How can Charles Xavier be alive in the movie Logan?

Question

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.

Answer 1

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}}

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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.

Answer 2

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?"

Answer 3

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.

Answer 4

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.

Answer 5

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.

Answer 6

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.