Fabian Cortez

Fabian Cortez is one of Marvel's most compelling villains to emerge from the early 1990s X-Men renaissance, debuting in X-Men Annual #1 (1992) from the powerhouse creative team of Fabian Nicieza and Jim Lee. A member of the Acolytes — and, intriguingly, also counted among the X-Men and New Men in his tangled history — Cortez has spent over three decades navigating the most charged corners of the mutant world, sharing pages with titans like Magneto, Wolverine, and Storm. His appearances across Uncanny X-Men, Legion of X, and even Marvel Zombies 2 speak to a character with genuine staying power, and with a key issue already to his name, collectors who've overlooked him are missing a morally complex figure who has quietly threaded himself through some of the X-Men's most dramatic chapters.