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The trailer for Logan shows Charles Xavier to be still alive, even though enough time has passed for Wolverine to look much older than we’ve seen him in previous films.

This is very difficult to explain using either the timeline of X-Men: The Last Stand or X-Men: Days of Future Past.

In The Last Stand, Wolverine has pretty high healing factor while Charles Xavier is pretty old. Even if Wolverine's healing factor weans away gradually, I think it would make him live for at least 100 years more than other mutants. The same can be said of other timelines.

Can anyone please explain this?

Update: Regarding the similar question mentioned (How can Professor Xavier be alive?), this is not related to the events of X-Men 3 which caused the death of Xavier or the alternate timeline event(s) in X-Men: Days of Future Past which may or may not kill Xavier.

This is related to the pretty slow ageing of Professor Xavier as compared to Wolverine from a fixed year of observation.

Gallifreyan
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G.One
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  • Possible duplicate of How can Professor Xavier be alive? – Skooba Oct 20 '16 at 20:24
  • @Skooba - Not a dupe, but certainly related. This Q is about his age, regardless of how he got there. – Valorum Oct 20 '16 at 20:25
  • @Valorum might a bit for detail/clarity then. Is the real question "How can Prof. X be this old?", which your answer then fits nicely.... he is old, but not beyond a normal human age. – Skooba Oct 20 '16 at 20:29
  • @Skooba yes, you are right. I will clarify this in the question – G.One Oct 20 '16 at 20:31
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    @Skooba - The OP has made an assumption in the question. The problem is that removing the assumption effectively answers the question :-) – Valorum Oct 20 '16 at 20:31
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    I'm more interested in knowing why Logan appears to age at all - wan't he like 150 years old (at minimum, given he was shown as a soldier in the civil war) by the time he shows up in any movie, and basically understood to be immortal? Why would a mere 20 years have him age so much? The Old Man Logan comics I also find confusing for the same reason. – Ben Collins Oct 21 '16 at 01:55
  • @BenCollins In the wolverine he had his mutant power reduced as it was stolen by the japanese guy, this allowed him to age – JamesRyan Oct 21 '16 at 09:36
  • Wait for the movie to come out, then watch it. And you shall have your answer. – Lightness Races in Orbit Oct 21 '16 at 10:45
  • @BenCollins In Old Man Logan he suffered a traumatic event that would age anyone. That didn't seem unreasonable to me. – Matthew Green Oct 21 '16 at 14:04
  • Because Fox are rubbish at planning out a cinematic universe ... they ROYALLY screwed with any coherent monotonic nature to the plots ... – Naib Nov 02 '16 at 22:17
  • Because he hasn't died yet... – Möoz Mar 07 '21 at 00:20

6 Answers6

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Update.

The film was, apparently set in the year 2029, according to the film's director.

"It's year 2029 when the movie takes place," Logan director James Mangold told ComicBook.com in an exclusive interview.

Wolverine 3: When Logan Takes Place Revealed

According to an exclusive interview with TheWrap, we learn that Professor X is simply old in the film.

Given that he was born in 1932 and knowing that 'Logan' is set in the year 2029, it would appear that he's just a man in his late 90s, well within the normal scope of human longevity. No specific mention is made of him being unnaturally long-lived.

Professor X (Patrick Stewart) is old and not well. His powers are unstable and at times he doesn’t even remember Logan.

