Summary

• In 2006's X-Men: The Last Stand, Professor X is killed by Jean Grey, but his story doesn't end there.
• Xavier survives by transferring his consciousness into the mind of a comatose man, a high-concept superpower.
• The explanation for Xavier's resurrection is never fully explored, leaving room for fan theories and speculation.

The X-Men comics feature many different stories and teams working together to protect the world from various threats. However, after decades of publication, issues that bring the franchise's continuity into question are almost guaranteed to crop up. The same applies to the X-Men films released from 2000 to 2020, especially with one particular scene from 2006's X-Men: The Last Stand.

In the film, Professor X (played by Patrick Stewart) is forced to face his gravest mistake in the form of Jean Grey (played by Famke Janssen) and her transformation into the Dark Phoenix. After years of keeping Jean's insurmountable psychic power at bay, they manifested as a dark personality that mirrored her counterpart in the comics. However, one massive difference between the two occurs halfway through The Last Stand: Jean kills the Professor in her childhood home. Audiences thought this spelled the end for Professor X, but his story didn't finish there.

Updated January 27, 2024, by Joshua M. Patton: The 20th Century Fox universe of Charles Xavier and his X-Men is part of the larger Marvel Cinematic Universe multiverse, in which branch realities exist where the laws of physics are entirely different. Thus, this particular moment can be "canon" to this story, while still also not needing an explanation beyond chalking it up to an ability this variant of Professor X perfected. Yet, there are loose in-universe explanations that don't necessarily answer the question but give the fans something to talk about even as the X-Men franchise moves on.

X-Men The Last Stand Killed Charles Xavier In Dramatic Fashion

When X-Men debuted in 2000, superhero films were not the sure things they are today, even with modern Marvel box office troubles. If a movie was successful enough to turn into a blockbuster film franchise, the characters were usually limited to a trilogy. This was both because successful actors usually wanted to move on to different work. Some actors who played a role for too long in the industry's eyes were not offered film roles. In his memoir, Making It So, Stewart revealed he'd had casting directors telling him they didn't "want Captain Picard" in their film. While these movies were rewarding for him professionally and personally, he likely wasn't against being killed off in a dramatic fashion. The post-credits scene made it possible that this version of Xavier could continue.

When X-Men: First Class debuted, going back in time allowed the filmmakers to revisit characters, keeping Hugh Jackman's Logan in the mix with a cameo appearance that didn't upend the canon and made for a hilarious moment in the film. X-Men: Days of Future Past is one of the best-loved story arcs from the height of the Marvel Comics series' popularity, and allowed the fans to have a "happy" ending for the first X-Men cast while leaving plenty of room to tell new stories with the younger versions. Yet, what Professor X did to survive X-Men: The Last Stand is a very high-concept superpower.

What Happened To Professor X After His Death?

Of all the unusual plot twists that the X-Men films offered, the biggest was the after-credits scene in The Last Stand, because these were not yet common in 2006. the scene revealed that Xavier survived by transferring his consciousness into the mind of a comatose man introduced earlier in the movie. Dr. Moira MacTaggert (played by Olivia Williams) discovered the secret behind Professor X's survival. And while a line earlier in the film explained the idea, the mystery of Xavier's return is never examined in any serious way.

Audiences wouldn't see Xavier again until 2013's The Wolverine in an end-credits scene. In this sequence, Logan came face to face with Professor X and questioned how he survived. Xavier responded with a callback to the first X-Men film, stating, "[You're] not the only one with gifts." That lone statement would be the only explanation for his resurrection for several years. To make matters worse, with the X-Men franchise melding two timelines, there was never a chance to revisit Professor X's grand revival. Charles Xavier has exhibited some truly awesome powers in the X-Men comics, and he's died more than once and been brought back. Yet, this specific ability has never been examined in the comics story, at least not yet. What happened in 2017's Logan could've been a solution to that problem or, perhaps more interestingly, the cause of Charles Xavier's dementia and power seizures.

How Did Professor X Come Back To Life?

Before Patrick Stewart reprised his role as Xavier in Logan and Doctor Strange: The Multiverse of Madness, he appeared in 2014's X-Men: Days of Future Past, which also showcased the return of many classic cast members, like Hugh Jackman, who fought in a not-so-distant future against the Sentinels. Many fans speculated that Professor X explained his return to the others off-screen at some point, since none of the cast questioned how he was alive and looked the same after Jean Grey, essentially, vaporized him.

Plenty of theories are still floating around the fandom, debating and imagining how Xavier could have come back so perfectly. In the director's commentary for X-Men: The Last Stand, the filmmakers thought of the comatose man as his twin brother named "P. Xavier." In the instant before his death, Xavier transferred his consciousness into this other body. It's possible his physical capabilities remained the same because the brain-dead man's muscles were heavily atrophied. Others say he was put back in the wheelchair during the fight with the Sentinels. While this explanation isn't the most airtight plot-wise, the idea of being able to transfer a consciousness into the brain-dead man was set up in an earlier scene.

Sadly, one of the biggest mysteries in the X-Men films never got the grand explanation it deserved. Instead, it was taken for granted the audience would not think too deeply about how he was able to do it. The end of X-Men: Days of Future Past suggests it doesn't matter anymore. The return of the original X-Men cast was a fitting send-off for the first Marvel superhero team to be a hit at the box office and suggested the events of The Last Stand played out very differently.

X-Men: Days Of Future Past Quietly Erased This Event

When Logan awakes in 2023, he sees the X-Mansion thriving. Jean Grey and Cyclops are still alive, meaning they didn't die in 2006 when The Last Stand was set. In the new timeline created in Days of Future Past, the X-Men must have found a different way to escape Brian Cox's General Stryker than what audiences saw in X2: X-Men United. Jean doesn't sacrifice herself, so she doesn't tap into the dangerous part of her power. P. Xavier's fate is now whatever it would be if Charles didn't need his body. By the time Logan happens, it could either mean he eventually switched bodies and his decline was the cost he paid. It could also mean Charles Xavier was always going to end up that way.

The end of Days of Future Past also allowed the new cast to re-visit those events as they continued to do movies set around 10 years apart. If that version of the franchise made it to their version of the 2020s, it's likely things would've gone differently. Logan would've served as the final story from the branch timeline leading off from The Last Stand, and giving the James McAvoy version of Professor X a happier fate. Now, it's just another branch timeline on the MCU multiverse, at least until Deadpool 3 debuts.

X-Men: Last Stand is available to own on DVD or Blu-ray, and the film is currently streaming on Disney+.