10 Darkest Endings In X-Men Comics
The X-Men have faced circumstances that no other superhero teams have. They don’t just fight supervillains or help in disasters. They battle against racism in society and government, and their stories often hit on some very heavy issues. As a result, many X-Men stories feel darker and heavier than other Marvel tales.
Sometimes, the best way to get fans to come back is to give them a dark ending. These finales often fit the tone of the story they’re capping off. Great storylines have been kicked off by these dark endings and they’ve generated their share of iconic deaths and moments for the X-Men.
10 X-Men: Omega #1
The Age Of Apocalypse is one of Marvel’s ’90s gems. A dark tale, it extends into X-Men: Omega #1, by writers Mark Waid and Scott Lobdell and artist Roger Cruz. Omega outlined the final battle against Apocalypse, as the X-Men stormed his palace to get the M’Kraan Crystal and send Bishop back in time to prevent their timeline from ever happening.
Omega was full of death. Havok killed Jean Grey and Cyclops, and Weapon X killed him in return. Colossus crushed Kitty Pryde and Gambit killed the robust Russian. Angel kills himself. Bishop’s mission succeeds, but the book ends with Magneto, Rogue, and their child Charles standing by as the nukes sent by the Eurasian Human High Council burn away New York City, a grim possibility reaching its terrible conclusion.
9 House Of M
Technically, House Of M is a crossover event that hit every Marvel title, but it was advertised as a crossover between the New Avengers and the Astonishing X-Men. Written by Brian Michael Bendis with art by Olivier Coipel, the story revolved around Scarlet Witch recreating reality, making a world where mutants were ascendant. It ended with Scarlet Witch doing away with the majority of the mutant race.
House of M‘s last issue is all about the X-Men trying to figure out what happened to them. There’s a sense of frantic doom, as the team scrambles to check on everyone, expecting some of them to have lost their powers. At the end of the book, Hank Pym comments on what happened and asks what happened to that vast supply of mutant energy, a melancholy and ominous finale.
8 Planet X
Planet X, by writer Grant Morrison and artist Phil Jimenez, was Morrison’s penultimate X-Men story and paid off many of the plots they had set up. Xorn was revealed to be Magneto, he destroyed the X-Mansion, devastated the X-Men, and attacked Manhattan. The team was able to make a comeback and retaliate but only at a great cost.
The final battle saw the team take him down, but it ended badly. Magneto gave Jean Grey a planetary scale stroke, and Wolverine brutally beheaded his longtime foe. That was how the book ended, a berserk Wolverine roaring as Cyclops held his dying wife.
7 Generation Next
The Age Of Apocalypse is a beloved story, but it encompasses a lot of books and they don’t all get the attention they deserve. Generation Next, by writer Scott Lobdell and artist Chris Bachalo, featured the training team of the X-Men, led by Colossus and Kitty Pryde, going to the Seattle Core power facility to rescue Illyana Rasputin.
Generation Next‘s last issue featured the team of teen heroes picked off one by one as they tried to escape the Core. Kitty got Illyana out and Colossus tried to hold open the door to get his students out as well. Husk was the last one inside and he was forced to abandon her. Making this hard choice obviously broke his heart but he also finished the story by lying to Kitty and Illyana about his role in Husk’s death.
6 Operation: Zero Tolerance
To its credit, Operation: Zero Tolerance wasn’t afraid to surprise its readers. The story crossed through X-Men, Wolverine, Generation X, X-Force, Cable, and X-Man. In Onslaught’s aftermath, the US government sprang Operation: Zero Tolerance on the X-Men, deploying a group led by the mysterious Bastion.
The last issue of Zero Tolerance, X-Men (Vol. 2) #70, by writer Joe Kelly and artist Carlos Pacheco, saw the X-Men finally get back together at the X-Mansion, where OZT had used nanites to eat the X-Men’s home. The book ended with the X-Men having lost everything but the roof over their heads and heading into an uncertain future.
5 X-Men: Schism
X-Men: Schism was one of the 2010s’ finest comics. Created by writer Jason Aaron and artists Carlos Pacheco, Frank Cho, Daniel Acuña, Alan Davis, and Adam Kubert, this tale saw a new Hellfire Club unleash an attack on the X-Men that forced Cyclops into an untenable position. He finally had to make the teenage mutant Oya kill the attacking Hellfire goons. This didn’t sit well with Wolverine, and the two came to blows.
The last issue of Schism sees them team up against a powerful Sentinel before parting ways. The ending has Wolverine and a group of mutants leave Utopia, completely severing all ties with Cyclops. Giving readers exactly what its title promised, Schism divided the X-Men and felt like the end of a brighter era.
4 The Dark Phoenix Saga
Even Marvel’s other ’80s classics can’t match The Dark Phoenix Saga. Written by Chris Claremont with art by John Byrne, the book chronicled Jean Grey’s descent into her murderous Dark Phoenix persona and the X-Men’s battle to stop the carnage and save their friend. They succeed too late, as the Shi’Ar come to judge the genocidal cosmic force.
The Dark Phoenix Saga ends with the X-Men engaging the Imperial Guard in a trial by combat. They get trounced, and Phoenix, unable to control herself any longer, kills herself rather than see her friends suffer. It’s the tragic capstone of a story that traded in sadness.
3 X Deaths Of Wolverine
X Deaths Of Wolverine, by writer Benjamin Percy and artist Federico Vicentini, chronicled Moira MacTaggert’s escape from Krakoa as she was hunted by Mystique. Phalanx Wolverine, sent back in time to kill her and to abort his apocalyptic timeline, awakened and joined the hunt, along with the children of Wolverine. The final issue sees the Wolverines of Krakoa – Logan, Laura, Akihiro, and Gabby – battling the future Logan when the Phalanx takes control.
The Krakoan Wolverines were able to stop their counterpart from the future and everyone believed that Moira herself was dead. However, she awakened in her grave, now ensconced in a powerful robotic body. A new enemy has been born, one who knows all of Krakoa’s most sensitive secrets.
2 X-Men (Vol. 2) #25
X-Men (Vol. 2) #25, by writer Fabian Nicieza and artist Andy Kubert, was the penultimate chapter of Fatal Attractions, which ran through all of 1993’s X-Men books. Magneto detonates an EMP that damages Earth’s technology, forcing the X-Men into action. Xavier, in an exoskeleton fueled by his psi-powers, leads a team to Avalon to kill his villainous former friend.
The battle goes badly, as Magneto tears out Wolverine’s adamantium and Xavier mindwipes him. The book ends with Wolverine on the verge of death and Colossus, now an Acolyte of the mutant master of magnetism, cradling his brain-dead leader. A patented Marvel face turn was in the future for Mags, but this book took him out of action for a while.
1 New X-Men #115
Not many Marvel villains get revenge, which is why it’s so impressive that Cassandra Nova achieved this goal right off the bat. New X-Men #115, by writer Grant Morrison and artist Frank Quitely, saw Wolverine and Cyclops battle Nova, who had taken them as hostages. They defeated her, but couldn’t stop her next moves.
New X-Men then cut to Genosha, where the three Mega-Sentinels Nova had launched began their genocidal attack. Professor X watched in horror from the Mansion as the population of the island fell from sixteen million to zero in minutes. The deaths of millions is a harrowing way to end any comic.