Deadpool
&
Wolverine’s
new
trailer
yesterday
didn’t
really
give
fresh
details
on
what
the
film’s
going
to
be
about,
beyond
the
vague
threat
of
multiversal
shenanigans
and
Wade
and
Logan’s
team-up.
But
it
did
give
us
our
first
really
good
look
at
one
of
the
several
villains
the
movie
is
playing
with—and
one
of
the
most
infamous
antagonists
in
X-Men
comics.
That
is
of
course,
Cassandra
Nova,
who
will
be
played
by
Emma
Corrin.
Although
the
trailer
doesn’t
explicitly
outright
say
that
it’s
Cassandra
Nova,
the
look,
the
powers,
it’s
all
there—and
with
it
the
potential
for
Deadpool
&
Wolverine
to
tackle
one
of
the
most
evil,
intimate
villains
the
X-Men
have
ever
faced.
But
if
you
don’t
know
your
Mummudrais
from
your
mutants,
or
your
telepathy
from
your
telekineses,
we’re
here
to
help
with
our
brief
rundown
of
Cassandra
Nova’s
comics
history...
and
what
makes
her
such
a
chilling
threat.
Introduced
in
the
very
first
issue
of
Grant
Morrison
and
Frank
Quitely’s
run
on
New
X-Men
in
the
summer
of
2001,
New
X-Men
#114,
Cassandra
Nova
is
a
villainous
foil
to
the
X-Men
and
more
specifically
to
Charles
Xavier.
Returning
to
prominence
as
mutantkind
undergoes
a
new
generation
of
the
species
awakening
to
their
powers,
and
as
the
first
steps
of
mutant
statehood
begin
to
take
form
on
the
island
of
Genosha,
Cassandra
immediately
has
a
devastating
impact
on
the
X-Men
comics
for
the
21st
century,
setting
the
stage
for
much
of
the
background
and
ideas
Morrison
would
tackle
during
their
run.
But
why
does
she
so
specifically
have
it
in
for
Professor
X?
Well...
...
The
answer
is,
it’s
complicated.
Charles’
mother,
Sharon,
was
not
aware
that
she
was
carrying
twins
during
her
pregnancy.
Cassandra
Nova
formed
within
her
womb
alongside
Charles
as
a
spiritual
mirror
from
the
Astral
Plane—and
a
particularly
dark
one.
But
because
she
was
formed
from
the
genetic
potential
of
Charles
himself,
she
was
able
to
actually
create
a
physical
form
directly
from
Charles’
own
genome.
Sensing
her
dark
nature
in-utero,
Charles’
psychic
potential
awakened
as
he
tried
to
kill
her—the
shock
of
the
attempt
causing
his
mother
to
have
a
miscarriage.
While
Charles
survived
the
ordeal,
Cassandra
was
pronounced
stillborn—but
unbeknownst
to
doctors,
she
survived
in
a
primordial
physical
form,
slowly
regenerating
her
body.
The
term
used
to
describe
Cassandra
in
the
comics
is
that
she
is
Charles’
“Mummudrai,”
a
term
that
comes
from
the
theology
of
the
Shi’ar,
the
interstellar
imperialists
who’ve
long
been
a
part
of
X-Men
continuity’s
connection
to
the
realm
of
the
Marvel
cosmic.
According
to
the
Shi’ar,
every
living
being
has
their
own
Mummudrai,
a
bodiless
spirit
on
the
Astral
Plane
that
reflects
the
“anti-self”—the
complete
inverse
of
their
organic
counterpart.
Every
living
being,
before
birth,
faces
the
their
Mummudrai
and
defeats
it
on
the
Astral
Plane,
as
part
of
the
birthing
process.
Mummudrai
are
made
up
of
emotional
energy,
and
don’t
usually
take
physical
forms.
Cassanda
is
the
most
famous
in
the
comics,
but
they’ve
appeared
a
few
times
here
and
there
since
New
X-Men.
As
Charles
Xavier’s
genetic
copy,
Cassandra
is
also
one
of
the
most
powerful
mutant
telepaths
in
existence.
But
she
also
has
several
more
psionic
abilities
beyond
Charles,
thanks
to
how
she
formed
herself—when
Cassandra
made
her
body
in
Sharon’s
womb,
she
gave
herself
access
to
all
of
Charles’
mutant
genome,
taking
not
just
the
ability
he
would
eventually
awaken
to
as
a
child,
but
all
of
the
potential
abilities
his
X-Gene
could
have
manifested.
Along
with
extremely
powerful
telepathy,
Cassandra
has
telekinetic
powers,
as
well
as
the
ability
to
project
and
manipulate
a
form
on
the
Astral
Plane.
As
a
Mummudrai,
Cassandra
also
has
multiple
abilities
beyond
this—like
the
ability
to
regenerate
and
manipulate
her
own
physical
form
through
DNA
manipulation,
and
even
the
ability
to
phase
through
solid
objects,
as
well
as
plant
her
body
into
other
people’s
conciousness.
