As new details emerge about the plot of the latest X-Men film, Dark Phoenix, one of the major revelations seen throughout the first trailer is that Professor Charles Xavier, despite all his noble intentions, may be the true antagonist of the entire film franchise. Though he intends to bring about a harmonious society of mutants coexisting peacefully with humans, Xavier pursues this goal with questionable methodology and a single-minded drive that throws caution to the wind and puts others in very real danger.

The concept of Xavier being a less-than-altruistic, reckless figure is not a new one, nor is it one present exclusively in the films. The entire initial premise behind Marvel's Merry Mutants is that Xavier recruits and deploys children to further his agenda. They eventually age into adults, they possess incredible superpowers, and it's ultimately a noble cause, yes, but putting children deliberately in harm's way, occasionally against literal murder machines, is hard one to defend morally.

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The moral ambiguity of this strategy was largely explored in the 2006 miniseries X-Men: Deadly Genesis written by Ed Brubaker and illustrated by Trevor Hairsine. The comic revealed that Xavier had recruited a secret X-Men team led by Vulcan, Cyclops' long-lost brother Gabriel Summers, to rescue the original team after they were held captive by the living island Krakoa. After the disastrous mission results in the apparent deaths of the entire team, Xavier erases Cyclops' memory of their existence before recruiting the iconic all-new, all-different squad introduced in the pages of 1975's Giant-Size X-Men #1 by Len Wein and Dave Cockrum.

X-Men Deadly Genesis

While the cinematic incarnation of Xavier has yet to do anything quite this nefarious, his calculated and repeated mental intrusions of Jean Grey seen in 2006's X-Men: The Last Stand and Dark Phoenix put the X-Men founder in a very questionable position. Sensing the dark, destructive potential within the teenage Jean Grey, Xavier placed telepathic mental blocks on her mind in order to contain the malevolent persona within. This leads to the Phoenix emerging more violently than ever in both films wrecking widespread destruction and loss of life including Xavier himself in The Last Stand.

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Xavier's treatment of Jean is far from the only harm that the good professor has caused his young disciples. One of the school's earliest students was another mutant possessing powerful mental abilities named Jason Stryker. While Xavier attempted to help Jason control his abilities, he failed to recognize and suppress the more homicidal aspects of the young mutant's personality. When Jason's evil, mutant-phobic father William Stryker had Jason removed from the school, the young man retaliated by having his mother kill herself with a power drill, leading his father to swear to eradicate the world of mutants setting up the events of 2003's X2: X-Men United.

While Jason's hateful upbringing and father's quest for revenge certainly aren't Xavier's fault, his failure to control Jason's rage while he was under his direct tutelage put his students in the elder Stryker's crosshairs in X-Men United and 2016's X-Men: Apocalypse.

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Perhaps the most damning thing Xavier has ever done, cinematically, was wipe out the majority of the X-Men himself prior to the events of last year's Logan. As he advanced into his old age, Xavier began to exhibit signs of dementia resulting in seizures that cause him to involuntarily unleash a deadly psychic attack to all those in the immediate vicinity. Approximately one year before the events of the film, an especially serious episode triggered a psychic attack killing seven mutants including the X-Men except for Wolverine. After decades of uniting and leading the mutant community with his powerful mental abilities, Xavier was the ultimate cause of the team's destruction.

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Dark Phoenix provides a look at the franchise's characters blaming Xavier's shortcomings and selfish single-mindedness for their current predicament including the death of a comrade-in-arms. While the professor certainly cares for his students, he is also willing and eager to place them on the field like pawns of all those chess games he plays with Magneto.

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"You're always sorry," observes the Master of Magnetism over Xavier's latest failure. "And there's always a speech, and nobody cares."

While Magneto's comments belittle Xavier's mission and achievements in saving the world from itself, there is some truth in them. Xavier truly believes humanity and mutants can coexist peacefully and has dedicated himself to that goal. But for all his good intentions, his questionable methodology and inability to recognize graver threats have placed the X-Men in danger time and time again. After all, we all know what the road to hell is paved with.


Written and directed by franchise veteran Simon Kinberg, Dark Phoenix stars Sophie Turner as Jean Grey, James McAvoy as Charles Xavier, Michael Fassbender as Magneto, Jennifer Lawrence as Mystique, Nicholas Hoult as Beast, Alexandra Ship as Storm, Tye Sheridan as Cyclops, and Kodi Smit-McPhee as Nightcrawler. It is scheduled to open in theaters on February 14, 2019.