‘X-Men ’97’s’ X-Cutioner: The animated revival’s new villain, explained

Disney Plus’s upcoming X-Men ‘97 has its audience baked right into the title. It’s a ‘90s show for ‘90s kids, harkening back to a simpler time when it was still, inarguably, the ‘90s. With that in mind, the folks in charge couldn’t have picked a more appropriate antagonist for the animated series revival: The X-Cutioner. 

Not familiar? That’s alright, he’s a little niche. See, the comic books of the ‘90s were all about three P’s — Pecs, Pouches, and Pretty much any excuse to shoehorn the letter “x” in front of stuff. The X-Cutioner was all about that life. His name started with “X.” He lifted. He had enough pouches to carry fruit snacks for the whole class.

X-Cutioner first darkened the X-Men’s door back in 1993, in the pages of Uncanny X-Men Annual #17, “Where Walks the X-Cutioner.” Conceived by Scott “Age of Apocalypse” Lobdell, he was a product of x-treme tastes. X-Cutioner began life as a member of a multi-generational US military family named Carl Denti. An FBI agent, he partnered with an ill-fated friend of mutant-kind.

After the death of his ride-or-die, Denti considered the largely consequence-free destruction that mutants had wrought over the previous decades — a tough pill to swallow for fans, but a genuine one, what with every Xavier School outing seemingly ending with a Sentinel falling through someone’s roof or Jean Grey exploding back to life in the middle of a public waterway. Deciding that these shenanigans would not stand, Denti took it upon himself to hunt down mutants and make them pay for their collective crimes. Basically, he went very Punisher, but with an uncomfortable racial element tacked on.

What are The X-Cutioner’s powers in Marvel comics?

Beating up guys with metal skin, laser eyes, and tentacle elbows is a challenge even with superpowers, and Denti was born severely lacking in that department. Luckily, his dead partner had stashed away a heaping pile of alien armaments for a rainy day, including strength-enhancing Shi’Ar armor, a psionic blast energy lance, a helmet that profiles potential targets through DNA analysis, and a teleportation device.

For all his lack of marketability, he carved his name into X-Men history, managing to put a slice through Colossus’ solid-steel upper body. More than that, unlike most X-Men villains, during his 1993 debut, the X-Cutioner even managed to take down one of his targets, the shape-changing mutant mercenary Tower, permanently — or as permanently as you tend to see in Marvel comics. Tower returned in 2009. Mutants are persistent.