Magneto is the manifestation of the saying, “one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter.” You could probably reasonably say:
Professor X : Magneto :: Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. : Malcom X
Professor X and the X-Men were all for mutant equality, but they always favored peaceful acceptance. Conversely, Magneto recognized that large portions of society would never accept mutants. It also bears mentioning that Magneto carried some “racist” (for lack of a better word) tendencies towards non-mutants. In his view, non-mutants are lesser beings.
It’s kind of hard to argue that non-mutants aren’t lesser beings when mutants literally have powers that no normal human could ever hope to have, powers that can even defy the basic laws of physics.
Well not all mutants. We always focus on the “cool” ones but there were a ton of mutants that were hopelessly disfigured and with powers that amount to anyone holding a bat
While I see your point, and I’m not at all painting you with this brush, I think that reasoning could also be used to argue that, e.g., autistic people are lesser beings. I know it’s a different universe, but look at Superman: Unquestionably a superior being, but like Professor X, he never put himself on that pedestal. Magneto’s insistence that non-mutants are and maybe should be subservient pretty much requires conflict, and starts folks down a path towards subjugation, enslavement, and ultimately elimination. Note: not extinction. Elimination requires action, while extinction, allowing for mitigating circumstances, does not.
Add to all of this that it’s pretty easy to understand, and even relate to the origins of how Magnet and Professor X see non-mutants, and X-Men is a pretty great story/universe. They’re both similarly flawed, but in very different ways.
I guess the issue here is about how you are defining ‘superior.’ If the argument is that mutants are in some way morally or ethically superior to non-mutants, absolutely not. And that is the source of a lot of the conflict in the comics. But in terms of what they can actually achieve in life, when you can do something like Magento does, you’ve got an inherent superiority.
Now I admit that you can’t make that claim for all mutants. Not even all X-Men. I would not say that Cyclops’ mutant power makes him an inherently superior human in terms of power because it severely limits him in many other ways and, if he wasn’t on a team that regularly needed his power, would find life pretty difficult.
So I guess you can’t argue that all mutants are superior, but many of the ones we see could basically rule all of humanity if they were allowed to get away with it.
Magneto’s insistence that non-mutants are and maybe should be subservient
Magneto is a prime example of “might makes right”, which is why he’s a villain. Non-mutants are beneath him: he has no compassion for them, no regard for their ideas, their voice, their opinion.
I’m not well versed in his history in the comics or whether there even is a canonical backstory, but from the Marvel perspective …… he’s a sympathetic villain, because he has a good point. While it’s not a single coherent backstory, we can see his development over time at the treatment he faced, and can have sympathy for humanity driving him to it.
Do you consider people with learning disabilities lesser than human? I think that is the point they are trying to make. Just because they did not evolve does not mean they are better. Better athletes and performers are revered because they do things normal people cannot, but it doesn’t make them more human.
In-universe, there are plenty of normal humans with those kinds of powers
really? but wouldn’t the fact that they have those powers make them mutants by default? I’m not well versed in the x-men universe.
The X-men type mutants had powers that seemed to defy the known laws of physics. But, they showed pretty often that most mutants had more drawbacks than benefits.
What made Magneto a villain was that he decided that mutants were the next evolutionary step, and that humans were therefore obsolete. It wasn’t even like predicting that mutants were superior and that as a result eventually humans would fade away. It was that he decided that one “race” was superior and therefore was justified in ruling over the inferior race. Which, you know, is pretty dark for a holocaust survivor.
But mutants are humans, and by the “rules” of their universe, mutants are born from non-mutant parents as well.
I’m not sure that parentage matters. When you have powers that defy reality, you have an undeniable superiority. What you seem to be saying, and what I would agree with, is that you can’t really argue that mutants are an ethnic group because they don’t all share a genetic bloodline back to the first mutant.
But I think it’s really hard to claim that someone with the ability to manipulate any and all metal in any way they want does not have an inherent superiority over all non-mutants.
