Have a seat, Charles.

This is it. This is the moment we’ve been waiting for. We’re finally going to hear the story of how Professor Charles Xavier was paralyzed. One of the most powerful, most respected, and most beloved characters in the Marvel universe was robbed of his ability to walk before we ever met him. We know from Issue 9 that Lucifer was responsible. Now we get to see how…

Something this instrumental to the X-Men timeline should seemingly be common knowledge and Marvel legend. Yet surprisingly I find that very few people actually have any idea how Professor X lost his ability to walk. I only know this because of some Marvel Comics trivia book I ordered out of a Scholastic Books catalog back in elementary school. All that book even said was that Xavier lost his ability to walk when someone named Lucifer dropped a bunch of rock on top of him. No elaboration. In the age before the Internet, I went looking for more information on this and came up empty handed. Lucifer hasn’t been much of a major character, and Xavier’s handicap is so familiar to us that apparently not many people ask how it happened. It would probably be better in retrospect if Stan had told us that Magneto was responsible. I bet Marvel would prefer that too.

Anyway, the story begins with Charles investigating a small city in Tibet. The city is completely walled in and self-sufficient. Once inside, Charles finds out that the city is run by a malicious dictator that no one ever sees. He is using mind control to keep a secure grip on the city’s residents. This villain is revealed to be none other than Lucifer.

Charles locates a group of rebels and orchestrates a coup d’etat. Their plan is to storm the palace and take back the city.

Once inside, Charles has a short confrontation with Lucifer. It doesn’t last long. Lucifer drops a slab of stone from the ceiling and it calls right in top of Charles. Lucifer escapes. No more legs, all for that.

After this story, the other X-Men are able to free Charles from his catatonic state. It is revealed that Lucifer is not acting alone. He has a commanding officer, who is yelling something about the coming of Dominus. The issue ends with a cliffhanger as the team heads out to stop Lucifer once and for all.