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X Men Film Series / Tropes P to S

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Tropes beginning with the letters P to S for the X-Men Film Series.

  • Pacifist: Professor X is a conditional pacifist. He abhors violence and avoids it as much as possible (by his own admission, he isn't very good at it), but he recognizes that there are circumstances when it must be utilized to defend people's lives and his ideals. Xavier has proactively engaged in aggressive behaviour only thrice. In X-Men: First Class, he tackles Magneto to distract the latter from slaughtering the American and Soviet fleets with their own missiles. In X-Men: Days of Future Past, Charles punches Erik in the face for betraying, abandoning and crippling him 11 years prior—note that the use of force in this case stems purely from a personal grudge, and it doesn't help Xavier's mission in any way. In X-Men: Apocalypse, he instigates a Battle in the Center of the Mind against the eponymous villain to save Mystique and Quicksilver, whom Apocalypse had threatened to murder. Earlier in the movie, Hank mentions that the Professor had turned down his request to restart the X-Men, and Raven remarks that "Charles wants students, not soldiers," but after their confrontation with Apocalypse, Xavier accepts that it's no longer sufficient for him to simply be a teacher. He retakes his position as the commander of his paramilitary group and ensures that his protégés will be combat-ready for the next big threat.
  • Palette Swap:
    • Magneto always had some red and/or purple colour on his outfit, but in 2023, his uniform is completely black and grey, signifying that he's now part of the X-Men.
    • X-Men: Days of Future Past costume designer Louise Mingenbach described Past Xavier's switch from his brown-and-pink casual wear to his more formal blues and greys that is typically associated with the character in the other movies.
      "At the beginning of the film, Charles is medicating, and very possibly on hallucinogens, so we had that come through in his shirt. As he pulls himself together, he wears a nice blue oxford like all good, put-together men—a progression from that psychedelic Cat Stevens-wear."
  • Parental Abandonment:
  • Parental Favoritism: Downplayed with Professor X since he never neglects any of his students whether as a teacher or as a Parental Substitute, but he is closer to those who are Birds of a Feather, like Hank in X-Men: First Class and Jean in X-Men: Apocalypse. Hank and Jean do receive a bit more of his time and care.
  • Parental Neglect:
    • X-Men: First Class: Charles' mother is hinted to be emotionally distant towards her son, which is why Raven's maternal act backfires spectacularly.
      Charles: (telepathically communicates to Raven disguised as Mrs. Xavier) My mother has never set foot in this kitchen in her life, and she certainly never made me hot chocolate, unless you count ordering the maid to do it.
    • X-Men: Apocalypse: Ben Hardy suggests that a lack of parental nurturing is a major factor in Warren turning to the dark side.
      "People who don't get looked after enough can end up being very angry and I feel like this is where Angel's anger comes from and maybe that gives him the potential to transform and become one of the villains."
  • Parental Substitute:
    • Charles Xavier plays this role to all of the X-Men, but it's most notable in X-Men: First Class with a young Hank and the teenaged Alex and Sean, all of whom remain loyal to him before and after Cuba. The mere mention of Sean's death in X-Men: Days of Future Past makes Charles visibly distraught, which is in direct contrast to all of the other names that Erik throws at him. Being a father figure to Jean is explored in more detail in X-Men: Apocalypse, and Quicksilver decides to stay with the Professor instead of getting to know his estranged father.
    • There is one exception. In X-Men: Days of Future Past, Charles claims he had raised Raven, and Erik corrects him—they grew up together. He is not her father. This ties into the end of the film, when he stops trying to control her and lets her make her own choice.
    • Downplayed in the scene where 1973 Xavier interacts with Peter Maximoff before the former departs for Paris. Charles instinctually behaves in a paternal manner when he's around a young mutant, especially one who doesn't have much of a direction in his life (in Quicksilver's case, he's a juvenile delinquent who grew up without a father). Peter's smile at the end indicates that he appreciates the sentiment.
    • X-Men:
      • Wolverine promises that he'll take of Rogue.
      • Scott Summers invokes this while Professor X is in a coma.
        "You taught me everything in my life that was ever worth knowing."
    • The Wolverine: Ichirō Yashida for Mariko, as Shingen, her actual parent, is not a nice man.
    • X-Men: Apocalypse:
      • McCoy is a teacher at the school, and he has a paternal relationship with the younger mutants. He begins to form a bond with Scott.
      • Apocalypse serves this role to his Horsemen. He also invokes this trope when he asserts that "You are all my children, and you're lost because you follow blind leaders." He also tends to call mutants "my child."
  • Past Experience Nightmare:
    • Wolverine is shown to have some nasty nightmares about his experience with Weapon X. They're so terrifying that he wakes up and stabs whatever's in front of him. Or whoever, unfortunately for Rogue and Kitty Pryde.
    • The Wolverine: Logan suffers chronic nightmares of Jean Grey, his Lost Lenore who he previously was forced to kill.
  • Patrick Stewart Speech:
    • Given who plays Professor X, not surprising. Given who he is, also not surprising. Xavier's core message requires having such a speech at hand and ready to give at a moment's notice (as true here as it was in the source material). The capacity to give such a speech is the only thing that he and Magneto are feuding over.
    • In X-Men: First Class, where he is played by James McAvoy, he gives such a speech to Erik Lehnsherr. During their chess game, he attempts to convince Erik that human beings are capable of great understanding, and that mutants should be patient, as "we have it in us to be the better men." Erik skeptically replies, "We already are."
    • An even more epic example occurs in X-Men: Days of Future Past, where his older self gives one to his younger self, convincing the latter to "hope again," and that despite what happens (or in 1973 Xavier's case, will happen) to mutants, humanity can still be shown "a better path."
  • People Puppets:
    • X-Men: Professor X briefly takes control of Toad and Sabretooth and attempts to rescue Rogue from Magneto.
    • X2: X-Men United:
      • Professor X freezes hundreds of people in a large museum.
      • During the finale, Jean Grey is able to use Xavier (a fellow psychic) as a conduit to communicate with Scott.
    • X-Men: First Class:
      • Charles immobilizes everyone except for Moira at the CIA Headquarters so that he can have a private telepathic conversation with her.
      • Xavier mentally forces a Soviet officer to fire on the Aral Sea, thus single-handedly preventing World War III.
      • Once Erik removes Shaw's telepathy-blocking helmet, Charles keeps Sebastian motionless.
    • The Wolverine: In The Stinger, Logan notices that everyone at the airport besides himself and Magneto has suddenly stopped dead in their tracks. Only one mutant in the franchise has been shown to possess this ability...
    • X-Men: Days of Future Past: Xavier possesses various people around Mystique at the airport to talk to her in a casual display of how creepy his power can be when he gets creative. He temporarily prevents Mystique's body from moving once he determines that she's pretending to be a secret service agent, although he still permits her to speak. President Nixon, his cabinet and Trask are put on "pause" when Charles tells Raven he won't push her anymore and that she's free to decide Trask's fate. After the climax, he also controls Magneto when Mystique knocks the latter's helmet off to free himself from the metal debris that fell on him earlier.
