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Quote1 When I was a boy, I saw men executed. Women and children. Each night I swore to myself 'Never again!'. But, we must prevail. Goodbye... Senator. Mutant liberation begins... Quote2
ā€”Magneto[src]

History

Origins[]

Magnus came from a small country that was brutally invaded during a war. In the course of the conflict, Magnus would witness countless atrocities and lost his entire family, forever destroying his faith in mankind. At some point, Magnus manifested mutant powers, gaining the ability to control and manipulate metal and electromagnetic fields. He went on to marry a woman by the name of Magda.[1]

After the war, he went to work at a psychiatric hospital as an aide alongside Charles Xavier, with whom he became close friends. When remnants of the forces that had invaded his country attacked the hospital and kidnapped a patient, Xavier and Magnus rescued her, thereby revealing their mutant powers to each other. Magnus tried to kill the soldiers, but was stopped by Xavier. Xavier believed they needed to use their abilities to aid humanity, but Magnus disagreed, believing that humanity could not even make peace with itself, let alone with mutantkind. He came to believe that mutants were a superior species and that they needed to rid themselves of humanity in order to claim their rightful place as the Earth's dominant species. He began calling himself "Magneto" and amassed a growing legion of followers.

His wife Magda began to grow frightened of Magnus and his mutant powers. After he used his powers to utterly destroy a village, a terrified Magda fled without telling him. Unbeknownst to Magnus, she was pregnant and would bear twins; Pietro and Wanda before dying. Magnus was left heartbroken by her disappearance.[1]

Undeterred, Magnus and his followers began attacking power plants, factories and government buildings in an attempt to disrupt human society in preparation for a mutant takeover. Xavier stopped him by using his telepathic powers, and Magneto went into hiding for many years, growing stronger and preparing for his return.

During this time, Magneto discovered the Savage Land, a lush tropical jungle hidden deep within Antarctica. Magneto created a citadel here, and created the Mutates, a race of superpowered beings. He also came into conflict with Ka-Zar and the free peoples of the Savage Land.[2]

Enter Magneto[]

Magneto revealed his presence to the world again when he attacked a detention center in an attempt to free the imprisoned X-Man Beast. Beast rebuffed his offer, wishing to stand trial and prove that mutants were no danger to mankind. He soon attempted to start a war with humanity, by launching nuclear missiles from Drake missile base, but he was prevented by Cyclops, Wolverine and Storm. He later attacked a Metro Chemical factory with the intent of luring Xavier into the open. He made quick work of the X-Men before Xavier arrived, but was defeated when Xavier forced him to relive painful childhood memories, prompting him to flee.[3]

After witnessing the failed assassination of Senator Robert Kelly, Magneto took matters into his own hands, and kidnapped Kelly with the intention of killing him, in order to provoke the war between humanity and mutantkind he so desired. Just before Magneto could finish him, he was attacked by a squadron of Sentinels. The Sentinels, who had been made of plastic to counter Magneto, easily incapacitated him, and kidnapped Kelly themselves, with the aim of replacing his and various other world leaders' brains with computers, allowing the Sentinels to gain control of the world. Magneto was rescued by the X-Men and taken back to the school. When they decided to rescue Kelly, Magneto called them fools, and stayed behind. He had a change of heart however, and came to the X-Men's aid in storming the Sentinel base, arriving just in time to save Xavier and turn the tide against the Sentinels. Together with Xavier, he destroyed Master Mold, halting the Sentinel threat. He declared himself and Xavier even, and left, promising they would meet again.[4]

Return to the Savage Land[]

Unbeknownst to Magneto, his Savage Land mutates fell under the control of a new master; Mr. Sinister. Using the shape-shifting mutant Morph, Sinister tricked Magneto and Xavier to both travel to the Savage Land, where they would be rendered powerless and could be captured by Sinister for use in his experiments.[5]

The two old friends were forced to work together to survive the hazards of the Savage Land without their powers, while hunted by Magneto's mutates, now serving Sinister. After painstakingly making their way back to Xavier's ship, only to be captured, they were rescued by Ka-Zar. Setting aside his differences with Magneto, he helped lead them into Magneto's old citadel, now Sinister's base of operations, so that they could rescue Ka-Zar's people, who had been enslaved or captured by Sinister. The trio were surprised to encounter all of the mutates, and Mr. Sinister and his Nasty Boys, who easily captured Magneto and Xavier while Ka-Zar fled.[2]

