En Sabah Nur

Few Marvel villains cast as long a shadow as En Sabah Nur, who burst onto the scene in X-Factor #5 in 1986, conjured by Bob Layton and Jackson Guice at the dawn of the Copper Age and never really left. With 255 catalog appearances spanning four decades — seven of them recognized as key issues — this is a figure whose footprint across X-Factor, X-Men, and The Uncanny X-Men speaks to an enduring place at the dark heart of Marvel's mutant mythology. He shares his pages with the heaviest hitters the X-corner of Marvel has to offer: Scott Summers, Jean Grey, Wolverine — the very pillars of the franchise — which tells you everything about the weight this character carries. If you're tracing the grand, sprawling arc of mutant comics history, En Sabah Nur is one of those presences you simply cannot afford to overlook.