History TearJerker / XMen

* As much of a CompleteMonster that Sabretooth is, seeing his memory of being trapped in a basement and the implication of being beaten and tortured by his father to "get the wickedness" out of" him is equal parts horrifying and heartbreaking, and it serves as a direct allegory for abusive conversion therapy. The comics reveal that said treatment included forcibly and painfully removing young Creed's fangs, only for his healing factor to make them grow back. It's no wonder he turned into the violent psychopath Sabretooth, who would inflict the same treatment on his own son, Graydon. Seeing the normally sociopathic mutant just breakdown like a scared little kid is both jarring and sad. Even Wolverine can pity him.

--> '''Heather:''' [[SugarWiki/HeartwarmingMoments It's okay...really...it's going to be all right]].

* As much of a CompleteMonster that Sabretooth is, seeing his memory of being trapped in a basement and the implication of being beaten and tortured by his father to "get the wickedness" out of" him is equal parts horrifying and heartbreaking, and it serves as a direct allegory for abusive conversion therapy. The comics reveal that said treatment included forcibly and painfully removing young Creed's fangs, only for his healing factor to make them grow back. It's no wonder he turned into the violent psychopath Sabretooth, who would inflict the same treatment on his own son, Graydon. Seeing the normally sociopathic mutant just breakdown like a scared little kid is both jarring and sad.

-->"Her name, it's [[spoiler: Carol Danvers]]. We used to be friends"

--->'''Corsair:''' Son, how can you believe--?
--->'''Cyclops:''' Don't ever call me that. For twenty years, I dreamed about my father - a man to look up to, a hero that sacrificed everything for the good of his family. It was your family you sacrificed! You threw us away so you could go knock around the galaxy!
--->'''Corsair:''' That's not what happened!
--->'''Cyclops:''' Oh?! Did I imagine the orphanage or the foster homes where nobody wanted me?! Tell me, 'Dad,' am I making this up?!

-->'''Jean:''' I love you, Scott. Part of me will always be with you.

-->'''Professor X:''' Lilandra. Part of your mind is blocked from me. You've never hidden yourself from me before - why now?
-->'''Lilandra:''' As empress, there will always be a part of me that will forever be alone. Goodbye, Charles.

-->'''Jean:''' It's Carly, isn't it?
-->'''Beast:''' [[IJustWantToBeNormal Why did this have to happen to me? Why couldn't I be normal? It's not fair]].
-->'''Jean:''' We must think of how our gifts can benefit the world.
-->'''Beast:''' Gifts? I can't be close to any human. [[FightMagnet I can't take the chance of endangering them]] - My parents, my brothers and sisters. And now...Now, the woman I love.
-->'''Jean:''' Hank...I had no idea she meant that much to you.
-->'''Beast:''' It was so much easier when I was consumed with my work. I could pretend that what other people thought of me didn't matter.

-->'''Carly:''' [in tears] ...it was you I wanted to see...

-->'''Gambit:''' Don't nobody trust Gambit?!
-->''(Gambit looks towards Rogue, who lowers her head and cloes her eyes in response)''
-->'''Gambit:'''...Then Gambit don't need nobody. ''(Walks out of the War Room)''

-->'''Nightcrawler:''' Stop this! She is our mother! She gave you life!\\
'''Graydon Creed:''' She is a mutant! She gave me misery and shame! She has to suffer, all mutants must suffer! (weeping)\\

* The two-parter One Man's Worth feature Bishop and Shard chasing two rogue mutants ordered by Master Mold to kill Charles Xavier in the past in order to alter the future. We see the "present" being changed due to the professor's assassination, with mutants freedom fighters fighting the Sentinels and Magneto as the leader of the mutants. Among the mutants are Storm and Wolverine who, in this timeline, are married, and we do see that despite the hardships, the two are in love with one another. When Bishop confronts them (as he is familiar with them being X-Men) to prevent Charles' assassination in order to set the timeline back, the two are willing at first but then realize that this will change their relationship. Wolverine relents, not wanting to lose his married life. Storm asks him if he's willing to sacrifice a peaceful world, Wolverine sheds a tear and says that he will sacrifice anyone for her, before finally agreeing. Considering how much the two have been through in the real timeline, finally seeing them happy but having to give their happiness up for the greater good is heart-wrenching.