    • X-Men: Apocalypse: Professor X "insists" with his mind-control abilities that everyone at the CIA building "take a break" so that he and Havok can visit Agent MacTaggert without having to deal with security.
  • Period Piece:
    • The Cold War is the setting for the First Class trilogy. First Class dealt with the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, the 1973 portion of Days of Future Past included the Paris Peace Accords (which marked the end of the The Vietnam War), and Apocalypse takes place 1983.
    • There is some uncertainty over the timeline for X-Men Origins: Wolverine, but it's somewhere around The '70s and/or The '80s.
  • Perma-Stubble:
    • X-Men: Days of Future Past:
      • Hank has light stubble throughout the movie which is meant to make him look older than his clean-shaven appearance in First Class.
      • Sunspot sports a 5 o'clock shadow.
    • X-Men: Apocalypse: Charles has faint stubble instead of being clean-shaven (which is his regular look in the franchise), and at first, it seems to convey to the audience that he hasn't fully reclaimed his heroic Professor X identity. He's a relaxed, content principal, teacher, and low-key mutant activist, not a commander of a paramilitary group like in X-Men: First Class. However, once he decides that it's necessary for him to step up his role as a leader of mutants, he still keeps the extra facial hair—this illustrates that James McAvoy's character is "rougher-around-the-edges" than Patrick Stewart's in the original timeline. Xavier's stubble is also a Shout-Out to Detective James "Sonny" Crockett from Miami Vice.note 
  • Person of Mass Destruction:
  • Playing with Fire:
    • Pyro can't generate fire, but is immune to it and can direct and grow any nearby fire. As such, he uses a lighter to create it when he needs to in the first two movies, and he gets a wrist mounted flamethrower in the third.
    • X-Men: Days of Future Past: Sunspot's mutant ability consists of converting the sun's energy into bursts of flame that he can aim at his enemies.
    • X-Men: Apocalypse: The Ancient Egyptian Famine's mutant power is pyrokinesis. It's very much like Pyro's in that she only seems capable of manipulating already existent fire instead of being able to create it.
  • Plucky Comic Relief:
    • Nightcrawler provides some of the more amusing moments in X2: X-Men United and X-Men: Apocalypse.
    • Banshee is the most fun character in X-Men: First Class.
    • Quicksilver is a source of comedy in X-Men: Days of Future Past and X-Men: Apocalypse.
    • As referenced by the opening credits of Deadpool (2016), Weasel's narrative purpose is comedy.
    • Downplayed with Professor X in X-Men: Apocalypse because he's predominantly a dramatic character, but writer Simon Kinberg reveals in his commentary that Charles was deliberately used to lighten up the mood of the first act.
      Kinberg: I tried to get a lot of humour into the movie whenever it was appropriate, and James [McAvoy] is a really good comedic actor, so there was a lot of good Xavier moments.
  • P.O.V. Cam:
    • X-Men: Apocalypse:
      • We get a glimpse of what the world looks like through the ruby quartz lenses of Scott's sunglasses when he puts them on for the first time.
      • After Apocalypse notices Xavier's presence through the latter's telepathic link with Erik, Apocalypse stares straight at the camera (so we're seeing him through the Professor's perspective) with his glowing white eyes as he ominously states, "Thank you for letting me in."
  • Powered by a Forsaken Child:
    • X-Men has the machine that turns ordinary people into mutants powered by Magneto, but using it weakens the power source (likely killing him if he uses it on full power), so he forcibly has the power-stealing mutant Rogue absorb his ability and uses her to power the machine.
    • X2: X-Men United: Stryker's mind-control serum is derived from chemicals secreted by the brain of his own son, Jason. Although still alive and still capable of using his impressive powers of illusion, Jason's been given a lobotomy to make him more pliable and is confined to a wheelchair, complete with a shunt in the back of his head used for collecting the fluid.
    • X-Men: The Last Stand: The mutant cure is distilled from Leech's blood, although the scientists hope to eventually artificially synthesize it. Unlike other examples, Leech is treated rather well and seems fine with the arrangement.
  • Power Incontinence:
    • X-Men: Rogue can't control her ability at all because she's a Power Parasite who can potentially kill anyone who touches her. She has to wear gloves and can't ever be intimate or close to anyone.
    • X-Men: First Class: Alex Summers can emit powerful energy blasts, but he can't control their direction. This problem is solved by a special harness, which he even refers to as his "energy diaper" in a deleted scene.
    • X-Men: Days of Future Past: Erik nearly crashes the plane when he's yelling at Charles. Xavier subjects himself to a Power Nullifier because he has lost control over his telepathy.
    • X-Men: Apocalypse: Scott Summers can't control his Eye Beams when they start manifesting. He has to be blindfolded until he is brought to the Xavier Institute, otherwise he'll destroy everything (and everyone) around him. There, Hank McCoy creates special filter sunglasses for him, enabling him to control his mutant ability.
  • The Power of Love:
    • X-Men: First Class: When Charles is helping all of the mutants train, the most effective memory to focus Erik's powers is Hanukkah with his mother.
    • X-Men: Apocalypse: If Charles has a secondary mutation, it would be this—he has the ability to "transform" the people around him into better versions of themselves. His unwavering love and support for his daughter figure Jean allows her to overcome her fears about her Phoenix power, and she fries Apocalypse with deadly efficiency, saving the world and the Professor's life in the process. Magneto pulls a Heel–Face Turn when he realizes that his love for Xavier is stronger than his hate towards human society, which has murdered his family twice over. Peter could've easily returned to his mother's basement and continue wasting his potential after the Final Battle (especially considering that he had decided to withhold from Erik that he's his son), but it's implied that Maximoff was touched by Charles' worry for his well-being when Xavier had created a telepathic link between them while Quicksilver was fighting Apocalypse. It should be noted that Charles hadn't spoken to Peter in a decade, but the former's capacity for love is so great that he had opened his mind to a young mutant whom he barely knows, and he sincerely cared about whether Maximoff got hurt or not. The self-described "total loser" Quicksilver is now a member of the X-Men who can make a positive difference in the world.
  • Power Perversion Potential:
    • X-Men: First Class:
      • Xavier uses his telepathy to "guess" the drink orders of the women he flirts with. Executive producer Tarquin Pack lampshades this specific example in the rare "Extraordinary Abilities" featurette. (See the Bonus Material entry.)
        "If I had the ability to read minds, and I was at university, and I could influence people through my mental powers, I would probably also be a bit of a Lothario. (laughs) Who wouldn't be?"
      • Raven jokingly insinuates that Hank's large, ape-like feet might be an indication that he has a massive penis.
      • Emma Frost seduces a Russian general by projecting a mental image of herself so he thinks she's having sex with him, when she's in fact sitting a distance away looking bored.
      • Raven shapeshifts from her teenaged form into a more mature woman (Rebecca Romijn in a cameo) in the belief that Erik would prefer her that way. Magneto is not impressed because he wanted "the real Raven." It took her two tries to realize that he wanted her natural blue form.
