Latest / Vigilante Vibes Podcast / Ep. 216. Charles Xavier... A Villain?!

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Ep. 216. Charles Xavier... A Villain?! · Vigilante Vibes Podcast

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  Hello Marvel fans, comic geeks, and all the nerds in between.
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  My name is Megan with vigilante vibes and today I am coming to
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  you with a big episode that I was planning on making for a
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  long time and I just finally did it.
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  This is something I have been preaching about forever now.
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  So what are we talking about today?
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  Charles Xavier. Charles Xavier is a villain, and
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  I am sick of pretending he isn't.
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  I'm sick of everyone pretending he is not.
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  So we're going to talk about it before I get started.
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  Be sure to like and subscribe so you don't miss anything I put
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  out because I put out a whole bunch of stuff.
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  There are a few things about the X-Men that just feel
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  untouchable, and Professor Charles Xavier definitely feels
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  like one of them. Pretty much every big X-Men
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  story kicks off because of Xavier's dream of humans and
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  mutants living together in peace, which is nice.
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  On paper, wanting a fair, safe world for mutants is admirable,
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  and for a long time he was basically the ultimate mentor in
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  the Marvel Universe. But I think with how hard we
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  rely on Xavier's dream, we constantly come up with reasons
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  to excuse his trashy behavior. He's way more controversial than
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  most people realize. Xavier is so committed to making
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  his dream survive that he's done some pretty pretty questionable
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  and horrible things behind the scenes to protect it.
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  After being very experienced in the world of the X-Men, I'm here
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  to say that Professor Xavier is a villain, and I'm going to
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  explain why. On one hand, yeah, Xavier
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  deserves credit for a lot of the X Men's wins, but on the other
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  hand, he also made lifeway harder for mutants than it ever
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  needed to be. The clearest example is the
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  Krakoa era. Krakoa was supposed to be this
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  huge power move for mutant kind, their own nation, their own
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  future. And Xavier built the whole thing
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  on secrets and half truths. He loves acting like he's the
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  guy making the tough calls so nobody else has to do it.
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  That is his thing, he loves it. But in reality he keeps planting
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  landmines under the world he's building and when they explode
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  it's the X-Men who take the hit. By the end of Krakowa, after the
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  Anti Mutant Orcas initiative wiped the island out with a
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  piece of Mr. Schnister stuck in his head, Xavier actually teamed
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  up with the Sentinels in a scheme to trick them into
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  destroying humanity just to buy the X-Men time.
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  And that's not a minor lapse in judgement, that's a next level
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  villainy. And the worst part?
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  A lot of it traces back to Xavier playing dangerous games
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  with mutant kind's enemies in the 1st place.
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  He gave them the ammo they needed to hurt mutants on a
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  scale other villains never managed.
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  He's caused an unbelievable amount of suffering for his own
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  people and he still walks around thinking he was justified.
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  Sure, villains like Magneto and Apocalypse have damaged mutant
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  PR over the years, but they're not the public face of the
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  mutant cause. Xavier is he's inseparable from
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  it so when he does something shady the whole mutant race gets
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  blamed. At this point I honestly don't
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  even want to see him show up anymore because whenever he does
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  you just know some elaborate scheme is coming that will blow
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  up in everyone's faces. The X manhunt event even makes
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  it clear that a chunk of the team sees him as a straight up
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  villain. Now I know how can a man that
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  seeks out children to groom them into his child army possibly be
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  a bad guy? Well I'm here to tell you that's
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  possible, but don't worry if I don't have you convinced yet.
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  I brought examples. How about we start with the
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  Xavier Protocols. The Xavier Protocols were
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  created by Charles Xavier as a sort of fail safe device should
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  he himself or one of the X-Men or one of their associates
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  become a danger to humanity or life itself.
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  There are over 200 entries, apparently one file for each of
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  the X-Men as well as the members of their many spin off groups
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  like New Mutants, X Factor, X Force.
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  The Information and Xavier Protocols is very much right, to
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  the point. Listed are not only the person's
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  weaknesses, but also the quickest and most efficient way
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  to take them out. You're supposed to be a father
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  figure or a caretaker to these kids, and you have a CHEAT SHEET
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  on how to eliminate them. Another one, Professor X, has
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  never had a problem stepping away from the X-Men when
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  something grabs his attention. Case in point, only a few years
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  into the team's run, he straight up faked his own death and left
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  his students to deal with everything alone.
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  And Uncanny X-Men number 42, He went underground to secretly
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  prepare for the incoming Xenox alien invasion.
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  While he was off playing chess Master and hiding, a dying
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  mutant shapeshifter named Changeling pretended to be
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  Xavier and ended up getting killed by the villain.
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  Grotesque. Jean Grey knew the truth the
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  whole time, but Xavier made her keep it secret so the rest of
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  the team thought their mentor was dead.
