10 Obscure Comics Secrets That Took Years To Discover
8. The Mystery Of Charles Francis Xavier
Time To Discover: Dec '17 - Jan '20
In 2017, a new version of Professor Charles Xavier was introduced following his death in the "Avengers vs. X-Men" event. When that happened, Xavier's mind survived his body's destruction, and he spent the equivalent of 1,000 years trapped on the Astral Plane, where he fought against the Shadow King the entire time.
When he was resurrected, he was far more enigmatic than he ever was before, which was compounded by the fact that he never removed his Cerebro helmet. This obscured his face, and he took on the simpler name of X, but that wasn't all that changed.
X had a dream, but it was different than his previous belief that humans and mutants could live together in harmony. After spending a millennium on the Astral Plane, his ideas took a bit of a turn, and he was colder and more willing to use his psychic powers on his pupils, whom he psychically nudged into supporting him.
The reason he wore the helmet for so long had to do with the fact that his mind was sitting inside the body of Fantomex, and he wasn't willing to share that information with just anyone. Eventually, he orchestrated his own death, knowing that the X-Men could resurrect him.
When he was resurrected, he returned to his own body, and this finally gave him the push he needed to remove the Cerebro helmet, but it took a few years to get from his initial resurrection to that point.