Villain Profile: Magneto

For those of you who didn’t remember, December 16 is Hanukkah, the Feast of Lights. It is a pretty big holiday for the Jewish people. Because of this, I felt that this was the perfect time to introduce my latest special guest, one of the most important Jewish men--

He really rocks the purple.

Is it Jesus? No no, wait, it is Moses isn’t?

In comics.

Gasp, are finally doing Stan Lee?

Wilson, if you’re planning to waste anymore of my time, I will gladly make you incapable of doing so.

Oh, you’re covering old Maggie here. Good luck with that, I’ll be over here where it’s safe.

Sorry about that, he’s been following me a lot lately.

Think nothing of it, I’ve had to deal with Wade Wilson on a number of occasions and I realize how persistent he can be.

Everyone, my latest special guest Max Eisenhardt, a.k.a. Magnus a.k.a. Erik Lehnsherr a.k.a. Magneto. Um, of your aliases which should I call you?

Magneto is fine. I haven’t gone by much else for a very long time.

Well then, Magneto, would you mind giving us a bit of your background story?

Not at all. I was born in Germany in the late 1920s. Not Poland as you so inaccurately stated in one of your earlier pieces.

When you know better you do better.

Quite right. As one can imagine, being Jewish in Germany at that time was rather difficult. The anger over losing the Great War and the rise of the Nazi party saw to that. Despite this my family lived comfortably enough, and I count those early years as some of the few truly happy moments of my life. It wasn’t until Kristallnacht and the beating of one of my uncles that things started to get unbearable. My family fled Germany for Poland in the hopes of escaping the Nazi party, but unfortunately we were captured during the German invasion. My family was sent to the ghetto in Warsaw. My father convinced us to try and escape, but unfortunately we were captured yet again. My family was executed, my mother, father and sister died and the four of us were thrown in to an unmarked grave. Thankfully my powers were beginning to manifest about that time, magnetism saved me from that particular bullet. And I suppose I should be thankful that the Nazis weren’t better at checking corpses, but as you can imagine I find that to be difficult. My stroke of bad luck continued, however, for I was captured a short time later and sent to Auschwitz. Where I was given the disgusting, deplorable, inhumane, and mortifying job of removing the bodies from the gas chambers.

Impressive, no?

It’s amazing you made it out with your sanity.

Some would argue that I, in fact, did not. There was a silver line in that particularly black cloud. It was at the camp that I was reunited with Magda, a Romani girl that I had known during happier days. We survived that hellhole, and eventually escaped during the revolt in 1944. We moved to Vinnytsia, a small city in Ukraine, where we were married and had our first child, my Anya. We lived happily for several years until my powers began to manifest in full. Frightened by wondrous gift given to me by God himself, my former friends and neighbors tried to destroy me. They set fire to my house and kept me from rushing inside to save my Anya. I can still feel the heat sometimes, smell the burning wood, hear her screaming, and the angry roars from the mob. The rage I felt caused my powers to manifest fully and completely, and I turned them against the mob. I destroyed them. I destroyed their city. And ultimately destroyed my happiness. Magda, stricken from grief due to the death of our daughter and filled with terror at the carnage I had wrought, fled into the mountains. I never saw her again. She hadn’t told me that she was pregnant with twins. In one night, I had lost everything, again…. Magda… Anya…

Do you need to take a moment?

From left to right, Pietro (Quicksivler), Wanda (Scarlet Witch),
her twins, Magneto, and Lorna (Polaris).
The sad thing is, I think this is our only family portrait. Or picture...

I am fine. After that, I fled to my people’s homeland, in hopes of starting a new life in the new country of Israel. It was there while working at a psychiatric hospital that I met my best friend and greatest enemy Charles Xavier. That too was a relatively happy time, Charles and I debating whether or not mutants and humans could live together in harmony. At the time neither of us told the other of our mutual mutant status. Since what we were discussing was "academic," I never thought that our differing beliefs would ever amount to anything real. That happy time was also brought to an end by violence, this time at the hands of HYDRA. We battled that left over refuse from Hitler’s regime, revealing to each other our mutant powers in the process. It was then that I realized that despite my brotherly love for Charles, our worldviews were completely incompatible. He was a mutant that wished for peace. I was a mutant that saw only war. It was for that reason, and perhaps a desire to keep my darker view of the world from tainting Charles, that I left. I appreciate hope, it's just not practical for me. I took the gold that those abominable monsters in human skin stole from my people, and used it to finance my…goals. A fitting tribute.

It is my firmly held believe that the only two viable options for mutants are either to create a homeland of our own or conquer and enslave the lesser humans. No offense.

None taken, I think.

