Who is the top Telepath? the best telepath there is in the X-books?

[DDM]

Emma’s great, no badmouthing. She’s smart as hell and just as ruthless, that’s how she always wins against powerhouses like Xavier, Jean, Rachel, Exodus, etc. She’s an underdog but never bet against her.

[SonOfPsylocke]

The order is:

Jean Grey
Exodus
Psylocke
Emma Frost
Mesmero
Rachel Grey
M

[yogaflame]

100% agree. Emma without a doubt is one of the most forced/pushed characters in all of comics. The wannabe "Queen" of mutants.

Get this man a drink!

[darkalamator]

100% agree. Emma without a doubt is one of the most forced/pushed characters in all of comics. The wannabe "Queen" of mutants.

Get an education. Emma rules.

[rutog98]

I don’t think it matters largely because Mesmero’s hypnotism isn’t necessarily psychic. Guggenhiem may have grafted on low level telepathy but that’s not how his main power works. He doesn’t need to catch you by surprise, he just needs to make eye contact. Besides, Phoenix Jean also fell prey to an actual psychic illusionist repeatedly in Mastermind. Her track record’s not better there.

Nova took over Xavier and locked him down in her body. She’s been described as every bit his equal, that’s sort of the point of a Mummudrai.

Shadow King is mostly talk, he needs an external power source (Legion, AU Xavier, Proteus, etc) to even be a credible threat. Bogan on the other hand...


I’ve explained this to you before but during Claremont’s Reload era Rachel wasn’t Phoenix. That was confirmed repeatedly and was editorial edict. Her power manifestation resembled the firebird but it still does now even all the time, it’s just her power signature. She beat Selene without the Phoenix, it was just her.

And Rachel’s FEATZ speak for themselves. Astral projecting across galaxies, mindscanning the entire Earth without Cerebro, telepathically communicating from the end of time... we’ve not seen many other telepaths manage similar level stunts. As a Storm fan I figured you’d appreciate raw displays of power more than circumstantial rumbles.

1) There was a back-up story in one of the Classic X-Men issues to show that Mesmero would have been no match for Phoenix Force Jean Grey. Everytime he tried to make a sexual move on her, the Phoenix persona would emerge and would have broken his hold on her had he not backed down.

2) When Phoenix Force Jean Grey fell to a psychic illusion to Mastermind, Emma had created a device for him that allowed him to gain access to her head. Also, once she caught onto what was going on, Mastermind was powerless against her. Mesmero clobbered Rachel even when she was actively on the look-out for him.

3) Shadow King is not mostly talk. When they first fought in Uncanny X-Men #117, it was clearly established that he and Xavier were equal in power with Shadow King having a major advantage in skill and experience. Noting his advantage over Xavier, he toyed around with Prof. X which proved to be his undoing. He gave Xavier the opening to win because of his own foolish overconfidence rather than just taking care of business.

The next time we see them fight, Shadow King was possessing the body of a normal man who was dying and required life support to stay alive. Even with this being the case, he entered Colossus's mind from across the ocean and sent him after Xavier. When Xavier entered Peter's mind to try and free him of the SK's hold, SK proved to be at least his match.

So, already, we have two instances of Shadow King being at the minimum equal to Xavier in psi strength without anything boost his power.

Then, we have Psi-War where Shadow King mind-controlled billions of minds across the globe. He was not possessing a telepath when he did not, so it was done completely under his own power.

3) Where did you get that Rachel was confirmed not to have any portion of the PF during CC's run? Rachel was clearly displaying the Phoenix Effects in fights (like her fight with Emma), she had that Phoenix Force icon over her eye, and she had that shadow form. She was clearly being boosted by something as those are not her natural powers.

4) ) Mindscanning the Earth without Cerebro is not a huge feat to brag about to be honest. Also, she was on the verge of hurting herself when she did it. A lot of telepaths can do global scans.

5) Also, when she telepathically communicated from across time, I take you are referring to Days of the Future Past, am I right? During that time, she would have been boosted by the whole Phoenix stuff since it was not established as a separate entity at that time. The whole Phoenix thing was seen as an innate potential for psis in the Jean Grey lineage at that point in canon. Since the PF is now established to be an external cosmic entity that sometimes bonds itself to members of the Grey lineage, have we seen Rachel project her thoughts through time without it?