    • X-Men: Apocalypse:
      • Charles and Alex discuss this as they're heading towards Moira's office.
        Alex: So you really haven't see her in all these years? You never looked her up? Not even in Cerebro?
        Charles: Alex, what do you take me for, some kind of pervert? Yes, I looked her up once, twice. But not in a long time, alright?
      • Quicksilver's flirtation with Moira in Bullet Time is so brief that she doesn't even know it happened! Peter also employs his Super-Speed in this commercial and attempts to impress a young woman so that he can earn a date with her.
  • Precision F-Strike:
    • X-Men: First Class: During a montage of Charles and Erik finding and recruiting other mutants, their search brings them into a small, dingy bar where Wolverine has no interest in their offer: "Go fuck yourself."
    • The Wolverine: All are spoken by Logan.
      • "Go fuck yourself, pretty boy."
      • The extended cut adds two more: "Too many fucking wars," and "Talk or I'll throw you out that fucking window!"
    • X-Men: Days of Future Past:
      • Charles Xavier, of all people, tells Wolverine to "Fuck off" in a Call-Back to their first encounter.
      • The Rogue Cut has President Nixon grumpily utter, "Fuck me" after watching news footage of the Paris Peace Accords.
    • X-Men: Apocalypse: Magneto has the honour this time around when he comes face-to-face with Apocalypse and his then-three Horsemen. ("Who the fuck are you?")
  • Prematurely Bald: Averted in Professor X's case; the First Class trilogy reveals that he doesn't lose his hair until he's around 50 years old.
  • Pretentious Latin Motto: If you do a Freeze-Frame Bonus on the Xavier coat of arms, located on the tail of Charles' personal plane in X-Men: Days of Future Past, the family motto reads, "Fratrem tuum adjuva," which means "Help your brother." Not only does this fit Professor X's compassionate personality to a tee, but it also suggests that his Old Money ancestors on his father's side were philanthropists. Assisting those who are less fortunate must have been regarded as a sacred duty, as those Latin words supposedly designate what the Xavier family values the most.
  • Pretty Boy: The movie series contains more examples of this trope than one would normally expect for a superhero property (which typically promotes a more traditional ideal of the masculine form). Honest Trailers even poked fun at this by saying that the X-Men franchise starred a lot of twinks.note 
    • Bobby Drake's dainty facial features quickly communicate to the audience that he's a good-hearted person. This is especially true in the first movie, where he was only a minor character, but viewers were able to tell right away that "the cute guy" is sincere when trying to befriend Rogue. Moroever, being forced to abandon his family in the second film is more painful when his expression is very much like a puppy dog who has just been kicked.
    • X-Men: First Class:
      • Appearance-wise, Dr. Charles Xavier is strongly defined by his boyishness: he has a soft, round face, baby blue eyes, cherry-red lips (the colour is so deep at times that it almost looks like he's wearing lipstick), and is of shorter-than-average height. It's symbolic of his sensitive, nice guy qualities. Erik Lehnsherr even calls him "adorable" when Charles tries the Cerebro machine for the first time. With his fair complexion, the young telepath resembles a living porcelain doll, and his fragility becomes evident when he "breaks" physically and emotionally during the climax.
      • Dr. Hank McCoy is quite similar to Xavier (just younger and a lot more insecure), and while this may be a coincidence, it's nevertheless convenient that he shares some facial features with his mentor, like pale skin, blue eyes and thick reddish lips. The one big physical difference between them is that Hank is a lot taller.
    • The Wolverine: Wolverine invokes this when he confronts Harada, presumably as an attempt to deride the latter's masculinity. Harada has an elegant face, a slim build, and is an agile ninja, in contrast to the macho bruiser Logan.
    • X-Men: Days of Future Past: Peter Maximoff is baby-faced with reddish lips and cute in an impish way. It's a visual cue to the audience that he's an immature prankster who doesn't take life seriously.
    • X-Men: Apocalypse:
      • Professor X is around 50 years old, yet before he loses his hair, he's still gorgeous and youthful-looking for his age (he can pass for a man in his early 30s)—in fact, he doesn't appear all that different from his graduate student days in First Class. This alludes to him embracing his former naïvety again, and it makes him look much more helpless and vulnerable when he becomes Apocalypse's prisoner. Being boyishly beautiful also emphasizes Charles' status as a victim when he's Mind Raped by Apocalypse, which is a metaphor for sexual assault. Because Beauty Equals Goodness for James McAvoy's Xavier, maintaining his dainty appearance even when he's being viciously battered, bloodied and bruised on the astral plane connotes that he's a person with a tenderhearted soul who's dying.
      • Repeating a theme from First Class is Hank being a mirror image of Charles with a few key differences. McCoy remains pretty and boyish in a similar way to Xavier, but despite being a decade younger, he is much more cautious and realistic than his ex-mentor, and he makes plans to ensure that the X-Men have everything they need when (and not if) the peace between mutants and humans is shattered.
      • Warren Worthington III is beautiful, and it's meant to be ironic that an angelic-looking youth is actually quite ruthless and deadly.
      • Although Nightcrawler falls more on the "cute" side, he is extremely attractive with his elfin features (particularly larger, more prominent ears) which are further enhanced by his adolescent development. They reflect his dorky personality, and even with the scars on his face, the impression Kurt Wagner leaves on viewers is that he's a lovely blue elf rather than a freaky blue demon.
      • Quicksilver is affirmed to be Magneto's son, so Peter's softer, delicate features juxtapose his father's Villainous Cheekbones. Quicksilver fights for the heroic team, and Magneto sides with the Big Bad. Maximoff's puckish looks also mark him as a Manchild and a Basement-Dweller. During his confrontation with Apocalypse, Quicksilver moves gracefully as a Fragile Speedster, and once Apocalypse takes away his Super-Speed advantage, Peter is wholly defenseless. Because Maximoff's face exudes an aura of innocence, it evokes the imagery of a "lamb to the slaughter" when Apocalypse offers his bare neck to Psylocke for execution.
  • The Professor: Dr. Charles Xavier earned his "Professor of Genetics" title from the University of Oxford. Even before he became a paraplegic, he was considerably less action-oriented than the other mutants on his team, and is often protected by a combatant (e.g. Cyclops, Beast, Havok). Professor X serves as the Team Dad for the X-Men.
  • Progressively Prettier:
    • When Wolverine was first introduced to the X-Men comics, he was about 5'3" and quite unattractive. After Tall, Dark, and Handsome Hugh Jackman became famous for portraying the character in the films, people seem to forget that one of Wolverine's old nicknames was "dog face."
