Protecting a society that hates and fears you is hard enough, imagine having to be the person who tries to control the various members of the X-Men as the team deals with that same prejudiced society. That is a challenge that a number of different X-Men members have faced over the years. Really, it looks like nearly every notable member of the X-Men got a chance to lead the team at one point or another. This was helped a lot when the X-Men split into two teams for the first time in 1991. Since then, there have been a wide variety of X-Men teams to choose from, so there are a lot more leaders to go around.

Here, we will rank the leaders of the X-Men from worst to best. Do note that we are only talking about characters that led the X-Men themselves. There has been a wide variety of mutant superhero teams over the years, but we are not concerning ourselves with any of those teams except the X-Men proper. So Captain Britain, leader of Excalibur, is not on this list. Cable, leader of X-Force, is not on this list. Here is the countdown of the characters who did make the cut.

20 MIMIC

In the world of the X-Men, it is very common that they would end up becoming allies with their former enemies. In fact, there are seemingly numerous examples of X-Men villains who later became X-Men themselves. However, it is very rare that these villains then become the leader of the team; and yet, that is precisely what happened with Mimic, one of the odder members of the X-Men.

One of the strangest parts of the character was that he was introduced as someone who was not even a mutant! His father had invented a machine that allowed Calvin Rankin to absorb other people's powers. Calling himself Mimic, he fought the X-Men but then eventually joined the team as their first non-mutant member (we later learned that he was a mutant). Cyclops then soon after temporarily quit the team, so Mimic, who was the deputy leader was briefly the leader of the team! He was an awful superhero, as he was depressed about his superpowers and he was soon kicked off of the team. For having such a short stint as leader and actually getting kicked off of the team, Mimic is an easy choice for the final pick on the list.

19 ICEMAN

Iceman has long been a valued member of a number of different teams. He was on the original X-Men and then the Champions, Defenders, X-Factor and then back to the X-Men. His strong powers and good-natured temperament have made him a go-to teammate when people put teams together. In fact, when Wolverine and Cyclops had a schism and split the remaining X-Men between them, the very first X-Man that Wolverine approached was Iceman. Part of that was because Wolverine knew Kitty Pryde was a given to come with him, but even then, it is still impressive.

However, leadership has never been Bobby's strong suit. He is much better as a follower than as a leader. This was demonstrated when the rest of the X-Men were captured by Bastion during Operation: Zero Tolerance and Iceman was one of the few members of the team still free. Thus, he put together a new ragtag team of X-Men, including Doctor Cecilia Reyes, Marrow and Sabra. Soon into his stint as de facto leader, though, Sabra and Cecilia were pretty much calling the shots. Bobby still got to have a triumphant moment where he confronted Bastion right before S.H.I.E.L.D. showed up to save the day after the United States government turned on Bastion.

18 BEAST

During his initial stints with both the X-Men and the Avengers, Beast was never one that you would think of as leadership material. He was best served as the smart guy who gave the leader support. However, when he left the Avengers to find himself, he ended up on the Defenders where he soon found himself as the de facto leader of the team, as the team was really more of a loose collection of superheroes than a fully organized unit. Beast tried to change that, bringing in his old friends Iceman and Angel to the team. Angel, though, ended up taking over the leadership reins from him.

Later, Beast got a second chance in the leadership chair when Cyclops took a leave of absence as X-Men leader during his honeymoon and Wolverine left the team to recover from his injuries from when Magneto pulled the adamantium out of his body. Thus, Beast sort of by default became the field leader of the X-Men Blue Team. He has a rather forgettable stint as leader, though. During his time with the X-Men on Utopia before he left the team, he also was the leader of the X-Club group of mutant scientists. It was more of a loosely defined leadership position, though.

17 GAMBIT

After being gone for nearly a decade, Chris Claremont returned to the X-Men at the turn of the 21st Century to take over both X-Men and Uncanny X-Men. By the time Claremont had come back, the whole "two squads of X-Men" setup had fallen by the wayside as the teams had mostly begun to act like one giant team until they briefly solidified into a single eight-person team during Joe Kelly and Steve Seagle's run. They then slowly added more and more team members until it was once again a giant group of X-Men leading into Claremont's return. Claremont broke the teams up into two different squads and then had everything take place six months after Cyclops had been possessed by Apocalypse.

