Brotherhood of Evil Mutants

The Brotherhood of Evil Mutants is a fictional supervillain group featured in comic book titles published by Marvel Comics. They are part of the mainstream Marvel Universe and are generally associated with the X-Men family of comic book titles. They have also been identified as the Brotherhood of Mutants and simply The Brotherhood (both of which redirect to this page). They first appeared in The X-Men, Volume 1 #4 in March, 1964.

The Brotherhood of Mutants were also the main antagonists from the 2000 feature film, X-Men. Led by Magneto, the team consisted of Mystique, Sabretooth and the Toad.

History
The Brotherhood of Evil Mutants were the villainous foil to the X-Men. Led by the Master of Magnetism, Magneto, they believe that mutants and humans cannot coexist with one another and that mutants are the superior species, destined to rule over humanity. The original line-up for the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants consisted of Magneto, The Toad, Mastermind, Quicksilver and his sister, the Scarlet Witch. Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch were pressured into joining the group and quit after their first adventure. Later members of Magneto's team included The Blob, Unus, Lorelei and the Vanisher. The Brotherhood of Evil Mutants frequently clashed with the mutant superhero team, the X-Men.

The Brotherhood's first mission involved stealing a freighter, which they used as a base of operations and then invading the small nation of San Marco in South America. Mastermind used his powers of illusion to frighten the government officials into allowing the Brotherhood control of the country. The X-Men learned about the incident and came to San Marco, where they fought the Brotherhood inside of a castle. The building was booby-trapped with explosives, which were set off when the X-Men entered the place. During the chaos, the Brotherhood managed to escape.

The original Brotherhood disbanded after Magneto was regressed in age to infancy by The Stranger, but it was reformed by Mystique some years later. Mystique's Brotherhood consisted of Destiny, Pyro, Avalanche, Rogue as well as the Blob, who was the only member of the first Brotherhood to join the second team. This group was more of a mutant terrorist cell than the previous iteration and they engaged in a failed attempt to assassinate Senator Robert Kelly, who was lobbying to legislate the Mutant Registration Act. Mystique's Brotherhood fought against the X-Men at this point and fought them again a short time later in a battle that nearly cost the life of the X-Man known as Colossus.

Mystique's Brotherhood rebranded themselves shortly thereafter when they became a government sanctioned mutant watchdog group called Freedom Force. Ultimately, Freedom Force was eventually disbanded and the individual members went their separate ways.

X-Men Film Series
In the 2000 film X-Men, the Brotherhood of Mutants tries to take control of the power of a young mutant known as Rogue for their own purposes. They need her ability to transfer life energy to power a machine that will induce mutagenic effects in the human populace on a global scale. They kidnap Senator Robert Kelly and use him as a test subject for the machine. Kelly is turned into a mutant and ultimately dies.

Having already aligned herself with the X-Men, Rogue and her new friends battle the brotherhood at Liberty Island. Wolverine fights Sabretooth at the Statue of Liberty while Storm calls down lighting to electrocute Toad. XMF|Cyclops knocks out Magneto and destroys the machine, but Mystique manages to escape.

Notes & Trivia

 * The original Brotherhood of Evil Mutants was created by writer Stan Lee and artist Jack Kirby. Mystique's Brotherhood was created by writer Chris Claremont and artist John Byrne.

Related categories

 * Brotherhood of Evil Mutants members
 * Brotherhood of Evil Mutants appearances