Honestly, I don’t bear any ill will towards you personally, Michael. You seem like a nice human. As rare a thing that maybe. After parting with Charles and spending a few years preparing, I finally created the identity of Magneto, and set about my plans to make a world fit for mutant kind. Over the years I’ve clashed many times with my old friend, and his X-Men. There were times when I attempted to understand Charles worldview, even going so far as to join the X-Men myself, but this is not clear to me that is something I can never do. My goal is to safeguard mutant kind, to do that I will fight any force, strike down any tyrant, and battle even those I hold most precious. That is my purpose.

Even when it puts you at odds against your own children?

During one of my attempts to see Charles'
side of things.

I respect Pietro, Wanda, and Lorna’s decisions even if I don’t agree with them. In the end that’s all a father of any caliber can do. I suppose not knowing of their existence until they reached adulthood does buffer me a little from any sort of paternal pain I may have, but I won’t pretend that some decisions were harder than others.

Alright then let’s talk about your powers.

I possess a complete and utter mastery of magnetism. I can move metallic objects through the principles of positive and negative polarity. I can create force fields around myself and others, generate powerful electromagnetic pulses, and I’ve even been able to render myself invisible by bending light around me. My control over my powers is not just brute force, I have a mental dexterity that allows me to assemble and manipulate multiple objects at once.

So you could like, break down a gun into its individual pieces and then reassemble it?

In my sleep. I can do the same thing with a tank.

So how do you fly?

That seems to be something that the various writings from my comics can’t agree on. Sometimes it’s because I have mental weaved into my costume, so in actuality I merely levitating my clothes while on in them. Sometimes I float on a metal disk. And other times it stated I create an electromagnetic barrier around myself and merely float along the planets natural electromagnetic field.

It's a really cool design.

So in short you just fly because it’s cool.

Basically. I also seem to have a natural ability to fight telepathy. That coupled with my helmet makes even a mutant as powerful as Charles powerless against me.

Magneto is one of the greatest foes that the X-men have ever faced. And he is by far the most persistent. He has appeared in EVERY X-men franchise to date in some form or another. I’m not really going to go into too much detail because of it. Basically, if the X-men are the main characters, Magneto appears. End of story.

It’s so good to be liked.

I will say that my favorite voice actor for you was Christopher Judge, on X-men: Evolution.

He’s the fellow that played that alien something or other on that Spacedoor program, right?

He was Teal’c in Stargate SG1 yes. For most of the first season his version of you was shrouded in his helmet and cloak. His voice simply drips with power and confidence. He didn’t sound as sophisticated as Ian McKellan does in the X-men movies, but then he really doesn’t have to. His voice was perfect for the part.

Though you are still partial to Sir McKellan playing me on the silverscreen, yes?

Of course. He's talented, charming, charismatic, and yet still capable of doing the most despicable things to see his vision realized. Who doesn’t love Ian McKellen as you?

Michael Fassbender?

Maybe, but he does a good job portraying a young you, don’t you think? And his version of the character I think blends very nicely into the older more classic character that McKellen brings to the table.

Not my look of choice, but an interesting redesign.

That is true. Though I am still slightly put off by the romance between his version of me and Mystique.

Not interested?

Never in ten thousand years. That woman has enough hate in her to make me seem pleasant by comparison. 

Interesting. I will also note that if people want to see a real unique take on Magneto they should check out Wolverine and the X-men.

That show that only got one season? Why?

Because it shows you as a doting daddy.

I recall being quiet harsh to Pietro in that show. How can you call that doting?

I don’t. But you can’t tell me that Wanda and Lorna didn’t have you wrapped around their fingers for most of that series. Heck, in that show you willingly sacrifice yourself to protect Lorna from the Phoenix force that engulfs most of the world. I’ve never seen a Magneto do that before, especially not for the child that most people don’t talk about.

A very regal Magneto.

I do have a soft spot for my girls that is true. And I must admit it was nice to have a series that let me see all of my children. I’m an occasional supervillain, not a monster.

That’s very true, and that’s what I like about you. Heck, it’s what most of the world likes about you. You’re the perfect shade of grey character. A villain that does bad things for the best reasons. You’ve seen the absolute worst that humanity has to dish out, and that has left you incapable of really trusting Homo sapiens. You fight for mutant kind, against the humans that you distrust, as well as from despicable members of you own kind, ala Mr. Sinister and Apocalypse. That’s what Magneto is, a fighter. And he’ll keep on fighting until his mutant world is realized, or until he dies. He’s the magnetic super mutant, Magneto. It was a pleasure having you.

The pleasure was mine. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have things to do this evening. I'm meeting my children at the local Temple.

Happy Hanukkah, Max.

Merry Christmas, Michael.

Have a goodnight everybody. Happy Holidays. Not sure what comes next, probably something from DC though.

 http://x-men.wikia.com/wiki/Magneto

 http://www.comicvine.com/forums/battles-7/magneto-vs-dr-manhattan-652058/

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magneto_%28comics%29

 http://marvel.wikia.com/Max_Eisenhardt_%28Earth-616%29

 http://villains.wikia.com/wiki/Magneto