The X-Men were all in disarray and Claremont wanted to play with that idea by mixing with the leadership roles of the teams. Thus, despite one team having both Storm and Jean Grey on it, along with Cable, Beast and Gambit, Claremont decided to make Gambit the leader of that squad. The idea of such a lone wolf like Gambit being leader was interesting in theory but it never really went past that. He didn't do a whole lot of leading before Claremont's return was cut short less than a year into the revamp.

16 DAZZLER

For years, Dazzler struggled with whether she wanted to be a superhero at all, as she really wanted to concentrate on her music career. Then things really got derailed for her when she was outed as a mutant and her music career began to spiral. She ended up joining the X-Men almost out of a lack of other options. She soon found a new purpose with the team, as well as a new love interest in Longshot. However, her initial stint with the team was a relatively brief one.

She returned years later when the X-Men moved to Utopia. Cyclops put her in charge of a special "street" team of X-Men, designed to get involved with the local scene (Utopia was off the coast of San Francisco). Sadly, her time on the street team never really got a chance to occur as she was sucked into an alternate reality by a Ghost Box and became the leader of a group of multi-dimensional X-Men known as the X-Treme X-Men. She did a wonderful job controlling these alternate versions of her friends, and Cyclops and Wolverine were both so impressed with her work that when she returned to Earth, they both fought over recruiting her.

15 CANNONBALL

In business, there is a term called the "Peter Principle," which notes that, "In a hierarchy every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence." This is to say that people often do so well in lower level roles that they are continually promoted until they end up in a job that they don't fit into that well. That seems to be the case of Cannonball, who has been a wonderfully useful member of a number of different X-Men teams, but has rarely excelled when given the leadership reins.

He eventually became the leader of the original New Mutants and when they became X-Force, he ultimately took over as the leader of that team from Cable. Then the X-Men offered him a spot on the main team and he dropped X-Force like a bad habit. Years later, Cyclops gave Cannonball the chance to put together his own team of X-Men and Cannonball naturally tried to put together his old New Mutants friends in a new X-Men team. Within a few months, though, Dani Moonster had mostly taken over the team. Cannonball tends to be a better follower than he is a leader. Except for when he's blastin'. Then he is better leading the way.

14 HAVOK

After discovering that he was a mutant, Alex Summers, the mutant known as Haovk, ended up joining the X-Men alongside his older brother, Scott Summers, also known as Cyclops. His initial stint with the team was not that long and when the All-New, All-Different X-Men formed, Havok left the team along with his girlfriend, Polaris. Years later, comic book wise (and a decade in real life), Havok returned to the X-Men when Mister Sinister turned Polaris into one of his Marauders by merging her with the villainous possessive being known as Malice. Havok's stint with the X-Men was not that impressive and he was known for being one of the last three members left when they broke up.

He was then given the chance to lead a new government-sponsored X-Factor. It seemed like they mostly said, "Hey, his brother is a good leader, so he must be, too!" He led X-Factor for a number of years before ending up in an alternate universe. When he returned, he rejoined the X-Men and led a couple of teams. He did not exactly stand out. When the Avengers and X-Men formed a joint team of "Uncanny" Avengers, Havok was a member and also the leader for a while!

13 ANGEL

One of the original members of the X-Men, Angel left the team when they started adding members like Wolverine, who Angel really disliked. Angel ended up on the Champions and then the Defenders. Angel took over as leader of the Defenders from his friend, the Beast, but, in a truly bizarre set of circumstances, Angel's own leadership was unimpressive enough that he was replaced, as well, this time by his girlfriend of the time, Candy Southern. Yes, the Defenders were led for a while by the non-powered girlfriend of one of their members!