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Valorum
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    i guess u r right. It seems the movie makers have made Logan age abnormally fast given his healing factor when compared against a normal human (aslo considering someone who is physically disabled and can't benefit from physical excercise, not generalising it though) – G.One Oct 20 '16 at 20:38
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    @G.One - I think their goal was to set it far enough forward that it's believable that all the mutants have just disappeared, but not so far ahead that everyone should be dead. – Valorum Oct 20 '16 at 20:55
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    @Valorum Wasn't the bad future in Days of Future Past sometime in the 2020's? – Jason Baker Oct 20 '16 at 21:35
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    @JasonBaker - Your logic has no place here. Please stop asking sensible questions. – Valorum Oct 20 '16 at 21:41
  • Mangold has now said that Logan takes place in 2029, 5-6 years after DOFP – phantom42 Jan 20 '17 at 16:45
  • @phantom42 - Cheers for the assist. See edit. – Valorum Jan 20 '17 at 16:56
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    in the latest trailer, Xavier says he is "expletive 90" – NKCampbell Jan 20 '17 at 18:05
  • Xavier was watching a movie which he said was 100 years old, and he was the same age as X-23 when it came out. Since X-23 is 11 in the movie, this puts him at at least 111 years old. – Parrotmaster Mar 20 '17 at 12:27
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    “the movie makers have made Logan age abnormally fast given his healing factor when compared against a normal human” — compared to how you’ve imagined his entirely fictional healing factor would affect his ageing process, yes, they’ve made him age abnormally fast. – Paul D. Waite Apr 13 '17 at 22:35
  • @Parrotmaster Xavier is an unreliable source in this film – OrangeDog Dec 26 '19 at 13:26
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I understand the confusion, as James Howlett has been alive since the 1800s, fighting his way through various wars in history as we saw in The Wolverine.

However, something which isn't often brought up is the fact that the Adamantium fused to his skeleton is constantly poisoning him.

It is highly toxic, think lead poisoning combined with arsenic poisoning and then multiplied a couple of times.

His healing factor serves to protect him from the worst of this, constantly healing him faster than the poisoning can kill him, but it takes it's toll - his healing isn't at full capacity because it's already working anyway (at one point in the comics his Adamantium is removed and his healing is markedly faster without that draining it).

So essentially from the 70s when he had the Adamantium introduced to his system onwards his healing has been on a slow decline, resulting in a gradual increase in the effects of aging on him (this also provides a rather neat canonical reason why he is visibly slightly older in each movie, aside from the out-of-universe explanation that obviously Hugh Jackman has gotten older in the 16 years since X1. This of course doesn't count so much for DoFP).

EDIT: For the sake of clarity, this is answering the question from the perspective of "Why has Logan aged?" rather than "Why hasn't the Professor aged very much?"

Strongo
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    How does this address the question of how Professor X is still alive? – Valorum Oct 21 '16 at 14:00
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    @Valorum The questions assumes logan ages slowley, this answer points out that if logan is ageing faster than normal he could look as old as charles within charles natural lifetime – Skeith Oct 21 '16 at 14:49
  • @Skeith - Except that no part of what you've written addresses the question asked, which is how Prof X is still alive that far into the future. You seem to have answered an entirely different question about Wolverine's ageing, presumably the one in the comments. – Valorum Oct 21 '16 at 14:58
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    @Valorum The film is set in 2024, he is alive "that far in the futue" because the film isnt set that far in the future, its set 6 years from now. Ths answer is pointing out that the question itself is flawed. – Skeith Oct 21 '16 at 15:08
  • @Valorum, from the question:

    "Even if Wolverine's healing factor weans away gradually, I think it would make him live for at least 100 years more than other mutants."

    and

    "This is related to the pretty slow ageing of Professor Xavier as compared to Wolverine from a fixed year of observation."

    The whole reason why Xavier's still being around is in question is due to Wolverine's longevity - I was simply pointing out that that isn't as much of a factor as it might seem.