I love MLK but if I had been around in the days of civil rights, I would definitely have been a Malcom x guy
I think poison Ivy is the best example of the “yeah I can’t pretend this is the villain anymore”
Mt.freeze just wanted to save his wife but the bills made him turn to crime.
Guy robbed banks with non-lethal force, definitely less harm than peddling drugs
I rather liked the Elseworlds depiction of him, just because
spoiler
the sympathetic backstory being a complete fabrication because he was utterly batshit insane
was a nice change-up from the way he’d traditionally been depicted.
e: don’t write markdown drunk kids
See also: Harley Quinn & Poison Ivy respectively.
Ivy sure, given what’s happening with our climate I would agree.
Harley is just a straight psycho.
Depends on what version of Harley you’re talking about. The original one from Batman: the Animated Series showed that she actually did have morals, she was just totally in the sway of the Joker. Batman was able to convince her to help him more than once by appealing to her good side.
Harley in the self-titled Harley Quinn cartoon definitely has a good side, but she’s also a psycho. It’s complicated. Unlike her love for Ivy.
Other versions, they definitely lean in on the “Joker except a woman” angle.
She’s an anti-hero more often than not now, fighting villains bigger than her. From the New 52 when she started going solo and turned on Joker (or he turned on her really), to Injustice where she was a major player in the resistance, to the DCEU where she turned against ARGUS to stop Starro which wasn’t even her mission. Even in the Suicide Squad game which is part of the Arkham universe and doesn’t include any kind of redemption arc for her she’s still only killing the Justice League when they’re being controlled by Brainiac, who is probably second only to Darkseid as far as villains go. Under duress sure, but she’s doing it.
I’m looking forward to seeing how Harley Quinn is in Folie à Deux, I think she’s going to be the more psycho one that pushes Arthur to further lows. It’ll be great
That’s the point; Harley ≈ Venom, Ivy ≈ Magneto.
Though, frankly, I don’t see a relationship between Magneto and Venom working out. Too much of an age difference.
Magneto was meant to be a stand in for Malcom X…
Malcom X’s only crime was that white people were afraid of him. Meaning he did nothing wrong.
So Magneto can’t be a villain unless you have him gripping the villain ball pretty hard.
The problem with Magento as a character is that he’s portrayed as Malcolm X in his rhetoric, but as Dr. Strangelove in his technique. The number of times Magneto has tried to engage in Uno-Reverse Genocide - reprogramming Sentinels, reverse engineering killer viruses, rebounding mind control, redirecting asteroids and bombs aimed at his friends back towards civilian non-mutant areas, reversing the magic ray that strips you of your mutant abilities so that it gives them to you instead - makes him deeply unsympathetic simply because this shit never actually works and typically turns him the poster child for “Why All Mutants Must Be Exterminated!” rhetoric works on the non-mutant population.
Say what you will about Malcolm X, but he never tried to brainwash the LAPD into killing all the white people.
I think if Magneto was written in the present age, he would have been written without the mustache twirling aspect. It has become much more popular to portray both antagonists and protagonists with more depth and grey areas. For that matter, we saw it in some of the recent X-Men movies.
I think if Magneto was written in the present age, he would have been written without the mustache twirling aspect
Depends on who writes him. The modern Marvel Cinematic Universe has more than its fair share of mustache twirlers.
For that matter, we saw it in some of the recent X-Men movies.
Eh. I don’t think they ever topped the original. Ian McCallen was in peak form.
I’m wondering whether Magneto ever did something analagous to a hajj like Malcolm X did. It radically altered his views. I would imagine if Magneto did this there would be some deus ex machina to set him back to genocide.
Magneto was meant to be a stand in for Malcom X…
While the X-Men were an allegory of the civil rights movement from the get go, I’m quite certain at the time Magneto was just intended as a villain.
