When exploring the X-Men's huge selection of powerful villains, it can be sometimes hard to remember that the biggest threat to mutants isn't always well-dressed villains with flashy powers and plans of global domination, but instead, misguided humans who themselves felt threatened by the so-called homo superior.

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After all, the impetus for the creation of the X-Men wasn't an attack from Magneto, it was the fact that they were hated and feared by the rest of society. As the X-Men are about to embark on a bold new direction with the Dawn of X, we wanted to take a look back at some of the worst things done to mutants by one of their greatest villains, the human race.

10 PROJECT: WIDEAWAKE

giants peering at a city street through buildings

When Bolivar Trask first created the Sentinels, it's likely he didn't realize the effect his creations would have on the future, or the evil they would be used for in humanity's fight against mutants. He even sacrificed himself to stop the Sentinels, though others would carry on in his name.

The U.S. government would commission Project: Wideawake to create "solutions" to the mutant threat, which included an army of Sentinels created by Sebastian Shaw for his own financial gain. Obviously, the entirety of their Sentinel fleet was taken over and used against them by Onslaught, which seems like fair play to us.

9 ORCHIS

orchis base

Even in Jonathan Hickman's recent House of X/Powers of X relaunch of the X-Men, humanity continues to threaten mutantkind in new and dangerous ways. Hickman introduced readers to the secretive organization known as Orchis, an anti-mutant group put together out of the ashes of other groups like S.H.I.E.L.D., Hydra, A.I.M., H.A.M.M.E.R., Damage Control, and more.

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They built the Orchis Forge space station near the sun to create a new version of the Sentinel-creating Master Mold. This version was known as Mother Mold and would eventually lead to the development of Nimrod, humanity's greatest weapon against mutants. The X-Men were able to destroy Mother Mold, but Orchis is still out there.

8 MUTANT EXPERIMENTATION

Weapon X Program

We've been learning more about the super-soldier program that created heroes like Captain America and Wolverine in the pages of Weapon Plus, but we've been watching the sinister spin-off programs, like Weapon X and The Facility, perform terrible experiments on mutants for years.

Most of both organization's initial focus was on replicating the process that created Wolverine, which led to the creation of heroes like Deadpool and X-23. However, for as many success as these programs found, there were twice as many failed mutant experiments washed down the drains.

7 TURNED MUTANTS INTO HOUNDS

One of the most well-known X-Men storylines is "Days of Future Past," which only lasted for two issues but left lasting consequences on the timeline. Rachel Summers would find herself trapped in the present day after first appearing in that storyline, and she would bring a dark history with her.

RELATED: 10 Times Rachel Summers Was The Most Powerful Mutant In The Marvel Universe

Rachel had been abused and brainwashed by the mutant-hating cyborg known as Ahab and transformed into a Hound, mutants who were used to hunt down other Hounds for the Sentinels. Ahab had found a new way to oppress mutants by making them hunt their own kind, showing how low humanity was willing to go in their vendetta against mutantkind.

6 OPPRESSED GENOSHAN MUTANTS

humans vs mutants in the X-Men

The destruction of Genosha by wild Sentinels wiped out millions of mutants in one fell swoop, and while humans may have created the weapon, it was wielded by the mutant Cassandra Nova. However, before Genosha became the sovereign home of mutantkind, it was a human paradise that had been built using a mutant slave labor force.

To somehow make things worse, they were actually transforming mutants further based on their needs in the society to create an army of workers known as mutates. The Genoshan government was also allied with the human-cyborg Cameron Hodge, who used the mutate process for his own twisted desires before the X-Men got involved.

5 CRUCIFIED MUTANTS ON XAVIER'S LAWN

HUMANS VS MUTANTS - Crucified

There have been quite a few different bigoted human groups that have assembled over the years, with most of them following a strict religious stance against mutants that was first popularized by Reverend William Stryker in the pages of God Loves, Man Kills.

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The Church of Humanity was a religious extremist offshoot of Graydon Creed's Friends of Humanity organization, and they made their presence known by kidnapping a number of X-Men affiliated youths like Jubilee, Magma, and Skin to then crucify them on the lawns of the Xavier Institute.

4 BLEW UP AN X-CORP BUILDING

Another dangerous group of bigoted humans was first introduced after the mutant Decimation in the pages of House of M: The Day After. With the X-Men at their weakest, the Sapien League attacked the X-Mansion and attempted to burn mutants seeking refuge with the X-Men on crosses.

While it wasn't definitively connected to the Sapien League, in the same issue, a van loaded with explosives drove into the lobby of an X-Corp tower that was sheltering depowered mutants and their families. Regardless of which anti-mutant group took credit for the disaster, it claimed innumerable lives.

3 TURNED MUTANTS INTO SUICIDE BOMBS

The Leper Queen was introduced alongside the Sapien League soon became not only the leader of the group, but also one of the most bloodthirsty members of the later grouping of anti-mutant leaders like Stryker, Graydon Creed, Bolivar Trask, and others who had been reanimated and controlled by Sentinel/Nimrod fusion known as Bastion.

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In one of her final aggressions against mutants, the Leper Queen infected mutants with an altered strain of the mutant-killing Legacy Virus that made them lose control of their abilities before they died. She would then release these mutants into crowds of people before they "exploded" hoping to incite a movement against the dangerous mutants.

2 BLEW UP A BUS OF DEPOWERED STUDENTS

The aforementioned Reverend William Stryker inspired like-minded individuals to form a number of anti-mutant groups, beginning with his creation of the Purifiers, who were dedicated to eradicating the "taint" of the mutant race.

Stryker organized a group of well-trained Purifiers led by the assassin Matthew Risman for an all-out attack on the Xavier Institute not long after the events of House of M depowered a number of mutants. The Purifiers began their attack by blowing up a bus full of depowered mutants on their way home, though they killed many more during their assault on the school.

1 DECIMATION

We previously mentioned the House of M event and the Decimation that followed, which was due to Wanda Maximoff/Scarlet Witch's fateful decision to alter reality with three deadly words - "No More Mutants." This powerful "snap" depowered most of the mutant race, leaving just under 200 mutants left in existence.

While Wanda herself is technically no longer a mutant, it was also revealed in Avengers: The Children's Crusade that Wanda's enhanced abilities and resulting mental destabilization were caused by the manipulations of Doctor Doom, making him ultimately responsible for the near extinction of the mutant race.

NEXT: X-Men: The 5 Best (& 5 Worst) Events In Marvel History