Throughout six decades of storied X-Men comic book history, mutantkind’s superhero champions have faced off against countless enemies with genocidal aims for the homo-superior species. Villains like Bolivar Trask (the creator of the mutant-hunting Sentinel robots); the paramilitary anti-mutant hate preacher, William Stryker; the cyborg Cameron Hodge, along with his radical anti-mutant group The Right; and countless more all seek the total eradication of mutants on Earth. Outside of other villainous mutants like Apocalypse or alien threats like the Phalanx (who assimilated Jean Grey’s sister Sara in the comics), most of the X-Men’s frequent antagonists are just human beings who fear them and the uncomfortable implications their existence raises.
Occasionally, other heroes in the Marvel Universe that fill that role. Both the Avengers and the Inhumans (a separate race of genetically mutated human beings) have come to blows with the X-Men for various reasons, ranging from the threat of the Phoenix Force to the fact that the Terrigen Mists which gives Inhumans their powers are deadly to the mutant populace. Spider-Man: Brand New Day’s introduction of Jean Grey to the MCU comes in the form of a conflict of misunderstanding with Spider-Man, but the method Peter comes up with to defeat her just might spiral into a much larger conflict down the line.