Cassandra
Nova
is
Charles
Xavier
without
a
filter—no
compunction
to
not
use
her
vast
powers
for
anything
other
than
her
singular
goal:
revenge
against
her
brother.
She
literally
sustained
herself
after
her
stillbirth
out
of
her
hate
for
him,
so...
it’s
a
lot!
But
Cassandra’s
effectiveness
as
an
X-Men
villain
is
because
she’s
the
rare
character
introduced
as
actually
achieving
her
initial
goals.
Cassandra’s
very
first
act
in
the
comics
is
to
manipulate
a
surviving
cousin
of
Bolivar
Trask,
the
architect
of
the
Sentinel
program,
so
she
can
swipe
his
genetic
material
for
herself,
activate
a
Sentinel
Master
Mold,
and
use
it
to
produce
an
array
of
Wild
Sentinels
that
she
immediately
unleashes
on
the
unwitting
mutant
populace
of
Genosha.
Within
hours,
16
million
mutants
are
dead
at
her
hands—a
genocide
with
such
horrifying,
long-reaching
implications
that
even
in
the
ever-fluctuating
continuity
of
superhero
comics,
Marvel’s
mutants
are
only
barely
just
beginning
to
really
recover
and
move
on
from
it.
Even
beyond
her
opening
act
being
the
near-extermination
of
the
mutant
race,
the
first
few
arcs
of
New
X-Men
involve
Cassandra’s
revenge
plot
spiraling
wildly
out
of
control
on
Earth
and
in
space.
Although
seemingly
killed
after
she’s
brought
into
Xavier’s
Mansion
for
interrogation
after
kickstarting
the
Genoshan
Genocide,
Cassandra
psionically
swaps
her
consciousness
into
Charles’
body
while
placing
his
into
her
genetically
sabotaged
physical
form,
hoping
to
kill
him
while
she
puppets
his
body
about.
She
infects
the
X-Men
with
a
nano-sentinel
virus
that
nearly
finishes
the
job
of
exterminating
Charles’
top
students,
and
even
manages
to
flee
to
space
with
the
Shi’ar
and
destabilize
the
Empire
along
the
way—almost
convincing
Charles’
on-and-off-again
lover
Empress
Lilandra
that
Earth’s
mutants
have
been
infected
with
some
kind
of
insanity
plague,
necessitating
their
total
destruction.
Cassandra’s
immediate
legacy
even
beyond
this
shaped
so
much
of
what
was
important
in
Morrison’s
work
on
New
X-Men:
through
her,
they
established
the
concept
of
the
Secondary
Mutation,
they
set
the
stage
for
the
worldbuilding
of
mutant
culture
and
their
presence
among
human
society,
sparked
by
Cassandra/Charles’
revelation
of
their
mutant
identity,
that
Morrison
explored
throughout
their
time
on
the
book.
Cassandra’s
revenge
spree
also
in
part
establishes
actually
setting
Xavier’s
School
as
a
campus
where
hundreds
of
students
live
and
learn—a
de
facto
that
would
persist
throughout
the
21st
century.
Despite
not
actually
taking
that
much
page
presence
in
New
X-Men’s
early
arcs,
Cassandra
is
a
character
that
fundamentally
shapes
so
much
of
that
comic’s
run—and
in
doing
so
helped
establish
New
X-Men
as
one
of
the
defining
and
influential
runs
in
the
franchise
for
the
new
century.
Amid
all
the
chaos
of
debilitating
the
X-Men
while
also
bringing
the
Shi’ar
Imperial
Guard
to
their
turf
to
try
and
finish
them
off,
Cassandra
attempted
to
capitalize
on
the
chaos
by
making
her
way
to
Cerebra,
the
telepathic-boosting
supercomputer
Charles
used
to
detect
newly-awoken
Mutants—and
with
it,
extend
her
already
vast
powers
so
she
could
psychically
command
every
mutant
in
the
world
to
kill
themselves.
However,
upon
reaching
Cerebra
Cassandra
discovered
at
trap
lying
in
wait:
Jean
Grey,
having
re-tapped
into
her
connection
to
the
Phoenix
Force,
had
managed
to
extricate
Charles’
consciousness
from
Cassandra’s
sabotaged
body,
hold
it
in
herself,
and
then
store
it
in
Cerebra.
Able
to
force
Cassandra
from
his
body,
she
fled
into
what
she
believed
was
her
original
physical
form—but
was
actually
the
shapeshifting
form
of
the
Imperial
Superguardian
known
as
Stuff,
disguised
as
Cassandra’s
body.
With
her
real
form
dead
from
the
genetic
sabotage
Cassandra
had
intended
to
kill
Charles
with,
Cassandra’s
conciousness
was
wiped
and
reverted
to
a
childlike
state,
psionically
trapped
within
Stuff’s
form
as
she
went
through
a
psychic
re-education
process
by
mental
copies
of
Jean
and
Charles,
in
the
hopes
that
she
could
be
re-trained
into
a
functioning
member
of
mutant
society
some
day.
Although
Cassandra
was
defeated
and,
for
all
intents
and
purposes,
“dead,”
no
one
ever
really
stays
dead
in
comics.