Warren Worthington III then joined up with his old X-Men friends once again in X-Factor. He initially had a bit more control over the team, as he was bankrolling them, but then his fortune was stolen from him and he lost his wings before being turned into the dark version of himself known as Archangel by Apocalypse. Archangel continued as a member of X-Factor and ultimately re-joined the X-Men when the teams merged together. Archangel was mostly a background character until the X-Men teams split from two squads to three teams. The reduction of available members led to eventually a team low enough on leadership that Archangel found himself in charge of a team. He did not exactly stand out in his leadership, but nor did he have any obvious foul-ups, which honestly puts him pretty far ahead of the game.

12 PSYLOCKE

Psylocke came to the X-Men after serving as a superhero in her native England for a few years, even a brief but disastrous stint filling in for her brother as Captain Britain, where she lost her eyes to a particularly nasty villain named Slaymaster. She gained new eyes from the villainous Mojo, who wanted to be able to spy on the X-Men, but eventually Psylocke regained control of her robotic eyes. Psylocke joined the X-Men after they helped her with Mojo and she served for a number of years before she was the one who ultimately forced the team to break up, as she saw that the Reavers were destined to kill the remaining team members otherwise.

She was then placed into a new body, that of an Asian martial artist. She rejoined the X-Men and has served them with great distinction ever since. When the X-Men all ended up in Utopia, she came along for the ride. She was given the chance to run the "security team" for Utopia when the X-Men split between Wolverine and Cyclops. Psylocke chose to stay on Utopia and take the job as leader of the team watching Utopia's back. This led to stints with three different versions of X-Force. Psylocke's time as leader was not long, but she showed a lot of promise in her position. She is currently prominently involved in Astonishing X-Men.

11 MAGNETO

A longtime adversary of the X-Men, Magneto's relationship with the group began to thaw out when he was forced to step in and help the X-Men fight against the evil anti-mutant preacher, William Stryker. With the X-Men leadership all captured, Magneto and the remaining X-Men worked well together and Magneto seemed to have a commanding presence alongside his old foes. This ultimately led to Charles Xavier asking Magneto if he could take over being headmaster of Xavier's while Xavier was away in space. Magneto agreed.

It is fair to say that his initial stint as headmaster was terrible, as he ended up driving the New Mutants out of the school and he also lost most of the X-Men, to boot, although their departure was not specifically due to him. Years later, he rejoined the X-Men and slowly proved his worth to them. He even briefly led a team of X-Men following the events of Secret Wars. More recently, he has done a fine job of being a teacher to the time-displaced X-Men, the same young heroes that he fought against so many years ago. Even in this new role, he has had some ups and down, but on the balance, he has proved to be a strong teacher and leader for the team known as X-Men Blue.

10 EMMA FROST

As someone who is so dedicated to teaching, it is sad to say that Emma Frost's track record is ghastly. She was in charge of her own school, the Massachusetts Academy, and eventually her crack squad of mutant students, the Hellions, were pretty much all murdered by a time-travelling villain called Trevor Fitzroy. After being in a coma following the attack, Emma was given a second chance and became the co-headmaster of a new school of mutants in Generation X. That team also fell apart and one of her students was killed. She moved to Genosha to be a teacher there and Genosha was destroyed by Sentinels. She survived and came to Xavier's and then the Decimation hit and a number of newly-powerless mutants were murdered.

As bad as the luck was that she has had as a teacher, she has proven to be a strong co-head of the team with Cyclops for a number of years. They formed a strong balance together. More recently, though, Cyclops' death from exposure to the Inhumans' Terrigenesis cloud drove her over the line and caused her to murder a number of Inhumans. She now has her own rogue team of X-Men that works outside the law.

9 NIGHTCRAWLER

One of the most beloved teammates in the history of the X-Men, Nightcrawler was forced into a leadership position when he and Kitty Pryde were in England recuperating from injuries when the rest of the X-Men were seemingly killed in a battle in Dallas. Kurt Wagner and Kitty were forced to join a new superhero team in England called Excalibur and soon, Nightcrawler found himself the leader of the team for a number of years. He did a fine job and they eventually amicably split up, with Kurt, Kitty and their old teammate, Colossus, who had joined Excalibur near the end of the series, all rejoined the X-Men together.

