BIOGRAPHY - Page 8
With the X-Men now being in the open, there were some missions deemed too clandestine for them. To have deniability, Xavier also created an underground, where he had special agents doing dirty work for him. When one of those agents, Prudence, was killed during a vital mission, Xavier reluctantly recruited the one woman who could finish that mission – Mystique. With Forge’s help, he found Mystique and forced her into his service, always aware of the fact that she might try to stab him in the back. [Mystique #1-3]
Trying to also open his school to humans, Xavier planned an open day. However, it was ruined 
by the brilliant but disturbed student, Quentin Quire, and his group – the Omega Gang. Claiming to be emulating Magneto, the group took Xavier hostage and protested against the humans. During the riot, there were several deaths, among them one of the Stepford Cuckoos. Feeling that his methods might have failed, Xavier intended to step down as headmaster in favor of Jean Grey. [New X-Men (1st series) #135-138]
However, before the semester was ended, Xorn revealed himself to be a traitor, seemingly Magneto in disguise. In the process, Xavier found out that his spine wasn’t healed, after all. Rather, it had been magnetically influenced by the Nano-Sentinels, which had held it together. Magneto took Xavier prisoner, got rid of the X-Men by sending them to faked emergency missions and wrought terror on New York after destroying Xavier’s mansion. Eventually, the X-Men escaped the traps that awaited them and returned to take the fight to Magneto, several students joining them. Although the fake Magneto was eventually beaten and killed, thousands of lives had been lost that day, including the one of Jean Grey. [New X-Men (1st series) #146-150]
Much to the disgust of several students, especially Wolverine, Xavier accompanied Magneto’s coffin to Genosha to hold his funeral service there. Once on the island, Xavier, Wolverine and 
Polaris got into a heated argument about his and Magneto’s values. Lorna actually defended Magneto’s point of view, though she admitted she wasn’t able to counter each of Xavier’s arguments. Xavier opted to remain behind on Genosha to help rebuild it, leaving his school in the care of others. Before she and Logan left, Lorna erected a symbolic statue, displaying both Magneto and Xavier. [Uncanny X-Men (1st series) (1st series) #442-443]
The coffin actually didn’t hold a corpse, but weapons and gadgets. In his wheelchair, Xavier traveled across Genosha to a small cabin, where he met… Magneto. Apparently, the “Magneto” who had terrorized New York had been an imposter, a fact which Xavier had deduced at some point. For safety reasons, Xavier and Magneto decided to let the world believe the master of magnetism was dead and started to work side by side for once. Along the way, they gathered a motley crew around them. [Excalibur (3rd series) #1-8]
Xavier’s use of Mystique as a secret operative did not last long. She soon began working undercover for the mysterious Quiet Man – actually a merged being of the not so dead agent Prudence and her killer, Steinbeck – who ordered her to kill Xavier as revenge in exchange for Mystique’s freedom. She secretly made her way to Charles’ home on Genosha but, while seemingly threatening Xavier’s life, she actually worked together with Fantomex to fool Prudence and her ally. In the aftermath of her final confrontation with the Quiet Man, she got hold of Xavier and Forge’s tracking equipment, thus gaining her freedom from Xavier. [Mystique #23-24]
Xavier kept busy on Genosha, looking for survivors and trying to merge the rivaling factions there - including the former Morlock leader, Callisto, the Dark Beast, the unwilling Prime Sentinel Karima Shapandar and several Genoshan Mutants - into a group that could work together to rebuild the island. However, he began to become deeply worried about his friend, Magneto, who had grown more erratic after saving his daughter, the powerful but mentally unstable Scarlet Witch, who had inadvertently just laid waste to the Avengers. [Excalibur (3rd series) #9-10]
One of Charles’ many dark secrets came back to haunt him when the sentience in the Danger Room finally managed to break free of its programming. Now in the form of a robotic woman and calling herself Danger, she travelled to Genosha to kill her “father” for the way he had caged her. Xavier was more than a match for her though, catching her off guard and using his telepathy to keep her distracted. Cyclops and his X-Men squad arrived just in time and they managed to defeat her. Afterwards, the bad blood between Charles and Cyclops grew worse when the X-Men realized what he had done to Danger all those years ago. [Astonishing X-Men (3rd series) #7-12]
The situation involving the Scarlet Witch didn’t improve and soon it became apparent she was headed for a complete mental breakdown. Realizing this was greater than what he could decide alone, Charles reluctantly gathered the Avengers and X-Men together to decide her fate. The debate quickly grew intense, with the Avengers naturally leaping to her defense, while the X-Men voicing their concern that the public would turn on all mutants should they learn the combination of her instability and power. When it was decided that everyone should meet with her before coming to a decision, Quicksilver feared the worst and managed to get to her before anyone else did. Through his manipulation, the Scarlet Witch warped reality to protect herself, creating a new world in which mutants reigned supreme, with Magneto as head of the royal family known as the House of M. Charles remained conspicuously absent from this new reality, perhaps because the Scarlet Witch saw him as a threat that could unravel her world. Many of the Earth’s heroes were living out their ideal lives, oblivious to the world that existed before. However, the heroes began to remember their lives from before and soon realized that Wanda was the cause of it all. In the final confrontation, the Witch warped reality back to the way it had been with a slight change to it. Most of the world’s mutants had been depowered in an event which would be called the Decimation, of “M-Day.” [House of M crossover]