I mean… his terrorist group was called “The Brotherhood of Evil Mutants”, and some of the members were definitely of the moustache twirling puppy kicking kind, including Magneto himself, at first…
Yeah, mainstream comic book villains didn’t start getting more nuanced until the seventies and especially the eighties, possibly as a consequence of the comics code, which included “crimes shall never be presented in such a way as to create sympathy for the criminal”, and didn’t allow “sympathetic depiction of criminal behavior” until 1971 (and which also hilariously led to zombies being called “zuvembies” in Marvel during the seventies, as that simple change was apparently enough to make them kosher), which publishers didn’t start mostly ignoring untill the mid eighties (though most didn’t officially fully abandon it until the noughties or early twenty-tens).
Can someone help me out with this? Not a super hero guy. Why is magneto good now?
So magneto has actually fought for mutant rights from the beginning. And every time he gets ahead the xmen win and mutant rights don’t really move forward. The xmen literally fight for the status quo. The status quo is bad for mutants, but they want to keep it for some reason. An analogy I’ve heard a lot is that professor x is the mlk to Magneto’s Malcolm x. The difference is that mlk didn’t bank roll a CIA black ops style team to constantly beat up Malcolm x whenever he started getting a leg up.
People are fed up. They’re more open to extreme actions. That’s why people are more sympathetic to Magneto
The xmen literally fight for the status quo. The status quo is bad for mutants, but they want to keep it for some reason.
Not quite. Professor X believes that humans will eventually overcome their inherit racism and would be able to live with mutants in peace. He also believes any act of violence from the mutants will push this ideal future further and further (he also does not agree on hurting humans indiscriminately because not all humans are rabid racists)
Whether Professor X is enlightened or just naive, well that’s another story
“Fought for mutant rights” is a stretch. At the start he was a 2-dimensional villain fighting for mutants to rule over humans.
Direct quote: “The moment is at hand! All my months of preparation and planning shall pay off! The Human Race no longer deserves dominion over the planet Earth! The Day of the Mutants is upon us! The first phase of my plan shall be to show my power… to make homo sapiens bow to homo superior!” His plan involves invading a military base and taking control of “The mightiest rocket of all”.
As for the status quo, the emergence of mutants changed the status quo. What Xavier is generally fighting for is that mutants have the same rights as normal humans. Magneto is fighting for mutants to dominate over humans. And, certain powerful interest in the government are fighting to either cage or exterminate mutants. The early years of the X-men comics are fights on one side against Magneto trying to do something with his group of super-powered mutants (literally called the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants), and on the other side fighting against powerful forces in the (human) government who see mutants as a threat and want to stop them before they get too powerful. Plus a bunch of fights against aliens, dimensional-hopping baddies, dinosaur-human hybrids from Antarctica, you know, the usual.
Eventually, Magneto is seemingly satisfied with mutants having their own country where they get to set their own laws and live separately from humans (backed up by the threat of force from the most powerful mutants), whereas Xavier wants humanity and mutants to live together in peace and harmony.
Put simply, given the state and direction of the world the lofty, idealistic goals of Professor Xavier of peaceful coexistence and mutual trust have come to seem quaint and naive in a world of division, exploitation, inequality, discrimination, and hate. Magneto, by contrast, has always advocated the use of force and exercise of power, not in the interest of “bwahaha, I’m a bad guy!” evil, but in the interest of enacting vigilante justice and/or almost anarchic self-determination outside the system when the system fails.
So in 2024, your sympathy towards Magneto is inversely tied to your faith in the system to deliver fair and just outcomes. The more your faith in that has slipped, the closer you get to the position that Magneto is right.
To play devil’s advocate: the guy did name his terrorist group “The Brotherhood of Evil Mutants” (emphasis mine)…
(I think it’s later been retconned as an attempt at irony, but if so the general public and some of the members clearly didn’t get it.)
Depending on the story magneto ranges from Hitler 2.0 to anti-hero. The better stories tend to be him as an anti-hero. It generally boils down to Xavier believing people are good and they will chose the right option if you set a good example. Magneto believes people are bastards and you have to force them into the right decision.
Magneto’s whole shtick is that he survived the holocaust. This made him a radical against discrimination. So when he sees the mutant minority starting to get the same treatment as Jews in Germany (dehumanizing propaganda, lists and “yellow stars”) he’s like “not this time” and decides to start fighting before things get concentration camp bad.
