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Today, we count down Marvel’s greatest geneticist in the Marvel Universe.
Here is an archive of all the past top five lists I’ve done over the years. For ones I’ve done in the past five years or so, you can also check out the Top Five tag.
I don’t do Top Fives very often, but a reader specifically wrote in to ask, “who are the top 10 marvel geneticists?” and how can I turn down such a straightforward request?
HONORABLE MENTIONS
I’ll settle #10-6 here. First off, I’m a firm believer in the idea that the more generalized a skillset or a powerset, the less you should be given special credit for it. Which is to say that if you have, say, MANY different powers and another character has just one power (that you also happen to have), unless it is specific plot point that they are not powerful, they should be better at that one shared power than you. Therefore, with that in mind, I’m not counting just general geniuses like Reed Richards, Valeria Richards, The Maker, Lunella Lafayette, Tony Stark, Bruce Banner, Hank Pym and others, because while they are all quite smart, none of them are primarily geneticists, so I want to spotlight scientists where genetics is their main deal, or at least more of their main deal than the people that I mentioned.
So for 10-6, I’ll go Dr. Kavita Rao (she cured being a mutant! That’s nuts!), Magneto (he’s a shockingly good geneticist, which makes no sense, but it is still true), Doctor Doom (unlike those other general scientists, he did a lot of major stuff with genetics – kind of messed up stuff, but stuff nevertheless) and then I’ll round out the back half of the Top 10 with Moira MacTaggert and Arnim Zola. The interesting thing about those two is that they’re both REALLY big deals in the Marvel Universe in terms of genetics, but neither of them really seem to have a spotlight moment. Moira is a MAJOR player in the X-Men books upon the revelation of her status as Moira X, but that’s less to do with her genetics work and Zola has certainly done SOME stuff, but mostly clones that every other person on this list has done, as well.
5. THE BEAST
It’s weird, I was going to have the Beast lower on this list, but the more that I think about it, he really did have some major achievements in genetics, both bad and good. Obviously, there’s his own mutation, but that’s really not that impressive one way or the other. MUCH more impressive, though, is the way that he actually cured the genetic illness known as the Legacy Virus. Granted, he couldn’t do it without having the cure kill a mutant (Colossus chose to kill himself to get the cure), but hey, he still cured a major genetic illness that was threatening millions!
On the OTHER side of things, he came up with a genetic threat that would have wiped out the entire Skrull population, as Beast is now all about genocide, so he’s not necessarily the best guy in the world nowadays, but he’s still pretty darn good at genetics. His “Evil” self, the Dark Beast (kind of a redundant term for the Beast these days) is also an excellent geneticist. He created the Morlocks!
4. THE JACKAL
It’s interesting, I sort of feel like the Jackal is almost out of his element here, since he “only” works in the world of clones, but damn, the dude sure did a WHOLE LOT OF STUFF with clones, right? This brings into the question of how much you think Norman Osborn should also be considered for the list, as we later learned that Osborn had a major influence upon the Jackal’s work. However, I think the Jackal is still the main guy at the end of the day and he has done some amazing things with clones.
I mean, the guy was able to create a clone of Peter Parker that had Peter’s memories and emotions! That’s amazing! He was able to get Peter Parker to think that he wasn’t the real Peter Parker, that’s how good the clones were! That’s nuts.
3. APOCALYPSE
This is one of the trickiest bits on the list, as I don’t know what you exactly call what Apocalypse does. Is it really genetics? I think so, but it’s still a bit weird. In any event, Apocalypse’s deal is about the survival of the fittest and various retcons have revealed that the Celestials chose Apocalypse to work for them because he generally IS about “safeguarding” evolution, even if he has a messed up way of looking at it.
We’ve seen Apocalypse do all sorts of fascinating genetic modifications over the years using the Celestial machinery, like make Mister Sinister essentially immortal or put Wolverine’s adamantium back into his body or turn the Angel into Archangel. I think his scale of genetic is almost too high to really fully comprehend.
2. MISTER SINISTER
I struggled with Sinister here at #2, as if Apocalypse was the one who altered Sinister’s genetics to make Sinister essentially immortal, back when Sinister was Nathaniel Essex, then shouldn’t Apocalypse be ahead of him? However, I ultimately decided that it was more a case that Apocalypse just had better tech than him. Also, not for nothing, but Apocalypse respected Sinister enough that he DID turn him into an immortal being because he knew Essex’s work with genetics was necessary.
Sinister is sometimes a bit too obsessed with Scott Summers’ DNA, but in general, he is still really good at genetics.
1. HIGH EVOLUTIONARY
I mean, the High Evolutionary’s whole DEAL is that he is a geneticist, right? So I tend to give him the top nod because that’s his whole deal. Even more so than Mister Sinister.
However, High Evolutionary also has the goods, too. He created a whole other version of Earth populated with genetically modified beings. He also almost “evolved” Earth with an evolution bomb, so I think he has earned the top spot.
Okay, that’s my top five. Agree? Disagree? Let me know!
Thanks to reader KAM for the suggestion! If anyone else has a top five that they’d like to see me tackle, drop me a line at brianc@cbr.com!
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