    • Professor X in the comics is a middle-aged bald guy who is average-looking at best with no striking physical features (and considering that he's usually drawn with a severe facial expression, he could be deemed slightly below average). Patrick Stewart, who's widely renowned as being handsome for an older bald man, was in his late 50s when he was cast as the elderly version of the character in the first movie adaptation (Xavier is in his early-to-mid 70s in the original trilogy). The younger Charles became a sex symbol within the film fandom after X-Men: First Class, which starred James McAvoy, a Pretty Boy extraordinaire, and the studio had dictated that the actor conserve his thick, wavy tresses for the role. The filmmakers of X-Men: Apocalypse then surpassed this by making Professor X an extremely young-looking 50-year-oldnote  Long-Haired Pretty Boy who's glamorous like an '80s fashion model, plus he was lightly objectified for the first time in the movie franchise with a white shirt that had semi-transparent "stripes," and a thin lilac sweater that didn't exactly mask the contour of his pectoral muscles (or even his nipples, for that matter). The younger fangirls who weren't familiar with the comics and/or Stewart's performance genuinely became upset when McAvoy's Xavier lost all of his hair in the third act.
  • The Promise:
    • X-Men: Wolverine keeps his vow to Rogue by nearly dying trying to save her life in the climax.
      Logan: I'll take care of you.
      Rogue: You promise?
      Logan: Yeah, I promise.
    • X-Men: First Class: Charles managed to uphold his promise not to use his telepathy on Raven for 18 years until the shock and pain of a bullet in his spine became too much for him to bear, compromising his concentration.
      Raven: You promised me you would never read my mind.
      Charles: I know. I promised you a great many things, I'm afraid. I'm sorry.
    • X-Men: Days of Future Past: Wolverine requests that the younger Xavier form the X-Men regardless of the outcome of their mission.
      Logan: Whatever happens today, I need you to promise me something. [...] The X-Men, promise me you'll find us. Use your power, bring us together. Guide us, lead us. [...]
      1973 Charles: I'll... do my best.
      • And later:
      Logan: It's good to see you, Charles. It's good to see everyone.
      Professor X: (smiles warmly) Well, I had a promise to keep.
  • Properly Paranoid:
    • X-Men: Senator Kelly is concerned about mutants that can enter the mind of others or walk through walls. As it turns out, Mystique has been impersonating his aide for a good long while.
    • X-Men: First Class: On multiple occasions, Erik warns Charles that humans will turn against mutants. At the end of the movie, he is proven right, as the United States and the Soviet Union unite forces to launch an attack on the group of mutants who has just saved their lives and prevented World War III.
    • X-Men: Apocalypse: Upon learning that someone who might be Magneto is in their midst, the Polish police who come to arrest him intentionally leave their badges and guns behind, using only bows and arrows in order to prevent him from using metal against them. Unfortunately, they were not quite paranoid enough, as he instead uses the locket with his parents' photos in it that Nina has to kill them all.
  • Protectorate:
    • X-Men: Scott tells a comatose Professor X that he will protect the students.
      "If anything happens, I'll take care of them."
    • X-Men: First Class: Raven is this to Charles, although she finds his concern for her safety utterly suffocating.
  • The Protagonist: When analyzing the First Class trilogy as a whole, Xavier the most prominent character because he receives the most Character Development, and the climax of each entry is directly connected to a significant relationship in his life. In X-Men: First Class, he and his Heterosexual Life-Partner Erik are "divorced." In X-Men: Days of Future Past, Charles makes amends with his estranged foster sister Raven. In X-Men: Apocalypse, he strengthens his bond with his surrogate daughter Jean. The Alternate Timeline turns out to be an opportunity for Professor X to rectify two grave errors that he had committed in the original timeline. By arranging the original trilogy and the First Class trilogy as one big saga, Bryan Singer designates that Charles is the most important figure (even if he doesn't necessarily have the most screen time) by having him open and close the hexalogy. In-Universe, the X-Men wouldn't exist without Xavier.
  • Proud Beauty:
    • X-Men: First Class: Dr. Charles Xavier is a scientist who unabashedly exploits his gorgeousness (along with his charm) to proposition coeds at Oxford. Charles is so fond of his hair that he immediately dismisses Hank's suggestion that he shave it off before he tests Cerebro. It's costume designer Sammy Sheldon's intention to make the character as stylish as possible within a conservative academic setting.
    • X-Men: Apocalypse: Professor X is a Hot Teacher who doesn't seem to be concerned in the slightest that his translucent white shirt would be deemed inappropriate in any other school with teenagers and children. His sunglasses are the most flashy of the film because of their gradient lenses, and they enhance his sex appeal while also giving him the air of a fashion model. Xavier runs his hand through his luscious locks (which is his equivalent of a peacock's tail) to tame some wayward strands before he meets Moira to ensure that he's at his most attractive. Even after he goes bald, he conjures a mental projection of himself which still proudly has a feathered mullet on its head when he faces a life-and-death struggle with Apocalypse. It's The End of the World as We Know It if the Professor fails, but even if he's doomed, he'll at least look fabulous on the astral plane (heck, he still manages to be pretty even when he's soaked in his own blood). Make no mistake, folks; Charles is vain.
  • Pstandard Psychic Pstance:
    • Charles had frequently used this gesture as a crutch when he was younger, but he lets go of the habit when he's around 50 years old, as displayed in X-Men: Apocalypse.
    • X-Men: Apocalypse: Jean performs this gesture when she uses her telepathy. She must have learned it from Xavier.
  • Psychic Block Defense:
    • Magneto's helmet blocks out Professor X's and Jason Stryker's psychic abilities.
    • Emma Frost can protect herself from Xavier's mind-reading powers when she activates her secondary mutation and covers herself in a diamond-like skin.
    • Apocalypse can shield himself and his Horsemen from Professor X's telepathy.
  • Psychic Powers: Kitty Pryde describes Professor X as "the most powerful brain in the world," and Stryker similarly calls him "the world's most powerful psychic." Sebastian Shaw is so impressed by the strength of Xavier's telepathy that he tries to recruit Charles even though Shaw already has a formidable psychic as his second-in-command. (This indicates that Shaw considers Xavier's mutation to be more potent than Emma Frost's.) Professor X's gift is why Apocalypse covets his "extraordinary" abilities—the best that he has encountered in "a thousand lifetimes"—and selects him to be his next mutant host.
  • Psychic Radar: Professor X can detect people around himself, amplified greatly with Cerebro to find almost anyone in the world. In X2: X-Men United, he can mentally track a mutant who frequently teleports to a different place. Concentrating hard enough will give everyone on the planet a really serious Psychic Nosebleed... followed by death.
  • Purple Is Powerful:
    • X-Men: Days of Future Past:
      • The 1973-era Sentinels; they are programmed to eliminate mutants.
      • Blink's Battle Aura and Facial Markings. She's either the second-to-last or the last mutant left standing when the X-Men and the Free Mutants directly confront the Future Sentinels.
    • X-Men: Apocalypse:
      • In his natural gaseous form, the god-like Apocalypse is purple, and his teleportation "bubble" also has a purple tint. The walls of Cerebro glow purple when Xavier is possessed by him.
      • The highlights in Psylocke's hair, her Horseman leotard and her psionic blade are purple, and she's very dangerous.
      • Mystique's risqué dress is shiny and purple, and she's the most effective combatant at the cage match.