Sinister forced Xavier to summon the X-Men so that he could capture them as well, plotting to use all the captured mutants' genetic material in order to create a race of super-mutants subservient to him. Using Magneto's genetic material, he greatly enhanced the powers of the mutate Vertigo. The X-Men succeeded in disabling Sinister's power-suppression equipment, allowing them and Magneto to break free from Sinister, defeat his mutates, and destroy his corporeal form.[6]

With the battle won, Xavier asked Magneto to join him in his work to fight for the betterment of both humanity and mutantkind. Magneto declined, telling him they each had their own destiny and that only the future would prove which of them was right. The two parted as friends once again.[6]

Asteroid M[]

Weary of fighting humanity for the survival of his species, Magneto hatched a plan; to create a refuge for mutantkind in space, where they would be safe from human oppression. He began kidnapping scientists, who helped him create Asteroid M, a space-station floating in Earth-orbit. He also secured hundreds of nuclear warheads, which he would use as a deterrent to prevent human aggression. Once the station was ready, Magneto interrupted a United Nations General Assembly meeting to speak to the world. He offered a safe haven for any mutant who wished to join him, and warned the nations of the world that while his mission was peaceful, any aggression on their part would be answered in kind.[7]

Magneto was approached by his old friend Xavier, who doubted Magneto's plans, believing that segregation was not the answer, and that the nations of humanity would be frightened by his show of force. Magneto dismissed Xavier's concerns, and offered to allow him and his two escorts; Gambit and Beast to join him on Asteroid M. Xavier accepted the offer.[7]

Alongside his followers, he travelled to Genosha, a nation where mutants were enslaved by the human government, to liberate his enslaved brethren. He was met by heavy resistance from the Genoshan armed forces, and was nearly killed by their Sentinels. The battle, and the colossal effort of transporting all the refugees had drained him of his powers, but a Genoshan mutant by the name of Fabian Cortez used his mutant abilities to re-charge Magneto.[7]

Magneto's reliance on Cortez would quickly come to haunt him however. Cortez harbored a far deeper hatred of humanity than even Magneto, who now wished only for the humans to leave mutantkind alone. Cortez on the other hand wished to punish humanity for their transgressions, and soon grew disillusioned of Magneto's leadership after Magneto hosted several human astronauts on the asteroid. Cortez went behind Magneto's back and fired several warheads against the Earth, causing a diplomatic crisis with the United States of America. Magneto quickly discovered the plot and confronted Cortez, who responded by draining Magneto of the power he had given him. Magneto was left extremely weak, barely able to keep his own molecules together. Cortez ejected Magneto's quarters into space, as Magneto began to fade into nothing.[7]

Cortez framed Xavier and the X-Men for Magneto's murder, and ruled Asteroid M as a power mad dictator. When his schemes were uncovered, he launched the entirety of Asteroid M's nuclear arsenal at Earth. Magneto's quarters crashed into the Earth, where the planet's magnetic field re-charged him. Magneto recovered just in time to save the world from Cortez's assault by disarming the missiles. As Asteroid M went down, Magneto found Cortez and bound him within the asteroid, so he would go down with it. Xavier attempted to bring Magneto with them to Earth, but Magneto told him that with his dream now dead, he would remain to ensure its final end by destroying the asteroid. Lamenting the fact that any hope for humanity to grow to trust mutantkind was now dead, Magneto promised Xavier that he would survive.[8]

Family Ties[]

As he had promised Xavier, Magneto survived the destruction of Asteroid M. He received a letter that gave him hope that his estranged wife Magda had survived. In order to cover his back, he broke into Xavier's mansion to ask Xavier a favor; that Xavier use Cerebro to ensure that Magneto was not walking into a trap. Xavier agreed, but not fully trusting his old friend he sent Wolverine to watch him. Magneto was right to be suspicious, as the letter was a trap set by the High Evolutionary, who wished to use Magneto and his children's genomes for his plans to replace humanity with human/animal hybrids of his own creation.[1]

The High Evolutionary tricked Wanda and Pietro into believing that Magneto had killed their mother, and captured them and Wolverine. He revealed the truth of their familial bonds to Magneto and his children. Magneto helped the three of them break free while the High Evolutionary experimented on Wolverine, and together they foiled his schemes. Magneto attempted to reconnect with his children, telling them he had never forgiven himself for scaring away Magda, and that if he had known his children were alive he would have come for them. The twins were unswayed however and left, with Magneto wondering how they could ever forgive him.[1]

