X-Men: The End is a series of comics produced by Marvel Comics, depicting a hypothetical final adventure for the titular X-Men, written by uber-X-Men writer Chris Claremont, with Sean Chen on art.
Unlike most of Marvel's other The End instalments, which are either a one-shot or a miniseries, the X-Men get three miniseries dedicated to their exploits, which are labelled:
- Vol 1: Dreamers & Demons (August - December 2004)
- Vol 2: Heroes & Martyrs (March - August 2005)
- Vol 3: Men & X-Men (January - June 2006)
Some twenty years into the future, and the X-Men are shocked when one of their own thought long dead returns. And that person is none other than Jean Grey. But the shock of this surprise is soon followed when their many adversaries decide that now, once and for all, they are going to bring an end to the X-Men.
Also, a few years later, there were two follow-up series called GeNext and GeNext: United which focus on the exploits of some of the children of the X-Men introduced in this series.
Tropes found in these series include:
- Actually a Doombot: Vol 1. ends with the X-Mansion being attacked by Madelyne Pryor, Stryfe and Genesis, all seemingly Back from the Dead. Stryfe and Genesis are actually Warskrulls, but Maddie's the real deal.
- Ad Hominem: Kitty and Alice Tremaine's first televised debate begins with Alice openly, on air, calling Kitty a monster.
- All Your Base Are Belong to Us: A sort-of running gag in the original Claremont days was the X-Mansion getting trashed. Kitty's narration notes it's a lot less funny when the campus is full of children panicking their heads off or just getting killed.
- Ambiguously Gay: One last time with Claremont.
- Of all the X-Men she can use her powers to reach out to, Dani Moonstar can only contact Wolfsbane, via The Power of Love.
- Nothing is ever explicitly said, but Rachel Grey's illusion when trapped by the Mastermind sisters is playing pirate in skimpy outfits with Kitty.
- Art Shift: Rogue starts flatlining from stress and injuries. Beast and Cecilia Reyes try to provide medical aid, as Cecilia wonders why Rogue is smiling. We see things from her perspective, and it's because everything's gone all chibi.
- Asskicking Leads to Leadership: An Older and Wiser Kitty Pryde (not the best ass-kicker in the X-Men, but still a good one) becomes President of the United States.
- Babies Ever After: Of the X-Men who live to the end of the final volume, most of them are shown to be married and with kids in the future.
- Back for the Dead: Cerise, a character from Alan Davies' run on Excalibur, reappears in the first volume... and is then killed.
- Back from the Dead: The whole story begins with Jean coming back from her last death, back in New X-Men.
- Big Bad Ensemble: It's a pile-up of which X-Villain is behind everyone's woes. There's Sinister, the Brood, Khan, Lilandra, and then Cassandra Nova serving as the Final Boss.
- Big Bad Wannabe: Khan is the one who organized the attack on the X-Men at the end of vol 1, but when Gambit finally confronts him, Khan goes down in a few pages.
- Big Guy Fatality Syndrome: Juggernaut is at ground-zero for the explosion that destroys the X-Mansion.
- Boom, Headshot!:
- Aliyah deals with the Brood Queen that's taken over her mom by blowing its head up with the Starjammer's guns.
- Dazzler blows a hole through Cassandra Nova's head in the final fight. But it doesn't really do much.
- Bowdlerization: Kitty's narration has her cite the time she dropped the N-word in God Loves, Man Kills, but leaves out Kitty using the word again (which apart from real life reasons might be because she's a sitting president giving an address).
- Cain and Abel: Lilandra and Deathbird. Only this time the positions are reversed. Lilandra, or Cassandra Nova controlling her, has Deathbird turned into a Brood Queen.
- Came Back Strong: Weapon X fatally gas Dani, but this just allows her to come back as a Valkyrie. Asskicking ensues.
- Cloning Gambit: It's revealed that Sinister once created a clone from his original, baseline human DNA as part of a plan to take down Apocalypse (he needed a body without Apocalypse's genetic meddling). He spliced in some DNA from Cyclops, believing that the Summers genes would ensure awesome superpowers. He was right; the clone would grow up to be, ironically enough, Gambit.
