Professor X officially stops being the leader of the X-Men

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Since the beginning of the Krakoan Era, in 2019, we have seen a different side of Professor during the more than 60 years of history of Marvel Comics’ mutants. And now, we see the end of an era, with Charles Xavier leaving his position for an indefinite period of time.

Warning for spoilers for X-Men Forever #2!

Before talking about this official “withdrawal”, let’s remember that, in recent months, Professor X has shown his true colors after living his worst nightmare. After having manipulated the Quiet Council, Xavier found himself falling into the clutches of Mister Sinister and was unable to stop the Hellfire Gala Mutant Massacrewhich practically wiped the island nation Krakoa and millions of mutants off the map.

He then attempted to kill a baby version of Maira MacTaggart, now known as Moira X; he murdered Rachel Summers and, to top it off, confessed to Cyclops that he made a deal with his enemies, the Orchis organization, to spare Krakoa in exchange for the genocide of the human race.

Now, in the preview of X-Men Forever #2which hits foreign newsstands this week, Professor X appears communicating with mutants trapped in the White Hot Room (a pocket dimension that exists outside of time and space).

Charles accomplishes this feat by copying the “voodoo doll” of Mother Righteous (or Righteous Mother, also known as a Mister Sinister clone named Rebecca Essex), who found herself trapped in the White Hot Room along with some of the main X-Men. .

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Through Rebecca, Xavier psychically implants plans to get the X-Men out of the White Hot Room inside their minds and how they can help rebuild the world that Orchis destroyed. As the copy of Mother Righteous dissolved, came Professor X’s final words: “The X-Men who died in the Orchis purges. Treat them back. Lead them. Someone has to do this. My time has passed.”

Is this the end for Xavier?

We know that in comics nothing ends once and for all. Rarely do we see a character as strong and classic as Professor X leave the Marvel Universe for good. But what is certain is that he is a rather worn-out figure these days.

To give you an idea, the instability of his leadership, the lack of charisma or even more complexity of the character, and even the absence of really powerful periods under his command, meant that Xavier was quite absent, at least in some major period in each decade, since the 1980s — mind you, even in the animation revival X-Men ’97 We don’t see him there.

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On the contrary, every time Xavier reappeared, everything could apparently “get back on track”, but, in reality, his dream died a long time ago and there is no one who can really translate it into current times.

Furthermore, the mission of the X-Men has changed a long time ago, in a world where diversity has been normalized in many environments. So, although mutants continue to be quite vocal about their differences, the enemies of the Children of the Atom are gods who were born from the evolution of evil artificial intelligences created by humanity itself.

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In other words, in a world where the X-Men seek their space in the face of those they protect and fear them, the biggest threat is evolution itself. So, at least for now, we shouldn’t see Professor Xavier as leader of the mutants any time soon — who knows if he’ll become relevant again after a certain film highly anticipated by fans…