The last five years have been pretty wild for the X-Men. For a while, Marvel was doing its best to marginalize the team but they've become the publisher's biggest comics again. Things have cooled off recently, but fans have been treated to some amazing stories, many of which saw the X-Men triumph over tremendous odds, saving their newly minted mutant nation of Krakoa and sometimes the universe.
The X-Men have had some impressive wins in the last five years. The team has always been in the upper echelons of Marvel's heroic community, but they've changed tremendously since 2018. They proved they can handle circumstances no one imagined they could.
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Wolverine is the X-Men's most popular member, so it makes sense that he is responsible for at least one of the team's massive victories. Mikhail Rasputin, working for the Russian government, was able to get his hands on the Cerebro Sword. Using that and his reality-altering powers, he used Wolverine's and Xavier's memories to use Omega Red to assassinate Professor X at multiple points in the past. Xavier and Jean Grey used their mental powers to send Wolverine back to stop them.
Wolverine battled Omega Red in multiple situations, from saving the Xavier family on the night of Charles' birth to stopping the assassinations of Xavier's ancestors. After halting Rasputin's plans, Wolverine was able to not only defeat Omega Red but retrieved the Cerebro Sword. Wolverine, Xavier, and Jean Grey saved the X-Men, and with them the universe, by ending Rasputin's plans.
Not every win for the X-Men came through force of arms. After X Of Swords, the mutant team had a big problem. The mutants of Arakko had spent millennia battling the demonic hordes of Amenth and formed a martial culture. They wouldn't have fit in very well on Earth, so the Quiet Council thought outside the box. Gathering their most powerful mutants, they set out to do something unprecedented.
Mutants of Krakoa and Arakko alike worked together to take Mars, a planet incapable of supporting life, and terraformed it. They gave it a heavier core, a breathable atmosphere, and water. They made the red planet into a new world and named it Arakko, giving it to the mutants who had survived millennia of death and destruction. The Quiet Council promised fireworks for the first Hellfire Gala, and they delivered with a win unlike any other in history.
As Krakoa was still establishing itself, an alien invasion ravaged the Earth. The mutant nation was targeted as well when the alien Cotati attacked the island. The mutants of Krakoa were sorely outnumbered, but their teamwork allowed them to at least hold back the invaders, keeping the island from falling completely. Then Magneto decided to intervene.
Since the establishment of Krakoa, Magneto had been acting as a leader. He let others get their hands dirty, relishing his position of power in a place that was basically the culmination of his wildest dreams. However, with aliens overrunning the island, Magneto donned his old purple and red costume and unleashed his full power on the invaders. He broke their beachhead on Krakoa, shredding the Cotati with his powers. With Magneto at the head of their forces, the X-Men kicked the invading forces off their soil.
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Powers Of X took place in multiple universes, several made possible by the powers of Moira MacTaggert. In her ninth life, a hundred years after the establishment of the X-Men, Nimrod and the Sentinels had taken over the Earth, slaughtering mutants to nearly nothing and transforming humanity into post-human machine hybrids. The only ones fighting them were a group of X-Men led by Apocalypse, and they made one final play to stop their future from happening.
The X-Men attacked Nimrod's data vault, led by Apocalypse himself. Sorely outnumbered, the group was violently cut down as Apocalypse battled Nimrod to a standstill. However, even with their horrific losses, they got the information they needed. Wolverine gave Moira the data and then killed her, resetting the timeline and giving her the knowledge she'd need to slow down Nimrod in her next life.
Extermination saw the X-Men beat an old foe. Ahab, a mutant-hating cyborg from a future where humanity enslaved mutants, came back in time to kill the original five X-Men, who had been transferred to the present by Beast. As that was happening, a younger version of Cable had come back to send the young mutants back to the past to stop Ahab.
At first, the X-Men fought against Cable, thinking he was the one trying to destroy their time-tossed teammates. However, Ahab's plan was laid bare and the X-Men and this younger Cable worked together to stop him. The original X-Men were sent back to the past, their minds altered so they wouldn't remember their time in the present until it was necessary, and Ahab's terrible quest was stopped.
X-Men Red's early issues concentrated on Storm, Magneto, Sunspot, and the Fisher King working to consolidate power on Arakko. Meanwhile, Abigail Brand, the leader of SWORD, Krakoa's space agency, had secretly allied with the Orchis Initiative and was working to destabilize the Arakkii government by placing Vulcan in their Great Circle. After this failed, Brand's coup plans continued apace.
The Arakkii Brotherhood, working with SWORD's X-Men Red team, led by Cable and Thunderbird, recognized Brand's threat and worked to stop her. After Brand unleashed a newly resurrected and angry Vulcan on the Brotherhood and X-Men Red, the combined mutant heroes were not only able to stop her but forced her out of SWORD. Arakko remained independent and SWORD was no longer Orchis's secret pawn.
A.X.E. Judgment Day shook the Marvel Universe. It all started with new Eternal Prime Druig working to cement his power base among his people. Discovering that mutants evolved from Deviant genes, he was able to get the majority of the Eternals to agree to war against Krakoa and Arakko. The immortal forces of the Eternals did their best to raze the mutant homelands to the ground, but the mutants stood firm.
In order to end the conflict, rogue Eternals worked with the Avengers and Mister Sinister to create a new Celestial god for the Eternals, the Progenitor. Unfortunately, the Progenitor decided to judge the whole of humanity and destroy Earth if it found the world wanting. The X-Men allied with the Avengers and the Eternals, and were instrumental in defeating the Progenitor, their powers and mutant technology giving the heroes the advantage they needed to win.
Krakoa was swept up in the attack of Knull. Knull was able to get control of Cable with a symbiote, who used a Krakoan gate to bring more symbiotes to the island nation. The mutant island was overrun and soon mostly under Knull's control. The only mutants ready to stand against him were the members of SWORD, safe in the orbiting Peak space station.
A group of mutants made their way to Earth, but Knull's symbiotic mutants were able to hold them at bay. Manifold, whose mutant powers allow him to shape the universe in any way he needs, stepped up. He was able to open a portal over Krakoa and suck the symbiotes into it, saving those the aliens were bonded to and freeing the nation.
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X Of Swords was a supernatural war against the demonic hordes of Amenth. Led by the Golden Helm of Annihilation, the Amenthi were responsible for the sundering of the ancient mutant nation of Okkara into Krakoa and Arakko, with the Arakkii traveling into Otherworld to battle them. Amenth was able to conquer the Arakkii, who challenged the Krakoans to a contest of swords.
Traveling to Otherworld, champions of both sides participated in contests that Krakoa eventually won. However, the Amenthi still attacked. The X-Men were sorely pressed until Captain Britain and the Captain Britain Corps entered the fight. Together, they were able to defeat Amenth and free the Arakkii, saving the world from the demonic invasion.
House Of X was brutal, forcing the X-Men to pay dearly for their greatest victory. Using knowledge gained from Moira's ninth life, Xavier and Magneto sent a team of X-Men to the Forge, a sun-orbiting space station, to stop the Orchis Initiative from activating the ultimate Sentinel, Nimrod, by destroying the Mother Mold. A bloodbath followed.
Every member of the X-Men's Forge team was killed but they still completed their objectives. In a final stroke, Nightcrawler and Wolverine teleported into space to destroy the last strut holding up the Mother Mold. They died but their sacrifices saved the nascent mutant nation. Brought back by a new method of mutant resurrection, the team celebrated the victory that made Krakoa's survival possible.
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The Biggest X-Men Wins In Marvel Comics Last Five Years - CBR - Comic Book Resources
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