Professor X was always supposed to be the best of the mutant nation, but that hasn’t always been true, as he often acts like a villain. Even from his earliest days in Marvel Comics, Charles Xavier did many things that were suspicious and seemingly underhanded and devious. He also did several things that hurt his X-Men, whom he considers his students, making them almost cannon fodder for the man who was supposed to have their best interests at heart. When looking at Cyclops and his controversial decisions over the years, it is clear that he followed his mentor’s lead, as both men have been as villainous as they have been heroic.
From putting his X-Men in danger all the time to creating a villain who just about destroyed the world, here are the reasons Professor X is more of a villain to the X-Men than almost anyone.
Professor X did the unthinkable when he shut down Magneto’s mind. This was a horrific use of his psychic powers, and Xavier explained he had no other choice since Magneto would never stop his evil ways. However, this caused an even bigger problem in the end. Xavier’s actions had an unintended consequence of taking Xavier’s suppressed anger and frustration over the world’s treatment of mutants and combining it with Magneto’s dark thoughts and violent emotions.
This created the being of Onslaught deep inside Xavier. Over time, Onslaught gained an independent body. He became a massive Marvel villain, seemingly killing the Avengers and the Fantastic Four before he was finally stopped short of destroying the world. Onslaught never would have existed if Xaviuer hadn’t used his power to shut down someone’s mind, an unethical use of his powers, to put it lightly.
While the Illuminati existed to protect the world from within the shadows, their actions were dangerous and caused as much damage as they tried to stop. Professor X represented the mutant nation in the Illuminati. Iron Man represented the Avengers, Reed Richards represented the Fantastic Four, Black Bolt represented the Inhumans, Namor represented the oceans, and Doctor Strange represented the mystical world. They then made several terrible decisions.
They caused Secret Invasion when they went to the Skrull Throne World to threaten the entire alien race. They banished Hulk from Earth by lying to their old ally, and then paid for it during World War Hulk. They destroyed an entire Earth to try to stop an Incursion, knowing full well more Incursions were coming. Nothing the Illuminati did was right, and Professor X was part of the decision-making that put the entire world in danger.
Professor X has never been an honest person when it comes to recruiting his mutant students/soldiers. He put a block in Jean Grey’s mind to keep her from accessing her psychic powers, which was part of the reason the Phoenix Force was able to manipulate her as much as it did. He also forced Wolverine to join the X-Men by brainwashing him in one of the most horrific revelations in Marvel Comics.
Wolverine had already been brainwashed by Romulus, and he was sent to kill Professor X. However, as X-Men: Original Sin #1 showed, Professor X was able to stop him. Instead of helping Logan, he undid the brainwashing but created more gaps in his memory and messed with it even more, forcing Wolverine to join the X-Men, thinking it was by his choice. Wolverine eventually forgave Professor X, since he was happy to be a hero now, but this was devious and manipulative of Xavier, something he has a pattern of doing.
Marvel Comics stopped publishing new X-Men stories for a long time when the original team’s books stopped selling well. However, when the time came to revive the team, it was a brand-new group of mutants from all over the world, and Professor X brought them together to save his original students, who were trapped on the sentient isle of Krakoa. The horrifying news is that this wasn’t his first attempt, and the first team all died.
As told in X-Men: Deadly Genesis #4, the first team saw Cyclops heading out with his brother, Vulcan, and a team consisting of Petra, Sway, and Darwin. However, when the team went in to save the X-Men, they almost all died. Darwin was able to save him and Vulcan, but Professor X thought Cyclops was the only survivor. He then erased the memories from Cyclops’ mind, which also meant erasing the fact that he had a brother. Xavier thought he was saving Scott from trauma, but this wasn’t his decision to make. Xavier got these young mutants killed and refused to accept responsibility for it.
The worst thing that Professor X has ever done, and the reason he is more of a villain to the X-Men than a mentor, is that his goal from the start was to bring in teenage mutants and turn them into soldiers. The original X-Men featured all teenagers, with Ice-Man as the youngest, and Xavier regularly sent them out to fight dangerous villains to prove that mutants and humans could live peacefully.
While that makes little sense on its own, he has also sent plenty of mutants out to die for his cause. He sent Wolverine to murder a teenage mutant whose powers brought death because if the world knew he was a mutant, it would hurt Xavier’s dream. Cyclops eventually ordered a teenage mutant to kill her enemies, and this was clearly something he learned from watching Xavier lead his students. Professor X claims to want peace, but he has no qualms about sending child mutants to their deaths to achieve his goals.
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