Deadpool & Wolverine not only brings Ryan Reynolds’ Wade Wilson and Hugh Jackman’s Logan together on the big screen, but it also pits the two heroes against the last X-Men villain we would have expected. We now have confirmation that Emma Corrin is playing Cassandra Nova. Yes, Charles Xavier’s evil twin sister is making her live-action debut.
Who is Cassandra Nova, and why is she appearing in a Deadpool sequel of all places? Here’s what you need to know about this heavy-hitter of an X-Men villain. These are the topics we cover here:
- Who Is Emma Corrin’s Deadpool Villain Cassandra Nova?
- Cassandra Nova’s Powers and Abilities
- Cassandra Nova’s Comic Book Origins
- Cassandra Nova in the X-Men ‘97 Universe
- Cassandra Nova in Deadpool & Wolverine
Who Is Emma Corrin’s Deadpool Villain Cassandra Nova?
Cassandra Nova is a difficult character to describe, but the simple answer is that she’s Charles Xavier’s evil twin sister. She possesses all of his incredible psychic abilities and more, but she’s not devoted to the cause of peaceful human/mutant coexistence. Instead, she’s determined to tear down everything her brother has built up.
She’s done a good job of it so far. Few X-Men villains can rival the damage and bloodshed Cassandra Nova has caused, including the complete destruction of the island nation of Genosha. Mutantkind is still recovering from its first encounter with Cassandra Nova, and she’s proven to be a surprisingly difficult enemy to contain.
Cassandra Nova’s Powers and Abilities
Cassandra Nova isn’t technically a mutant, but rather a parasitic lifeform called a mummudrai. Mummudrai exist as bodiless, psychic ghosts until they encounter a host body they can copy. She encountered Charles Xavier still in the womb, copying his body and his considerable mutant gifts in the process. She also tried to strangle poor Chuck with his own umbilical cord, but he was luckily able to fight back with his own psychic powers.
The newly forged Cassandra Nova was stillborn, but clung to life as a bundle of cells on a sewer wall until she finally rebuilt her body. In addition to having incredible telepathic and telekinetic abilities, Cassandra Nova has proven to be exceptionally hard to kill. When you can hop from body to body, it’s hard to truly destroy a mummudrai.
Cassandra Nova’s Comic Book Origins
Cassandra Nova was created by writer Grant Morrison and artist Frank Quitely in the pages of 2001’s New X-Men #114. New X-Men is notable for being the first X-Men comic to be significantly influenced by the live-action movie, including having the team trade in their bright spandex costumes for black leather. Morrison is also notable for focusing largely on new villains in this run, introducing foes like the sentient bacteria Sublime and Weapon X’s parent organization Weapon Plus.
Cassandra Nova immediately made a huge impact on the Marvel Universe in her debut, unleashing massive robots called Wild Sentinels and triggering the complete annihilation of Genosha. 16 million mutants died in a matter of minutes, with Emma Frost and Magneto among the only survivors of this horrific genocide.
Cassandra then targeted Xavier’s lover Lilandra and the Shi’ar Empire before turning her attention toward her ultimate goal - harnessing her brother’s invention Cerebra (a bigger, better version of Cerebro modeled after the movie version) and using it to murder every mutant left on Earth. Unfortunately, she didn’t count on the power of Jean Grey, who at the time was experiencing a resurgence of her Phoenix powers. Jean managed to hide a piece of Xavier’s consciousness in every mutant mind and expel Cassandra from his body, ultimately trapping her inside a harmless blob lifeform called Stuff.
Despite this defeat, Cassandra Nova has returned a few times to plague the X-Men again. She serves as a major antagonist in books like Joss Whedon and John Cassaday’s Astonishing X-Men and Tom Taylor’s X-Men Red.
She even played hero for a brief time in Steve Orlando’s Marauders, a book set in a time when the X-Men have established a new mutant nation on the living island of Krakoa. However, if the X-Men have learned anything about Cassandra Nova over the years, it’s that she’s never to be trusted. By the end of the series, Xavier’s treacherous twin sister is left stranded billions of years in the past. Still, it’s surely only a matter of time until she returns to threaten mutantkind once again.