* The 2011 anime kicks off with it's own version of [[spoiler: Jean Grey's death]] before the opening credits even start rolling. She [[spoiler: goes all [[SuperPoweredEvilSide Dark Phoenix]] due to Mastermind's mental tampering]], and suffers a super powered meltdown.
* When Emma allows Xavier to see her memories, we see the reason she left the Inner Circle. After she once used her powers to manipulate a wealthy man into giving her his entire fortune, he committed suicide shortly after. That and her being shunned by everyone for most of her life, [[AMindIsATerribleThingToRead especially bad for her since she knew what they were all really thinking of her thanks to her powers]]. With the way people treated her, it's no wonder she started using her powers to get back at the people who ostracized her.

-->''(Gambit looks towards Rogue, who lowers her head in response)''
-->'''Gambit:'''...Then Gambit don't trust nobody. ''(Walks out of the War Room)''

** The scene where Rogue tears up after seeing Wolverine ''praying'' out loud in the chapel made me weep.

* From ''Night of the Sentinels, pt. 2", the second episode of the very first season, the death of Morph.
Morph yells at Wolverine and shoves him out of the way of the Sentinel's energy blast. There's a flash of light, and then a cut to the telepathic Jean Grey falls out of her seat at Cerebro, wailing in psychic pain. Later, we see the Blackbird land and all the other X-Men solemnly disembark except Ororo, who stares at an empty, shadowed passenger seat and breaks down in sobs. And then this exchange:

--->'''Mystique:''' Xavier's gone! Only I can help you. Only I could ever help you.\\
'''Rogue:''' You never loved me. You only cared about my powers. You made me worse than a killer.\\
'''Mystique:''' How can you say that? I raised you like my own.\\
'''Rogue:''' I ain't your daughter, Mystique. Not anymore.

'''Mystique:''' Sad? You want to talk about sad? I am a shape-shifter, an outcast even among mutants trusted by no one! I don't have a life of my own; I just steal little bits from other people's lives, but that's how I survive. So, there's your truth, "Son": I didn't want you! Still sad for me?\\

** Just how heartbroken Carly sounds after Hank says he's unable to be there for her operation, thankfully mitigated a bit by Hank going ScrewTheRulesImDoingWhatsRight.
-->'''Carly:'''[in tears] ...it was you I wanted to see...

-->'''Carly:''' ...it was you I wanted to see...

* Wolverine's son {{ComicBook/Daken}} meets a beautiful, sociopath FBI agent and tries to make her "realize" that she loves him. She does not, or is unable to, feel the same about him. In fact, she thinks he's no better than the criminals she puts away everyday. Seeing Daken realize that he can't make this one, normal woman love him, that he can't have this one good thing in what's been a pretty miserable life, is pretty painful... especially if it sometimes feels as if I'm going through the same thing...

* Nathienel Essex aka Mr Sinister has a surprisingly heartbreaking backstory. For most of his life, he was a wealthy aristocratic scientist, happily married. THEN his beloved son dies of birth defects, driving him to obsession that later leads him to apocalypse. Then when he's considering leaving his wife rejects him out of disgust for what he did, which seals his fate into becoming a monster. The kicker is that even after he falls to the dark side he still has some degree of love for his son (it's Scott and Jean appealing to the fact that children will die if apocalypse's plan succeeds that encourages him to betray his master). Yes Essex is a monster who has lost any humanity he once had... but before that, he was a father who lost his son.

* Cypher's death in ''New Mutants'' (vol. 1) #60. Doug takes a bullet for Wolfsbane, and she doesn't even notice. The next few issues focus on the New Mutants grieving. As a bonus, #61 has them learn about the X-Men "dying" in [=FallOfTheMutants=], so we also get Illyana's grief over her brother's death.

* Cypher's death in ''New Mutants'' (vol. 1) #60. Doug takes a bullet for Wolfsbane, and she doesn't even notice. The next few issues focus on the New Mutants grieving. As a bonus, #61 has them learn about the X-Men "dying" in FallOfTheMutants, so we also get Illyana's grief over her brother's death.