- Creepy Child: Lilandra's son, which turns out to be because Cassandra Nova's in the driver's seat.
- Dead Guy Junior: Goes around.
- Scott and Emma named one of their children after Havok, long dead in this timeline.
- Nightcrawler and Kymri named one of their children Cerise.
- Doppelmerger: It is revealed that Madelyne Pryor isn't just a clone of Jean Grey, but also the aspect of Jean that truly loved Scott, and her no longer being part of Jean is why her and Scott's marriage failed. Madelyene transforms into energy and fuses with Jean, resurrecting her yet again.
- Dressed Like a Dominatrix: An old Claremont favorite, and this time it's done to Nocturne after she was made a Hound.
- Dropped a Bridge on Him: Not everyone gets a stirring death in the limelight. And somewhat suspiciously, a lot of characters Claremont didn't create have it happen to them.
- Siryn and Multiple Man were enslaved years ago by the interdimensional slavers, and killed in the opening issue.
- Irene Merriweather turns out to have been the host of Apocalypse all along, somehow. Then Apocalypse himself is easily defeated and killed by Khan's goons.
- Boom-Boom gets eaten by Divinity and then blasted by Apocalypse.
- Shatterstar and Warpath are turned into Technarx.
- Carter Ghazikhian, supposedly a powerful Reality Warper, is too traumatized to fight the Warskrulls when they attack the mansion, and killed in one shot.
- What's left of X-Force - Domino, Feral and Rictor - are ambushed and easily killed by Warskrulls.
- After being a main character through the story, Carol Danvers is fried by an EM pulse during vol 3.
- Drowning Their Sorrows: Scott, in vol 2, as he goes over the casualty lists and informs parents about their kids being dead.
- Earn Your Happy Ending: For most of the X-Men, at least the ones who survive.
- Face–Heel Turn:
- In the backstory, Sage went a little nuts and started data-mining people using Malice. As the story begins, the X-Men are hunting her.
- Initially seems to be the case with Lilandra, who over the years has become a psychotically evil ruler. It turns out she's been possessed by Cassandra Nova the whole time.
- Faking the Dead: In vol 3, Psylocke pretends to have been killed by the Brood, which allows her to get the drop on Cassandra Nova at the climax.
- Five-Second Foreshadowing: During the fight with Sinister, Rogue appears wearing black, despite having switched costumes with Emma Frost earlier. Because it's actually Mystique.
- Forced Transformation: Shakti tries turning Monet into Penance, which backfires a little since Rachel just throws Penance at her with her telekinesis. And Penance has razor-sharp hair. No more Shakti.
- Fully Absorbed Finale: While obviously one for the X-Men in general, Claremont takes specific time to wrap up threads he begun in X-Treme X-Men (2001) and Mekanix.
- Gainax Ending: After seventeen issues of wrapping up forty years' worth of loose ends and providing a conclusive ending to the story of the X-Men in a big battle royale, the series randomly ends with several X-Men gaining godhood without any forewarning. Oh, and Kitty Pryde becoming President of the US and giving a speech to the surviving X-Men, but that one was foreshadowed, with her narration having been present from the start.
- Generation Xerox: The Colossus in this series is not Piotr Rasputin, who when the series began was still dead from his Heroic Sacrifice in "Dream's End", but rather his son from the Savage Land, Peter. But he looks exactly like his old man, and never displays any real difference personality wise (Genext would in fact go on to show he is also like Piotr in terms of personality).
- Grand Finale: A hypothetical one for the X-Men.
- Heel–Face Turn:
- Vargas and Frenzy, formerly enemies of the X-Men, have become either allies or full-fledged members.
- Crucially by Pryor, after Cyclops fully apologizes for wronging her.
- At the end, it's shown Alice Tremaine eventually got over her Fantastic Racism and becomes an ally to Kitty.
- Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: Favorite tactic of the Warskulls; use their shapeshifting to turn their arms into blades, then run people through.
- Insult Backfire: Emma calls Rogue a "river rat", but Rogue takes it in stride.