6) Are there any scans of her Astral Projecting across galaxies? Are you sure she wasn't using anything to boost her powers?

All of that said above, the fact is Rachel is very bad against other telepaths. She's consistently been shown to be weaker than high order psis like Emma, Exodus, Bogan, etc. The feats you bring up make me wonder if she was boosted since often times she does wield at least some part of the PF.

[rutog98]

By applying this logic to Emma then, all of Emma's feats are also PIS because they were used to prop her up at the expense of other characters - Jean, Betsy, Rachel, Xavier, etc. etc. Emma defeating Rachel? PIS. It was done to prop Emma up at the expense of Rachel. Xavier being defeated by Emma? PIS because it was done to make Xavier look weak. And it's not only telepaths. For 15 years, all the other X-women were shoved off the X-books, depowered or stuck in limbo all to prop up Emma so Marvel could stuff Scott and Emma down throats. In conclusion, Emma is the ultimate PIS character.

This is not true. From the start, we saw a near Dark Phoenix level Phoenix Force Jean Grey view Emma as a big enough psychic threat in combat that she studied the White Queen's strengths and weaknesses before going in for an all-out attack at her weakpoints. This means that Emma has some very powerful strong points as a psi. Also, Emma was established to be a strong enough telepath to mind-control an entire city's population. She has projected psi-blasts strong enough to literally rip minds in half. We have seen Emma's psi-powers break through dozens of psi-blocking tech created by the super genius and mutant genetics expert Dark Beast. There is also that Generation X story where Adrienne Frost used some tech to create a false reality that that trapped the kids in while leaving Emma caged in-between realities. Not only did Emma break free, but she destroyed that entire reality with her psi-powers. Then, on top of that, we have seen Emma, armed only with her telepathy, wield her power in ways to do some serious damage on the physical plane.

Also, I don't buy that Emma could defeat a full-powered Xavier in a head-on psychic fight. That would be PIS against Xavier.

[LordAllMIghty]

If we're just going off just skill and not power, then I would say...

Professor X=Shadow King=Cassandra Nova>Bogan

Jean Grey>Emma Frost=Exodus=Apocalypse>Rachal Summers>Legion>Sinister

Psylocke=Stepford Cuckoos=Black Queen>Quentin Quire

Karma=Current Nate Gray

Artie>Cable/w T-virus

[DiamondQueen]

I love how the haters always try to dig at Emma when feats wise, shes wiped the floor with most of these people.

[Perfection/Emma 2]

100% agree. Emma without a doubt is one of the most forced/pushed characters in all of comics. The wannabe "Queen" of mutants.

Mama is the Queen of mutants

[nightw1ng]

Quoting another poster from the Jean thread:

Matthew Rosenberg says on Twitter that Jean is stronger than X, but she was caught off guard and exhausted. That's how he got the best of her in Astonishing. I know some people had problems with the Annual so I wanted to share this.

https://twitter.com/AshcanPress/stat...93039988404225

[rutog98]

Quoting another poster from the Jean thread:

While I have no interest in debating Jean anymore, and I will not be dragged into another discussion about her, Rosenberg's statements only show that there is no such thing as canon anymore at Marvel. I don't see how anyone can make the claim he made given the history of these characters. I did a comprehensive post on page 11 on this thread comparing Jean to Xavier and Emma. Also, I debated Emma/Jean at length from pages 11 forward. I am not going to repost that information again, but people can read the evidence for themselves and come to their own conclusions regarding the pecking order of these characters.

Here is the link to page 11 of this thread: https://community.cbr.com/showthread...X-books/page11

I seriously can't believe Rosenberg tweeted that out.

What is the point of comics if any character can be stronger than another character at any given time for no rhyme or reason other than being completely based on whomever the writer du jour favors even if it ignores decades of established continuity? I mean, Marvel might as well have Magneto become a villain once more and then do a story where Jubilee overpowers him in a fight because she happens to be that writer's favorite character. Or maybe Wolverine can really beat Galactus in a fight where both characters are at full power with nothing boosting Logan because the writer prefers Wolverine to the world-devourer.