She’s
only
re-appeared
a
handful
of
times
though,
in
spite
of
her
status
as
an
extremely
infamous
X-villain.
Five
years
later
in
Astonishing
X-Men,
Cassandra
briefly
returned
having
purportedly
placed
a
psychic
trigger
in
Emma
Frost’s
mind
just
before
she
was
transferred
into
Stuff’s
form,
eventually
forcing
Emma
to
turn
on
the
X-Men
and
force
her
way
back
into
existence
by
possessing
Kitty
Pryde.
That
failed,
but
Cassandra
went
into
hiding,
eventually
returning
in
the
pages
of
X-Men
Red
in
2018,
where
it
was
revealed
that
she
was
behind
an
uptick
of
anti-mutant
hate
crimes
and
nano-organisms
called
“Sentinites,”
similar
to
the
microscopic
virus
she
first
unleashed
in
New
X-Men,
that
she
could
use
to
send
people
into
violent
rages
when
detecting
the
presence
of
mutants.
The
recently
reborn
Jean
Grey
managed
to
put
a
stop
to
her,
and
turned
Cassandra’s
Sentinites
on
her,
reprogramming
them
to
make
Cassandra
feel
empathy
and
atone
for
her
history
of
horrors.
Most
recently,
Cassandra
Nova
made
an
appearance
during
the
Krakoan
Age
of
X-Men
comics,
playing
a
major
role
in
the
second
volume
of
Marauders.
Recruited
by
Kitty
Pryde
for
a
dangerous
mission,
Cassandra
tried
to
turn
on
the
Marauders
while
they
were
sent
two
billion
years
in
the
past
to
explore
the
previously
unknown
origins
of
an
ancient
mutant
civilization
called
Threshold—but
she
was
trapped
there
as
part
of
Kitty’s
plan,
her
fate
left
unknown
even
as
Threshold
faced
its
own
cyclical
story
of
extinction
and
rebirth,
one
seeded
with
genetic
information
recovered
from
the
victims
of
the
Genoshan
Genocide.
Right
now,
given
that
we’ve
seen
so
little
of
the
film,
it’s
hard
to
say.
In
the
latest
trailer,
Cassandra
seems
to
appear
in
what
has
turned
out
to
be
a
little
haven
of
former
Fox
X-Men
villains,
including
Azazel,
Pyro,
Lady
Deathstrike,
and
potentially
more—a
post-apocalyptic
little
shanty
town
walled
out
by
the
corpse
of
a
giant-sized
Ant-Man.
We
don’t
even
know
if
she’s
the
primary
threat
of
the
movie,
just
that
she’s
part
of
it
in
that
specific
moment
of
Wade
and
Logan’s
multiversal
adventure.
And
given
that
we
also
see
the
duo
in
the
trailer
seemingly
leaping
away
from
where
Cassandra
has
been
hiding
out
in
a
sorcerer’s
“sling
ring”
portal,
she
might
just
be
a
minor
villain
that
they
deal
with
and
then
move
on
from.
Funnily
enough,
Cassandra’s
legacy
is
actually
probably
being
more
keenly
felt
elsewhere
in
X-Men
adaptations
right
now.
Although
the
show’s
yet
to
reveal
if
she’s
involved
or
not
(so
far
the
blame
has
been
firmly
laid
at
the
feet
of
Mr.
Sinister),
X-Men
‘97
just
recently
delivered
its
own
devastating
interpretation
of
the
Genoshan
Genocide,
which
was
pretty
faithful
to
how
it
went
down
in
the
comics
even
without
Cassandra’s
presence
just
yet.
Time
will
tell,
but
right
now,
it’s
hard
to
say
which
X-adaptation
will
handle
Cassandra’s
villainous
legacy
better...
or
even
if
she’ll
appear
in
both
of
those
X-adaptations.
The
bulk
of
Cassandra’s
most
important
appearances
are
in
New
X-Men,
starting
with
the
very
first
arc,
“E
for
Extinction,”
in
New
X-Men
#114,
all
the
way
through
to
her
defeat
in
New
X-Men
#126.
Marvel
recently
collected
New
X-Men
in
a
complete
omnibus
format
again
last
year—it’s
well
worth
checking
out!—or
you
can
read
those
issues
digitally
through
Marvel
Unlimited.
The
impact
of
the
Genoshan
Genocide—Cassandra’s
defining
legacy—appears
here
and
there
across
the
next
few
decades
of
comics,
but
if
you
really
want
to
see
the
fruition
of
how
mutantkind
reckons
with
it
all,
it’s
worth
checking
out
some
of
the
X-Men
material
of
the
post-2019
Krakoan
age.
The
first
“Hellfire
Gala”
event,
as
well
as
the
spinoff
miniseries
Trial
of
Magneto,
deal
particularly
with
this,
but
for
Cassandra’s
return
itself,
you’ll
want
to
check
out
2022's
Marauders
relaunch—which
is
also
available
in
physical
trade
paperbacks
as
well
as
digitally
through
Marvel
Unlimited.
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