The Marvel Cinematic Universe has been introducing X-Men since 2022 in dribs and drabs, but they’re about to open the floodgates. The FoX-Men are returning for what could be their swan song in Avengers: Doomsday (and possibly Avengers: Secret Wars), with Marvel Studios announcing much of the cast and premiere date of their next X-Men movie in 2028. The X-Men have long been one of Marvel’s most well-known properties, with decades of amazing stories under their belt. A Marvel property coming to the MCU always puts a big spotlight on them, as more casual fans comb through their history to figure out what’s going to happen in the movies.
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The casual fan has a view of the X-Men that is rather simple. Professor X is the team’s kindly older mentor, his dream of peace between people and his acceptance of others making him something of a saint. However, comic fans know a different side of Charles Xavier. We’ve seen Xavier do some pretty shady things, from controlling the mind of Amelia Voight to stop her from leaving him to letting Moira experiment on Magneto when he was age-reduced to a baby. Xavier in the 21st century has become even more shady than ever and readers would learn just how bad he could be in 2006. A story was released that year that would change the history of the All-New, All-Different X-Men of Giant-Size X-Men #1 and show the team’s mentor in the worst light: X-Men: Deadly Genesis, by Ed Brubaker and Trevor Hairsine.
2006 Was the Year Professor X Broke Bad
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It all started in 2005. AstonishingX-Men (Vol. 3) began its second story arc under Joss Whedon and John Cassaday, “Danger”. It was a pretty standard Danger Room comes to life story, but then it took a twist. It was revealed that that the Danger Room had been sentient for years and Xavier knew. Instead of granting this new being freedom, he imprisoned her in the mansion’s computer system, reasoning that the X-Men’s training was more important to the world than her freedom. It was the worst thing we’d ever seen him do, which is honestly saying something, and it made the X-Men – and the fans – look at Xavier in a new way.
X-Men: Deadly Genesis would drop at a time when readers were already leery of Professor X. The story saw the X-Men attacked by a secret enemy, one who knows all of their secrets, and is linked to the X-Men’s battle on Krakoa, when the All-New, All-New Different team rescued the original team from the mutant island. We’d eventually learn it was a mutant named Vulcan, a powerful energy-channeler who had a startling origin – he was the third Summers brother, enslaved by the Shi’Ar and then escaped to Muir Island, eventually ending up as part of a second X-Men team, made up of Moira MacTaggert’s students, that would be killed on Krakoa. Xavier wiped the memory of them from everyone, all to hide his failure, including Cyclops. Vulcan wasn’t dead though, and the whole house of cards fell.
The ’00s were a shocking time for X-fans, and this was the biggest of them all. The mutant race had just been decimated by Scarlet Witch and they needed leaders. Suddenly, the one person who everyone trusted has been revealed as a man who will wipe the memories of others in order to hide his shame. That’s not the kind of person you want in the lead of anything. Xavier became a pariah with the X-Men in the years after this until his death in 2012’s Avengers vs. X-Men. Even Magneto was more liked by Xavier’s students and ended up joining the team.
Xavier’s characterization was changed after this as well, especially after his resurrection in 2017’s Astonishing X-Men (Vol. 4). He became more pragmatic, less hopeful, more willing to do shady things to make sure mutants survived. This came to a head in the Krakoa Era, which saw him do everything wrong – he lied about Moira MacTaggert, kept secrets, told everyone in the world that the dream was dead and he could do whatever he wanted to their minds, and then engineered the downfall of Krakoa in order to save the mutant face from both the Orchis Initiative and the godlike Dominion Enigma. Since then, a lot of the X-Men are still sore at him and he’s left Earth for space with Princess Liliandra to save their daughter.
Fans greatly differ on how they feel about this change to Xavier. In some ways, it makes sense; Charles Xavier isn’t a saint, he’s a man. He had a great dream but it was the kind of dream that demanded dirty work. A man who could have a dream like this has to be capable of some heavy things and Xavier was. He was willing to train child soldiers to fight for his dream; that’s not something a good man does. That’s something a pragmatic man would do. However, the character as presented was so good, that it can be hard to reconcile the two different Xaviers.
Some fans think the pragmatism works for the character and like that he’s more complex than he was back in the day. Other fans hate what has been done with them. For them, the changes are too drastic and have ruined the character. They don’t want this grey moral Xavier, they want the one that was pure and good back. The two sides are constantly going at it, waiting for Marvel to try and bring Xavier back as the moral man of the past. With the MCU almost certainly starting at the mansion, we’re going to get a new Xavier and it’ll be interesting to see what Marvel Studios does with him.
They’re almost certainly going to start with Saint Chuck, but the real fun question is what they’re going to do with him in the future. Stories like “Danger” and X-Men: Deadly Genesis showed that the mutant leader was only human, a man with an ego who was willing to do whatever it took to make his dream come true. For a lot of us, this added a new dimension to the professor, while others are angry that their favorite mentor has become something of a monster. Marvel Studios has a choice of where they can take the character and it’ll be interesting to see what they choose.
Professor X Has Gotten More Complicated Than Ever and the MCU Will Have to Make a Tough Decision
Image Courtesy of Marvel Comics
The X-Men have been a part of several generation’s childhoods because of its various animated series and films in the 21st century. Most of these fans have never read the comics, so they only know Xavier as the ultimate mentor, a saintly figure inspiring his people and fighting evil. However, for those that did venture into the world of panels and pages, he’s become a more complex figure, something that has struck up a minor controversy among X-fans, all because of X-Men: Deadly Genesis.
The MCU have a choice on their hands. They can keep Xavier the same as the majority of fans know him, making him into the team’s father figure and guiding light. Or they can take the character in more pragmatic direction, showing that as good as he can be, he’s only human and he still does bad things. Personally, I would prefer for them to go in the more complex direction, because it makes him more fleshed out character and could lead to better stories. However, we’ll have to wait and see. Charles Xavier is more complicated than ever, opening a world of possibilities for Marvel Studios, thanks to this 20-year old story.
Do you like the changes to Professor X? What kind of Xavier do you want to see in the movies? Sound off in the comments below.
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