This kind of crap takes the fun out of reading comics, to be honest. This is one reason why I believe that comic book readers are dropping the hobby en masse. PIS and CIS is used consistently to weaken other characters to prop up favorites (this has always been done in comics, but now Marvel is taking this to a whole other level). Then, there are contradictions between the X-books. You have Rachel being mind-controlled by Mesmero in Gold while at the same time Nova is mind-controlling her over in Red. Then we have Extermination which came out today where nobody is controlling her. On top of this, Forge is Nova's slave over in Red, but then he's hitting the road with Dazzler in another book at the same time. And don't get me started on Guggenheim and how he is ignoring the development Coates gave Ororo in making her a bonafide "goddess" over in Black Panther to write this craptastic story with that blasted hammer in Gold right now. This has gotten out of control at Marvel.

That said, I wonder if the tweet above is merely that writer's opinion or do the editors share the same point-of-view? I know people have posted on here instances where Claremont had one idea about the Phoenix Force, for example, but the editors forced him to write something completely against what he felt in Uncanny X-Men #387.

Edit: We have seen Xavier, while in a weakened state, sitting planet-side on Skrull World and projecting his astral form into space to have a psychic conversation with Galactus (which was said to be impressive all on its own). Then, adding to the feat, he reached out to all 8 billion Skrull minds on the planet and linked their minds to Galactus. Again, he did all of this while weakened.

Also, we saw Xavier battle the Dark Phoenix on all the infinite planes of existence simultaneously in an epic psychic warfare. And the list goes on with Xavier.

I had reservations about Rosenberg's Uncanny X-Men book coming up in November, and this tweet has only confirmed my suspicions. He is going to prop up his favorite characters (whomever they are) at the expense of writing other characters down. Thus, there will be no accountability to the historical canon of these characters. I am going to skip out on buying his run. I may read it for free, and if there is an issue here or there I like, I will purchase it, but overall, I am not going to be collecting this or any other title he writes in the future.

That's all I have to say on the matter. Again, I urge people to go back and reread the discussions from page 11 forward in this thread.

[DDM]

1) There was a back-up story in one of the Classic X-Men issues to show that Mesmero would have been no match for Phoenix Force Jean Grey. Everytime he tried to make a sexual move on her, the Phoenix persona would emerge and would have broken his hold on her had he not backed down.

2) When Phoenix Force Jean Grey fell to a psychic illusion to Mastermind, Emma had created a device for him that allowed him to gain access to her head. Also, once she caught onto what was going on, Mastermind was powerless against her. Mesmero clobbered Rachel even when she was actively on the look-out for him.

3) Shadow King is not mostly talk. When they first fought in Uncanny X-Men #117, it was clearly established that he and Xavier were equal in power with Shadow King having a major advantage in skill and experience. Noting his advantage over Xavier, he toyed around with Prof. X which proved to be his undoing. He gave Xavier the opening to win because of his own foolish overconfidence rather than just taking care of business.

The next time we see them fight, Shadow King was possessing the body of a normal man who was dying and required life support to stay alive. Even with this being the case, he entered Colossus's mind from across the ocean and sent him after Xavier. When Xavier entered Peter's mind to try and free him of the SK's hold, SK proved to be at least his match.

So, already, we have two instances of Shadow King being at the minimum equal to Xavier in psi strength without anything boost his power.

Then, we have Psi-War where Shadow King mind-controlled billions of minds across the globe. He was not possessing a telepath when he did not, so it was done completely under his own power.

3) Where did you get that Rachel was confirmed not to have any portion of the PF during CC's run? Rachel was clearly displaying the Phoenix Effects in fights (like her fight with Emma), she had that Phoenix Force icon over her eye, and she had that shadow form. She was clearly being boosted by something as those are not her natural powers.

4) ) Mindscanning the Earth without Cerebro is not a huge feat to brag about to be honest. Also, she was on the verge of hurting herself when she did it. A lot of telepaths can do global scans.

5) Also, when she telepathically communicated from across time, I take you are referring to Days of the Future Past, am I right? During that time, she would have been boosted by the whole Phoenix stuff since it was not established as a separate entity at that time. The whole Phoenix thing was seen as an innate potential for psis in the Jean Grey lineage at that point in canon. Since the PF is now established to be an external cosmic entity that sometimes bonds itself to members of the Grey lineage, have we seen Rachel project her thoughts through time without it?

