Movie Spauxe April 1, 2025 0 Comments

The Professor X Mistake Marvel Needs To Avoid In Avengers: Doomsday

Respectfully, Patrick Stewart is 84 years old. I’m sure Marvel must be considering using “Avengers: Secret Wars” to rewrite the MCU’s history so the X-Men were always a part of it. But nostalgia is not enough; these actors have already aged out of their roles and expecting them to do yet another “X-Men” film is ludicrous. But if they’re not sticking around for the long haul, then any ending the X-Men of old face, happy or brutal, is redundant and old hat at this point.

Regardless, the X-Men desperately need some new blood. The cons of the Fox-Disney merger far outweighed the pros, but at least it could’ve put the sagging “X-Men” franchise out of its misery and let a clean slate be carved. Of course, that’s not what we’ve got.

The “X-Men” movies never did a good job adapting their characters either. James Marsden as Cyclops? No-one with a straight face can tell me they’re excited to see that version of the character back. Those movies only ever used Cyclops to make Wolverine look cooler!

Even the better-handled characters never felt quite right. The delightful Alan Cumming, who played Nightcrawler in “X2,” is back in “Doomsday” too. That film nailed Nightcrawler’s look, and was brave enough not to strip out his Catholicism. But it also overemphasized that quality, turning Nightcrawler into a morose guy who carves reminders of his sins into his skin. Kurt Wagner doesn’t self-flagellate or dwell on his guilt, he’s a fun-loving swashbuckler!

The same can be said of Professor X. Likely influenced by the casting, the “X-Men” films depicted Xavier as basically a warmer Captain Jean-Luc Picard: wise, patient, and a man of conviction. That is not who Professor X is. (Take it away, Kitty.)

X-Men page: Kitty Pryde standing in doorway

Marvel Comics

Oh sure, Professor X tries to be those saintly things, and he’s a force for good more often than not. But he can also be painfully naive yet self-righteous — two qualities that equal a hypocrite. He’s incredibly controlling, too, and, for as much as he loves his students, he has a history of manipulating and pitting them against each other. Charles Xavier is the kind of man who considers himself a “good person” as a fixed quality and justifies his actions from there.

Walt Lewellyn, host of the “Black Casebook” podcast, explained it best:

Patrick Stewart’s Professor X isn’t a good adaptation of the actual Charles Xavier in the comics, but he *is* a good adaptation of the guy Xavier wants/pretends to be

— The Black Casebook (@BlackCasebook) September 7, 2024