Summary

• New Deadpool & Wolverine villain Cassandra Nova is a genocidal mutant with terrifying powers and a dark origin story.
• Nova has immense powers that make her a major threat to the movie's protagonists.
• Nova possesses a wide array of abilities like telepathy, mind control, and healing factor, making her a dangerous threat.

Deadpool & Wolverine cameos and cast returns as a truly terrifying force of nature, with the movie paying testament to just how immense Nova's powers can truly be. As early as the Deadpool & Wolverine trailer releases, Cassandra Nova was played up as a major threat in the film - and the final release certainly didn't disappoint.

By the time of the MCU timeline has brought many of the most fascinating parts of Cassandra Nova to the big screen.

Who Cassandra Nova? The Bald Villain In Deadpool & Wolverine Explained

Deadpool & Wolverine's main villain is Cassandra Nova, a genocidal mutant with a bald head who possesses terrifying powers, and who in the comics was behind a massacre on Genosha that wiped out millions of mutants. That storyline was adapted in X-Men '97, with Nova swapped out for Mister Sinister as the villain pulling the strings behind the Wild Sentinels.

Deadpool & Wolverine provides a comic-accurate look at Cassandra Nova, giving her the same long tan coat she's often seen wearing in the comics, and keeping her bald as well. This latter detail is a key one, given it offers a visual similarity between her and her brother, Charles Xavier, also known as X-Men leader and figurehead Professor X.

Deadpool & Wolverine confirms that this variant of Cassandra Nova is the sibling of Charles, though she was sent to the Void at a young age following her attempt to kill Xavier when they were both in the womb. Despite this, it's clear Cassandra wishes to see her brother again, and is tormented by the idea that the man who believed in second chances for everyone hasn't come to find her and bring her home.

However, it's worth noting that Cassandra is seemingly more than capable of finding a way home herself, but prefers to reside in the Void given both the amount of time she's spent there, and because she essentially rules over it because of her powers. Armed with profoundly strong psionic abilities that let her use not only telekinesis and telepathy but also do things like phase through other beings and search inside their memories, it's unsurprising that the villain has amassed a stronghold over those also trapped in the Void - though the arrival of Deadpool and Wolverine certainly challenges this setup.

Cassandra Nova's Dark Marvel Origin Explained

An Incredibly Twisted Supervillain Origin, Even For Marvel

Impressively, Cassandra Nova might have the darkest MCU villain origin of all. Thanos might have lost his entire planet, so he has a good claim to it, but Nova is the evil twin of Professor Charles Xavier, who attempted to kill him in utero and was killed in the process, only to be reborn in another body, vowing revenge - explaining why the pair didn't grow up together despite being technical siblings. Oh, and she's essentially a demon - the personification of what Marvel's Shi’ar people call a Mummudrai, or an astral “shadow self” that everyone possesses.

Cassandra Nova debuted in New X-Men #114 (July 2001)

In Marvel lore, the "Mummudrai" are a species of parasites that are essentially the exact opposite of their "twin", appearing in the womb, commencing a struggle for supremacy. Nova debuted as the "twin" of the unborn Charles Xavier, as an exact clone of his DNA with her own body. Sensing her evil, he killed her before she could be born, leading to one of the most memorably wild Marvel comics s of all time:

Nova survived the fetus battle, gained a new host body and set herself on a path of revenge whose endgame was killing Charles Xavier, believing it was key in order for her to take over the universe. That led directly to her manipulating Donald Trask III to commit the genocide on Genosha in the "E Is For Extinction" story arc, which wiped out 16 million mutants in an instant.

Cassandra Nova's Incredible Powers Explained

She's More Powerful Than Professor X

Nova possesses the same impressive powers as Professor X, with more on top of his skillset, and the scale of her powers is shown off repeatedly in Deadpool & Wolverine, with her effortlessly fighting off Hugh Jackman's berserker using telekinesis, and removing the Human Torch's skin with a wave of the hand. She's also powerful enough that Loki's temporal monster - Alioth - hasn't been able to take her out, though it's suggested she and her faction leave sacrifices for the beast in order to avoid having to face it directly.

The MCU's Cassandra Nova even has telekinetic regeneration powers, which make her essentially impossible to kill unless something is actively interfering with her abilities, and are also a power shared with her comic self. Perhaps the most important out of all these powers, though, is the reveal that Nova has a Sling Ring that allows her to summon portals to other dimensions, having killed a version of Doctor Strange to obtain it. As such, Cassandra Nova could theoretically have left the Void any time she wanted - which makes her self-imposed exile in Deadpool & Wolverine all the more ominous.

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