6) Are there any scans of her Astral Projecting across galaxies? Are you sure she wasn't using anything to boost her powers?

All of that said above, the fact is Rachel is very bad against other telepaths. She's consistently been shown to be weaker than high order psis like Emma, Exodus, Bogan, etc. The feats you bring up make me wonder if she was boosted since often times she does wield at least some part of the PF.

1) He still controlled Phoenix Jean, even if the Phoenix wouldn’t let him basically rape her. He’s a top order hypnotist, he even controlled indomitable willed Storm without much issue.

2) The purpose of Emma’s mind tap device was to help Wyngard cast his illusions directly in Jean’s mind at a safer distance miles away. His first few encounters with Jean were up close or nearby using his own abilities, like Mesmero’s encounters with Rachel. The latter is a literal homage to it even.

3a) The Shadow King feeds on negative emotions, he literally needs an external power source to amp up. When Xavier first encountered him as Amahl Farouk he had already consolidated a power base and had followers, he even had a track record working with the Nazis before to grow his power. When he controlled Colossus it was the same, he had all of Muir Island under his sway, Legion under his control and Lorna Dane functioning as basically a battery conduit to amplify his abilities beyond Xavier even. The only reason he took Jacob Reisz as host was for his FBI access and the body was empty anyway after his death.

The point remains though, without an external power source the Shadow King is basically nothing. He’s essentially a psychic parasite and only as powerful as the conditions he’s made for himself.

3b) In the run itself it was stated repeatedly and by Rachel herself often. She wasn’t Phoenix then even if her power signature resembled the firebird. It did still in later runs too (Legacy, WATXM, etc) even though she wasn’t Phoenix.

4) She was fine, she was even holding herself telekinetically above Manhattan while she did it. How many other telepaths can you name who’ve done unaided full global mindscans (roughly 7.5 billion people)?

5) No I’m talking about when Rachel contacted Cable in his solo series. Him killing Apocalypse had unhinged her from the future timeline where she became Mother Askani. She had lost the Phoenix and was trapped at the end of time by a character called Gaunt.

6) That’s how her appearance as Revenant in AOX had happened. The Starjammers were in trouble and Rachel astral projected from the far edge of Shi’ar space to Earth the get help but her astral form got caught in Legion/Moira’s reality warp.

As far as Rachel’s rumbles go, she doesn’t have an amazing track record in vs psi match ups, although not necessairily due to power. Emma’s a good example there, in their fight Emma didn’t outpower or overwhelm her, she outsmarted her and basically got Rachel to give up the fight with psychology. Because she couldn’t outmuscle Rachel if we’re being honest here and that’s not how Emma generally operates anyway. And Bogan spanked almost everyone, Emma and Storm included. The only ones who matched him were Sage and Bishop and again they did it with planning and subterfuge.

Rachel wasn’t Phoenix then though, if you want to talk about her psi feats as Phoenix she did things like stealing all the souls in 616 to try and destroy the Beyonder or rebuilding Cyclops and Invisible Woman’s minds from the ground up to circumvent their Hound programming. You basically go from the global to the cosmic scale there, from superhero to godhood. Same with Jean as Phoenix, that’s on a whole other scale above all these characters.

[rutog98]

1) He still controlled Phoenix Jean, even if the Phoenix wouldn’t let him basically rape her. He’s a top order hypnotist, he even controlled indomitable willed Storm without much issue.

2) The purpose of Emma’s mind tap device was to help Wyngard cast his illusions directly in Jean’s mind at a safer distance miles away. His first few encounters with Jean were up close or nearby using his own abilities, like Mesmero’s encounters with Rachel. The latter is a literal homage to it even.

3a) The Shadow King feeds on negative emotions, he literally needs an external power source to amp up. When Xavier first encountered him as Amahl Farouk he had already consolidated a power base and had followers, he even had a track record working with the Nazis before to grow his power. When he controlled Colossus it was the same, he had all of Muir Island under his sway, Legion under his control and Lorna Dane functioning as basically a battery conduit to amplify his abilities beyond Xavier even. The only reason he took Jacob Reisz as host was for his FBI access and the body was empty anyway after his death.