     – Strongo Oct 24 '16 at 08:28
  • @Valorum, Edited my answer for the sake of clarity – Strongo Oct 24 '16 at 10:01
  • @Strongo - Hmm. I'm still struggling to see how it relates. It's a good answer, but not to the question asked. – Valorum Oct 24 '16 at 17:57
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    @Valorum In what way does it not relate? The question is working from the premise that more time would have passed than Professor Xavier could survive before Logan would have aged as much as he has, based on his healing factor. I am pointing out that Logan's healing is slowing down, therefore he is aging now at a rate with which he is noticably older, while little enough time has passed that Xavier has not died of old age. Given the asker explicitly said This is related to the pretty slow ageing of Professor Xavier as compared to Wolverine it answers the question directly. – Strongo Oct 25 '16 at 08:14
  • This presupposes that we don't know the year in which the film is set, when in fact we know precisely when it's set. – Valorum Oct 25 '16 at 08:24
  • And the fact that we know the year in which the movie is set supports my point that Logan is aging more quickly, rather than, as stated by the poster: Even if Wolverine's healing factor weans away gradually, I think it would make him live for at least 100 years more than other mutants. – Strongo Oct 25 '16 at 08:43
  • Regarding him being poisoned by adamantium - I'm not so sure this is true - might be worth considering an alternative answer i posed here: http://scifi.stackexchange.com/a/154181/79465 – Hesperus Mar 13 '17 at 10:55
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I would think it's the reset timeline following Days of Future Past, since they treat all six films as being canon, despite many discrepancies (In X-Men, Xavier doesn't initially know about Magneto's helmet preventing him from seeing into his mind when First Class already covers this). Also, when Aronofsky was originally directing The Wolverine, it was to be a one-off film, not in continuity with other films, but was changed when Mangold came on to direct. This could be a one-off X-Men film with only certain threads of continuity since it's an adaptation of Old Man Logan. Regardless, we should just take the film in on its own individually as a sort of send off to the man playing Logan for 17 years.

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My theory is that in X-Men Apocalypse, we see the mutant "Apocalypse" starting to transfer his mind into Charles, so that he may acquire Charles's abilities. Mid-way, the transfer gets interrupted by Nightcrawler and the transfer is stopped. Then we see that they are still connected (Charles and Apocalypse) and start to have a psychic battle.

We have to assume that Apocalypse's first original ability was transferring himself into other mutants to gain their abilities, so what if while he was transferring himself into Charles, and the connection got cut off (but they were still connected psychically) Charles obtained the ability to transfer himself or his consciousness into another. And as stated by others, in the post credit scene of X-Men 3 we see him waking up in a new body.

So I guess my theory would be that Charles gained the ability to transfer himself or his consciousness from Apocalypse and could have done it right before he died.

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Professor X is alive due to what happens in Days of Future Past - Wolverine goes back in time and alters the future, so that Scott Summers, Jean Grey, and Professor X are alive in the end of the movie which set a whole new path.

And for the question based about Wolverine aging that is because of what took place in The Wolverine - he had powers stolen from him but a thing to notice is Wolverine's claws - they are adamantium again, although they were cut off in that movie as well.

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David
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    This seems to be answering a different question then the one here. "This is related to the pretty slow ageing of Professor Xavier as compared to Wolverine from a fixed year of observation." So, any reference to Professor Xavier dying in an earlier movie is irrelevant. – Ellesedil May 25 '17 at 18:07
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The Answer here....

At the end of X-Men Last Stand, Charles wakes up in a different body. He wakes up in his twin brothers body to be exact. This was partially touched on earlier, his ability to transfer his consciousness elsewhere.

Charles abilities are unstable because this transfer may not have been completed, not to mention the mass amounts of drugs he has been on while the body was brain dead, and maybe the transfer was not completed.

Logan on the other hand, is a drunk. He is trying to kill himself, he has been trying to do this for a long time. The lifestyle he's living compounded with the adamantium poisoning is taking its toll on his bodies ability to heal himself.

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    At the end of Last Stand, Jean is dead, after having disintegrated Professor X earlier in the movie. But at the end of Days of Future Past, she and the Professor are alive, so it’s at best unclear whether the Last Stand post-credits scene still stands. – Paul D. Waite Apr 13 '17 at 22:38
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    Can you provide any sources for your answer to support your claims? – Edlothiad Apr 14 '17 at 00:10
  • This also appears to be answering a different question. The bottom of the question says "This is related to the pretty slow ageing of Professor Xavier as compared to Wolverine from a fixed year of observation." This makes the answer here completely irrelevant. – Ellesedil May 25 '17 at 18:09