The Brute

A bruising presence from Marvel's late-'90s alternate-reality saga, The Brute debuted in 1999 courtesy of Jay Faerber and Paschalis Ferry, right in the thick of the Modern Age's appetite for darker, stranger takes on familiar corners of the Marvel Universe. Rooted in the Mutant X series — a book built around divergent timelines and morally complex versions of beloved characters — The Brute keeps genuinely fascinating company, sharing pages with the likes of Alex Summers, Hank McCoy, and Bobby Drake. With appearances across multiple Mutant X volumes through the mid-2000s, this is a character worth tracking down for any collector who loves digging into Marvel's more offbeat, what-if corners.