X-Men: The On-Screen Deaths of Patrick Stewart as Professor X, Ranked

Professor Charles Xavier is back! The third teaser for Avengers: Doomsday shows Patrick Stewart in his Professor X digs once again, sitting in the Xavier Mansion alongside his old frenemy Magneto, once again portrayed by Ian McKellan. While the teaser boasts the return of the cast of the 2000s X-Men movies, including James Marsden as Cyclops in blue and yellow spandex, that return comes in a movie about the end of the Marvel Multiverse. Which means that Professor X is likely not long for this world.

Xavier’s demise won’t come as a surprise, and not just because of Doomsday‘s apocalyptic stakes. After all, not only have we seen Professor X die on screen multiple times before, but we’ve seen Professor X as played by Patrick Stewart come to an end in three different movies. (Yes, just three movies; the past changes right before he gets cooked by a Sentinel inX-Men: Days of Future Past, so that doesn’t count). So before we get to watch Stewart’s latest take on Xavier’s final moments, let’s rank his previous three death rattles.

3. Explosive Retribution in X-Men: The Last Stand (2006)

Although he started out as a completely benevolent figure in the 1960s, by the comics of the early 1980s, Charles Xavier had become a more morally ambiguous character. Most of the time, he’s a kindhearted teacher who dreams of peace between humans and mutants. But he’s not above manipulation, threats, and outright villainy (see: X-Men: Deadly Genesis).

During the production of the third movie X-Men: The Last Stand, the franchise was dealing with its own bad guys, going from Bryan Singer for Brett Ratner as director. Whether its due to a change of person in charge or a bad script or the inability of a movie to properly adapt the Dark Phoenix Saga, The Last Stand failed at everything, including exploring Xavier’s feet of clay. The movie reveals that Xavier knew about Jean Grey’s incredible potential and, fearing that she couldn’t control it, put a mental block on her. When her death and resurrection removes the block, Jean proves Xavier right immediately by killing both Cyclops and Professor X.

On paper, it makes tragic sense to have Xavier die by the very threat he hoped to avoid. In execution, Xavier’s execution falls flat. Jean’s Phoenix powers mostly manifest in lots of wind, which lift Xavier into the air. And then there’s the utterly absurd decision to have Xavier flash a happy smile at Logan right before he dies, because this is an X-Men movie from the 2000s and everything has to be about Wolverine.

Anyway, Xavier explodes and dies. At least until the post-credit scene, in which Charles apparently has taken over the body of a coma patient to visit his old squeeze Moria MacTaggert, which is pretty villainous behavior.

2. A Head-Turner in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022)

Speaking of heroes who become villains: Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness! Instead of the Dark Phoenix Saga, the Doctor Strange sequel adapts a different Marvel Comic co-created by John Byrne in which a woman gets too much power and therefore is evil. This time, it’s Wanda Maximoff, who apparently disregarded everything Monica Rambeau told her about not being evil at the end of WandaVision and embraced the Darkhold. Using the Darkhold to travel the Multiverse and find her kids, Wanda poses a threat to all realities, which gets the attention of not just Doctor Stephen Strange, but also the Illuminati of Earth-838, including Charles Xavier.

While the Illuminati’s powerhouses such as Black Bolt and Captain Marvel threaten force if Wanda doesn’t stand down, Xavier tries a more sympathetic approach. He enters Wanda’s mind to find her true self inside, the decent mother that is Wanda of Earth-838 and who is held hostage by the corrupted Wanda of Earth-616. His method proves unsuccessful. While still trying to contact 838 Wanda, the corporeal 616 Wanda jumps out of red smoke and snaps the neck of Charles.

There are a lot of reasons to hate this scene, especially if you loved WandaVision and resent the way Multiverse of Madness through that development out the window. But there’s one really, really good reason to love the scene, and that’s Sam Raimi. Raimi shoots Wanda’s Illuminati rampage like one of his Evil Dead films, complete the same gleeful, Three Stooges-inspired horror that make those movies so wonderful.

Xavier’s death in Doctor Strange 2 plays like a slapstick gag, utterly devoid of dignity but full of irreverent fun.

1. Death With Dignity in Logan (2017)

Nothing can diminish the power of Stewart’s work in Logan, not Sam Raimi’s irreverence, not Deadpool desecrating Logan’s literal corpse, not even the constraints of the superhero genre. For that reason, Xavier’s slow and moving decline in that movie remains his best death, in any medium.

Director James Mangold and his co-writers Scott Frank and Michael Green strip out most of the edgelord nonsense that marred Mark Millar and Steve McNiven’s Old Man Logan comic book to emphasize the pathos within. While Wolverine has it bad, with his adamantium skeleton poisoning him as his healing factor fades, Xavier has it worse. The professor is in the throes of dementia like any other person, but he still has his incredible psychic abilities, making him effectively a walking psy-bomb.

Patrick Stewart gives one of his best performances as the dying Xavier, believably playing not just the anger and resentment he feels when his dying brain leaves him confused, but also the sadness of his actions and the hope he has in Logan, his one surviving pupil.

Stewart conveys all the complexity of his character in Xavier’s final scene, a long confession and declaration of peace after he wakes from one last good night’s sleep. It’s so moving that we almost forgive for Mangold for ending the monologue with a superhero twist, as it’s revealed that the man to whom he’s been confessing is not Logan but an evil clone.

The clone kills Xavier, X-23 attacks and we get a big fight scene because this is, after all, a superhero movie. But the actual confession and death is so moving that nothing can ruin it—not a clone fight, not a Deadpool 3, and certainly not Avengers: Doomsday.

Avengers: Doomsday will kill Professor X again on December 18, 2026.