The X-Men have always felt like they were off in their own corner of the Marvel Universe. The Avengers and Fantastic Four are the public sweethearts, the teams everyone trusts. The X-Men are the black sheep; even members with crossover appeal like Storm and Wolverine have to deal with the stigma of being X-Men.
Because of this divide in Marvel’s reality, the X-Men are more likely to keep secrets from their fellow heroes. Most of the time, it’s nothing that would affect anyone else much. However, they’ve often kept dark secrets, ones that would ruin the X-Men’s already spotty reputation.
10 Wolverine Killed An American General After A Botched Mind Control Experiment
Many Marvel heroes have high kill counts, but few can match Wolverine’s. Wolverine spent decades as a soldier and a spy. The X-Men have taken advantage of his skills in many ways, including using him as a member in the paramilitary X-Force. Recently, Beast killed Logan and then had him resurrected in a mindless feral state.
Beast used this new Wolverine to tear through Krakoa’s enemies, but it backfired. Instead of waiting for Beast to hack the security systems of their latest target, Wolverine went in and killed him while he was being recorded. The problem is that the target was a US general. Beast couldn’t admit it was his fault, so he had Wolverine imprisoned in the Pit, Krakoa’s prison.
9 The X-Men Know Mankind’s Darkest Futures
The X-Men have been privy to multiple alternate futures, more than any other team. In fact, the X-Men can often accurately predict where humanity is going as a species in the next century. In nearly every future the X-Men have been exposed to, at some point humanity creates AI to deal with mutants, and the new synthetic lifeforms birthed by AI kill almost every hero and villain on Earth.
These machines take complete control of the human race and create posthumanity. In turn, posthumanity eventually joins the Phalanx and is absorbed into the godlike machine collective. The X-Men have witnessed these futures multiple times, all of them with the same things in common and all ending with humanity’s disappearance.
8 The X-Men Kept The Secret Of Resurrection Hidden
Mutants have always been lucky in the superhero resurrection Olympics. Many X-Men have died and come back to life, but since the establishment of the mutant nation of Krakoa, it’s basically become a factory process. Thanks to the powers of the Five – Hope Summers, Elixir, Proteus, Tempus, and Egg – memory back-ups made by Xavier with Cerebro, and a DNA library, any mutant can be brought back to life.
This was Krakoa’s most valuable secret until Cyclops was murdered by Dr. Stasis. He hid in the Captain Krakoa persona for a time, but eventually, the lies wore on him and he revealed the truth to the world. This caused a minor uproar but the Krakoans were able to deal with it, agreeing to resurrect some humans, starting with sick children.
7 Cassandra Nova Is Charles Xavier’s Sister
The X-Men face off against terrifying foes, but few have done the damage to the mutant race that Cassandra Nova has. In her first act against mutants, she used a wild Master Mold to launch three Mega-Sentinels at Genosha. They killed every mutant on the island in minutes. She then took over Xavier’s body and went to the Shi’Ar Empire, wreaking havoc among the X-Men’s alien allies.
Since then, Nova has attacked mutants multiple times. However, the X-Men have kept one fact about Nova to themselves. Cassandra Nova is Charles Xavier’s twin sister and he killed her in the womb. Her powerful mind survived, and eventually, she telekinetically built herself a body. Her powers rival those of any mutant on Earth, making her a potential extinction-level event in the offing.
6 Beast Tried To Steal Terra Verde’s Telefloronics But It Backfired
Marvel’s most ruthless heroes have committed some horrible acts, but few of them have backfired as spectacularly as Beast’s attempt to repurpose Terra Verde’s technology. The nation was a telefloronic rival of Krakoa, its plant-based technology letting it hack Krakoan gates and allow anyone access to the island. Beast and X-Force sprang into action, completely destabilizing the country and its power base.
However, Beast decided that Terra Verde’s tech was useful, so he modified it and began planting it in embassies around the world as spy tech. However, the son of Terra Verde’s leader was almost able to turn it all against him. The plan was stopped before it resulted in disaster, but it almost spelled doom for Krakoa.
5 Wolverine’s X-Force Was A Major Bone Of Contention
The X-Men have gone too far on many occasions, with Wolverine’s two X-Force teams during the Utopia Era being controversial culprits. Both teams were kept secret and when they were discovered, it caused loads of trouble. However, the second team’s existence would have huge ramifications in the superhero community at large.
This X-Force’s last mission focused on Wolverine unwillingly killing his son Akihiro. This was revealed to the public at large and it did massive damage to Wolverine’s reputation. It also helped further fracture the Avengers Unity Squad, making it easier for the Apocalypse Twins to succeed down the road.
4 Beast Discovered The Extinction Gene In Humans
Grant Morrison’s time at Marvel revolutionized the X-Men right out of the gate. In the first story arc of New X-Men, “E Is For Extinction,” Beast discovered an ominous gene sequence in the human genome. He discovered this sequence would begin humanity’s extinction in four generations.
Beast told his fellow X-Men about it, but no one else. He worked feverishly to try to undo it, working to save the species that constantly tried to destroy him. Ironically, he was able repair the gene sequence, but not long after, M-Day occurred, nearly driving mutants to extinction.
3 Professor X Wiped Out Every Memory Of His Actual Second X-Men Team
Everyone thought the X-Men team introduced in Giant-Size X-Men #1 was Xavier’s second team, but this wasn’t true. In fact, he recruited another team, asking Moira MacTaggert for her four students – Vulcan, Darwin, Sway, and Tetra – to help the escaped Cyclops rescue the X-Men. They failed miserably.
However, Vulcan turned out to be Cyclops’s youngest brother and Xavier didn’t want anyone to remember him or his team’s failure. He wiped out every memory of this team’s existence. Xavier kept this secret for years until he realized that Vulcan and Darwin had survived.
2 Professor X Enslaved The Sentient Danger Room AI
Many Marvel heroes can’t be trusted and Professor X is especially duplicitous. The most damning example of this involved the Danger Room. Eventually, in a sort of technological mutation, the AI that ran the Danger Room became sentient. However, Xavier responded to this new development with fear, not love.
Xavier kept its sentience secret, preventing the Danger Room from communicating with anyone else. He kept it enslaved, using it to train his X-Men. Eventually, it was able to break free and went after Xavier. The X-Men were beyond disappointed in their mentor when they learned the truth.
1 Moira MacTaggert’s Secret Changed Krakoa Forever
X-Men status quo changes are rarely as revolutionary as the current Krakoa Era’s. This started with the revelation that Moira MacTaggert was a mutant with the power to reincarnate from the point of her birth with all of her memories intact. She revealed herself to Magneto and Xavier and the three of them worked behind the scenes together.
The trio faked Moira’s death and continued to lay the groundwork for Krakoa. The resurrection of Destiny set a chain of events into motion that would shatter the Quiet Council’s trust in Magneto and Xavier. It also drove Moira, now in a cybernetic body, to Orchis as an enemy of Krakoa.
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