--> '''ForgetMeNot:''' C'mon, miss. Weren't you listening? The way the world sees you isn't nearly as important as the way you see it. And the things you do to make it better. Big or small, kid, it all adds up. A legacy's worth more than the person who leaves it. You're beautiful. Go do something incredible.

* ''X-Men Legacy'' #300. An unnamed girl left horrifically scarred after fighting off an attempted rape by a popular football player that caused her town to turn against her [[RippedFromTheHeadlines (in a clear parallel to a number of similar high profile incidents)]] tries to sneak into the Jean Grey School thinking that, as a deformed freak, the X-Men are the only place she'll fit in. However she's caught in the security system and slowly sucked in to her eventual death when an older man walks by, introduces himself as ForgetMeNot, and tells her his story. He's been a member of the X-Men for years but due to his powers, people instantly forget him when they look away, nobody remembers leading to a lonely existence but one he finds fulfilling helping the X-Men from the shadows. Eventually he switches himself for the girl in the security system and tells her to go out and live. [[BittersweetEnding And of course as she turns away, she instantly forgets him and ForgetMeNot's fate is left ambiguous.]]

* ''X-Men Legacy'' #300. An unnamed girl left horrifically scarred after fighting off an attempted rape by a popular football player that caused her town to turn against her [[RippedFromTheHeadlines (in a clear parallel to a number of similar high profile incidents)]] tries to sneak into the Jean Grey School thinking that, as a deformed freak, the X-Men are the only place she'll fit in. However she's caught in the security system and slowly sucked in to her eventual death when an older man walks by, introduces himself as Forget Me Not, and tells her his story. He's been a member of the X-Men for years but due to his powers, people instantly forget him when they look away, nobody remembers leading to a lonely existence but one he finds fulfilling helping the X-Men from the shadows. Eventually he switches himself for the girl in the security system and tells her to go out and live. [[BittersweetEnding And of course as she turns away she instantly forgets him and Forget Me Not's fate is left ambiguous.]]

--> '''Forget Me Not:''' C'mon, miss. Weren't you listening? The way the world sees you isn't nearly as important as the way you see it. And the things you do to make it better. Big or small, kid, it all adds up. A legacy's worth more than the person who leaves it. You're beautiful. Go do something incredible.

* Wolverine's son {{ComicBook/Daken}} meets a beautiful, sociopath FBI agent and tries to make her "realize" that she loves him. She does not, or is unable to, feel the same about him. In fact, she thinks he's no better than the criminals she puts away everyday. Seeing Daken realize that he can't make this one, normal woman love him, that he can't have this one good thing in what's been a pretty miserable life, is pretty painful...especially if it sometimes feels as if I'm going through the same thing...

* Illyana's death in the '90s. Especially UXM #303, which shows that Jubilee in particular was hit very hard by her death, leading to Jean Grey going into full-on mother figure mode and comforting her.

-->'''Jean Grey:''' C'mere. [''holds her closely''] Jubilee, we come into the world alone - and we leave the same way...the time we spend in-between...time spent alive, sharing, learning...together...is all that makes life worth living.
* Psylocke's death in Xtreme X-Men. After gravely wounding Beast and Rogue, Vargas steps up to battle against Psylocke. We see her raise her psychic katana, and then we are shown a close up of Beast's eyes. Three panels of this later Psylocke is being held in his arms, fatally stabbed in the abdomen as Rogue sobs in Storm's arms. Her funeral next issue was also a tear jerker, outside watching the airplane that is to carry Betsy's ashes back to England, we get a look at the faces of Storm, Bishop, Beast, Neal Sharra, Rogue, and Sage. Each one of their expressions says it all. Then we see a visage of Betsy in the clouds, her arms raised upwards as she smiles.

* In an old issue of ''ComicBook/NewMutants'', Danielle Moonstar uses her Valkyrie powers to stand between Death and a childhood friend who was in a car accident...until Death tells her that her friend has slipped into an irreversible coma; Danielle can keep him from dying, but he will never wake up. Grieving, Danielle stands aside, and from inside the hospital room we hear the monitor flatline...

