Fans of the X-Men know that Professor X and Magneto are essentially two sides of the same coin. While Charles Xavier is seen as the “good guy,” and Erik Lehnsherr is more known as the “bad guy,” they essentially want the same thing. They just have different ideas of what, exactly, is acceptable on the quest for mutant acceptance.
Magneto would prefer mutant domination over humans; Professor X would rather see humans and mutants integrate into an equal society. However, there have been a few times in the Fox X-Men movies when Professor X proved that he was just as flawed as Magneto. He made a fair few decisions in this franchise that were worse than anything Magneto had done at the time.
10 He Nearly Destroyed The World As A Weapon Of Stryker
One of the problems that Professor X consistently has is the fact that his superpowered brain makes him an incredible weapon. If he is manipulated or brainwashed by an evil-doer, he can quickly and easily become a weapon of mass destruction.
This happens in the X-Men movies as early as X2: X-Men United, when a brainwashed Charles Xavier is taken by Stryker to be used for just such purposes. Magneto even needs to get involved in order to save Xavier and bring him back. While Charles would not intentionally do this, he is still vulnerable to being used in this way.
9 He Repressed The Phoenix (& Triggered The Dark Phoenix)
After Jean Grey died in X2 and came back in X-Men: The Last Stand, Charles Xavier found that he needed to explain how, exactly, Jean became the Dark Phoenix. He confessed to his fellow X-Men that he had witnessed an incredible destructive power inside a young Jean Grey.
Terrified of this, he suppressed this aspect of Jean. Unfortunately, when this part of her exploded outwards, she became the Dark Phoenix, completely controlled by her madness and incredible power. Charles’ mistake here was what caused this explosion and all the damage that Jean caused as a result.
8 He Almost Let People Get Away With Mutant Genocide
When the X-Men franchise decided to jump backward in time, fans got a look at what Charles and Erik were like before they officially became Professor X and Magneto, respectively. Viewers saw that Erik had survived the Holocaust and been a victim of the concentration camps. As a result, he knows the horrible things that people are capable of.
When the humans launch missiles on the mutants, Charles tries to convince Erik not to do anything about it. However, there is a big difference between stopping people from killing the mutants and actively allowing humans to do whatever they want to mutants, including attacking them.
7 He Stopped Helping Mutants After He Lost His Drive
When Wolverine went back in time in X-Men: Days of Future Past, he went to find a young Charles Xavier and ask for his help stopping the dark future that was coming. Not only did Logan find a Charles unwilling to help, but he also found one that had stopped helping some time ago.
He had been struggling after the serum that restored the use of his legs removed his mutant abilities. He didn’t want to keep teaching, recruit mutants, or do anything anymore, let alone help Logan break Magneto out of jail and stop an uncertain future.
6 He Almost Let The Dark Future From Days Of Future Past Happen
The unfortunate part of Charles’ downfall in Days of Future Past is how unlike himself he has become. He is a lethargic, downtrodden version of himself who has forgotten all that he valued and held dear in this world. He needed to be reminded of what he valued in life.
It took some time, however, and even Erik was partially involved in continuing to convince him to be involved. Of course, Magneto turns on them as always, following his own goals, but Charles almost let it all happen.
5 En Sabah Nur Tried To Use Him To Enslave The Earth
When a mutant as ancient and powerful as En Sabah Nur showed up, Charles realized he had come up against somebody too formidable for him to handle alone. En Sabah Nur wants to use Charles as a weapon, as other villains have in the past, and he wants to use him to enslave everybody on the planet Earth.
It takes Magneto, Storm, Cyclops, and several other X-Men jumping in to help to prevent the apocalypse that would come if Charles got used by En Sabah Nur. Magneto may cause problems, but nothing as world-endingly dangerous as that.
4 He Triggered Jean To The Brink In Every Timeline
As if it was not bad enough that Charles was responsible for suppressing and triggering the Dark Phoenix in the original X-Men timeline, he did it twice. After the X-Men timeline got reset, the movie Dark Phoenix saw Jean’s explosion play out in a slightly different way.
It was all still caused by Charles suppressing the Dark Phoenix part of Jean’s personality before it could become something conscious inside of her. Not only does she still explode, but her powers end up causing the death of Raven Darkholme, also known as Mystique.
3 He Wiped Out Hundreds Of People & Killed Others
Many years after the events of the other X-Men films, Logan saw Charles and Logan, also known as Wolverine, at the ends of their lives. The audience was also told that Charles had had a seizure years earlier that had hurt many people. Because of his extreme telepathic powers and his advanced dementia, his seizures caused telepathic waves.
These waves, at one point, injured over 600 total people and killed others. Among those killed were some of his very own X-Men. While Magneto’s fate is unknown, he seemed to have vanished — unless he was one of the ones killed.
2 He Accidentally Hurt People As His Powers Grew Unstable
After the damage Charles accidentally caused with his telepathic seizures, Logan and another mutant, Caliban, kept Charles isolated from others. They took care of him and kept him alive, but none of them have a high quality of life. As time went on, Charles’ well-being took an even steeper decline, with seizures that completely incapacitate everybody around him.
Only Logan and his somewhat-clone, Laura, are able to fight through it and give him his medication. Unfortunately, it was not soon after that that Charles was killed by X-24 — yet another clone of Logan’s. The more unstable Charles’ powers grew, the more dangerous he became until only death could stop him.
1 Charles Gave Up & Needed To Be Saved By Erik
At the end of the Fox X-Men universe, the movie Dark Phoenix chose to show audiences how Charles and Erik’s story together ended. It was revealed that Charles went into retirement, no longer wanting to be involved with the fight. He was tired and had had such untold damage done to him personally by the war he had been fighting for so long that he was just done.
Erik is the one who finds Charles in a Parisian cafe and offers him a home, something that Charles once offered him. Even when Charles has lost all will to continue going on, Erik still shows up to offer him a hand, no matter what he needs.