There are many iconic X-Men villains that both comic book readers and screen audiences alike are familiar with, thanks to the past 20 years of X-Men media, from Magneto to Apocalypse to Dark Phoenix. One who may still be less-known to those without a degree in X-Menology, however, is the Shadow King, which is unfair considering he is undoubtedly one of the most monstrous and powerful enemies in the mutant hero team’s rogues gallery.
The MCU is heading towards launching its own X-Men reboot, so naturally fans have thought a lot about which villain could face the team in their first movie outing under Marvel Studios. While Mr. Sinister is certainly deserving of his chance in the limelight (after Fox totally failed him), the Shadow King is another strong contender as well. But who is this character and who are they so deserving of a spot in the MCU?
The Shadow King, explained
In X-Men lore, the Shadow King stands as the original nemesis of Professor X and the first evil mutant that the young Charles Xavier ever encountered. During his travels in Egypt, Charles discovered the existence of Amahl Farouk, an apparent crime boss with vast psionic powers. The pair engaged in a psychic battle on the astral plane where, although evenly matched, Xavier defeated his foe, apparently killing him.
However, it later turned out that Farouk was not so easy to kill. The older Professor X would learn that Farouk was really the human host for the Shadow King, an ageless multiversal manifestation of the dark side of humanity’s psyche, which had bonded with Farouk for so long that they were essentially one and the same being. In further appearances, the Shadow King has faced the X-Men, the New Mutants, and developed his own rivalry with Xavier’s protege, Storm.
The practically limitless mental powers of the Shadow King, not to mention his unkillable and immortal nature, ensure his place among the primary most powerful enemies of the X-Men.
Why Marvel’s most underrated TV series proves the Shadow King needs to join the MCU
While the Shadow King never made it into Fox’s X-Men films, he does have one live-action adaptation to his name in the form of FX’s vastly underrated series Legion, which achieved a perfect blend of recreating the core beats of the character from the comics while making him even more horrific and yet more charismatic than before.
Legion — starring Dan Stevens as David Haller, the long-lost son of Professor X whose powers may be even greater — depicts Farouk as having hidden his consciousness away inside David’s mind when he was a baby. as both a way to survive following his psychic battle with Xavier and also as a form of revenge against his nemesis. Farouk causes David much psychological distress throughout his life by taking on various hallucinatory forms to haunt him with, including The Man With the Yellow Eyes — a more horror movie take on his comic book depiction.
Come the second season and the Shadow King is finally able to escape David’s head and return to his own body, with Farouk now played by Navid Negahban. In the grand halls of Marvel villains, Negahban’s performance is one of the absolute finest, portraying Farouk as someone of regal bearing and charm and yet with a total disdain for all other life and an insidious ability to twist every situation to his advantage. As he once memorably says: “Even when I lose, I win.”
In Legion, the Shadow King becomes more than just a great supervillain but a metaphor for mental illness itself and the control it can have over us. It’s hard to imagine the MCU portraying the character with the same level of nuance and complexity (unless Legion creator Noah Hawley was brought back on board), but recruiting Navid Negahban into Marvel’s X-Men family would be a great place to start.
