On a recent post of mine about how damaging making Charles a villain has been to the X-Men story, I got many responses like below.
And so... *climbs on soap box*
Charles Xavier Twisted
A dirge scored for unoriginality, instant gratification SJWing, ableism, watsonialism, power scaling, daddy issues, and disappointment
The user from the tags above is not alone in blaming Charles' downfall on ableism, but the destruction of the character of Xavier came about for (unfortunately) a clusterfuck of reasons.
Ableism is often brought up first by many because isn't it so very convenient that the one most known disabled comic characters has been treated this way? Magneto, who murdered a LOT of people is welcomed as a hero, but Xavier's sins are unforgiven. (How sad, given that he himself is canonically forgiving to a fault?) And while I don't think it's THE reason, I think of it as a foundational reason for his downfall.
Many writers just didn't know wtf to do with a disabled character past their disability. Plots with Charles often either revolved around his disability or they found (not so) clever ways to remove it temporarily. The infamous Jean Grey panel was written not to introduce a plot line of a love triangle, but rather was solely to show that Charles was a pathetic cripple that no woman would ever love. When he did get to be in a relationship, artists would find clever ways to minimize his disability. And he's bald, which authors often use to point out that women would never want him, while artists rarely make any attempts to make him attractive. They even erased his baldness in the Fox movies before making it an injury rather than his natural mutation. Another way to make him a victim.
The second foundational reason is The Xavier Problem, as coined by Marvel execs. Put simply, "We gave the team this great, wise leader who is a stupidly powerful telepath. How are they ever going to have scary enough challenges?" The Xavier Problem is why they invented sentinels (what can a wheelchair bound telepath do against giant robots?) as an example. They also liked to kill him off a lot and send him off world for this reason. Basically, Xavier was viewed by writers as a hurdle, not an asset. This, I think, created resentment especially in writers after Claremont who wanted ACTION and DRAMA!
And these two base aspects made him easy prey for the next factors.
Amongst many younger people in minorities there's an angry "I shouldn't have to minimize myself to make you comfortable!" sentiment. They rage at any concessions because "I should be able to just LIVE!" and I'm not saying they're wrong. As a minority myself, I GET IT. No, you SHOULDN'T have to make yourself small for anyone. No you SHOULDN'T need to not hold your date's hand because it upsets someone. It fucking sucks! But getting a full beer can thrown at your head from a moving car sucks more. Dying is the suckiest of all, in fact.
Concessions and pandering to the majority can keep minority people alive. Point blank. But the current combination of social awareness and instant gratification seeking makes people react to anyone suggesting any concessions as weakness and betrayal.
I, a trans man, was in a support group for trans people and said that after a lot of thought, I had decided to continue to present as female to my grandparents for my wellbeing (and detailed exactly why). The THERAPIST running the group turned to the others and said "What are some other things we tell ourselves to convince us not live our truths?" I was shamed and belittled for choosing safety. If you're not loud and proud 100% of the time, risking your safety for "truth", you're the problem.
*nods to Xavier* Sound familiar?
People will post pictures of the Morlocks and say "Oh look, Xavier only picked the pretty mutants for his team. He didn't want the ugly ones. Hypocrite!" And yes, he DID pick the pretty ones. Of course he did. Do you think Rosa Parks just HAPPENED to be wearing her Sunday best, looking pretty and demure and oh-so photogenic? Do you think it's a coincidence that the black people who sat at diner counters and refused to move were dressed nicely, clean, pressed clothes, button up shirts, ladies with their gloves on, and all of them young, nice looking and harmless? Those people were chosen for those actions, they trained for them, so that the photos in the paper would show the right story. There would be NO room for the reporters to spin them as hoodlums and trouble makers. (Look at how they vilify every black person gunned down for no fucking reason and know it takes so little for a minority person to be turned into the enemy.)
Now look at the first X-Men team: 5 white, attractive teenagers, only one of which wasn't fully human passing, and that one looked like a fucking angel. And those fine young people where being heroes. It was very intentional. He was playing the same game as the irl civil rights leaders. The X-Men were a PR campaign to get humans used to the idea of mutants in a comfortable way. His next team he widened that, brought in other races, and even had a very non-human passing member (but still attractive and damn charming).
But young people can't see this method as anything but weakness and betrayal. This is the exact reason Magneto is beloved now. He screams for immediate change and zero concessions, and that appeals. That's "living your truth".
This pairs nicely with another habit with millennials and below: Watsonian judgement of "problematic" characters. In the age of digging up old tweets and uncovering of past legit crimes, people have gotten used to looking at a person's past and (rightfully) "cancelling" them for their actions. *points at Neil Gaiman* This is a great trend to drive out harmful people from places of acclaim, but it just doesn't work with comic book characters because A they're not real people and thus CANNOT be held accountable by the irl world, and B they are written by dozens and dozens of writers in their "lifetime".
They have no freewill, they're not choosing anything, and consistency in comic writing is a fucking joke. The infamous Jean Grey panel is no more damning than the Superman kiss with a 15 y/o Lana, but Xavier haters will hold that up as PROOF that he's a pedo. And no. You have to look at the full picture of a character to make those judgements.
And now we come to my last piece of the puzzle: modern writers hate mentor characters. Really, it's across the board. Every key mentor character I can think of has been retconned to having some dark secret. They retconned Reed as having a cure for Grimm all along but not using it. Yinsin's (of Ironman) memory was tainted by a murderous son and his death rewritten. Superman's bio-dad has gotten the "plotting earth conquest" revamp a few times. They even tried to blacken Alfred's eye by giving him a daughter he'd abandoned to take care of Bruce. (When this didn't turn fans against him, they just killed him off.)
Any character a writer can project his daddy issues onto is immediately on the chopping block. Take a look at most comic lines and watch for the mentor who was secretly shitty all along. It's sad how often it crops up.
And my, oh my, does it all add up for Xavier.
One by one the writing trends of the last 20 years aligned like the astrological chart from hell to damn Charles into oblivion. The kind, careful man in the wheelchair who just wanted hope and acceptance didn't stand a chance. And, even worse, I don't think we'll see his character recover until these trends change.
The hate for him is real. Whole tiktok accounts farm it for views. The retcons are extensive and corrode every inch of his character. Every flaw has been cranked to 11 and every good trait has been made a lie. Old fans like me and fans who came in from the Fox movies can hold onto who he was, but Marvel leadership has made that past into something closer to fannon than anything else.
And it's all just very sad.
Say it louder for the people in the back!
