Los Angeles - Professor X, the Marvel comic book character who formed and led the superhero mutant team known as X-Men, has been killed off.
The latest issue of comic book Avengers Versus X-Men, out on Wednesday, saw the wheelchair-bound and telepathic character, whose full name is Charles Xavier, get killed by Cyclops, a member of his very own X-Men team.
“When we first crafted Avengers Vs X-Men, we didn't set out to kill any characters, but as the story progressed it became obvious that this had to be the last stand of Charles Xavier,” Axel Alonso, editor-in-chief of Marvel Entertainment, said in a statement.
“Rest assured his death will reverberate across the Marvel Universe, leading into major launches like Uncanny Avengers and All-New X-Men this fall,” Alonso added.
The storyline's dramatic conclusion will occur in the follow-up issue, due out October 3.
The X-Men characters have been brought to the big screen in a series of films starring Patrick Stewart as Professor X and James Marsden as Cyclops including 2000's X-Men, 2003's X2 and 2006's X-Men: The Last Stand.
Last year, a prequel to those films, X-Men First Class, had British actor James McAvoy as the professor. - Reuters