When the X-Men split into three squads, Nightcrawler became the leader of the third, consisting of himself, Chamber, Iceman, Archangel and (in a temporary capacity) Wolverine. Nightcrawler eventually pulled back from his leadership role while dealing the revelation that he had been manipulated in a plot to take over the Catholic Church. Soon, though, he returned to lead a team of X-Men, including his old friends Storm and Wolverine, who respected him enough to follow his leadership. That team broke up when Storm married Black Panther and the rest of the group was stuck in outer space having chased after Cyclops and Havok's evil brother, Vulcan.

8 DANI MOONSTAR

There are those characters who pursue leadership and then there are those who are such strong leaders that leadership positions just seem to follow them around. When she joined the original New Mutants, Danielle Moonstar was not the clear choice for team leader, her friend, Cannonball, was. However, she soon proved herself so adept that they became co-leaders of the team. When she left the New Mutants to become a literal Valkyrie during one of their journeys to Asgard, she returned to find the team now calling themselves X-Force. Once again, after re-joining the team, she slowly ended up as the team leader once more.

More recently, when Cannonball was specifically given his own X-Men team by Cyclops while the X-Men were stationed on Utopia, it was only a matter of time before Cannonball decided to turn over the leadership role to Dani, who is just better suited for it. The same skills that serve her well as a Valkyrie also serve her well as a team leader. Even when she did not have any mutant powers in the wake of Decimation, she remained so competent that the other characters all followed her lead, even though they had powers and she did not.

7 ROGUE

As noted before, when Chris Claremont took over the X-Men again in 2000, he wanted to mix things up, leadership-wise, so he put Gambit in charge of one team and Rogue in charge of the other, both characters who had never served as leaders before. In the case of Gambit, the out of the box thinking proved that it should have remained in the box. Rogue, however, really ended up taking to leadership. After stints on a few different squads over the next few years, Cyclops decided to give her her own team, which she mostly populated with some misfit X-Men like her foster mother, Mystique.

In this first shot at running her own specific team, Rogue ended up being a bit off in her choices, as Mystique was secretly working against her and for Mister Sinister and the Marauders, but the way that she made that team work until that point was really impressive. It is why later on, when she got her own X-Men Legacy team, she continued to be very impressive with her leadership skills. Her best attribute is the way that she can relate to other people. This makes sense, as she has the history of being the outsider forced to integrate into the X-Men.

6 WOLVERINE

Seemingly the ultimate lone wolf, Wolverine has instead become the most famous team player in the history of comics. For a while there around 2010, Wolverine was a member of two different teams of Avengers, two different teams of X-Men plus a job in X-Force. Wolverine was blessed to work with two of the best leaders in X-Men history for most of his early years with the X-Men, but after Storm left the team for a while and Cyclops was with X-Factor, Wolverine became the team leader for the first time. It was only a brief stint, but he did well enough at it that he eventually returned to a leadership role years later.

During the Schism event, Wolverine believed that the younger members of the X-Men should be trained as students first, not soldiers. So he and Cyclops split up the X-Men, with Wolverine re-opening up the old school and becoming its headmaster and the leader of this new team of X-Men. Before this point, he had also led Cyclops' black ops team, X-Force, as well. Wolverine is really good at delegating responsibility, though, and he gave his co-headmasters, Kitty Pryde and Storm a lot of say in how the school was run. Storm took over when he died.

5 PROFESSOR X

In a lot of ways, you have to give Charles Xavier a ton of respect. He was the guy who formed the X-Men, after all. If it were not for his dedication to a dream that involved mutants working alongside humans, it is unlikely that we would ever have a team like the X-Men. However, he also has some staggeringly massive failings as a leader, as well. A lesser one, although still annoying, is the way that he kept messing with his team in the early days, pretending to not have powers to see what they would do, stuff like that. Later faking his own death, because he didn't trust them not to bother him while he was preparing to fight off an alien invasion.

Perhaps his most disturbing act as the head of the X-Men, however, was when the original X-Men were captured and Xavier put together a replacement team to save the originals. The replacement team was completely wiped out, including Cyclops' long-lost brother, Vulcan. Rather than just stop there, or, you know, let people know what happened, he mind-wiped the survivors and then recruited a second team to save the originals. That team worked out, but that he never told anyone about the other team until one of the members came back to life is truly shocking.