* ''X-Men Legacy #300''. An unnamed girl left horrifically scarred after fighting off an attempted rape by a popular football player that caused her town to turn against her [[RippedFromTheHeadlines (in a clear parallel to a number of similar high profile incidents)]] tries to sneak into the Jean Grey School thinking that, as a deformed freak, the X-Men are the only place she'll fit in. However she's caught in the security system and slowly sucked in to her eventual death when an older man walks by, introduces himself as Forget Me Not, and tells her his story. He's been a member of the X-Men for years but due to his powers, people instantly forget him when they look away, nobody remembers leading to a lonely existence but one he finds fulfilling helping the X-Men from the shadows. Eventually he switches himself for the girl in the security system and tells her to go out and live. [[BittersweetEnding And of course as she turns away she instantly forgets him and ForgetMeNot's fate is left ambiguous.]]

* Cypher's death in New Mutants #60. Doug takes a bullet for Wolfsbane, and she doesn't even notice. The next few issues focus on the New Mutants grieving. As a bonus, #61 has them learn about the X-Men "dying" in FallOfTheMutants, so we also get Illyana's grief over her brother's death.
* A moment of Tear-Jerker in Hindsight is a scene from 1985 that [[CallBack Calls-Back]] to that classic [[Funny/XMen Funny]] moment from 1983 where Kitty Pryde gave Lockheed the dragon to Madelyne Pryor to babysit. The scene 2 years later, which became the final story ever in which Pryor and Cyclops were shown as a happy couple, Kitty hands Lockheed again to Madelyne to babysit while Cyclops and the X-Men leave on that mission in Asgard. After they depart, Pryor expresses fears that became Tear-Jerkingly prophetic:

* Just after becoming the Phoenix for the first time, Jean is hospitalised. The rest of the X-Men are tense and nervous, and then the doctors come along to announce she'll be fine. As Kurt goes to tell Cyclops the good news, he finds Scott's already by Jean's side, breaking down in tears.
* Nathienel Essex aka Mr Sinister has a surprisingly heartbreaking backstory. For most of his life he was a wealthy aristocratic scientist, happily married. THEN his beloved son dies of birth defects, driving him to obsession that later leads him to apocalypse. Then when he's considering leaving his wife rejects him out of disgust for what he did, which seals his fate into becoming a monster. The kicker is that even after he falls to the dark side he still has some degree of love for his son (it's Scott and Jean appealing to the fact that children will die if apocalypse's plan succeeds that encourages him to betray his master). Yes Essex is a monster who has lost any humanity he once had.....but before that he was a father who lost his son.

* ComicBook/{{Gambit}} being left in Antarctica by Rogue in nothing more than leggings. It was incredibly sad and cruel because if not for the events of his on-going series, Gambit's death would have been sure. They tried to explain it away later that Rogue absorbed his self-hate, but shouldn't she have hated herself then? It was just a maximum case of abandoness it breaks hearts.

* Later issues (between the abandonment and his return) stated that she ''did'' hate herself when it happened, and as soon as his personality faded from her head she spent every spare moment she could flying back to Antarctica to find him...Her failure to do so triggered another bout of self-loathing where she tried to get herself depowered through [[RecycledScript ''yet another'' phony mutant cure.]]

** The bit where [[spoiler: Cable died]] was even more wrenching. We see [[spoiler: the techno-organic virus consuming him outside and in, and Hope forces her way over to stare in shock. She whimpers softly "Please...come back to me..." and right before the nightmarish spread of Cable blowing apart, he manages to look at her and give a tiny, hopeful smile. That smile, and the image of Hope laying down next to the only remaining part of his body, his metallic arm, and weeping,]] will haunt me to the end of my days.

** It truly says something about him as a character that if you want to just ''[[ToThePain hurt]]'' the X-Men, if you ''really'' want to snap them in half, literally, as a team you don't take out Cylcops, Wolverine, or even Charles Xavier himself, [[spoiler: you kill the elf. You kill him and they will tear ''themselves'' apart.]]