The X-Men have a much tougher time as heroes than any other team out there. The X-Men not only have to deal with saving the world, but they also have to deal with the racism of humanity. Humanity is constantly trying to destroy mutants, so anything that mutants do to protect humanity is extra work on top of the steady supply of enemies who would destroy the team given half the chance.
Over the years, the X-Men have put themselves into situations that have made their lives much more difficult. While whether the X-Men should even be superheroes is an open question, they do their best to live up to heroic ideals. However, this has had consequences for the team that they easily could have evaded if they’d kept to themselves.
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10 The X-Men Should Have Let Everyone Else Deal With The Villains In Secret Wars (1984)
Secret Wars (1984) is an excellent event comic. The book saw Marvel’s greatest heroes and villains brought to Battleworld by the One From Beyond, where they fought for the ultimate prize. The X-Men were there, along with Magneto, who was their ally at that time. The other heroes immediately treated the X-Men as outsiders and Spider-Man even fought the team. The X-Men and Magneto left the base the heroes set up, making their own home elsewhere on Battleworld.
And that’s where they should have stayed. The X-Men, along with Magneto, were a powerful force on their own. They could have defended themselves against any of the villains, except Galactus, who was dead-set on devouring Battleworld. The heroes were powerful and experienced enough to deal with the villains on their own, as well. The X-Men didn’t need to ally themselves with anyone who treated them that badly.
9 The X-Men Never Should Have Defended Humanity In The First Place
The X-Men were formed by Charles Xavier to teach mutants how to use their powers so they could live normal lives and to protect humanity so that the majority would learn to appreciate mutants. In fairness, the first goal is audible. Mutants need to know how to use their abilities, both to have normal lives, but also to defend themselves from the racists who want to kill them.
However, the X-Men defending humanity never paid off. Humans still want to destroy mutants in Marvel Comics. They create weapons made specifically to hunt and kill mutants. There’s no reason for the X-Men to defend humanity, even from other mutants. Humans already have weapons and heroes that can do that job. The X-Men should focus on protecting mutants above all else. As bad as he was, even opposing Magneto’s first plans was a dangerous distraction for the team.
8 Professor X Should Never Have Joined The Illuminati
Professor X has long been the heart of the X-Men. Xavier doesn’t always do right by his students, but even his worst decisions can be chalked up to trying to protect the men and women who are in his charge. When he joined the Illuminati, it was inexplicable. Professor X’s time in the Illuminati did nothing for the X-Men while also making them a target for the Hulk when he returned to Earth after the destruction of Sakaar.
Xavier has done some very bad things, like enslaving the sentient Danger Room computer and erasing the world’s memories of the actual second X-Men team, but each of those decisions defended the X-Men in some way. Joining the Illuminati did nothing for the X-Men. It made them targets for the Hulk and the Skrulls and helped no one at all.
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7 The X-Men Shouldn’t Have Gone Looking For Wolverine
The Return Of Wolverine isn’t a good story. Most of the decisions made in the book are regrettable at best, but getting the X-Men involved was inexcusable. The team found evidence of Wolverine’s return and went looking for him, sending the members who loved himself the most — Jean Grey, Kate Pryde, Nightcrawler, Storm, and Iceman — into a situation they didn’t understand. Thanks for his confused memories, Wolverine ended up attacking them.
Jean Grey is a ridiculously powerful telepath, so she should have known that Wolverine wasn’t in his right mind. In fact, she should have realized that the situation was untenable immediately when she tried to read the minds of a bunch of dead people. The X-Men jumping into a situation they know nothing about, and then completely giving up on their friend anyway, was a terrible narrative. It was basically made to check boxes on a plot checklist. The X-Men should have stayed out of Wolverine’s retrieval and the story itself was unnecessary.
6 The X-Men Should Have Let Vulcan Have His Revenge On The Shi’Ar Empire
Rise And Fall Of The Shi’Ar Empire was brilliant, but that doesn’t mean that the X-Men should have gotten involved. Vulcan was the third Summers brother and was enslaved by the Shi’Ar at a young age before he escaped them and Moira MacTaggert found him. Xavier later recruited Vulcan to save the original X-Men from Krakoa, and when it looked like Vulcan and his team were dead, Xavier erased everyone’s memories of them. Vulcan was badly at every turn and when he returned he did his best to destroy everyone who wronged him.
