Empire Pays Emotional Tribute to Patrick Stewart With a Professor X Cover

Fans are still coming to terms with the loss of Patrick Stewart, and the tributes keep arriving. He was a classically trained actor who brought Shakespearean gravitas to the ‘Star Trek’ and ‘X-Men’ franchises, and he was 86 when he died. His death, attributed to Alzheimer’s disease and Lewy body dementia, was announced on social media.

The Olivier-winning actor became a global star as Jean-Luc Picard and Professor X. Those 2 roles defined very different generations of fandom. He was also knighted in 2010 for his services to drama.

Now Empire has marked his passing with an exclusive subscriber cover illustrated by Thomas Walker, bearing the years 1940-2026. The artwork shows a lone figure in a wheelchair, seen from behind, looking out at a blazing orange and crimson sunset beneath a sky full of stars.

Across the bottom sits a line credited to Professor Charles Xavier from ‘X2’: “We’re not as alone as you think.” In the film, Xavier says it to Logan while connected to Cerebro, as the machine shows lights representing every living person on the planet.

Empire pays tribute to Patrick Stewart with a special subscriber cover, illustrated exclusively by Thomas Walker. It features new art of Stewart as Xavier, alongside one of the character’s great quotes: “We’re not as alone as you think.” Read more: https://t.co/WUvN7kruyZ https://t.co/p8qoGaSLNw

— Empire (@empiremagazine) November 12, 2026

Chosen as a farewell, the quote reads as a message to every fan who is grieving. It takes a moment about mutants finding each other and turns it into something about a community of viewers who grew up with Xavier, and with Picard, and who are now sharing the same loss.

There is also a quiet echo of ‘Logan’. Stewart’s Professor X died in that film, and Stewart was so moved by the experience and the results that he saw it as a beautiful send-off for the character. That movie also showed Xavier grappling with a neurological disorder that affected his powers, which gives the tribute an extra layer of poignancy now.

Giving a departed artist the subscriber cover is a tradition at the magazine, and those covers are usually special pieces of art. Past subscriber covers have been original artwork made only for subscribers. After David Lynch died on 15 January, Empire put him on the subscriber cover of its April 2025 issue, with an illustration by Edward Tuckwell of Lynch in the Red Room from ‘Twin Peaks’.

A tribute issue for Chadwick Boseman, described as an actor who truly changed the face of cinema, came with a subscriber cover illustrated by Kingsley Nebechi. Placing Stewart alongside them says plenty about how Empire views his place in film history.

Stewart debuted as Charles Xavier in the first ‘X-Men’ film in 2000, and the role followed him through the sequels and beyond. He reprised it in 2022’s ‘Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness’, although that was a different version of the character from the one in the earlier ‘X-Men’ movies.

Stewart said shooting that cameo alone was frustrating and disappointing. Even so, he had said he was not done playing Professor X. That leaves fans wondering what might have come next for him in the role.

Picard remained a huge part of his legacy as well. ‘Star Trek: Picard’ premiered its third and final season on 9 February 2023. Stewart also spoke openly about growing up in poverty, which makes the heights of his career feel even more remarkable.

Seen against all of that, the Empire cover works because it keeps things simple. A single silhouette, a sunset and one line from a film that fans know by heart are enough to capture what Stewart meant to so many people. It feels less like a poster and more like a quiet goodbye.

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