      • The wormhole produced by Nightcrawler's teleportation ability is a luminous purple.
      • In a shot of Jean Grey screaming in the astral plane, a purple filter was used over her face, and it's a sign that her Phoenix powers are being unleashed.
      • Inverted with Professor X, who is wearing a lilac (which is a pale shade of purple) shirt when he's Apocalypse's prisoner, and he's weaker than the god-like mutant.
  • The Quiet One:
    • X-Men: The Brotherhood members almost never speak. Mystique is silent but for one line early on, except when she's disguised. It's quite effective and adds to her, well, mystique. Sabretooth has two lines, Toad has three.
    • X2: X-Men United: Lady Deathstrike gets a single line of dialogue.
    • X-Men: The Last Stand:
      • Colossus utters one line.
      • Multiple-Man has a total of two lines.
    • X-Men: First Class: Azazel only says a few lines.
    • X-Men: Days of Future Past: Colossus' speaking part consists of a single word.
    • Deadpool (2016): Although Colossus finally averts this trope, Angel Dust plays it straight, letting Ajax do most of the talking for the bad guys.
    • X-Men: Apocalypse: Psylocke's and Angel's dialogue are limited to a few lines each.
  • Real Event, Fictional Cause:
    • X-Men Origins: Wolverine has a fictionalised version of the Three Mile Island incident, in which the nuclear plant is actually a secret laboratory for mutant experimentation, and a fight between Wolverine, Sabretooth and Weapon XI caused one of the plant's cooling towers to collapse.
    • In X-Men: First Class, the Cuban Missile Crisis was instigated by Sebastian Shaw as part of his plan to have mutantkind become widespread from the nuclear fallout and dominate over humans.
  • Red Herring:
    • X-Men: Magneto looks at Wolverine's dogtags before asking Sabretooth, "Where is the mutant now?" This is to mislead the audience into the same line of thinking as the heroes, that Magneto is after Wolverine, instead of his true target Rogue.
    • The Wolverine: Will Yun Lee (Harada) was promoted to have rigorous sword training, but most of his action scenes involved archery. If you're familiar with the comics character, one might be surprised that in this film, Harada is NOT the Silver Samurai.
    • X-Men: First Class: There are two incidents which fooled some audience members into believing that this would be the moment where Xavier would become crippled: the first was when the Blackbird crashed, and the other was when Charles experienced the trauma of Shaw's death telepathically. Afterwards, these viewers then assumed that Xavier's disability will be dealt with in a sequel, but then he is accidentally wounded by Magneto.
    • X-Men: Apocalypse: The Blackbird, along with all the various equipment that is kept underground at the school, seem to foreshadow their use later on in the film. Their only purpose is to cause the explosion that destroys the entire school and kills Havok.
  • Red Oni, Blue Oni:
  • Red Shirt:
    • X-Men: The Last Stand: Most of the mutants in Magneto's army and the human soldiers deployed to Alcatraz Island were quickly obliterated by the Phoenix.
    • X-Men: Days of Future Past: Warpath, Blink, Bishop, Sunspot and Colossus are glorified extras whose main purpose in the story is to serve as cannon fodder for the 2023-era Sentinels.
  • Refuge in Audacity:
    • X-Men: First Class: Xavier is very confident about his ability to seduce women.
      Charles: Heterochromia was in reference to your eyes, which I have to say are stunning. One green, one blue. It's a mutation, it's a very groovy mutation. I've got news for you, Amy. You are a mutant.
      Amy: First you proposition a girl, and then you call her deformed. How is that seduction technique working for you?
      Charles: I'll tell you in the morning.
    • X-Men: Days of Future Past: Quicksilver blatantly uses his super speed when he first meets Wolverine, Professor X and Beast because he knows no one would believe what they said about him. It's implied this is how he gets away with everything he does.
  • Ret-Canon: The movies inspired a number of elements that made their way into the comics and the various cartoons:
    • During Grant Morrison's run, the X-Men adopted black leather outfits in order to better match their movie counterparts. This lasted up until Joss Whedon's Astonishing X-Men run, where the team started wearing colorful outfits again in order to seem less threatening.
    • For a time, Mystique adopted her scaled, reptilian appearance from the comics.
    • Magneto's plastic prison was used by The Ultimates in Ultimate X Men.
    • Ultimate X-Men also used a version of William Stryker directly inspired by his role in X-2 (in the original comics, Stryker was just a bigoted preacher).
    • Toad adopted his Adaptational Badass qualities from the movies for a while, before reverting back to being a massive loser.
    • The movie introduced the idea of Iceman being significantly younger than the original X-Men, which was used in Ultimate X-Men, X-Men: Evolution, and Wolverine and the X-Men (2009).
    • The depiction of the Xavier Institute as an actual school for mutants was also taken from the first movie. Prior to that, the school aspect was just a cover, and the only real "students" were the X-Men themselves.
    • Cerebro as a giant room-sized, IMAX Dome-Theatre room with a central orbiting platform more or less translated from the movies to the comics and cartoons (X-Men: Evolution began with a more comics!accurate Cerebro, i.e. just a souped up computer that filled up a decent office-space and then translated into upraded Cerebro).
  • Retcon: At least one character per movie: Sabretooth, Lady Deathstrike, Juggernaut and Deadpool.
    • Considering the way the movies have changed around some of the comic book characters' generations, there's likely to be more in the future if more movies are going to be made based somewhat on the comics.
    • First Class retcons certain elements of The Last Stand, notably the fact that Charles and Erik were still shown to be working together while middle-aged during the flashback sequences in the latter film.
      • Days of Future Past goes even further by using time-travel to completely erase the events of Last Stand out of existence.
  • Rōnin: In The Wolverine, Ichirō Yashida invokes this to describe Wolverine metaphorically. The latter's "lack of a master" translates to "a lack of purpose," and this turns him into an immortal drifter. note  This doubles as Fridge Brilliance because Logan's strong reaction to Professor X's supposed death in X-Men: The Last Stand, the post-credits airport scene (where Wolverine only cares about what Xavier has to say, not Magneto), and the 2023 portion of X-Men: Days of Future Past prove that Charles is essentially his "master."
  • Rule of Sexy:
    • X-Men: In the comics, Mystique wears clothing even when she's in her natural form. Her movie counterpart, however, is stark naked.
    • X-Men: First Class:
      • Most (if not all) fans expected the young Professor X to be bald, but the studio wanted James McAvoy to keep his hair in order to retain the actor's sex appeal.
        McAvoy: I had showed up on the first day of X-Men: First Class, and I had shaved my head because I wanted to check what it looked like about a month before we started shooting—and it looked quite good—and they were like, "No, no, no, no, we want you to have long hair."
      • It's worth noting that McAvoy's depiction of the character would later influence how Charles Xavier is portrayed in Legion, which takes place in an Alternate Universe. Harry Lloyd—who like McAvoy is also a British, brown-haired, Pretty Boy actor—was offered the role without an audition, and he was instructed by showrunner Noah Hawley to not shave his head.
