Max EisenhardtMagneto

Lose the earrings, watches and any other metal accessories—this metallic manipulator can turn the simplest things into weapons of subjugation. Dubbed the “Master of Magnetism,” Magneto experienced a tumultuous upbringing that led the young mutant to become obsessively protective of his people’s rights, knowing that any day society could turn on them. But what started as a noble cause quickly morphed into something more sinister, as Magneto began to believe that mutants should rule over humans. Though usually at odds with Earth’s Super Heroes, Magneto has come to mankind’s aid on multiple occasions, showing there is still hope for this tragic figure…

Maven of Mutants

Max Eisenhardt began his life in a world amid mass turmoil and intolerance—Germany, World War II. He witnessed the worst the human race had to offer and while he may have survived, his family and his people were persecuted and torn apart. After the death of his parents and sister, he landed in Auschwitz where he reunited with his childhood crush, Magda. Growing to adulthood in the camp, Max continued to urge his fellow captives to fight for their freedom.

Eventually implementing a revolt against their Nazi tormentors, Max and Magda escaped and fled to a small city where they married and had a daughter, Anya. Caught in a house fire, the future Magneto’s mutant powers finally emerged as he tried to rescue his family, but due to the interference of angry authorities, Anya did not survive. Enraged, he laid waste to the onlookers causing Magda to flee, fearing the evil within him.

Max obtained forged documents to change his name to Erik Magnus Lehnsherr and settled in Israel where he befriended Charles Xavier. The two enjoyed debating at length the prospects of a superhuman race before revealing their true identities to one another to thwart a Nazi criminal. The ordeal brought to light Charles and Erik’s vastly different stances on the matter of mutant rights and the two went their separate ways, each championing their ideals.

Magnetic Mastery

Among Earth’s most powerful mutants, Magneto’s abilities are essentially limitless. He can manipulate all forms of magnetism, summon force fields and shoot electromagnetic pulses that can disable electronic devices. He can assemble complex machinery in seconds and manipulate the iron in blood to take control of people’s actions. He has even shown power over forms of energy on the electromagnetic spectrum like visible light and gamma rays, though he rarely uses these abilities. On top of these gifts Magneto possesses genius level intelligence in multiple technical fields and genetic engineering. He is a brilliant tactician, a natural born leader and, though he rarely demonstrates it, a trained hand-to-hand combatant.

Repelling Rivals

Professor Charles Xavier and the X-Men both claim the role of Magneto’s principal and longest standing foes; however, they do often find themselves on the same team. This holds true for other heroic groups like the Avengers, Fantastic Four, Defenders and Inhumans as well. Magneto has also had run ins with Hydra and given his upbringing always remained their opposition. The entire United States Government also lands on the foe list—which makes sense considering the amount of times Magneto has threatened, destroyed, or held something hostage in an attempt to take control of the world at large.

Attracted Allies

Magneto’s allies tend to fluctuate, but the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants and Acolytes have established their places as support groups. Charles Xavier and the X-Men occasionally fall into this category as well, though they always remain wary. And finally the New Mutants, Hellfire Club, Savage Land Mutates and High Evolutionary have all found themselves backing this magnetic madman at some point in his long and complicated run.

Push and Pull

After parting ways with Charles Xavier in Israel, Magneto began a career tracking down Nazi war criminals for a covert agency. But this affiliation ended poorly and Magnus finally stepped over the line he’d been skirting, beginning down a path of aggression to gain mutants their rightful status as Earth’s dominant race.

Early on in his career, Magneto acquired Asteroid M as his orbital base and established a team known as the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, which notably included Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver, with whom he would share a complex future relationship.

Magneto traveled to the U.S. to seize the military missile base at Cape Citadel, Florida but former friend Xavier and his newly assembled team of crime fighters, the X-Men, disarmed the escalating situation.  He then laid a trap for his new foes by occupying the small South American nation of Santo Marco and setting a bomb to detonate upon their arrival. The team managed to foil these plans as, uneasy with Magneto’s obsessive war against humanity, Quicksilver helped them defuse the bomb. He and his twin sister Scarlet Witch soon left the Brotherhood to join the Avengers.

Magneto had several run-ins with the X-Men after this, usually ending in explosions that led them to believe him dead, only for him to resurface with a new group of mutants and fresh plans for world domination. Some notable attempts were his discovery of the Savage Land and his manipulation of Namor the Sub-Mariner.

After each failed scheme Magneto established different versions of the Brotherhood until he eventually used his knowledge of genetic engineering to create Alpha the Ultimate Mutant who, instead of joining his progenitor, reverted him into a powerless infant. Professor Xavier entrusted baby Magneto to his colleague Dr. Moira MacTaggert who performed experiments on the child to alter its mind. Later restored to his adult form, Magneto resumed his war with the X-Men.