Professor X believes that regular humans and mutants can reach an understanding despite all the propaganda to the contrary. But if mutants on one side (magneto)attack then due to the powers only other mutants are really effective, both for stopping them and for showing that it’s “not all mutants”.
I’m not super into comics so someone let me know if I’m off base here but…
Ok so the X men are stand ins for marginalized people. Their primary conflict is that they are demonized by society, even though they are a boon for society. Charles and Magneto attempt to solve this in different ways. Charles via working within the system, and appealing to saving their haters to prove they are good and restraining what makes them different. And Magneto is heavily militant in his defense of mutants against any who would harm them, and is big in not hiding who you are.
Now Magneto is villain coded so don’t take what the post said without a grain of salt. He does bad things. But these days he usually is given a sympathetic reason. And due to how comics and stories are told Charles Xavier will never succeed in his quest to prove mutants are not to be feared. (Especially when you have some kids who’s power is they turn into a literal nuclear bomb that will go off at any time for any reason… poor kid)
But this ties in with the rise in right wing authoritarian hate mobs
If anyone wants to read the comic referred to: https://imgur.artemislena.eu/gallery/I71V6
That is such a frustrating storyline… Why couldn’t they just slap a suppression collar on him? Or see if there’s a material that might block his power, and make him a suit out of that? Or get him a LMD and let him live virtually through that while he stays safely stashed somewhere? Why do they go straight to “kill him, he’s bad PR for us!!!”
I’ll take a shot but I’m not a die hard X-Men guy. If someone has a little more precision please correct me.
Basically magnetos driving idea is that people (and their governments) are out to get mutants and won’t ever change, so it’s up to him to lead mutants to fight back. Basically if they want respect and fair treatment, they have to take it for themselves. He tries many times in many ways to pull down the establishment by, for example, attempting to convert all people to mutants.
The premise of the post is basically that, since Reagan, social support is diminishing and power and wealth are concentrating in such a way in the upper class. Ergo, taking an… uh… active approach in advocating for ourselves is looking increasingly like a good idea.
In my opinion,
Magneto being a victim / survivor of Anti-Semitism , has made him have
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a severe black-and-white justice complex.
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a severe inferiority complex.
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a do-or-die / either friend-or-foe complex.
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a guilt for being powerless to save himself or his parents.
All these things are a complex brew in the psyche of any human being.
It made Prof.X seem somewhat naive or Magneto too brash/risky.
The balance of things either Prof.X or Magneto depending on the scenario plays out. Neither of the results or methods are satisfactory or acceptable but it is a quandary.
No one can predict at the moment of action/in-action where is the correct path.
That is what it means to live your life. Regrets or no-regrets no one can say but you.
Your lived-experience IS NOT a solution for the entire planet or universe. DO NOT apply your solution on others.
Let them live their life.
And that is sometimes very very hard to let-go or adopt.
This is my opinion. You may or may not agree with me. Im good.
That seems about right, except for the inferiority complex.
Magneto has always had a superority complex the size of a continent, and it leaks, making him see not only himself but all mutants as superior… to the point that in Marvel continuity he seems to have been the one to coin the term “homo superior” to refer to mutants as opposed to homo sapiens, or at least he was the first one to use it in the books, in the very first X-Men issue, in the second panel in which he ever appeared (in the real world the term was coined by Olaf Stapledon).
You’re getting a lot of answers that are more sympathetic to Magneto than he deserves.
I’d argue that Magneto has a slightly better argument on diagnosing the problem (that humans and mutants can’t peacefully coexist) than Professor X (that humans and mutants must find a way to peacefully coexist).
But the logical diagnosis of “the humans will genocide the mutants of we let them” doesn’t make Magneto the good guy when he prescribes a solution for that problem. The history of the character oscillates between trying to create segregated societies where mutants are separate and not accountable to the human world, or outright subjugation or genocide of the humans.
Maybe peaceful coexistence isn’t possible. But is it better to continually strive for that ideal, or is it better to reject humanity entirely and create strict segregation (or destruction) of the other side?
