actually is and itsconsistency over the yearsas various creative leads wouldscrap it, change it, or make it unnecessarily complicatedby adding more layers.
To start things out,there are technically six, though it used to be four at one point and before that they just used numbers. Becausecomics like to be complicated, there are also a lot ofsub-groups within those classificationsthat apply to each particular type of Mutant to further break down each individual’s power rating.
For example,Healers and Psychics, Pyrokinetics, and a lot of mind-based mutantshave further sub-ratings as there’s a lot of leeway in their power levels. It’s also common for a lot of mutants to havemore than one powerwhich just further complicates things.
Say you have anOmega-level mutant that’s really good at messing with reality, but they’re also a healer, but they’re not particularly good at it. So they would be an Omega rating for reality-bending, butOmega Delta for healing. You can see how it gets confusing.
So we’ll be sticking to agenerally wider and fan-accepted versionof rating power levels as it’s more straightforward and a lot easier to follow.
Every X-Men Mutant Level, Explained
Since we’re sticking withthe general idea of six, it’s worth getting to grips with what’s required to be awarded a particular rank. In that, it’s worth knowing exactlyhow fast and far you should be running in the other directionfrom them should they decide to wander into town one day.
Or if you’re a member of the X-Men,what your chances of dying horribly are going to beas some of the powers they’ll encounter as threats range from god-tier lethal to absolutely useless anddetrimental to the Mutant’s own healthor wellbeing.
Omega
To start things off we’ll be diving into thetop tier boys and girlsfirst. Omega Class mutants are consideredthe strongest of their particular typeand their powers usually get stronger, evolve, or max out at a ridiculous level.
Equivalent to gods amongst ordinary people, Omega types can bend the environment, reality, the elements, and others to their willdepending on their particular mutation. Examples of this would be Magneto, Jean Grey, Professor X, Vulcan, Legion, Iceman, The Witness, and anyone who could easily wipe out a city.
But on the plus side,there aren’t a ton of the top-end city destroyer types as it’s pretty rarefor a mutant of this strength to appear. This is usually because they’ve eitherdied at some point from their powers, left our reality, were killed for being too dangerous, or fell afoul of the Dark God known as“Writers Retcon”.
It is common for a mutant of a lower level to “graduate” to a higher level. Either through artificial methods of increasing their powers, like whenApocalypse made his horsemen. Or throughplot contrivancesin a particular story.
Alpha
The next tier down from Omega are Alphas. These are yourrun-of-the-mill Superhero and Supervillain typesthat are strong enough to cause problems to society but not the wider world in one big go. But they are stillvery powerfulin their own rights.
Alphas can stillcause some serious problems to a city, or if enough of them band together likethe X-Men or Magneto’s little crewsthen you’re going to have a lot of destruction. Examples of Alphas would be Cyclops, Storm, Namor, and Mr Sinister. You wouldn’t want to fight them, but they’re stillnot going to blow up the worldin one big bang.
Beta
The next tier down from Alphas is the Betas. These areMutants that have powers that aren’t too strongbut still have some relativelyuseful practical applicationsto their teams or the wider world.
For example,Rogue’s ability to steal others' powers and memorieswhilst also potentially killing someone, andWolverine’s Healing Factor. Which worked well until hisAdamantium boneseventually killed him.
There’s alsoMarrow who can protrude bones from their bodybut can’t rapidly heal. OrStrong Guy who can absorb kinetic energyand turn it into great strength, but is slowly killing himself every time he uses it.
They’re onlyuseful for one specific thing, their powers have some drawbacks and there isn’t much room to enhance or improve it. So it generally only reallybenefits the mutant in certain situationsso there’s not a ton of combat potential.
Gamma
The next one down after that are Gamma Mutants. These areindividuals who have powerful abilities they can’t controlor are detrimental to themselves and impact their ability to live a normal life amongst other humans. Gammas also often have aninhuman appearancewhich can make blending in much harder if not impossible.
Examples of this would beMaggot who turns blueand has two giant Maggots inside him. Or Nightcrawler, who whilst being able to control his teleporting,looks like a blue demonand usually needs to see where he’s going so he doesn’t get stuck in a wall.
Beast is anotherbig blue boy who’s a Gamma, and though he isn’t a different shade there’s also Cole Summers whose mutation is just being able tomanipulate digital pixels from TVs and Satellite Dishesthat are nearby.
A good reminder for Gammas is,are they inhuman and is their power odd,obscure and niche, or specific? If yes, then they’re low-level.
Delta
Another slot down in the tiers is Delta, these areMutants that possess powers or mutations that don’t have any detrimental effects on their daily lifebut also aren’t that powerful, if at all. But on the plus side,Deltas tend to have an easier time blending inwith other humans as their mutations are not noticeable or particularly useful.
For example, you haveLoa who can pass through any solid object, but that object then immediately breaks apart. There’s alsoWallflower who can control pheromones, orDomino who can affect probability(Luck) in her favor. Their abilities aregenerally passive and are relatively safe to be aroundas they can’t really cause a lot of collateral damage, if any.
Epsilon
Last but not least we have Epsilon, this isthe lowest tier on the Mutant Levelthat you may end up on and if you find yourself on this you’re consideredno risk to society or the worldin general. Mainly becauseEpsilon Mutants are incredibly weak, or their powers have no combat and destructive potential.
Also, Epsilon Mutants tend to have aharder time blending into societyas their Mutation makes themvery noticeable, but borderline uselessat the same time. This is where you would findthe likes of Beakas we previously mentioned, but alsoArtie Maddicks, a Mutant that could project basic holograms. Or Flatman,a man that’s flat.
Whilst there is some debate that this classificationsystem was apparently discardedsomewhere over the years, it’s still arelatively less complicated methodfor tracking power levels compared to other versions out there