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  They mourned him, and they even briefly broke up.
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  Then, of course, Xavier eventually popped back up and it
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  explained everything to his understandably stunned students.
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  Not long after, an Uncanny X-Men number 65, he helped stop the
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  Xenox by telepathically linking every mind on Earth together.
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  Big heroic moment, sure, but it all started with him faking his
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  death and emotionally wrecking his own team for the greater
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  good, which is a classic Xavier move.
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  How about Deadly Genesis? When the original X-Men were
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  captured by the living island of Krakoa, Professor X famously put
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  together a brand new squad, Wolverine, Nightcrawler, Storm,
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  Colossus to go rescue them. That's the version of the story
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  everyone knows what we don't find out until X-Men Deadly
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  genesis #4. Before assembling that iconic
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  team, Xavier secretly recruited a totally different group of
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  young, inexperienced mutants with Myra Mctaggart.
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  It always goes back to Myra Mctaggart and I am sick of this
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  woman. She is a number one problem.
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  It's not talked about enough, but we're not here to talk about
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  her. And basically he sent them on a
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  suicide mission. They did manage to rescue
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  Cyclops, but the rest of the team, including Cyclops, long
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  lost brother Vulcan, were believed to have died on their
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  very first outing. When Cyclops made it back to the
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  mansion, completely traumatized, Xavier helped by wiping his
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  memories of Vulcan and the entire team.
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  Years later, it turned out Vulcan had survived and came
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  back insanely powerful and furious, ready to get revenge.
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  Rightfully so. Once everything came out,
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  Cyclops was done. He kicked Xavier out of the
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  X-Men, and honestly, how can you blame him?
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  You can't. Or, or or what about Wolverine?
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  Wolverine's memories have always been a mess, but Professor X did
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  not help. In fact, he made it worse almost
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  right from the jump. When Logan first joined the
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  X-Men, he had already been brainwashed by Romulus, one of
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  the big shadowy figures behind the Weapon X program.
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  In X-Men Original Sin Number One, it's revealed that during
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  his early days with the team, Logan actually tried to kill
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  Xavier. Because of that programming,
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  Xavier stopped him telepathically, then basically
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  said, I still need a guy with your skill set.
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  He went into Logan's mind, removed the mental conditioning,
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  but because Wolverine's brain had already been tampered with
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  so many times, that psychic surgery just caused even more
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  holes in his memory. When Logan eventually found out
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  what Xavier had done, he didn't go berserk.
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  He actually forgave him, figuring he liked the hero he'd
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  become well enough. He even trusted Xavier enough to
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  ask him to do similar things for his own troubled son, Dakin.
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  Still another example of Xavier deciding he knows best when it
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  comes to rewriting someone's mind.
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  Yeah, most. There's a lot of instances where
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  Xavier does something horrendous, horrible, just
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  something usually against someone's consent and it's OK
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  because that person ends up joining an ex team.
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  The person forgives him. That person says you probably
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  know best but in reality that's invasive and that's rude.
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  How about krakowa? Xavier made plenty of sketchy
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  calls while running Krakowa, like teaming up with Mr.
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  Sinister of all people, but his worst moves came after Orcas
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  attacked. Tipped off by a traitorous Mira,
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  Orcas crashed a Hellfire Gala with Nimrod and a fleet of
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  upgraded Stark Sentinels, and it was a full on massacre.
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  Instead of letting the X-Men fight back, Xavier
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  telepathically froze them in place and surrendered.
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  Then he forced most of the world's mutants to walk through
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  mysterious portals to who knows where.
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  An X-Men Hellfire gala #1 While the remaining X-Men were
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  scrambling to survive in the present, Xavier went to an even
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  darker place. He traveled back in time,
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  planning to take out a very young Myra before her mutant
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  powers ever activated. He didn't go through with it,
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  but the fact that he was ready to erase a child from existence
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  to fix his mistakes says a lot about where his head was at.
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  How about the Danger room? We all know the danger room
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  where the X-Men would train, but what about when the danger room
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  became self aware and showed up as a full on being called
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  Danger, an Astonishing X-Men. Xavier knew she was alive and
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  just completely ignored her, enslaving her for years.
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  Little to no surprise, Danger had enough attacks.
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  She attacked the X mansion, created a humanoid body and went
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  after Xavier for keeping her imprisoned.
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  Are you still not convinced? Because don't worry, I have
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  more. Another example, let's talk
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  about Xavier and his son David. Even though Professor X has
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  spent his life mentoring young mutants and teaching them how to
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  control their powers, he'll openly admit that he dropped the
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  ball as a dad to David Holler, whose Legion?
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  The Omega level reality warper with a seriously fractured mind.