4 JEAN GREY

For many years, Jean Grey has been one of the greatest guiding forces on the X-Men, it's just that she tended to do most of her guiding slightly to the side of her longtime boyfriend and later husband, Cyclops. This was true when they were on X-Factor together and then when they both rejoined the X-Men. Jean Grey was sort of the mother of the X-Men for many years, the person that you could come to with your problems and would help set you straight. As time went by, though, she also began to take more and more of a guiding role in how Xavier's school was run. Tragically, her growing role was cut short when she was killed in battle against Magneto.

She surprisingly remained dead for many years, before recently returning to the X-Men. She has formed her own team of X-Men, known colloquially as X-Men Red, and she has been impressive in her short stint as leader with her responsive and open approach to leadership. Sadly, part of her high rank is due to the fact that she hasn't been leader long enough for any major screw-ups, but the fact remains that she hasn't had a major screw-up yet, so she deserves to be this high.

3 KITTY PRYDE

For years, Kitty Pryde served as the perfect example of mutants living a cohesive existence with humans, as Kitty was a smart, pretty and charming character, which set her up to be the ideal face of mutants. After serving for many years, though, as a member of the X-Men and Excalibur, Kitty wanted a break from being a hero. She went to college and seemed poised to make a breakthrough for mutant rights as a future politician instead of X-Man. Chris Claremont even wrote an X-Men story set in the future where she eventually became the President of the United States! That was not to be, as her very nature as the ideal example of mutants led to Cyclops choosing her for his new X-Men team where they would embrace their roles as public superheroes by putting their most famous members right up front.

After spending some time in outer space, Kitty returned and became Wolverine's co-headmaster in his new school for mutants. When the original X-Men traveled from the past and got stuck here, Kitty became their new personal headmaster. After a stint with the Guardians of the Galaxy, Kitty returned and took over as the current leader of the main X-Men team. She very likely could end up number one on this list soon enough.

2 STORM

One of the fascinating aspects of Storm becoming the leader of the X-Men is that it was not like it was a case of everyone saying, "Oh yeah, of course, if Cyclops ever leaves, then Storm is the clear choice. " No, no fan even had a game plan in place in the event that Storm left the team, that's how much Cyclops was associated with being the leader of the X-Men at the time. Yet, as soon as she took over, it seemed like she was retroactively destined for the job. She was such a strong leader that she lost her powers and no one even considered replacing her as leader. Well, except for Cyclops, that is, but after defeating him in a duel for the job, she remained as the leader for essentially the entire 1980s. When the X-Men formed two teams in 1991, she was the clear choice to be the leader of one of the teams.

Even when the X-Men briefly reformed one big team again, Storm became the leader of the team. When the X-Men grew again and split into three teams, Storm was naturally one of the leaders. After taking a brief break from the X-Men during her marriage to Black Panther, she became the co-headmaster of Wolverine's new school for mutants and took over when he died. After the embarrassing events of the Inhumans vs. X-Men war, Storm turned the team over to her protege, Kitty Pryde.

1 CYCLOPS

Don't get us wrong, we get it, you could fill an entire list with just jerky things that Cyclops has done over the years. Trust us, we know. We have literally done that in the past. However, it is important to put those bad deeds into context. First of all, unlike Professor X, who was sketchy in every other issue, Cyclops has been leading the X-Men for roughly 40 years and the amount of issues that he has been an excellent leader far outweigh his embarrassingly jerky moments.

Is it a shame that Cyclops has so many prominent examples of being a jerk? Of course, but his legacy as the leader of the X-Men is not the time he ditched his wife and newborn son for his old girlfriend. No, it is as the guy who led the original X-Men to great acclaim while dealing with Professor X messing with his head every other issue. It is as the guy who remained behind to turn a new group of heroes into the most famous X-Men roster ever. It is the guy who out maneuvered Norman Osborn and kept the small group of mutants on the Earth safe until the mutant population could be restored. He is the man who managed to somehow reunite the X-Men even after the events of Avengers vs. X-Men! His legacy is the best leader that the X-Men have ever had. But yeah, yikes, that whole "ditching his wife and newborn" thing sure was bogus.