      • After Emma Frost uses her psychic ability to fool the Soviet general into believing that he has engaged in foreplay with her, she decides to remain in her lingerie (instead of putting her dress back on) while she snacks on crackers.
      • There is absolutely no practical reason for Mystique to be exposing her cleavage when she's dressed in the combat uniform. Costume designer Sammy Sheldon admits in the "Suiting Up" featurette on the Blu-Ray release that her goal with that outfit was "to make [Mystique] look sexy."
    • X-Men: Days of Future Past: In the March 2014 issue of Empire magazine, the actor states that he was more than willing to get rid of his luxurious locks, but once again the producers nixed the idea.
      James McAvoy: I wanted to go bald in this one, [...] but they didn't go for it. I was gutted.
    • X-Men: Apocalypse:
      • Professor X retains his thick, wavy mane for most of the movie instead of being bald for its entirety. Justified in this case because Xavier didn't display any signs of male-pattern baldness in Days of Future Past, so the hair loss which occurs later on is not natural.
      • The actors in their 30s who play characters who are in their late 40s/early 50s (McAvoy, Fassbender and Byrne) were not given any ageing make-up, and there is very little grey in their hair. This is especially jarring with Professor X (at least when he's not bald), who should appear at least 30 years older than Jean Grey and Scott Summers, but James McAvoy's youthful features make him look like he's only about 15 years their senior.
      • Psylocke's revealing uniform◊ isn't sensible for a battle, but it does provide Fanservice. It's actually sexier in the movie-verse than in the comics because of the addition of a boob window. Louise Mingenbach (the costume designer) confesses on the "Clan of Akkaba: Apocalypse and his Horsemen" documentary on the Blu-Ray that a Los Angeles sex shop had created the latex suit.
      • The semi-transparent vertical "stripes" on Charles' white shirt. It even seems out-of-character for him to put on a garment which could potentially be distracting to some of his students as he had never been overtly objectified in the franchise before. (Another way to look at it is if a female teacher had worn the same shirt, it would be considered inappropriate.) This was clearly done by the costume designer to exploit James McAvoy's desirability before his character loses his hair and becomes more serious. Xavier's lilac shirt is also mildly erotic because depending on his movements or body position, the outline of his pecs is sometimes well-defined, and there are a few blink-and-you'll-miss-it moments where the shape of his nipples is visible through the thin fabric.
  • Rule of Symbolism:
    • X-Men: Days of Future Past: the presence (or at least the desire to have it) or absence of Magneto's telepathy-blocking helmet is a fairly good gauge of how unhealthy or healthy his relationship with Professor X is. As Simon Kinberg puts it, the finale marks the beginning of the characters' Friendly Enemy dynamic:
      "At the end of the movie, [Magneto] flies away without his helmet, with the implication that he'll go off and continue to be Magneto in some form, but not be able to hide it from Charles, who'll be able to read his mind and track him. There's a truce of some kind between Charles and Magneto, but there's a part of Magneto that will always be the Magneto we know from the comics."
      • This article has made the following observation about the elderly Erik:
        "From the photos, we see that Ian McKellen's older Magneto has no need for his iconic helmet that protects him from mutant telepaths since he's once again allied with old friend Charles Xavier."
    • X-Men: Apocalypse:
      • The Four Horsemen represent four different aspects of a cult's power to attract and recruit new members.
        Bryan Singer: It has a political faction, and I'd always felt Magneto could fill those shoes. It always has a military faction, so Archangel could fill those shoes as the guardian. There's also a youth faction. Those that you're trying to seduce and grow into your cult—the young, whose minds are malleable [such as Storm]. And lastly, the sexual component, because cult leaders tend to sexualize their position and have sex with half the people in their cult. And the Psylocke character, who was a very bright character in the comic, but is always looking for guidance and leadership, always trying to find the right guy, so she ends up with Apocalypse in this one.
      • There are bookends in Charles' study which are shaped like the mythological figure Atlas, and they symbolize his heavy burden of trying to save the world.
        We look around Xavier's school some more, exploring every nook and cranny of Prof. X's office. We spot a couple of Atlas-themed book-ends, with two muscular men carrying planets on their backs. It makes us flashback to that dark room, where we saw McAvoy cry. If ever there was a man with the weight of the world on his shoulders, it's James McAvoy's Professor X.
      • Charles and Erik have at least one costume which was strongly influenced by Miami Vice, and they are basically dressed as Detective Crockett and Detective Tubbs, respectively. Like Crockett and Tubbs, Xavier and Lehnsherr are Heterosexual Life-Partners.
      • An In-Universe version when Magneto signals his Heel–Face Turn by slamming down two huge girders in Apocalypse's path in the form of an X.
  • The Runaway:
    • X-Men: Rogue runs away from home after her power manifests while kissing her boyfriend, which causes him to have a seizure and fall into a coma for three weeks.
    • X-Men Origins: Wolverine: A young James Howlett and Victor Creed flee from home together after James stabs and kills Thomas Logan for murdering his father, then finds out that Thomas was his real father.
  • Safely Secluded Science Center: The pristine wilderness of Alkali Lake is used to conceal Colonel William Stryker's Weapon X Base. Underground and partly built into the nearby dam, it was first used for the experiments that gave Wolverine his adamantium-coated bones; during X2: X-Men United, Stryker is found to have expanded his experimental efforts to brainwashing mutants and recreating Cerebro as part of an attempt to wipe out the entire mutant population.
  • Say My Name:
    • X2: X-Men United: Professor X desperately yells "SCOTT!!!" when he realizes that Stryker has set up a trap for him.
    • X-Men: Days of Future Past:
      • In 1973, Xavier angrily screams "ERIIIIIIIIK!!!" when Sentinels begin shooting at the crowd that has gathered at the White House. Although Magneto (who is wearing a telepathy-blocking helmet) has not yet appeared in his line of vision, Charles just knows that no one else would be causing this mayhem.
      • Logan hollers "CHARLES!" to warn his ally (who is wheelchair-bound) that he's about to be hit by a large chunk of the stadium.
    • X-Men: Apocalypse:
      • Xavier yells "JEEEEEEAN!!!" to snap her out of her visions of the world's end.
      • An alarmed Raven shouts "CHARLES!!!" when her unconscious foster brother is kidnapped by Magneto.
      • Apocalypse bellows Charles' name several times at Large Ham levels while searching for his escaped prisoner.
      • Desperate for help, Cyclops yells "HANK!!!" twice as Apocalypse partially fuses Scott into a wall.
  • Seeing Through Another's Eyes:
    • X-Men: Professor X uses his psychic ability to experience Senator Kelly's memory of being exposed to Magneto's machine.
    • X-Men: First Class: Charles can "eavesdrop" on a conversation that Emma Frost has with a Soviet general by telepathically inhabiting a nearby soldier.
    • X-Men: Days of Future Past: Past Xaavier is able to figure out where Raven is heading because when he had temporarily "possessed" a stewardess who had bumped into his foster sister, the stewardess had picked up Raven's plane ticket from the floor, and he can read its contents from the stewardess' field of vision. In The Rogue Cut, Future Professor X can view the mansion through Magneto's and Iceman's minds, and he gives them instructions as they walk in hidden passageways towards the Cerebro room.