Beyond Good and Evil[]

Magneto was one among several mutants recruited by Apocalypse for his schemes. Apocalypse told Magneto that he sought to use the power of the Axis of Time to create a world ruled by mutants, and promised him to bring Magda back to life. Magneto aided Apocalypse in his quest to capture several powerful telepaths, that would allow him to warp reality from within the Axis. When Magneto questioned Apocalypse on the details of his plan, Apocalypse revealed that he had lied, and intended to use the Axis to destroy all of reality and re-create it in his own warped image.[9]

Apocalypse tried to kill Magneto, but he was saved by Mystique, who had also heard Apocalypse's plan and had a change of heart. Magneto and Mystique attempted to rescue Apocalypse's prisoners, beginning with Wolverine. While Magneto and Mystique had betrayed Apocalypse, Mr. Sinister and the Nasty Boys remained loyal and attacked them. With help from the time-traveler Lucas Bishop, they managed to free the captured telepaths. Combining their powers, the telepaths hurled Apocalypse back into the timestream, and with the X-Men having travelled back to the past and destroyed his means of immortality, he was instantly destroyed.[9]

Phalanx Covenant[]

At some point after losing Asteroid M, Magneto retired to the Arctic Circle, where he constructed a fortress. The loss of Asteroid M and his subsequent setbacks had left Magneto weary of the endless struggle for survival. When Amelia Voght, Beast, Mr. Sinister and Forge came to ask for his aid against the Phalanx invasion of Earth, Magneto refused and turned them away, resigning himself to his fate. It was only when Beast told him that the Phalanx had captured his son, Quicksilver, that Magneto agreed to help.[10]

Magneto's powers of magnetism were vital in capturing a sample of the Phalanx that the others could test their virus on, hoping it would be able to destroy the Phalanx before they could assimilate all organic life on the planet. With the virus successful, they launched an attack on the Phalanx headquarters. The rogue Phalanx Warlock volunteered to allow himself to be captured by the Phalanx, and to unleash the virus. The plan was successful, with all the Phalanx's captives freed and the Earth saved.[10]

With the day saved, Xavier thanked all those assembled, telling them he never believed he would see the day when they would all be working together. Magneto remained despondent, telling him he saw no new mutant solidarity, merely many who acted to save themselves in the face of greater danger. Xavier countered that even if Magneto had given up hope for a brighter future for himself, there were still reasons to fight for one, such as his son. Just then, Quicksilver found his father, and the two shared a loving embrace.[10]

Graduation Day[]

When Xavier was outed as a mutant and attacked on live television, mutants all over the world launched into rebellion, believing that if Xavier was not safe, none of them were.[11]

Re-invigorated by his battle with the Phalanx and the successes of mutant freedom fighters, Magneto travelled to Genosha, now under mutant control, to assume leadership of the scattered mutant revolutionaries, and to lead them into all-out war with humanity. A small strike-team of X-Men attempted to stop Magneto. In the course of the battle, Magneto accidentally overloaded Jean Grey's telepathy with his magnetic powers. The X-Men revealed that Xavier was dying and only had hours to live. Xavier's only hope was Shi'ar medicine, but sending a message to the alien Shi'ar would take months, time Xavier did not have. Jean interjected, suggesting that if Magneto could supercharge Xavier's mind as he had hers, he could send a telepathic message to Lilandra Neramani, his Shi'ar lover.[11]

Magneto was reluctant to leave, as he finally had the chance to fulfill his dreams, but realized that Xavier would have done the same for him, and followed the X-Men back to the mansion. The plan was successful, and Xavier's message reached Lilandra. Xavier thanked his old friend, and Magneto and the X-Men watched him depart.[11]

Attributes

Powers

Seemingly those of the Magneto of Earth-616.

Paraphernalia

Equipment

Notes

Trivia

  • In contrast to other depictions of the character, the animated version of Magneto was only truly an antagonist to the X-Men in his first appearance. Subsequent appearances, from the Season 1 finale all the way up to the final episode, would have him teaming up with them against common, greater foes, from the Sentinels to Mr. Sinister to the Phalanx. In the final episode, the last shot of the series is of him standing alongside the X-Men watching Professor Xavier depart with Lilandra, suggesting that he may remain at the mansion as one of the team, as he did in the 1980s on Earth-616.

See Also

Links and References

References

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