- Kill and Replace:
- The Warskrulls do this to several people, including Prodigy and Banshee.
- Madelyne tries doing this with Dust, but Cyclops reveals at the conclusion he'd known it was her all along.
- Kudzu Plot: Actually quite good by Claremont's standards. Nearly all the plot threads brought up in it get a satisfactory conclusion, save for one in the first volume about Mutants suddenly losing their powers, which is forgotten right after it's brought up.
- Lotus-Eater Machine:
- Carter Ghazikhian uses his powers to pretend he's still a child living with Havok and his mother. The X-Men let him do this.
- Sinister tries trapping the X-Men who come after him in one, made by the two Ladies Mastermind using their powers in tandem, but it doesn't take. For whatever reason, Wolverine's keeps spoiling, allowing him to bust out.
- Luke, I Am Your Father: Sinister is Gambit's father, having created him via cloning, before Apocalypse had the Thieves Guild steal him.
- Luke, You Are My Father: In vol 3, Bishop and Aliyah finally meet, and Aliyah reveals he's her dad.
- The Man Behind the Man: Sinister is the one directing Weapon X.
- Mind Rape: Once she reveals herself, Cassandra takes a lot of glee in doing this to Charles.
- Narrating the Obvious: It's Claremont, so there are a few instances of characters describing what they're doing as they're doing it here and there.
- Neck Snap: Happens to a lot of Warskrulls by Dust, who has never before demonstrated the necessary physical strength to do so, and later on, Dust also does it to one of the Shi'ar Imperial Guard, when each are lunging at Cyclops because it isn't Dust but Pryor.
- No Name Given: The Director of Weapon X is just called "Director". Since she turns out to be a clone made by Sinister, she probably really doesn't have a name.
- Noodle Incident:
- Whatever it was that caused the deaths of Havok and Annie. The only thing we know is Scott blames himself for it.
- How Madelyne Pryor joined with the Warskrulls is never explained.
- Off with His Head!: In vol 3, Cyclops shoots off Professor Xavier's head when he's possessed by Cassandra Nova. He doesn't like doing it, but the threat is just too severe to risk it. Sadly, Cassandra's boost in power means this doesn't slow her down.
- Our Presidents Are Different: The series ends with the reveal that humans and mutants have finally achieved a peaceful coexistence under President Kitty Pryde (covering President Action, President Personable and President Minority).
- Outrun the Fireball: Vol 1 ends with the X-Mansion going up in a massive fireball that apparently can be seen from Washington (remember, they're in New York), with Northstar carrying Cyclops. Vol 2 reveals that Northstar didn't quite make it.
- Poirot Speak: Dust, or far more accurately, Madelyne pretending to be her, starts peppering her speech with the occasional "sidi", despite never having done this before.
- President Superhero: The epilogue reveals that Kitty Pryde has eventually become President of the United States.
- Quirky Miniboss Squad: Shakti, Technarx, Divinity and Shaitan for Sinister.
- Replacement Goldfish: After killing Rogue, Sinister tries begging for his life with Mystique by offering to clone a new one. Raven refuses, and kills him.
- Retired Badass: Wolverine and Storm at the story's beginning. Storm because she can no longer use her powers without harming herself, and Logan's looking after her.
- Screw This, I'm Out of Here!: In the backstory, Hank quit the X-Men when Vargas reformed, refusing to have anything to do with a man who nearly killed him, and did kill Psylocke.
- Superman Stays Out of Gotham: Par for the course with X-Men, but there's not even a mention of other superheroes, even after the X-Mansion is reduced to a miles wide crater.
- The Unfettered: Facing the Technarx assimilated Warpath and Shatterstar, Wolverine sends X-23. Partly because touching a Technarx is a potential death-sentence, but also because anyone else might hesitate. Laura does not.
- Villains Want Mercy: The Director of Neverland begs Dani to spare her. Dani points out she never showed her captives any mercy, and kills her.
- Your Mind Makes It Real: Jean winds up in Logan's illusion, but notes the psychic link is draining her energy and if she dies there, she dies for real.
