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The X-Men have gotten a reputation for dark stories over the years. Comics like The Dark Phoenix Saga and Days of Future Past threw brutal endings at readers, but honestly they mostly made sense for the stories they were in. X-Men stories since those two have often gone in pretty dark directions, but most of the time it made perfect sense because they were built up to be dark stories. That’s not the case with all of them, though.

Some X-Men stories start out normal and suddenly take a turn into the darkest territory by the end. Readers didn’t expect them to become as bleak as they did, and their endings gave readers a rather visceral surprise. These stories had stark endings that often changed the way readers thought about the characters and the X-Men.

10 New X-Men: Planet X

By Grant Morrison, Phil Jimenez, Andy Lanning, Simon Coleby, Chris Chuckry, and Chris Eliopolous

Grant Morrison’s New X-Men run was quite philosophical, but it could also get visceral. New X-Men: Planet X is a great example of that. This was a Magneto story filtered through Grant Morrison’s mind, big stakes superheroism that kicked off with the team at their lowest ebb and eventually saw them triumphantly save the day. Then Magneto hit Jean Grey with a planetary scale stroke, Wolverine cut off his head, and everyone started crying and screaming.

The last page was a century time jump, which was sort of a balm, but this entire ending wasn’t what anyone was expecting at all. Up until the end, Planet X was a pretty standard Magneto story, but Morrison went from zero to a thousand miles per hour real quick. It was the last glimpse of readers got of the entire present day cast of New X-Men before Morrison left, and it was a doozy.

9 X-Men: Omega

By Scott Lobdell, Mark Waid, Roger Cruz, Bud Larosa, Tim Townsend, Karl Kesel, Harry Candelario, Scott Hanna, Al Milgrom, Steve Buccellato, Electric Crayon, Richard Starking, and Comicraft

It seems weird to find the end of The Age of Apocalypse surprisingly dark, but X-Men: Omega took the cake. The comic told the story of the last battle against Apocalypse, as Magneto’s X-Men stormed Apocalypse’s palace both to rescue the mutant master of magnetism and to use the M’Kraan Crystal to send Bishop back in time to stop this terrible timeline from happening. X-Men died and there was an oncoming nuclear holocaust, but readers had hoped there would be some kind of happy ending.

Instead, there was unremitting misery. Instead of letting the AoA end on a high note, with the triumphant X-Men fading away as their timeline ended, the nuclear holocaust killed everyone. The Age of Apocalypse was a grim story, but there was no reason to end it with everyone dying. However, it was the ’90s and happy endings weren’t always in the cards.

8 Avengers Vs. X-Men

By Brian Michael Bendis, Jonathan Hickman, Ed Brubaker, Matt Fraction, Jason Aaron, John Romita Jr, Olivier Coipel, Adam Kubert, Scott Hanna, Mark Morales, John Dell, Larry Molinar, Laura Martin, and Chris Eliopolous

Everyone expected Avengers vs. X-Men to get pretty crazy, but no one expected it to end with Cyclops saying all the death was worth it. The story ending with a big Dark Phoenix battle wasn’t exactly a shock, and Cyclops being the one to fall to the power of the Phoenix also wasn’t a surprise. However, Cyclops telling Wolverine and Captain America that he felt like he won, despite killing Xavier and becoming the villain was a shock.

Cyclops spent the Utopia Era of the X-Men getting darker and harder, and the fact that he had no regrets over what he did just because mutants were repowered was something that made his story even darker. It’s one thing for a Phoenix host to regret losing control and hating what they became. Cyclops felt the exact opposite – he felt completely justified and that ended the story on a pitch black note.

7 Sins Of Sinister

Sins of Sinister broke the Marvel Universe and then built it back up again. Running through two bookend issues and three three-issue miniseries, Sins of Sinister saw Mister Sinister-fied Xavier, Emma Frost, Hope Summers, and Exodus, who Sinister had killed knowing that their resurrections would change them, take control of Krakoa, and then the world. Sinister decides that things have gone far enough, but when he goes to his Moira Machine to reset time, he finds it stolen. The story then takes place in ten years in the future, a hundred, and then a thousand, following Sinister, a group of Nightcrawler assassins, and Storm’s Brotherhood as they battle the Empire of the Red Diamond.

The last issue sees Sinister, Rasputin IV, and Moira MacTaggert reset time. Back in the present, Sinister warns everyone about what happened in the future to Xavier, Emma, Hope, and Exodus because of him. Sinister is put in the Pit but then so are Xavier, Emma, Hope, and Exodus despite them not being Sinister-fied. It completely changed the tenor of the Krakoa Era.

6 X-Men: The Hellfire Gala (2023) #1

By Gerry Duggan, Adam Kubert, Matteo Lolli, Luciano Vecchio, Javier Piña, Russell Dauterman, Kris Anka, R.B. Silva, Pepe Larraz, Rain Beredo, Ceci De La Cruz, Matthew Wilson, Marte Gracia, Erick Arciniega, and Virtual Calligraphy

X-Men: The Hellfire Gala (2023) #1 kicked off Fall of X. The Hellfire Gala had become a yearly institution in the Krakoa Era. The first one ended with the terraforming of Mars and the planet becoming the mutant world of Arakko. The second Gala was uneventful beyond naming the new X-Men team, and readers probably expected more of the same from the third one. However, that was the exact opposite of what they got.

