Wolverine's New Villain Persephone is the X-Men's Worst Nightmare

WARNING: This article contains spoilers for Hunt For Wolverine: Dead Ends #1 by Charles Soule, Ramon Rosanas, Guru-eFX and VC's Joe Sabino, on sale now.

Marvel's X-Men have had to fight against some truly fearsome threats, including Magneto, Apocalypse and Onslaught, not to mention bigotry and hatred from humans who fear them, along with the near extinction of the mutant race. The X-Men always find a way to overcome the insurmountable odds, but Marvel has introduced a new villain with the potential to bring the X-Men, and the entire mutant race, to its knees.

The new character has secret ties to Wolverine, who is somehow back from the dead and currently missing. Logan's friends and teammates have split up into different teams to investigate his disappearance in four Hunt For Wolverine miniseries. Though each series touched on a different genre of story (Claws of a Killer was a zombie horror comic, Weapon Lost was noir, for example), they were all tied together by one mystery company -- Soteira.

Hunt For Wolverine: Dead Ends #1 sees Kitty Pryde invite Daredevil and Iron Man to the Xavier Institute to compare notes regarding the Wolverine investigation. It's here that the Soteira angle comes into play: Daredevil notes his team found records of Soteira monitoring violent Wolverine sightings in Weapon Lost; the company had its logo on the covert ops team that stole a copy of Mister Sinister's DNA database in Adamantium Agenda; Mystery in Madripoor had Soteira set up numerous space launches in Madripoor for unknown reasons; and finally, the company was behind the zombie experiment in a small town that went horribly wrong in Claws of a Killer.

Kitty then produces a PowerPoint detailing just how far Soteira's reach extends. Looking over the image, the company dabbles in everything ranging from terrorism to mind control and assassinations. Soteira also has its hands in key moments and figures in X-Men history like the Legacy Virus, Necrosha, the Mauraders and Nathaniel Essex.

Before the deep dive into Soteira goes any further, the X-Men are alerted to an attack on their facility. The X-Men and Iron Man are able to prevent a catastrophe in large part to a superhuman effort by Kitty Pryde, but the threat is enough of a distraction to allow the mastermind behind Soteira to reveal themselves.

Page 2: [valnet-url-page page=2 paginated=0 text='Wolverine%27s%20Latest%20Nemesis%20Spells%20Bad%20News%20for%20the%20X-Men']

Enter Persephone

After the attack on the Xavier Institute, Daredevil senses a presence on the opposite side of the campus. A finely-dressed gentleman is standing among ten covered corpses laying across the campus. The man is merely there to introduce a woman named Persephone, who makes her entrance via a holographic projection. Persephone is already displaying her intelligence by not being there in person to feel the wrath of the X-Men.

Not wasting time with small talk, Persephone quickly admits to having Wolverine as her hostage and servant, along with confirming that she and Soteira are one and the same. The villain has orchestrated many events and pulled several strings in the shadows, and is now ready to step into the spotlight.

Persephone reveals the ten corpses are people she discovered with the X-gene, using the DNA database her men stole from Mister Sinister. The information allows her to find and murder any humans registered with the X-gene before they've manifested a mutation, meaning the X-Men can't use Cerebro to find, warn and protect them.

If this isn't enough of an example of the depths Persephone will go through to rid the world of mutants, we also have to remember she has Wolverine as her captive. Weapon Lost showed she has control over Wolverine, so if she wanted to she could deploy him as a weapon against his own friends.

What makes things even trickier for the X-Men is they have no idea how to find Persephone. The earlier diagram clearly shows she has mastered how to avoid pinging anyone's radar, so it won't be as simple as getting telepaths to search for psychic signature across the globe.

The possibility of a villain executing innocents who will turn into mutants in the future is the worst case scenario for the X-Men. The heroes are used to navigating a world that already hates and fears them for being different, but that usually happens after a mutant manifests their powers. What Persephone is attempting to do is stomp out a future for every single mutant in the Marvel Universe, which is what would happen if X-gene holders were murdered.

Persephone's attempt to end tomorrow's mutants will continue in the Return of Wolverine five-issue miniseries. The title should shed more light on how she came to obtain Wolverine's body, along with the origin of Logan's new hot claws powerset. The only question is will Wolverine gain his freedom while also bringing down the X-Men's newest threat.