Warning: Contains SPOILERS for X-Men #16 (2025)

An old-school X-Men.

While Wyre is in charge of making these new mutants into proper X-Men, the villain himself its that he is something beyond human or mutant. Traditionally, this villain would be considered a mutate, but after countless genetic alterations, he may be something new entirely.

In X-Men #16 (2025) - by Jed MacKay and Netho Diaz - Cyclops’s Alaskan X-Men confront a new group of villains known as the 3K X-Men, a revolutionary group who seeks to forcibly transform adult humans into mutants.

Equally powerful and well-trained as the original team, the 3K X-Men quickly prove that their training under the tutelage of the old-school Alpha Flight villain Wyre has paid off. However, while 3K and their cohorts are predominantly mutant, Wyre claims that he is something more than human or mutant; he’s a “particularly singular monster.”

Alpha Flight’s Wyre Returns As The X-Men’s Newest Villain

X-Men #16 (2025) - Written by Jed MacKay; Art by Netho Diaz; Inking by Sean Parsons, JP Mayer, & Livesay; Color by Fer Sifuentes-Sujo; Lettering by VC’s Clayton Cowles

ittedly, not much is known about Wyre’s past. Prior to his appearance in this series, Wyre first debuted in Alpha Flight #114 (1992) as a genetically modified assassin hired by Hydra’s Secret Empire to create an army of super-soldiers. After experiencing a change of heart, Wyre tentatively ed the Canadian team of heroes until today, where he now serves as an assassin and combat trainer for the villainous 3K. In addition to the full spectrum of superhuman abilities, Wyre also has the power to control fibrous tentacles that emerge from his body.

As of Marvel’s current terminology, Wyre is considered a human mutate. Most mutates are often artificially created and retain their basic genetic structures, albeit significantly modified. Even humans like Deadpool, who were genetically modified using mutant DNA, are considered mutates and not artificial mutants. However, with the introduction of the 3K X-Men, Marvel has re-established a new process in which humans can undergo such extreme genetic modifications that they can truly be considered mutants. With this being the case, it’s not entirely outside the realm of possibility that Wyre has evolved past his humanity to become a new species altogether.

3K May Be Using Wyre's DNA As The Basis For Their Villainous X-Men

Wyre's Unique Genetics Are A Malleable Cocktail

While Wyre nor the 3K X-Men consider him to be a mutant, that’s not to say that the process would be impossible. During the Krakoa Saga, Mister Sinister’s gene-splicing self-experimentation transformed him into what is known as an Artifical Mutant Chimera. While he never possessed a latent X-Gene of his own, he still successfully implanted an X-Gene into his genetic structure, thus transforming him into a mutant. Likewise, Forge once created his own artificial mutants following M-Day. Like the 3K X-Men, Wyre still has the potential to become a mutant if he pleases.

Given the extreme number of modifications he has undergone, Wyre is most likely an uncategorizable new species.

However, if he isn’t one currently, then the question remains: What is Wyre? Given the extreme number of modifications he has undergone, Wyre is most likely an uncategorizable new species. Even so, his enhancements could very well likely be the base used to create the 3K X-Men. Previously, Wyre’s DNA was used to enhance the mutant Wild Child, whose natural mutant abilities were significantly enhanced by Wyre’s genetic cocktail. When Wild Child was later depowered during M-Day, he still maintained a semblance of his original strength and healing factor thanks to Wyre’s modifications.

There’s still a lot that we don’t know about 3K’s process for creating artificial mutants nor the genetic alterations that Wyre underwent before working with Secret Empire and Hydra. Frankly, like “mutate” or “mutant” are wide umbrellas that refer to broad populations of people. Mutantkind also possesses numerous subspecies, like the newly revealed Avian class. But it seems that in 3K’s effort to replace humankind with a new breed of mutant, they may have found better value in Wyre’s amalgamous genetics as a basis for the 3K X-Men’s transformations.

X-Men #16 (2025) is now available from Marvel Comics.