The point remains though, without an external power source the Shadow King is basically nothing. He’s essentially a psychic parasite and only as powerful as the conditions he’s made for himself.

3b) In the run itself it was stated repeatedly and by Rachel herself often. She wasn’t Phoenix then even if her power signature resembled the firebird. It did still in later runs too (Legacy, WATXM, etc) even though she wasn’t Phoenix.

4) She was fine, she was even holding herself telekinetically above Manhattan while she did it. How many other telepaths can you name who’ve done unaided full global mindscans (roughly 7.5 billion people)?

5) No I’m talking about when Rachel contacted Cable in his solo series. Him killing Apocalypse had unhinged her from the future timeline where she became Mother Askani. She had lost the Phoenix and was trapped at the end of time by a character called Gaunt.

6) That’s how her appearance as Revenant in AOX had happened. The Starjammers were in trouble and Rachel astral projected from the far edge of Shi’ar space to Earth the get help but her astral form got caught in Legion/Moira’s reality warp.

As far as Rachel’s runbles, she doesn’t have an amazing track record in vs psi match ups, although not necessairily due to power. Emma’s a good example there, in their fight Emma didn’t outpower or overwhelm her, she outsmarted her and basically got Rachel to give up the fight with psychology. Because she couldn’t outmuscle Rachel if we’re being honest here and that’s not how Emma generally operates anyway. And Bogan spanked almost everyone, Emma and Storm included. The only ones who matched him were Sage and Bishop and again they did it with planning and subterfuge.

1) He caught Phoenix Force Jean by surprise. Mesmero would not prevail against PF Jean Grey otherwise. Period. We both know that.

2) When Mesmero mind-controlled Storm, this is before Claremont started developing Ororo's mental defenses (which started in Uncanny X-Men 151-152).

3) Mastermind was only successful because he had the device and he got the drop on Phoenix Force Jean Grey. Again, when she caught onto him, he was completely powerless against her. Why is this even an issue in this discussion?

4) You are making stuff up regarding the Shadow King. The issue didn't say anything about him being amped up on negative emotions being the reason he was the equal to Xavier in psi-strength. No issue has ever stated that. You can't come up with your own head canon. When he had control over Colossus on Muir Island, Shadow King wasn't even present there. He was in the United States and inhabiting the body of a dying man who was being kept alive by life support.

Your whole assertion about the Shadow King is completely made up and has never been stated anywhere in canon. Where does it say he is weak unless he feeds on negative energy? He is equal to Xavier in power, but he can grow to dwarf Xavier under the right circumstances.

5) It was taking Rachel time (a really long time) to sift through those minds. Truthfully, any telepath with a global reach should be able to accomplish what she did there. She lost the Phoenix Force after that 12-issue Shi'ar arc where the team fought Vulcan. Prior to that, she had the Phoenix Force.

6) I'd have to see scans about the Mother Askani thing. She was unhinged in the timeline by what Cable did which is probably what enabled her to do what you claim.

7) Bogan, even with Rachel's power added to his own, lost badly to Storm and her mental defenses. She was the one who took him down in the team's first battle with him. Bogan never took down Ororo. That said, he did take Emma's mind, but then again, Bogan is a Xavier-level psi on his own, and added to his Xavier-level psi was a boosted Rachel's power.

Anyway, let's leave Storm out of this. She is not a telepath.

[rutog98]

Oh, and the reason Rachel gave up against Emma is because Emma knocked all of her psi weapons and psi armor away with no effort at all when Rachel tried to get serious in that psi confrontation before beating her psychologically.

https://2.bp.blogspot.com/cAIXHeLYmb...sxym5Pnv=s1600
https://2.bp.blogspot.com/uGjEOUbui4...3vcU6BDt=s1600

[DDM]

1) He caught Phoenix Force Jean by surprise. Mesmero would not prevail against PF Jean Grey otherwise. Period. We both know that.

2) When Mesmero mind-controlled Storm, this is before Claremont started developing Ororo's mental defenses (which started in Uncanny X-Men 151-152).

3) Mastermind was only successful because he had the device and he got the drop on Phoenix Force Jean Grey. Again, when she caught onto him, he was completely powerless against her. Why is this even an issue in this discussion?

