BIOGRAPHY - Page 2
During his travels, Charles Xavier eventually came to a strange town near the Himalayas. The telepath sensed an evil presence in the city and, indeed, all of its inhabitants were under mental hold of the mysterious Lucifer, an alien preparing the invasion of Earth for his people. Charles found the device with which the alien controlled the people’s minds and, after deactivating it, inspired them to openly rebel against their tyrant ruler.
Following Xavier’s lead, the townsfolk chased Lucifer into the heart of his secret complex, a system of hidden caves and tunnels in the nearby mountainside. However, Charles overestimated himself, as his telepathic powers couldn’t cover everything. Too late did he realize that the villain had tricked him, as he caused a cave-in in which Xavier’s legs were crushed. Hinting at some terrible plans for humanity, Lucifer teleported away, as he could no longer make use of this base. [X-Men (1st series) #20]
Charles lay helpless, mentally calling out until his summons for help were answered by an odd, fearless young girl, Tessa, who bandaged his legs and helped him. Though she had never heard of the term before, Xavier immediately sensed that she was a mutant too, one with a computer-like mind. Tessa tried to get Charles to a hospital but, during their journey down the mountains, they happened across a UN relief convoy (incidentally transported by Shaw Industries) attacked by robbers, who raped and killed the UN workers. Tessa exacted revenge on their behalf and killed the men in return, before continuing to drag Xavier back to civilization. [X-Treme X-Men (1st series) #44]
Eventually, Charles was brought to a hospital in India. Utterly dejected, he met the American nurse Amelia Voght, who made cheering him up her pet project. Along the way, she fell in love 
with him and Amelia did her best to help Charles recover. However, the many hours in physical therapy couldn’t change the fact that Xavier could walk no more and was confined to a wheelchair. After Charles was released from hospital, he and Amelia moved into a small apartment in Bombay. For the first weeks, the lovers were happy, but Amelia was irate when she learned he studied mutation, as she secretly was a mutant and was unhappy with it. She feared he was only interested in her to have a guinea pig. However, when Charles revealed himself as a mutant too she calmed down a bit. Together, the couple returned to the United States and moved to his family estate. [Uncanny X-Men (1st series) #309]
Little is known about the next years. During this time, Charles finished his studies, making a name for himself as a geneticist and psychologist, apparently well-known enough that the Greys were referred to him when no other expert could help their catatonic daughter, Jean. Xavier quickly realized that the girl was a telepath, whose powers had been triggered by the shock of her friend dying. Working with Jean, he installed a mental block, as the child was not mature enough to properly deal with that aspect of her powers yet. Instead, Xavier trained her in the use of her other mutant ability, her telekinesis. [Bizarre Adventures #27] Around that time, he also started working with fellow mutation expert, Karl Lykos, as well as Moira MacTaggert again, who had built a mutant research station on Muir Isle.
From his interaction with others like him during his travels, Xavier was aware that, sooner or later, evil mutants would emerge and that his old friend, Magnus, would show up again with a more aggressive stance. Sensing that his old friend was still haunted by his memories of the 
Holocaust, Charles and Amelia confronted him on the grounds of the former death camp, Auschwitz. Not having seen each other in years, the two men realized how much the other had changed. Xavier now a cripple confined to a wheelchair, and Magnus concealing himself in metallic armor and using the codename Magneto. Charles and Amelia tried to talk Magneto out of his planned war on humanity, explaining that his idea of mutant supremacy was not that different from the Nazis’ views. However, Magneto could not be convinced. Instead, he scared Amelia by the sheer power he radiated. [X-Men #minus 1]
Shortly afterwards the public did learn about the existence of mutants, or, as the media labeled it, “the mutant menace.” Charles knew that it was time to act, for the FBI was already investigating several incidents regarding anti-mutant hysteria and panic. In a rather daring 
move, the professor infiltrated the FBI headquarters, using his telepathic powers to deal with anyone in his way. Once he met the agent in charge, Fred Duncan, Xavier further demonstrated his mental abilities and reasoned that the mutants being hunted down might cause them to band together and become the very menace they were feared to be. Having convinced Duncan of his dream of peaceful coexistence, Charles proposed an alliance. While the FBI would supply him with some info on potential mutants, Xavier would send him regular reports about the progress he made with his school. [backstory in X-Men (1st series) #38]
Following the FBI leads, Xavier collected Scott Summers, a troubled youth forced into criminal life by his “mentor,” Jack o’ Diamonds, and turned him into his first X-Man. The X in the team’s name did not stand for Xavier, as one might think, but for the genetic X-factor in their genes that 
gave mutants their powers. Having found a new ally, however, Charles lost an old one. The night Scott moved into the mansion, Amelia decided to leave Charles, as she was still convinced that mutants’ only chance was in lying low. All the time she had hoped that her lover would change his view but, with him gathering students and beginning to train them at the mansion, she knew it was a lost cause. For one moment, Xavier tried to mentally force her to stay but then, ashamed, let her go. [backstories in X-Men (1st series) #39-42; Uncanny X-Men (1st series) #309]
In the weeks that followed, Charles recruited more mutants: the troubled teen, Robert Drake, the brilliant and young Hank McCoy and millionaire’s son, Warren Worthington III, who had 
already started making a name for himself as the Avenging Angel. Eventually, Xavier also decided to include Jean Grey in the line-up, though for reasons his own the professor did not reveal that he had already been tutoring the young redhead for a couple of years. [backstories in X-Men (1st series) #46, 56, 53; X-Men (1st series) #1]
Although the X-Men would only learn of her existence much later, Xavier discussed all of his candidates for recruitment with his friend, Moira MacTaggert, including those that didn’t make the cut. The twins Wanda and Pietro Maximoff had rejected Charles’ offer a few months ago and, in the meantime, had become indebted to Magneto and seemed lost to Xavier’s cause. Other mutants, he did not even contact - Piotr Rasputin and Kurt Wagner - because they were too young to enroll at the school yet and, for Ororo Munroe, the cultural transition might have been too severe. Eventually, the girl who had saved him in the Hindukush, Tessa, looked him up. For still unrevealed reasons, Xavier secretly trained her in her mutant powers apart from the X-Men, and turned her into a spy on up-and-coming industrialist billionaire, Sebastian Shaw. [Professor Xavier and the X-Men #4, Uncanny X-Men (1st series) #300, X-Treme X-Men (1st series) #3, 9]