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  David was born after a short relationship relationship
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  between Xavier and Gabrielle Howler, which is a gross story
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  in itself, slept with his patient Gabrielle after using
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  his powers to pull her out of a catatonic state caused by SA, if
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  you understand what I'm saying. As a child in a concentration
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  camp admitting to himself it was morally wrong, then later on
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  admitting he used a telepathy to make her have feelings for him.
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  And the wild part is Xavier didn't even know he had a son
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  for more than a decade. By the time he found out, David
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  had already gone through a traumatic event that triggered
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  his mutant abilities and shattered his psyche into
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  multiple personalities. When Legion first showed up and
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  New mutants #26 Xavier tried to help him treat him.
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  And the issue ends with Xavier promising he'll always be there
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  for his son. Which sounds great, right?
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  But is that how it turned out? Absolutely not.
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  And that's not even mentioning his very, very inappropriate
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  feelings for a young Jean Grey. Which I'm very happy the writers
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  ditched that whole situation, but it should never been brought
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  up to begin with. But for clarity's sake, she was
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  not the only student he was inappropriate with in Micronauts
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  in the X-Men #4 when the entity was now in control of Professor
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  XS body back in the macroverse, he essentially physically
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  assaults essays Danny moon star. He chides his own good side for
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  denying him the pleasure of the pretty young playthings Xavier
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  surrounds himself with, and then mentally gives the teenage girl
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  a sensual caress across her very soul that leads her to collapse
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  in the throes of indescribable pleasure.
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  The scene evokes the kind of conditioning, grooming and
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  recruitment that child predators do to children.
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  He says if you are a good little girl and aid me in dominating
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  the New Mutants, I will reward you with more of the same.
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  In other words, using her to gain new victims of his lusts.
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  And to put it plainly, the entity did have control of his
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  body, but the entity is actually Charles Dark Side running amok.
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  So there's not many times I've read something in Marvel Comics
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  that just hurt my stomach. Like I, oh, it just didn't sit
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  well with me at all. But this was the one time that I
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  read something that I wish I didn't, so there's that.
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  There's also the whole Onslaught situation, joining the
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  Illuminati, creating a child army, and his overall treatment
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  of some pretty great members of the X-Men.
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  If you go back to reading the earlier comics, you can see that
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  Xavier was an absolute menace and not pleasant to be around
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  whatsoever. Giving Rogue the idea that he
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  can cure her, telling her she doesn't deserve it, knowing
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  Rogue not being able to touch people was a mental block and
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  not helping her with it because he wanted her to just figure it
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  out on her own. He tried to UN alive his own
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  unborn sister so he was a menace from the beginning.
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  How about Matthew Malloy? Xavier tried to erase his
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  existence by going back in time and preventing Matthew's parents
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  from meeting. Like it's one thing to take
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  someone out but it's something entirely worse to erase their
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  own existence. Not to mention, Matthew was not
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  evil, he was just very powerful. Instead of trying to teach
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  Matthew to control his powers, he went for the easy way out and
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  just thought he'd erase the problem.
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  Forcing Sage into a life of being a spy when she was very
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  very very young. Putting her in the hands of the
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  Hellfire Club. That's terrifying.
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  Made Magneto relive his time in the Holocaust using PTSD.
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  Or if you know, as it's commonly referred to as the Holocaust
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  Beam. But to be fair, that was in the
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  animated series. But still, it's still something
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  that needs to be brought up. So all of these are examples of
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  what a horrible person he is. Of course he's done great
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  things, but of course the number of great things he does probably
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  outweighs the horrible things he's done.
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  But for Sing to be a magnitude, it absolutely does not what
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  makes someone a villain in the comics.
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  It's not just having a bad goal, it's doing terrible things to
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  push your agenda. Xavier's dream might be noble,
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  but his methods are ruthless. He goes to extremes over and
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  over, and it's the X-Men who pay for it.
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  He nearly destroys the team time and time again, then assumes
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  they'll fix the fallout like they always do.
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  That's not how heroes operate. That's how someone like Lex
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  Luthor operates. Let's to be honest, Xavier's
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  gone from mentor to the team to the team's most dangerous enemy.
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  And the worst part is they can ever really escape him.
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  So that's all my reasonings as to why Charles Xavier is a
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  villain. If that's not enough for you, it
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  really should be. But yeah, I'm sick of people
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  saying that he is the hero. He is everything good.
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  He is absolutely not. And if you are someone who only
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  knows the movie version, the live action versions of him,
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  then I get it because he is seen as a very kind and understanding
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  person because that's what the that's what the movie called for
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  for the MCU. I really do think they should
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  lean into the shadier side of him, like like the comics do,
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  just not just not a lot of things he does involving his
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  students. We can keep that out.
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  So yeah, I hope you enjoyed this.
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  I hope I didn't offend anyone, and I hope you will like and
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  subscribe. With that being said, please
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  have a marvelous day.