The X-Men stopped Vulcan from killing Xavier in revenge, and then Vulcan left for space to take vengeance on the Shi’Ar. A group of X-Men went after him, but there wasn’t any reason for it. While the X-Men had an alliance with the Shi’Ar, the Imperial Guard is extremely powerful and doesn’t need any help. The X-Men should have let Vulcan go and allowed the Shi’Ar to reap what they’d sown.
5 The X-Men Made No Difference In The Magneto War
The Magneto War has been mostly forgotten, which is good for the X-Men, since the event made them look terrible. Here, Magneto decides to take the world hostage, threatening to flip the Earth’s magnetic poles and the X-Men sprang into action. At the same time Astra, an old enemy of Magneto’s, and Joseph the Magneto clone attacked the Master of Magnetism.
Basically, all the X-Men did was stop Astra from killing Magneto. Joseph died during the affair and Magneto’s plan essentially worked. The UN ceded Genosha to him. The X-Men could have just let Astra, Magneto, and Joseph fight it out. The X-Men were completely ineffectual in The Magneto War, so they might as well have not gotten involved.
4 The X-Men Never Should Have Inserted Themselves In The Avengers’ Scarlet Witch Problems
Scarlet Witch famously disassembled the Avengers, leading to the formation of the New Avengers. Magneto took her to Genosha, trying to work with Xavier to help her mentally. Eventually, the X-Men and Avengers met up to talk about what to do with her. They decided to kill her, and Quicksilver overheard their conversation. He raced to Genosha, where Quicksilver and his sister created the House Of M reality, which led to the Scarlet Witch’s Decimation of Earth, the greatest mutant massacre in Marvel history.
In this situation, all the X-Men had to do was not get involved and let the Avengers make their own mistakes. Xavier asked the X-Men to go to the Avengers, but they should have refused. Scarlet Witch wasn’t the X-Men’s problem, she was an Avengers problem. If they wanted to, then Professor X and Magneto should have dealt with the situation instead of dragging the X-Men into it.
When Legion decided that his father’s life had been ruined by Magneto, stopping his next move was essentially impossible. Legion’s powers allowed him to do pretty much anything he set his mind to and he figured that if he went back in time to when his father met Magneto in Israel, he could change everyone’s lives for the better. The X-Men stood in Legion’s way, trying to stop the young man from killing the villain who would become their greatest foe. Their interference helped contribute to the accidental killing of Xavier and birthed the Age Of Apocalypse reality.
The X-Men didn’t need to get involved in Legion’s business at all. In fact, there’s a good argument that the X-Men actually killed Xavier. If Legion had gone back in time by himself without fighting the X-Men, there’s a good chance he would have killed Magneto, not Xavier, and made everyone’s life easier.
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2 The X-Men Shouldn’t Have Become Superheroes Again During The Krakoa Era
X-Men (Vol. 6) hasn’t always been the best book, partially because it stumbled over its own premise. The Krakoa Era started out with mutants trying to look out for mutants, but for some reason, Cyclops decided that he wanted to go back to being a human-defending superhero again, despite spending years fighting against the genocidal human race. So, the X-Men set up a new headquarters in New York City and fought to protect humanity, like they did in the ’60s.
The X-Men became bootlickers, trying to win humanity’s approval, while Orchis was preparing powerful weaponry against them. Sure, the team fought Doctor Stasis a little, but most of their adventures were about saving humans. The X-Men should have focused on Orchis a hundred percent and let humanity’s other heroes defend humanity.
1 Wolverine Should Never Have Ratted Cyclops Out To The Avengers
Avengers Vs. X-Men changed the game, but Wolverine’s interference was the main reason the two teams ended up in conflict. Wolverine and Cyclops had just had a violent falling out. When Wolverine heard that Cyclops was going to try to acquire the Phoenix Force, he ratted Cyclops out to the Avengers, The Avengers attacked Utopia in response, kicking off an enormous battle royale.
Wolverine and his team of X-Men should have never gotten involved in the Phoenix Force discussion. Wolverine hated Cyclops at this point, but teaming up against his own people with the Avengers was a clear mistake since the team had little to no time to help mutants. Cyclops was ultimately proven right, as his plan would have worked to bring back the mutant race if the Avengers hadn’t gotten involved.
While the X-Men are ostensibly heroes, if they’d stayed out of events like Magneto War then everyone would be better off. Read More