    • X-Men: Apocalypse: Charles sees Jean's visions of planet-wide destruction as if they were his own.
  • Seers:
    • X2: X-Men United: After being briefly overwhelmed by her telepathy, Jean Grey tells Scott that "something bad is supposed to happen."
    • The Wolverine: Yukio knows when, where and how a person will die.
    • X-Men: Apocalypse: Jean's precognitive ability expresses itself as a terrible dream full of death and mass destruction.
  • Sensitive Guy and Manly Man:
    • X2: X-Men United: The rule-abiding, Nice Guy Iceman juxtaposes the rebellious, Jerkass Pyro. At the museum's food court, John is being rude to a young man who asks to borrow his lighter, and Bobby tells his friend to knock it off, plainly disapproving of John's annoying behaviour. When the police order the mutants to get on the ground, Drake immediately obeys, but Allerdyce attacks the officers with giant fire balls.
    • X-Men: First Class: Charles Xavier is the Sensitive Guy to Erik Lehnsherr's Manly Man. They display this dynamic in their personalities (All-Loving Hero vs. Anti-Hero) and physique (Pretty Boy vs. Tall, Dark, and Handsome) as well as their philosophies and methods (Wide-Eyed Idealist vs. Pay Evil unto Evil).
    • X-Men: Days of Future Past: Charles in 1973 is more accurately an Overly Sensitive Guy with Wolverine taking over the Manly Man role. Logan has to act as the "glue" which barely holds the emotionally fragile Xavier together in order to complete their mission. Their opposite natures are most directly contrasted in the Pentagon kitchen scene, where Charles attempts to persuade the guards that he and his partner have a valid reason to be there, while Wolverine just knocks them out with a frying pan.
  • Sequel Escalation:
    • Each film in the original trilogy was bigger/more expensive than the previous one, which is why Fox started spin-offs instead of making an X4.
    • The scope of the First Class trilogy gradually increased with each subsequent entry, but the production budget of X-Men: Apocalypse ($178 million) is $22 million lower than X-Men: Days of Future Past ($200 million).
  • Shapeshifting Seducer: Mystique uses this several times in the films.
    • X2: X-Men United: She seduces a guard by taking the form of a hot blonde so she can use him in Magneto's escape from prison. She later utilizes it on Logan by trying to seduce him in the form of Jean Grey. Logan catches her, and she goes through several other forms, including Storm, Rogue and even Stryker, but he tells her to leave.
    • X-Men: First Class: She upgrades her age by about 15 years to please Erik, which doesn't really work for her until he tells Raven that he prefers her without the shapeshifted appearance.
    • X-Men: Days of Future Past: Mystique does a sultry variation of her Raven form and pretends to be a disco-loving interpreter to gain access to a Vietnamese general's hotel room in order to steal his invitation to the Paris Peace Accords.
    • X-Men: Apocalypse: Her electric purple ensemble is quite revealing, and it's meant to be a distraction to the big, burly guards at the fight club venue; one underestimates her by calling her "little mouse."
  • Shirtless Scene:
    • X-Men Origins: Wolverine took this to an extreme, much to the delight of Hugh Jackman fangirls. During a dramatic escape scene, not only does he erupt from a tank of water completely shirtless (and indeed naked, muscles + dripping water...), but he then proceeds to escape, running and fighting his way out of the building. Viewers get a lovable full-body shot (in which censorship is barely provided by his leg from a mostly-side-shot) when he jumps off a waterfall.
    • X-Men: Days of Future Past: The younger Magneto is bare-chested when he's analyzing the Sentinel schematics.
    • X-Men: Apocalypse:
      • The body Apocalypse is transferring himself into at the beginning of the film is wearing nothing but a loincloth.
      • Angel's torso is bare when Apocalypse transforms him into Archangel.
      • Wolverine is seen shirtless when he escapes the Weapon X facility.
  • Sibling Yin-Yang:
    • X-Men: Days of Future Past: Eleven years after X-Men: First Class, Charles and Raven have not only become estranged, but also polar opposites in almost every way, especially in regards to ideology and diplomacy. Her sparing of Trask and the president shows that she isn't quite as far gone as originally believed, though.
    • X-Men: Apocalypse: Although Charles and Raven are on better terms than in X-Men: Days of Future Past, they still strongly disagree over how humans in general treat mutants. He believes the world is gradually becoming more tolerant of their kind, but she has seen with her own eyes that there's still a lot of oppression. This article uses the metaphor of Xavier being a peaceful dove and Mystique is an aggressive hawk.
      Charles: I have plans for this place. I mean to turn it into a real campus, a university. Not just for mutants, either; for humans, too. Living and working, growing together.
      Raven: You know, I really believed that once. I really believed we can change them.
      Charles: We did.
      Raven: Just because there's not a war, doesn't mean there's peace. You wanna teach your kids something, teach them that, teach them to fight, otherwise they might as well live in this house for the rest of their lives.
  • Single Tear:
    • X2: X-Men United: The wheelchair-bound Professor X sheds a single tear of joy when he's able to stand again on his own—but then he quickly realizes that he's in a Lotus-Eater Machine and tries to resist Jason's ability.
    • X-Men: First Class:
      • Charles wipes a single tear from his cheek after he uncovers a happy memory from Erik's childhood involving the latter's mother with his telepathy. Despite living a much more comfortable and privileged life than his friend, the one beautiful thing that Charles never got to experience is a mother's warm affection.
      • In the same scene, a visible tear falls down Erik's face because he didn't know he still carried that cherished memory of his mother.
      • After Charles gets shot, he only sheds one noticeable tear which is partly because of his injury, but mostly because he is forced to tell Erik that no, they really do not want the same thing, and knows that this realization will push his friend away for good.
    • X-Men: Apocalypse: Magneto sheds a lone tear when he remembers the close friendship he once had with Charles.
  • Skyward Scream:
    • X2: X-Men United: Logan does this in a flashback where he wakes up in a tank of water with no memories and metal claws shoot out of his hands.
    • X-Men: The Last Stand: Wolverine does this after reluctantly killing Jean Grey/Phoenix.
    • This was done three times in X-Men Origins: Wolverine.
    • X-Men: First Class: Xavier does this right after a bullet enters his spine.
    • X-Men: Days of Future Past: Blink lets out a small cry towards the heavens after being stabbed by three Sentinels.
    • X-Men: Apocalypse: Magneto, whose powers have been boosted by Apocalypse, does this as he disintegrates the Auschwitz concentration camp.
  • Sleeves Are for Wimps:
    • Wolverine is often seen wearing a tank top.
    • X-Men: The Last Stand: Colossus' uniform is sleeveless, showing off his muscles and more of his transformation when using his power.
    • X-Men: First Class: During the training scene, everyone gets matching grey tracksuits, but inexplicably, Havok's doesn't have sleeves.
