Warning: spoilers for Sabretooth & the Exiles #3!Whether he is working with the henchmen in the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, Toad's only original ability was that he could leap extraordinarily high distances, but as the character has continued to evolve over the decades, so have his powers, most notably granting him a prehensile tongue that he uses as an extra limb in combat.
Toad is among the Exiles - mutants who fled Krakoa after breaking its laws, reluctantly following the savage villain known as Sabretooth. Sabretooth & the Exiles #3 by Victor Lavalle and Leonard Kirk brings them all to the Astral Plane. While many of the complexities behind the Astral Plane remain to be discovered, this issue suggests that mutants develop additional powers while on this Plane. Toad unleashes his usual prehensile tongue in a fight against Sabretooth, only for it to split into a number of new 'tentacles.'
X-Men Makes Toad Even More Powerful
Toad was chosen by Magneto as one of his Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, and while he's rarely excelled as a solo villain, he is a surprisingly deadly fighter, taking on mutant warriors such as Cyclops and Wolverine. Despite his current exile, Toad has been a fixture in the franchise's comic and movies, appearing in both 2000's X-Men (as played by Ray Park) and 2014's X-Men: Days of Future Past (played by Evan Jonigkeit.)
Toad's new tongue is a disgusting but effective weapon, but it's only the latest in the franchise's upgrades to the originally underpowered villain. In X-Men Blue #7, Toad gained a secondary mutation that gifted him with a flaming tongue, thanks in large part to experimentation done on him by the Black Womb Project. He's also been shown to possess acidic saliva and even to be able to puff up his body and unleash a gust of breath than can knock down regular humans. Mutants often follow up their initial mutations with further evolution, and while Toad was originally just a cringing lackey to Magneto in X-Men #4, he's been enhanced many times since.
The X-Men Will Regret Rejecting Toad
The Astral Plane ignores the regular rules of Marvel reality, and even Professor Xavier, who spent years trapped within it, has yet to fully comprehend its capabilities. What is clear is that at least while on the Astral Plane, Toad has a dark new power that enhances his existing mutation. Whether he'll keep this ability when he leaves is unknown, but Sabretooth & the Exiles has been ambitious in how it reimagines existing mutants and their powers, so it's certainly a possibility. Sadly, if this ability does persist, it's likely to be used against the X-Men, who may regret exiling one of their oldest enemies when Toad's new tongue is turned against them.
Sabretooth & the Exiles #3 is available now from Marvel Comics.
