Marvel Has Made Professor X a Major Villain (And We Know Exactly When It Happened)

Professor Charles Xavier has been many things over the years. He is the founder of the X-Men, the best friend and bitter rival to Magneto, kindly old mentor to all mutantkind, and most recently, a villain. Although he started as a man who wanted to show everyone that mutants and humans can live together in harmony, in more recent times he has shifted from being a staunch if flawed moral pillar of the X-Men to a man willing to do anything to achieve his goals. Some say that Professor X is no longer a hero at all, but an antihero with a God complex who thinks he knows best and will manipulate anyone to get what he wants. Many stories in the past few years can be cited to fit this description.

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However, it wasn’t always this way. Charles used to genuinely be a true hero who wanted the best for everyone, but one particular storyline started him down the path to becoming a far more morally grey character. The 2006 comic book X-Men: Deadly Genesis totally reworked Charles’s character, and was the first step to what he has become today.

What is Deadly Genesis?

Deadly Genesis was a six-issue limited series that released following the “House of M” comic event, which saw the Scarlet Witch transform 90% of the world’s mutant population into humans. At its end, Professor X went missing, leading Cyclops to step into his place as the X-Men searched for him. Deadly Genesis saw the mad mutant Vulcan’s return to earth after being stranded on the mutant island Krakoa since the Giant-Size X-Men story “Second Genesis.”

“Second Genesis” was the story that revitalized the X-Men and propelled them into comic stardom, reforming the X-Men with a new, diverse team that had to rescue the original team after they were stranded on Krakoa. However, Deadly Genesis revealed that the new X-Men team was actually the second rescue attempt, the first being a failed attempt by Vulcan and three other mutants who were secretly Moira McTaggart’s students. The team managed to free Cyclops, but in doing so incurred Krakoa’s wrath. The island slaughtered the four person team as Cyclops escaped, leading everyone to think the team died. Unknown to the others, Vulcan survived because his teammate Darwin combined their powers to keep them safe, and were launched into space alongside Krakoa at the conclusion of “Second Genesis.”

Vulcan was also Cyclops’s long lost brother, which both only found out right before the mission. Cyclops was distraught by the team’s death, but Professor X decided it was best if nobody knew what happened. He used his abilities to wipe all memories of the event from Cyclops’s mind to hide his own shame at sending the team to die. When the new X-Men team went to Krakoa he even used his abilities to convince everyone that Krakoa was fully sentient, when it was merely a being of instinct, in order to help sell the idea that Krakoa let Cyclops go to bring more mutants to it. However, this last part was slightly retconned away at the start of the Krakoan age of the X-Men, as the island is sentient.

How This Story Changed Professor X

Professor X hid the apparent death of the original rescue team from everyone and wiped their existence from everyone’s minds. He refused to let Cyclops or Havok know that they had another brother, thinking to save them the grief. Professor X decided for everyone that it was best if they didn’t know, lying to everyone to try and cover his own shame and guilt. This was the point that paved the way for other, far more manipulative decisions the professor would make in the future.

This initial retcon of Charles’s character, from trusted mentor to master manipulator, would inspire plenty of other retcons to his past. Such as the reveal that Charles didn’t recruit Wolverine to join the X-Men by approaching him and asking, but that Wolverine had been sent to assassinate the professor and he mind-wiped Wolverine and forced him to join, letting him think it was his choice. Charles was officially on the slippery slope from one bad decision to straight up villainy. This led all the way to his less than savory choices during the Krakoan age, where Magneto and him kept secrets that threatened to tear all mutantkind apart, and Charles portrayed himself as more of a morally grey antihero than a teacher. The choices he made were far too villainous to condone, throwing away his dream to put mutants above others.

He seems to be going through a redemption arc right now. Professor X became a villain for shock value. The X-Men were on the cusp of a new, very edgy era, and that kind of era is hard to maintain when the bastion of hope that is Professor X is right there. Deadly Genesis was the X-Men cutting ties with their past, and forging into a new and unknown future where Charles’s dream of peace was further away than ever before. While there are many interesting stories to tell with Charles being more villainous, and believe me he was never perfect, he’s always worked best as the foundation of the X-Men’s code. His dream is what binds them all together and inspires them, just as they inspire him. With his MCU debut on the horizon, I believe it’s best that all audiences experience Charles Xavier as he was meant to be; a flawed man, but one who tries his best to be a good person and fights for a better world the right way.

What do you think? Let us know in the comments.