Professor Xavier’s death in 2017’s Logan is the single most tragic moment Wolverine has ever experienced. Given that Logan is easily among the darkest comic book movies ever made, that isn’t necessarily shocking. Professor Charles Xavier is one of the most beloved mentor figures in the medium of comic books, with Patrick Stewart’s performance in the role is just as iconic as Hugh Jackman’s enduring portrayal of Wolverine, so his death in the movie was always certain to be an emotional farewell. Nevertheless, the scene of Logan burying Xavier is by far the most emotionally brutal moment of Wolverine’s unusually prolonged life, especially when viewed from a certain angle.
Logan isn’t the first film to show Xavier killed on-screen: in 2006’s X-Men: The Last Stand, the character is disintegrated by Jean Grey as she succumbs to her inner Phoenix. Xavier’s demise in The Last Stand proved temporary, with the Professor transferring his consciousness into the mind of a brain dead man and returning at the end of 2013’s The Wolverine, with his past and future selves playing a major role in X-Men: Days of Future Past the following year. However, this only serves to illustrate how much harder his (permanent) death in Logan would hit audiences.
As Hugh Jackman’s swan song to the role that made him a household name, Logan confronts the theme of mortality head-on. With mutants all but extinct, Logan’s body is finally succumbing to metal poisoning from his adamantium skeleton, and as he and Xavier see the end of their lives nearing, they choose to go on one final mission by guiding a group of newly-born mutants to safety, including Logan’s feral “daughter” Laura, aka X-23. Ultimately, Xavier is killed by Logan’s clone, X-24, and his burial in an unmarked grave is simply heartbreaking in its raw emotional power. However, this moment becomes even more heartbreaking when viewed through one very specific lens.
The X-Men series has always had a notably casual approach to its own continuity, something Days of Future Past sought to streamline, with its use of time-travel to reset the timeline of events in the preceding movies. Just where Logan fits within the X-Men continuity (or if it’s even a part of the mainline continuity at all) is open to interpretation. However, if one chooses to place Logan within the new timeline established by Days of Future Past, the hidden tragedy of Xavier’s burial scene comes into full view. Specifically, with Wolverine being sent back through time in Days of Future Past, it is clear that he retains all of his memories of the original timeline by the movie’s conclusion, including Xavier’s death in The Last Stand. This would that effectively mean that, if Logan takes place in the Days of Future Past timeline, this scene is the second time that he’s had to bury Xavier.
Of course, there’s plenty to suggest that Logan exists outside of the established canon, such as his disparaging attitude towards some in-universe X-Men comics. And even in isolation, the scene of Xavier’s crude burial is an emotional gut punch in a movie that continues to have a lasting influence on the superhero genre. Nevertheless, it remains a sobering reminder of the immense emotional hardship that Wolverine’s mutation has forced him to absorb, and if viewed as being in-continuity with Days of Future Past, Xavier’s death in Logan may well be one of the most tragic deaths ever committed to film.
- New Mutants Release Date: 2020-08-28