Cassandra Nova in the X-Men ‘97 Universe
Cassandra Nova is not a character with an established history of appearing outside of Marvel’s comics. Not yet, anyway. But she does have a small connection to X-Men: The Animated Series worth exploring.
Cassandra debuted in 2001, four years after the conclusion of the animated series. However, years before Marvel announced the sequel series X-Men ‘97, they revisited this universe in a comic called X-Men ‘92. Conceptually, X-Men ‘92 and X-Men ‘97 are very similar, as both explore what happens after the original animated series finale.
Cassandra serves as the first major villain of X-Men ‘92. She runs a correctional facility called the Clear Mountain Institute and uses her position to attempt to brainwash the X-Men into becoming “pure” versions of themselves. The series reworks her origin, revealing her to be a clone of Xavier created by Apocalypse and possessed by the Shadow King.
At this point, it’s unclear whether X-Men ‘97 will treat X-Men ‘92 as part of the series’ canon. But even if not, the comic gives the new animated series a template for how to adapt the Cassandra Nova/Charles Xavier rivalry into animation. Cassandra Nova could well be one of the new villains introduced in a future season of X-Men ‘97.
Cassandra Nova in Deadpool & Wolverine
Cassandra Nova may not have appeared outside the comics up until now, but that’s set to change in a big way thanks to the upcoming Deadpool & Wolverine. The Crown’s Emma Corrin has been cast as the film’s main villain, and we now have confirmation that Corrin is playing Cassandra Nova.
Little is known about the plot of Deadpool & Wolverine, and even less about how Cassandra Nova fits in. Heck, the first trailer for the movie barely even features Jackman’s Wolverine himself. Corrin’s Cassandra Nova only appears in one shot from behind. Why is she the villain chosen for Wade Wilson and Logan’s first major cinematic team-up?
We do know that the film builds on the ending to 2018’s Deadpool 2, as a seemingly retired Wade is recruited by the Time Variance Authority to deal with a new threat to the multiverse. True to form, Wade refers to himself as “Marvel Jesus,” suggesting he’s about to become the savior of the entire MCU. Why the TVA needs Deadpool’s help and not the Avengers’ is anyone’s guess at this point.
Much of the movie seems to be taking place amid the ruins of Fox’s X-Men universe. A half-buried 20th Century Fox logo can be seen in the middle of a barren desert. That desert may actually be The Void, a realm introduced in Loki: Season 1 where all of the people and objects pruned by the TVA’s agents are discarded. The Void is essentially a giant landfill for all of the multiverse’s unwanted time variants.
Given these clues, it’s possible that Cassandra is a relic of a dead timeline. She may hail from a universe where some version of Patrick Stewart or James McAvoy’s Professor X had an evil twin sister. Maybe she was the Professor Xavier of her universe. There’s a lot of potential for the film to either rework her origin story or sidestep it entirely. However her backstory is handled, what matters is that Cassandra Nova seems to be the figurehead in charge of a group of refugees fighting against the destruction of their universe(s).
She certainly won’t be the only villain in the film. The trailer features a robed, armored character some are speculating is actually Doctor Doom. We also catch a glimpse of Aaron Stanford’s Pyro in the trailer, and various set photos have confirmed the return of other familiar faces from Fox’s X-Men movie universe.
The movie seems to be leaning into the idea of Cassandra as the unwanted, rejected other half to Professor X. Can you really blame these villains for wanting to preserve that which is being pruned for the greater good of the multiverse? Corrin’s Cassandra Nova may wind up being a more sympathetic character than her comic book counterpart. Or she could be the architect behind the Fox universe’s destruction in the first place. If you’re perfectly content killing 16 million mutants in a single day, what’s an entire universe?
All we know for sure is that Wade and Logan are going to have their work cut out for them in Deadpool & Wolverine. Cassandra Nova is one of the most powerful and dangerous villains the X-Men have ever faced. What can two mutant super-soldiers hope to accomplish against this deadly psychic parasite? We’ll find out when Deadpool & Wolverine hits theaters in July 2024.
For more on Deadpool & Wolverine, learn how the Deadpool sequel sets up Secret Wars and brush up on every Marvel movie and series in development.
Jesse is a mild-mannered staff writer for IGN. Allow him to lend a machete to your intellectual thicket by following @jschedeen on Twitter.