After almost killing the young mutant Kitty Pryde, Magneto began to realize the error of his ways and aligned with the X-Men. Learning of a supposed relation to Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver as their father, he attempted to reach out, but understandably the two remained wary of their so-called reformed former master. Magneto aided in the fight against the Beyonder and finally turned himself over for his crimes against humanity. However, an attack on the trial left Professor Xavier badly wounded and Magneto reluctantly took up the mantle of headmaster in his absence, joining the X-Men on missions and mentoring the New Mutants.

This transformation did not last as Magneto’s old supremacist personality began to reemerge after he and X-Men leader Storm sought an alliance with the Hellfire Club. Magneto dethroned the Black King, Sebastian Shaw, becoming the Grey King and in so doing alienated himself from the New Mutants. He then regained control over a grief stricken Scarlet Witch who had just lost her husband and children. Quicksilver also rejoined his purported parent, conspiring to save his sister and turn Magneto over to the Avengers. The plan worked but ended with the heroes believing the Master of Magnetism had once again died in an explosion.

From there, Magneto went on a side adventure with Rogue of the X-Men and Ka-Zar in the Savage Land that ended with Magnus killing his alleged daughter Zaladane. He then retired to solitude on Asteroid M until the mutant group known as the Acolytes pleaded for his help reclaiming the island nation of Genosha. The X-Men once again intervened and destroyed Asteroid M. Undeterred, Magneto converted the space station Graymalkin into a new base named Avalon as haven for mutants, recruiting all he could to his cause. The government and the X-Men tried to intervene and after a series of events, Magneto removed Wolverine’s Adamantium skeleton—so Professor Xavier wiped his mind in retaliation.

In a form of revenge, a mutant named Astra restored Magneto’s mind while creating a clone named Joseph to destroy him. The duplicate failed to kill the original, and gave its life saving the planet: Magneto attempted to free mutants from mankind by threatening total world destruction, demanding that the UN cede Genosha to him. They did so with reluctance, with the caveat that he not attack any other nations.

Magneto was revealed to be one of the Twelve, a roster of mutants prophesied to bring in a new era for their people; Apocalypse captured the group, hoping to use them to his own gain. However, Magneto tapped into another mutant’s powers to compensate for his waning ones, and defeated the genetic tyrant. He then returned to Genosha with Polaris, yet another of his offspring—this one legitimate—and began to teach her to expand her own abilities while seeking to restore his to full capacity.

After the Legacy Virus was cured, Magneto used the mutants at his disposal to declare war on mankind but the X-Men wounded him during their opposition, rendering his nation defenseless. Genosha was destroyed by Cassandra Nova’s Sentinels and its 16 million mutant residents executed. Again, humanity and the X-Men believed Magneto among the dead, but he remained on the island in secret to rebuild it, eventually joined by none other than Professor Xavier.

Magneto then began caring for the Scarlet Witch after she’d gone insane and attacked the Avengers. Quicksilver convinced his sister to alter reality into the world Magneto fought for with mutants as the dominant species and their father the ruler of them all. Unaware of the previous state of the world, Magneto soon regained his memories and killed Quicksilver as recompense for his actions. This led the Scarlet Witch to resurrect her brother and revert reality to its original state simultaneously stripping many mutants, including Magneto, of their powers. To restore the lost mutant gene, Magneto teamed up with the High Evolutionary; however they only succeeded in reinstating his own powers.

Viewing their work to be noble, Magneto joined Cyclops’s X-Men on their island home, Utopia, where he worked with the team to protect the remaining mutants and fight in missions around the world. During this time he helped Rogue battle the Children of the Vault and learned that two members of the Young Avengers may be reincarnations of Scarlet Witch’s lost sons. Though warned not to interfere, Magneto sought out his possible grandchildren and joined them on their mission to find the missing Scarlet Witch and restore her memories and sanity.

Magneto struck up a relationship with Rogue, who thus far had rebuked his romantic advances. However, when the X-Men split into two groups with conflicting feelings over the return of the Phoenix Force, Magneto stayed with Cyclops on the West Coast where he slowly worked to gain the trust of his allies, while Rogue returned to the newly opened Jean Grey School for Higher Education in New York.

With the eventual dissipation of the Phoenix Force by Hope Summers and the Scarlet Witch, the mutant gene was reestablished. Magneto joined S.H.I.E.L.D., supposedly as a double agent to protect his group of rogue X-Men; he recruited new mutants to the New Charles Xavier school, helped the world’s heroes defeat the Red Skull who had taken over Charles Xavier’s brain, and fought to stop the reality-ending Incursion of the Beyonders. During this time, Scarlet Witch revealed her and Quicksilver’s purported parentage to be a falsehood.

Most recently, Magneto once again found himself leading the X-Men, or at least a group of them, as they searched for a cure to the mutant-poisoning Terrigen Mist.  During Civil War II he fought to stop Ulysses and predictive justice, and most recently battled against the altered Captain America and his Secret Empire. There may be hope for his reformation after all…