    • ''X-Men: Apocalypse': Unlike their male teammates, Storm's and Psylocke's Horsemen apparel expose their arms.
  • Sliding Scale of Leadership Responsibility: Previous films had established that Professor X is typically The Hammond on this scale, but during the Final Battle in X-Men: Apocalypse, he moves up three steps and briefly becomes The Superman. When Apocalypse gives Charles a Sadistic Choice—surrender, or Mystique and Quicksilver will die—Beast and Cyclops volunteer to rescue their teammates, but Xavier stops them because he would rather sacrifice himself than see anyone he cares about get hurt. This turns out to be an unacceptable option because Charles is the Earth's Barrier Maiden (and he obviously doesn't want to put billions of lives at risk), but he then challenges Apocalypse to a mind duel, which creates a much-needed distraction. Xavier gets pummeled on the astral plane, and he only asks Jean Grey—whom he loves like a daughter and is naturally protective of her—to intervene when he knows he's dying.
  • Smart People Play Chess: Xavier and Magneto in the first film, First Class and Days of Future Past, and alluded to again in The Last Stand at the very end where Erik is at a park with a chess board... The chess motif is there to establish the attitudes of both men as The Chessmaster, and it's a metaphor for their struggle over the future of mutantkind.
    • And subverted in real life. Everyone on the set naturally assumed that the erudite Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart knew how to play chess, but neither of them did. As Stewart explained, he was always too busy with his career. They had to be taught by a world champion; Stewart said it was "like learning to drive with Michael Schumacher".
    • In X-Men: Days of Future Past, it was more like discussing with a chess table between Charles and Erik, without playing much. The lack of play and banter almost seems to symbolize the extreme distance and hostility (perhaps the worst in the series) between them, including Erik's violent outburst just minutes earlier.
  • Soft Glass:
    • X-Men: The Last Stand:
      • Angel is able to jump through a skyscraper window without obtaining so much as a scratch, shirtless.
      • And then there's Storm, whose face is slammed through a glass table during a fight scene, yet she doesn't suffer from any cuts.
    • X-Men: Days of Future Past: A glass ceiling that has been cracked into a thousand pieces falls right on top of Erik, and he doesn't get a single scratch. In Real Life, the stunt double suffered from mild injuries, according to Bryan Singer's commentary, because real glass was used for that scene.
  • Spandex, Latex, or Leather: Black leather. First Class has them wear spandexy-Kevlar and denim (modelled after real life battle fatigues), and DOFP has kevlar plates mixed with spandex and regular pants.
  • Spared by the Adaptation: Unlike her comic book counterpart, Negasonic Teenage Warhead doesn't die in her first appearance in the movie-verse.
  • Spotlight-Stealing Squad:
    • Wolverine is by far the most guilty of this. He is the main protagonist of six films (the original trilogy and his spin-offs), the Supporting Protagonist of one, and he has a cameo in two.
    • Professor X is a close runner-up; he was an important secondary character in the original trilogy and Logan, a main character in the First Class tetralogy, and has three cameos.
    • Magneto is a major character in the original trilogy and the First Class tetralogy, and he has a cameo in one movie.
  • Staring Down Cthulhu: In X-Men: Apocalypse, immediately after Xavier accomplishes a Did You Just Flip Off Cthulhu? by modifying the final sentence of Apocalypse's planet-wide New Era Speech, Charles brazenly glares at his captor, unflinching and undaunted by any punishment that may befall him. It proves that Professor X will oppose Apocalypse with every fiber of his being, no matter how futile it is.
  • The Stinger:
  • Story-Breaker Power:
    • Professor X's Telepathy is such that most of the movies would be over very, very quickly if he did not frequently get incapacitated or rendered powerless in some way.
    • X-Men: Days of Future Past: Quicksilver gets Put on a Bus after the Pentagon raid because, as that raid shows, he is downright unstoppable. While moving at Super-Speed, simply tapping a person is the practical equivalent of getting hit by a heavyweight boxer, and he can take out an entire room of armed guards so quickly that their bullets weren't even able to reach the people they had shot at when he started.
    • X-Men: Apocalypse: Kurt's energy level drains rapidly if he teleports too many people at the same time, and he's inert for part of the Final Battle. John Ottman divulges in the "Unlimited Powers: VFX, Stunts and Set Pieces" featurette on the Blu-Ray the reason for the limitation on the character's endurance.
      Ottman: This is why we knocked Nightcrawler out. Because for the whole third act, if he's around, he can just bamf people endlessly.
  • String Theory:
  • Superhero School: Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters is both an educational institution for young mutants and the secret base for the X-Men.
  • Super-Scream:
    • An Xavier student in X2 (implied to be Siryn) is shown using a sonic scream.
    • Banshee (who is Siryn's father in the comics) in First Class has the ability to amplify his scream as an attack, to debilitate others, and even to fly.
  • Superhero Team Uniform: In contrast to their comic book counterparts, who have a variety of colorful costumes, the movie X-Men all wear relatively matching black leather suits.
  • Superpower Lottery:
  • Super Team:
    • X2: X-Men United: Jean Grey and Storm willingly ally with Wolverine and Nightcrawler, plus Magneto and Mystique (relunctantly) to stop Styker from committing mutant genocide.
    • X-Men Origins: Wolverine: Colonel Stryker assembles Team X which features James Howlett, Victor Creed, John Wraith, Agent Zero, Christopher Bradley, Wade Wilson and Fred Dukes. Some of them don't get along very well.
    • X-Men: First Class: Professor X, Magneto, Beast, Mystique, Havok and Banshee form the proto X-Men. Charles Xavier's primary goal is to avert World War III, while the other members are seeking Revenge against Sebastian Shaw for murdering someone they cared about.
    • Deadpool (2016): The eponymous character teams up with Colossus and Negasonic Teenage Warhead to take down Ajax, Angel Dust and their mooks.
  • Swapped Roles:
    • X-Men: Days of Future Past:
      • Professor X was Wolverine's mentor in the original trilogy, but in 1973, Logan has to try to motivate and counsel an emotionally damaged Xavier.
        Professor X: Logan, you're going to have to do for me what I once did for you. Lead me, guide me.
      • Not surprisingly, the abrasive Wolverine isn't very good at this task, and it's lampshaded in the following exchange:
        Past Charles: I'm sorry Logan, but they sent back the wrong man.
        Logan: You're right, I am. Actually, it was supposed to be you, but I was the only one who could physically make the trip.
      • This also applies to Charles and Hank. In X-Men: First Class, Xavier acted as a big brother figure to McCoy (they're about a decade apart in age), but after 1963, Hank becomes responsible for Charles. Although McCoy certainly prevents his friend from doing anything too self-destructive, he inadvertently becomes Xavier's enabler by inventing an addictive telepathy-blocking serum. Considering that Hank was probably only around 21 years old when he suddenly found himself in the position of being Charles' long-term caregiver (plus he has no experience looking after someone who is mentally ill), it's understandable that he couldn't help his former mentor as well as he would've liked.

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