Before Disney acquired 21st Century Fox, the X-Men had their own entire cinematic universe spanning thirteen movies. While this series ended with 2020’s The New Mutants, the franchise explored the X-Men in multiple ways, across different timelines that changed during the run. Dating back to 2000, there are twenty years’ worth of movies for the X-Men to mistreat each other and make mistakes.
Though they don’t always mean to, there are so many X-Men that they sometimes turn against each other. Other times, mistakes happen, and X-Men hurt each other, whether it be on purpose or not. Time and time again, the X-Men haven’t needed to be hurt by the Brotherhood or by the human government — they’ve done a fine job hurting themselves.
10 Wolverine Stabs Rogue
In X-Men (2000), Rogue and Wolverine are recruited onto the X-Men team. With Rogue very new to her powers and Wolverine seeking a home and others like him, it seems like a perfect place for them both to be. However, Logan is haunted by his past; while having a nightmare in Xavier’s mansion, Rogue tries to help Logan by waking him up.
He’s so afraid and startled by her waking him up that he accidentally drives his claws through her, nearly killing her. She saves herself by draining his life force and healing abilities from him, but he nearly dies in the process of that, as well. This splits the team and sees Rogue running off on her own, believing the rest of the team now hates her.
9 Cyclops Is Used Against His Teammates
One of Mystique’s unique abilities is that she can look like anybody else. In X2 (2003), she uses this ability to help the X-Men, disguising herself as Wolverine so she can get onto William Stryker’s base and bring the rest of the X-Men in, too. Stryker has kidnapped some of the mutants on the X-Men team, including Cyclops, a powerful mutant with lasers constantly shooting from his eyes.
Cyclops is being mind-controlled at Stryker’s base and, under this control, he fights against his own fellow teammates, even battling the love of his life, Jean Grey. He’s ultimately freed from the control but, in the process, the dam begins to rupture, ultimately leading to Jean’s death.
8 Pyro Turns On The X-Men
Something that unfortunately happens often during X-Men movies is that certain members of the team will turn on each other. With so many teammates, it’s unsurprising that there will be a few members who might mutiny, but it always hurts when it happens. At the end of X2 (2003), Magneto and Mystique try to use Professor X to turn Stryker’s plans and powers on the human population, as is their way. It’s unsurprising that Magneto and Mystique turned on the X-Men; they do this frequently. However, Pyro, one of the X-Men, decides to side and ultimately leave with them, abandoning the X-Men after one of their biggest fights to date.
7 The Phoenix Kills Cyclops
One of the universal constants across X-Men media is that Jean Grey and Scott Summers will always love each other at some point. The Summers brothers appear frequently in the comics, and appeared again in the movies. In X-Men: The Last Stand (2006), Cyclops returns to Alkali Lake, where Jean Grey died in X2, to mourn her loss. However, when Wolverine and Storm show up to find Cyclops, he’s nowhere to be found.
Instead, they find the unconscious — but living — body of Jean Grey, a bunch of floating rocks, and Cyclops’ cracked glasses. Knowing he would never be anywhere without the glasses that control his mutation, Wolverine and Storm realize Jean has killed Cyclops, one of their own beloved teammates. It’s clear that Jean has changed, but the X-Men don’t yet know quite how much just yet.
6 The Dark Phoenix Almost Destroys The World
X-Men: The Last Stand (2006) truly changed the landscape of the X-Men movie universe in a number of ways. This film killed a great number of characters, and almost killed even more. In this movie, the X-Men have to team up to take down one of their own. Jean Grey, once the Phoenix and now the Dark Phoenix, has gone completely mad with her dark power.
She previously completely disintegrated Charles Xavier right in front of Erik Lehnsherr. Everybody knows that she has to be stopped, but it’s not until she’s destroyed Alcatraz and everybody in range of her that Wolverine realizes she needs to be completely stopped. The only way to stop her from killing everyone is for Wolverine to kill her.
5 Tempest Joins The Enemy
The X-Men movies decided to turn back time and throw it back with a prequel movie in 2011 called X-Men: First Class. This movie depicts the first iteration of the X-Men team. In addition to Charles Xavier, or Professor X, and Erik Lehnsherr, or Magneto, they recruit Angel Salvadore, or the Tempest; Armando Muñoz, or Darwin; Alex Summers, or Havok; and Sean Cassidy, or Banshee.
The bad guys — Sebastian Shaw, Emma Frost, and Azazel — show up at Division X’s headquarters and kill all the humans there in an attempt to bring the mutants on the fledgling X-Men team to their side. Despite the fact that Sebastian Shaw killed Darwin in front of the team, Tempest still chooses to go with him, betraying her teammates completely.
4 Magneto Paralyzes Professor X
Charles Xavier and Erik Lehnsherr are best friends throughout X-Men: First Class, the only ones who trust one another. Erik has found a family in Charles and Raven, and he has been alone for so long that he doesn’t want to do anything to lose him. However, when Erik is deciding whether or not he’ll turn the missiles on the humans while the X-Men are on the beach, Moira MacTaggert starts shooting at Erik to stop him.
Erik deflects the bullets using his metallokinesis, but he’s distracted and careless, and one of the bullets hits Charles in the spine. When Erik runs to Charles, he moves him, removing the bullet in the process, as well. Because of these actions, Charles is paralyzed, put in the wheelchair that is symbolic to Professor X. This causes a rough spiral for Charles; though he eventually seems to forgive Erik and comes to adapt and embrace his disability, this is a major betrayal and the beginning of their rift.
3 Havok Almost Killed All The X-Men
While the Summers brothers always want to do good, their abilities are often beyond the scope of their control. Alex Summers, or Havok, and Scott Summers, or Cyclops, both struggle to deal with their mutations. In the comics, their third brother, Gabriel Summers, or Vulcan, similarly struggles, and is even more powerful than his brothers. In X-Men: Apocalypse (2016), it becomes clear that Havok is no longer capable of controlling his abilities.
Though he intends to save the X-Men by unleashing his powers on En Sabah Nur and his Four Horsemen as they’re kidnapping Professor X, he explodes so powerfully that he destroys the entire mansion. Quicksilver (Peter (or Pietro) Maximoff) arrives just in time to save the lives of the X-Men — except, unfortunately, for Havok himself.
2 Phoenix Accidentally Attacks The Celebrating X-Men
In one of the last movies in the X-Men franchise, Dark Phoenix (2019), the Dark Phoenix plotline that appeared earlier in the X-Men movies — albeit in another timeline — is revisited once more. This time, a younger Jean Grey absorbs the energy from a solar flare blast, which makes her both incredibly powerful and incredibly unstable.
The Dark Phoenix instead of Jean Grey starts to fight to break loose, and she starts to lose control of herself. During a celebration at the school, celebrating the very event where Jean Grey had just saved astronauts and absorbed the energy, she completely loses control. She unleashes her powers on her fellow X-Men, completely betraying them — and herself.
1 The Beast Is Controlled By A Need For Revenge
One of Charles Xavier’s best friends from the very beginning is Hank McCoy, or the Beast. He joins the team along with Charles’ sister, Raven Darkholme (Mystique) in X-Men: First Class. Later, in Dark Phoenix, Raven is killed when Jean Grey loses control and Raven tries to stop her. Hank is so deeply grieving Raven’s loss that he can’t stand to be with the X-Men anymore; he blames Professor X for letting her lose control, and he leaves them behind, joining up with Erik Lehnsherr and his team instead. Beast lets his thirst for revenge drive him to do something Raven never would have wanted him to do, but Hank feels the deep need to avenge Raven, so he betrays the X-Men and abandons Charles when they, as close as brothers, need each other most.