4) You are making stuff up regarding the Shadow King. The issue didn't say anything about him being amped up on negative emotions being the reason he was the equal to Xavier in psi-strength. No issue has ever stated that. You can't come up with your own head canon. When he had control over Colossus on Muir Island, Shadow King wasn't even present there. He was in the United States and inhabiting the body of a dying man who was being kept alive by life support.

Your whole assertion about the Shadow King is completely made up and has never been stated anywhere in canon. Where does it say he is weak unless he feeds on negative energy? He is equal to Xavier in power, but he can grow to dwarf Xavier under the right circumstances.

5) It was taking Rachel time (a really long time) to sift through those minds. Truthfully, any telepath with a global reach should be able to accomplish what she did there. She lost the Phoenix Force after that 12-issue Shi'ar arc where the team fought Vulcan. Prior to that, she had the Phoenix Force.

6) I'd have to see scans about the Mother Askani thing. She was unhinged in the timeline by what Cable did which is probably what enabled her to do what you claim.

7) Bogan, even with Rachel's power added to his own, lost badly to Storm and her mental defenses. She was the one who took him down in the team's first battle with him. Bogan never took down Ororo. That said, he did take Emma's mind, but then again, Bogan is a Xavier-level psi on his own, and added to his Xavier-level psi was a boosted Rachel's power.

Anyway, let's leave Storm out of this. She is not a telepath.

1) It doesn’t matter, that’s also how he caught Rachel in Excalibur but the fact of the matter is Mesmero’s a strong enough hypnotist to have 2 Phoenixes under his belt. And again his hypnotism isn’t necessairily psychic even, in their actual telepathic fight Rachel KO’d him in seconds.

2) Ororo’s indomitable will isn’t a trained defense, it’s natural. I guess Mesmero’s will is just stronger.

3) Because the Rachel and Mesmero story is a pretty shameless knockoff based on it? You keep using Mesmero as evidence of Rachel’s psychic inability but continue handwaving a nearly identical situation with Jean. The bias is clear.

4) I’m not making up anything regarding the Shadow King, it’s been established repeatedly he feeds on negative emotions and this is where he derives his power from. In Xavier’s first encounter we have nothing to go on but Xavier’s own recollections of the fight and he thought Farouk was just a powerful telepath like himself. The Muir Island stuff is pretty clearly laid out though and was something built up over almost 40 issues. SK took Legion, then slowly took everyone else, then lucked out and got Lorna (whose encounter with Zaladane had left her as something of a repository for exactly what SK uses), then amped up by Lorna he started drawing others to Muir and controlling others outside Muir like Val Cooper, Guido, Rogue, Colossus, etc. He’s not really on Xavier’s level naturally, he even admitted that in Astonishing when he revealed he was feeding off Proteus to gain any upper hand.

5) Well yeah it probably took awhile, 7.5 BILLION minds is a lot to look through. How long do you think it’d take you to look through 7.5 BILLION anything much less full minds? And if it’s so easy name all the other telepaths who’ve done anything similar without running to Cerebro.

And you’re making things up. The Phoenix echo she lost in the Starjamners mini she only gained shortly before partway through Brubaker’s RAFOTSE arc. She drew it out of Korvus’ Phoenix Blade but she didn’t have it before that, and definitely not during Claremont’s run beforehabd.

6) That makes no sense, why would getting unhinged from time even allow that? She wasn’t in the timesteam when she telepathically contacted Cable either, she was at the end of time and heing held prisoner. What enabled her to do it were her own omega mutant abilities.

7) We actually don’t know the extent of Bogan's abilities, he tends to prefer operating through others which is why he likes telepathic puppets like Emma and Rachel. Also good to consider when Claremont wrote that encounter Psylocke was the telepath he had in mind as Bogan’s pet doing everything.

Oh, and the reason Rachel gave up against Emma is because Emma knocked all of her psi weapons and psi armor away with no effort at all when Rachel tried to get serious in that psi confrontation.

No, Rachel gave up because Emma emotionally disarmed her. She made Rachel face Scott’s genuine love for herself, but there was no KO. She outmaneuvered Rachel because she can’t outpower her.