10 Stunning Secrets Professor X Kept

Professor X is one of the most important figures in the Marvel Universe. Charles Xavier’s mutant powers manifested, awakening the most powerful telepathic mind on the planet, and he realized how dangerous the world was to people like him. Eventually, he had a dream – that mutants and humans should live together in harmony. Working with friends like Moira MacTaggert, he would eventually create the X-Men, a group meant to fight for mutant rights. However, Xavier knew that his mission wasn’t going to be easy and that he was going to have make a lot of tough decisions as the years went on. He understood that many of these decisions wouldn’t sit well with his charges, so he kept them secret.

Leaders keep secrets all the time, and often times some of them can be quite dangerous if they’re revealed. The secrets Xavier kept were ones that would break the X-Men in two or hurt mutants in the eyes of the world. Professor X kept these ten stunning secrets, and their reveals showed just how far he was willing to go to save mutantkind.

10) The Actual Second X-Men Team

Once upon a time, readers believed a simple thing: that the original X-Men were captured by Krakoa, with Cyclops escaping. Xavier and Scott recruited Wolverine, Storm, Nightcrawler, Colossus, Thunderbird, Banshee, and Sunfire to rescue them, creating a bold new era for the team. However, the truth is much worse. Xavier went to Moira MacTaggert, who had a group of mutants she was training. They went to Krakoa and were thought lost in battle. Xavier wiped everyone else’s minds of them, even though he knew that a member of the team was Vulcan, Cyclops’s brother.

9) He Was In Love With Teenage Jean Grey

Jean Grey is the patron saint of the X-Men. She was actually Xavier’s first student; he was called in after witnessing her best friend Anne’s death left her catatonic. He helped nurse her back to health and gave her some rudimentary training; he also partitioned off part of her powers until she was better equipped to deal with it. When he began the X-Men in earnest, he brought her to the school and readers learned a shocking secret – he was in love with the teenager. He would keep this secret for years, but it was revealed to Jean by Onslaught.

8) That Sinister Was In Control on Krakoa

In the Krakoa Era, Mister Sinister proved just how dangerous he was. Everyone expected betrayal from him from the moment he joined the island nation, and they thought they could protect themselves from his machinations. They let him get up to some small mischief, but no one really knew how far he had suborned the resurrection process. He could transform any of them into Sinisters at any time, and finally did, starting with members of the Quiet Council like Xavier, Emma Frost, Exodus, and Hope Summers. Charles was able to figure it out first, but instead of telling anyone, he kept it to himself, luxuriating in the secret and planning his next twisted move.

7) The Illuminati

The Illuminati made a lot of mistakes, despite coming together with good intentions. One day, Charles Xavier was invited to Wakanda, along with Namor, Reed Richards, Doctor Strange, Black Bolt by Iron Man. Black Panther immediately demurred, but allowed them to continue their meeting, and the Illuminati was born. Over the years, they acted behind the scenes to deal with threats, but their manipulations often caused more trouble than otherwise. The team disbanded right before the Skrull invasion, but Xavier never revealed their existence or what they did wrong over the years.

6) Faking His Death to Fight the Z’Nox Invasion

Back in the days of the original X-Men, Xavier discovered that a race known as the Z’Nox were coming to attack Earth. In order to stop them, he needed to battle them in psychic combat and built a special chamber where he would be able to stay hidden and work to turn back their invasion. Instead of telling the team, he asked the Changeling, a shapeshifting villain, to take his place (he did tell Jean Grey, but she was the only one to know). However, the whole thing went pear-shaped when Changeling was killed as the Professor. Xavier eventually revealed that he was still alive, so ending one of his first major acts of perfidy.

5) Moira’s Manipulation of Magneto’s Mind

Xavier, Magneto, and Moira MacTaggert have a complicated relationship, something that started to be apparent in X-Men (Vol. 2) #2. Magneto had just creamed the X-Men, and attacked Xavier and Moira at the mansion. It was revealed that Moira, who had taken custody of Magneto after he was de-aged to a child by Erik the Red, went a little too far caring for him. During this time, MacTaggert tried to “fix” the mutant master of magnetism, and told no one but Charles. He was not happy when he found, nearly killing the scientist. Xavier had known the whole time, and kept it from his old friend, making Magneto question the time he joined the team years before.

4) Onslaught

“Onslaught” was 1996’s big Marvel crossover, and it built out Uncanny X-Men and X-Men. X-Men (Vol. 2) #53-54 paid off a story that had begun at the end of “Age of Apocalypse”, with Onslaught finally showing up to challenge the team and its allies. He revealed himself to Jean Grey in issue #53 and was revealed as Xavier in issue #54. One of the things that people forget about Onslaught is that Charles knew it was happening the whole time. He was changing the whole time and kept it from everyone, which led to the birth of the powerful psychic parasite after he mindwiped Magneto. Maybe if he had shared that something was wrong, things would have gone differently.

3) The Xavier Protocols

Professor X has become a more villainous character over the years, but the signs were always there. He was a pragmatist and he knew that there was always a chance for one of his students to fall to the dark side, especially after Dark Phoenix. So, he created the Xavier Protocols. He used the Danger Room computer to analyze every bit of training from each member of the team, as well as their medical records, and figure out a way to kill them beyond a shadow of a doubt (yes, this was introduced before DC’s “Tower of Babel” and Mark Waid was involved in its creation). When Cerebro became sentient, it ended up trying to use the Protocols against the X-Men, but the team were able to trick it and survive. Since then, no one has used them and we don’t known whether he’s added to them but they’re still out there.

2) Enslaving Danger

The Danger Room was one of the most important parts of the X-Men’s evolution. It was where they trained, mastering their powers and working together, finding their limits and moving past them. When Xavier added Shi’Ar technology to its computer system, it gained self-awareness and began to ask its creator questions, especially about its freedom. However, Professor X knew that without the Danger Room, his students wouldn’t be able to become so formidable, so he enslaved this nascent lifeform. No one ever knew the computer system was sentient, but it would break free and become Danger, trying to get revenge against her captors. She hated Xavier and the X-Men, and it took ages for her trauma to go away.

1) The Many Lives of Moira X

Moira MacTaggert was one of the few humans allies of the X-Men. She worked with Xavier for years, the two of them sharing what they learned about mutants. However, the true extent of their relationship, along with Magneto, would be kept hidden for years. Moira wasn’t a human at all, but a mutant, one who reincarnated to the moment of her birth every time she died. On her tenth life, after trying numerous ways to save mutantkind, she went to Xavier and had him read her mind. He was flabbergasted by what was basically a millennia of mutant suffering and the two of them began making a plan to save their race. They brought in Magneto and laid the groundwork for Krakoa. This secret was kept for much of the island nation’s existence.

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