About halfway through the issue, Orchis attacked. The new X-Men team was slaughtered, Iceman and Jean Grey were killed, and Professor X was forced to surrender. Doctor Stasis ordered Xavier to sent the mutants of Krakoa through the Gates, which Orchis had taken over. Several mutants were able to resist him and escaped to the basement of the Hellfire Club. Rogue saved Xavier, who blamed himself, and wanted to be left on the empty island of Krakoa. No one would have expected to Gala to end in such a terrible way, setting the stage for Fall of X.

5 X-Men: Schism

By Jason Aaron, Carlos Pacheco, Frank Cho, Daniel Acuña, Alan Davis, Mark Farmer, Mark Roslan, Cam Smith, Jason Keith, Frank D’Armata, and Jared Fletcher

X-Men: Schism broke the X-Men. Most readers knew that coming in, but just how dark everything got was astounding. Wolverine and Cyclops fighting wasn’t something that was unexpected to X-Men fans, despite them having years of stories that centered around their friendship at that point. However, making their fight over Cyclops wanting to make young mutants into child soldiers, and the X-Men endangered by a group of children that made up the new Hellfire Club’s Inner Circle, added to that.

Wolverine and Cyclops got down and dirty in their battle, hitting each other with their fists and words. They stopped their fight long enough to save Krakoa, but their relationship wasn’t mended. The two of them split the X-Men in half, endangering the mutant race when it didn’t need it. The story was destined to be dark, but the book shocked readers with its darkness.

4 X-Men: Deadly Genesis

By Ed Brubaker, Trevor Hairsine, Mike Perkins, Pete Woods, Brad Anderson, Nelson, Kris Justice, Val Staples, Artmonkey Studios, and Dave Lanphear

X-Men: Deadly Genesis got pretty dark from the beginning, as a secret enemy who seemed to know about something terrible in the X-Men’s past took the team apart. However, the end got even darker as it revealed that the secret enemy was Vulcan, who happened to be Gabriel Summers, the third Summers brother. Then, it got even worse when it was revealed what Professor X knew about the terrible situation.

Professor X had sent a group of mutants trained by Moira MacTaggert to Krakoa to save the captured X-Men before the All-New, All-Different team. However, that team was beaten allowing Cyclops time to escape and Xavier thought the whole team had died. Xavier ended up mindwiping every one of their existence. Professor X had always been shady, but this story shocked readers with how dark the ending was.

3 Astonishing X-Men: Dangerous

By Joss Whedon, John Cassaday, Laura Martin, and Chris Eliopolous

Astonishing X-Men: Dangerous started like a standard X-Men story – the Danger Room gaining sentience and attacking the X-Men – and took it to a very dark place. Danger was searching for Professor X, but no one really knew why. However, the last issue of the story would drop a huge bombshell on readers – that Xavier had known about Danger the whole time and had enslaved Danger so the computer would continue to help train the X-Men.

Xavier has long been a complicated mentor figure, but him enslaving an entity so that it would do his bidding was a giant leap from what he had been before. To say that readers never expected this kind of thing was an understatement. It made Xavier persona non grata at his ancestral home and changed the way readers saw him forever.

2 Uncanny X-Force: Final Execution

By Rick Remender. Mike McCone, Phil Noto, Julian Totino Tedesco, David Williams, John Lucas, Frank Martin Jr., Rachelle Rosenberg, Justin Ponsor, Dean White, and Cory Petit

Uncanny X-Force had been through some wars, but few of them were as drastic as their last. Wolverine’s son Daken gathered his own Brotherhood and kidnaped the Apocalypse clone Evan Sabah Nur, holding him hostage, and daring X-Force to come get him. It was a trap, of course, one meant to finally kill Wolverine, but X-Force couldn’t take the chance. X-Force fought their way through the Brotherhood, leading to a final showdown between Wolverine and Daken.

Wolverine drowned his son. Wolverine killing isn’t a huge shock. Wolverine killing his own children has seen been before, so even that wasn’t unprecedented. What made this so surprisingly dark was as Wolverine was killing his son, he thought of all the good times he missed with Daken. The ending took a typical X-Force story and dialed it up to eleven with the darkness and heartbreak.

1 X-Men: Mutant Genesis

By Chris Claremont, Jim Lee, Scott Williams, Joe Rosas, Tom Orzechowski

The ’90s were the X-Men’s decade, with the departure of Chris Claremont changing the book’s forever. Claremont’s last story was a Magneto blockbuster that took place in X-Men (Vol. 2) #1-3, collected as X-Men: Mutant Genesis. The story saw Magneto form the Acolytes and discover that Moira MacTaggert had literally changed his mind when he was de-aged into a child. Magneto captured Xavier, Moira, and the Blue Team, forcing Moira to use her mind changing method on the X-Men.

The story ended with a showdown between the Blue and Gold team, but Moira’s conditioning broke down once they used their powers. Everyone learned that Acolyte Fabian Cortez betrayed Magneto and S.H.I.E.L.D. was about to destroy Asteroid M because of him. The X-Men escaped, with Magneto and the Acolytes staying behind. Magneto and his followers basically committed suicide, something that fans were not expecting.