Marvel Announces It's Officially Killing Off a Founding X-Men Hero

Published Aug 18, 2026, 9:00 AM EDT

Robert Wood is a writer and editor based out of Cheshire, England. He is the author of 'The False Elephant: and 99 Other Unreasonably Short Stories' - 100 stories, each told in exactly 100 words.

Rob got into comics via Bendis' Ultimate Spider-Man and the UK anthology 'The Mighty World of Marvel,' which was running Frank Miller's Daredevil, Classic Hulk and Contest of Champions II.

Prior to journalism, he worked in copywriting and copyedited for Oxford University Press. He is on X as @PinchTwigs and Instagram as roobwoodjourno.

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Marvel has confirmed that it will kill off one of the founding X-Men this November, as the upcoming DNX crossover concludes with a battle for the legacy of Professor Charles Xavier.

In 1963, Professor X gathered together a team of young mutants, with Scott Summers' Cyclops taking leadership over Marvel Girl, Iceman, Beast and Angel. The series was a flop at the time, resurrected by Giant-Size X-Men #1 in 1975, however the original roster have remained foundational to the franchise.

Now, two of Xavier's first students are going to war, and only one of them will walk away alive.

Cyclops vs Beast Will Kill a Founding X-Men Hero

The upcoming DNX event will depict a war between Scott Summers' Cyclops and Hank McCoy's Chairman, previously known as the Beast. The two have become enemies in recent comics, with this crossover event (taking place in X-Men and Fantastic Four comics) acting as the ultimate clash of Xavier's protégés.

In current comics, Hank is the leader of the villainous 3K group, while Cyclops is commanding the militant Alaskan X-Men. While the two groups will clash across the event, Marvel's solicit information for the final issue has confirmed that it will all come down to Cyclops vs Beast, "to the death."

DNX #5
Release Date:	November 18, 2026
Writer:	Jed MacKay
Artists:	Federico Vicentini
Cover Artist:	Kaare Andrews
The event comes to its epic conclusion. X-Men and 3K. Scott Summers and Henry McCoy. Cyclops and the Chairman. To the death.

It's a dark promise that has fans debating which character is going to live, especially because if the Chairman dies, it's likely Marvel won't choose to revive him.

What Is the DNX Crossover?

In the Age of Revelation event, the villain formerly known as Beast discovered the existence of the futuristic X-Virus - a disease that's lethal to most humans, but turns those who survive into mutants. Now, the Chairman has cracked the science, developing a version of the X-Virus in the modern day.

DNX will see Cyclops attempt to stop the Chairman, reaching out to the Fantastic Four for scientific back-up. DNX will depict the main conflict, while X-Men will see heroes Psylocke and John Greycrow protect the X-Men's Alaskan base from a simultaneous attack, and Fantastic Four will see Marvel's First Family struggle with a memory wipe orchestrated by the Chairman.

Why X-Men's Beast Is Evil Now

Over the last decade, Marvel has published a number of stories focused on Beast's arrogance, with Hank risking damage to the timestream and reality itself with his experiments. However, it was the 2019-2024 Krakoa Era that truly made Hank unforgivable.

In the pages of X-Force, Beast rans a black-ops group of mutants with the mission of protecting Krakoa from outside threats. Beast's unchecked power drove him to do terrible things, including enslaving others, experimenting on prisoners, kidnapping children and ultimately seeding superweapons across the timestream to ensure his victory.

Presumed dead, the original Beast was replaced with a clone missing decades of memories, who has joined Cyclops' X-Men as a hero. However, the original Beast soon returned as the Chairman, with a robotic (later white-furred) redesign and leading the villainous mutant supremacist group known as 3K.

Interestingly, the Chairman recently claimed that his technology makes him immortal, since he can download his memories into a clone body if his current form is destroyed. That makes it all the more likely that it will be Cyclops who meets his end.

Who's Most Likely to Die in DNX's Conclusion?

There's no way of telling who will die in DNX. When the Krakoan Era ended, fans were sure Marvel would find a way to redeem the original Beast, but instead X-Men has doubled down on replacing him with his clone. However, the tease of his potential death has fans once again speculating that Marvel is going to find a way to merge the two versions of the character.

Meanwhile, Cyclops has become the backbone of the X-Men franchise and is more popular than ever, but that would make his death in DNX even more impactful. A new era is dawning for the X-Men later this year - one in which they'll replace the disbanded Avengers -

and Scott isn't part of it. It would make sense for Marvel to kill him off and resurrect him in time for James Marsden's return to the character in the MCU's Avengers: Doomsday.

Given Marvel's tendency of killing off and resurrecting characters for movie synergy, our call is that Cyclops is the founding X-Men hero most likely to die at the conclusion of DNX. But given the evil Beast's controversial reputation with X-Men fans, it's entirely possible Marvel will use this opportunity to bookend his villain era for good.

DNX #5 is coming November 18 from Marvel Comics.