Worst Things To Happen In X-Men Comics
Since its beginnings in the early 1960s, Stan Lee and Jack Kirby’s X-Men have given readers a plethora of fan-favorite characters. They are, nevertheless, perhaps one of the most well-known sets of superheroes to have taken the greatest damage in their extensive collection of adventures.
Because the X-Men are a metaphor for coping with racism and injustice, many of these stories’ most harrowing defeats arise from non-Mutants’ anxieties of the “other.” However, not all of these problems were caused by external factors such as federal governments or international governing organizations. Some of the most devastating tragedies to afflict the X-Men were also caused by schisms within their group.
Persecution of Mutants by Nazi’s
Magneto’s horrific childhood as a Jewish Mutant in the region might count as another of the X-collective, Men’s, and original tragedies, given the aforementioned links to Nazi-era Germany and the Holocaust. With his family slaughtered, Max would be apprehended in German-occupied Poland and then sent to Auschwitz in Germany.
What he became as Magneto incited some horrible deeds, like what he’s done to Wolverine in the past and employing Sentinels against the X-Men, but one of the greatest ways to create a captivating supervillain is to make them sympathetic. Magneto is a fantastic example of a “sympathetic villain,” as someone whose actions are frequently objectively repugnant and brutal but have a deep past that makes his insanity a logical conflict.
Beef Between Professor X & Magneto
One of the initial X-Men tragedies became one of Marvel Comics’ most significant occurrences. Years after the latter’s sad origins as a Nazi-Germany Holocaust victim, Charles Xavier, and (previously called) Max Eisenhardt befriended one other. Their commitment, though, would not continue – at least not regularly.
In terms of what they want for Mutantkind, Charles and Max’s worldviews were contradictory, with the former striving for peaceful equality and the latter believing they will never be accepted by humans and hence opting for Mutant dominance and control. This dramatic ideological schism sets the setting for the X-struggle Men’s for justice and against Max/Brotherhood Magneto of Mutants.
Sentinels As Anti-Mutant Agents
The Sentinels are one of the most infamous reasons why the X-Men have witnessed so many alternative futures in which the Mutants are massacred. The whole Sentinel Program began when the United States government offered cash for Bolivar Trask to construct them.
The first effort, however, did not end in the worst-case scenario, since the Master Mold Sentinel escaped and toppled his creator’s cruel designs. However, things grew worse for the X-Men when Trask’s son took over and built a deadlier, more efficient generation of Sentinels that were increasingly adept at tracking out Mutants with each passing batch. Days of Future Past, one of the X-greatest Men’s films, placed them in one such parallel reality.
Magneto Uses Sentinels
While Magneto is one of the most legendary sympathetic villains in comics, one of his many heinous acts has been to utilize Sentinels against the X-Men. Magneto interrupts the invitation by assaulting the X-Men with his cavalry after Cyclops and Emma Frost construct a new base in San Francisco for Mutants everywhere to seek sanctuary.
From both a physical and metaphorical standpoint, this was one of the most wicked, cruel things he’s ever done. To begin with, it’s a grim irony that someone who professes to be battling to rescue Mutantkind is actually attempting to murder many of them. Finally, the Sentinels were originally a government-funded program of Mutant-hunting robots, thus using them against a fellow Mutant is not a good idea.
Governments Experimenting On Mutants
One of the X-Men’s Marvel’s finest superhero characters is a perfect illustration of the team’s atrocities. In the most well-known example of the Weapon X program, James “Logan” Howlett was subjected to experiments. This effort’s experiments are what imbued him with adamantium, giving him claws, regenerative powers, reduced aging, and near-invulnerability.
By the time this program progressed beyond Captain America’s Super-Soldier serum, it was focusing on more deadly mass-mutant experiments, generating mutants like Wolverine’s arch-nemesis Sabretooth. With the support of financing from the US and Canadian governments, the Weapon X program was granted even greater access to Mutants to experiment on.
