How do you bring Magneto into the MCU? (He'd be very old with his origin)

[apocat]

Sure buddy. It hasn't even been part of his character the whole time. It was just widely popularized by the movies. Should Wolverine be a 6.5ft Australian now because of them?

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Don't be silly. The X-Men characters were all pretty much cardboard thin during the early years. They didn't really take actual shape until the Claremont years, and Magnetos backstory has been pretty clear ever since that era. It's central to the character.

 

[Leafshield]

My idea: make him the grandson of a holocaust survivor. He grew up listening to stories about the holocaust, with his grandparents telling him he must never forget what happened to them so that it doesn't happens again.

He discovers his mutant abilities, sees people like him being persecuted for being different and interprets his grandparents' message incorrectly and believes the only way to stop this persecution is to kill all people who are not like him, as humans are the ones who persecute, not mutants, thus "fulfilling" his promise to his grandparents in his own, twisted way.

With something like this, you can still keep the holocaust as a central part of his origin while "aging" him down to be appropriately aged to be a villain in the current MCU.

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I think my issue with that is that it removes the personal element of him experiencing the horrors of a concentration camp as a child, so it makes him way less easy to empathise with.

 

[KingM]

It was widely popularized by the films because they were popular and that was a large part of the movie

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The Claremont run on X-Men was huge and Magneto's background got adapted in every popular adaptation after. It wasn't a footnote, the Claremont run is more or less the definitive comics run for the characters. Like Kirby and Lee's Fantastic Four or Kane and Finger's Batman. His ideas are more or less inseparable from the characters.

 

[Leafshield]

It was widely popularized by the films because they were popular and that was a large part of the movie

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Like I said, it wasn't just widely popularised by the films. At this point that it's been the main character background for 41 years, when the Xmen have been one of the biggest series in comics for the entirety of that time. This was Magneto's background throughout the big storylines of the 80s and 90s that really kicked the horrors of 'mutant prejudice' stuff into gear, from Days of Future Past to The Mutant Massacre, sentinels and then the Legacy Virus stuff. It's integral to the character as it's a dark mirror to what the teenagers in the books were facing off against.

 

[krazen]

It was widely popularized by the films because they were popular and that was a large part of the movie

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Well, this is a take.

I dunno if it was 'populized' by the film. Ive read plenty of comics where Mags directly referenced his background in the 80's and 90's, on top of his not so thinly allegorical 'They are animals, what will the humans do to us for being different???'.

Magneto is an extremely political character, not in a shitty 'omg, they are making fun of Pelosi' but how his whole being is shaped by the 'I need to set my people free because humans are killing them'

 

[pants]

How did Steve Rogers last as long as he did, looking as young as he did?

It seems to me you can solve these types of things with story beats like cryogenic freezing, super serums, and magic.

In Magneto's case, magnets.

 

[DiipuSurotu]

How do you crogenically freeze Megnato though?

Dude controls metal and last I checked plastic freezers don't exist.

 

[PlanetSmasher]

How do you crogenically freeze Megnato though?

Dude controls metal and last I checked plastic freezers don't exist.

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Drug the shit out of him before you throw him in confinement and it's kind of a done deal.

 

[JackRandom]

Honestly, a Magneto who lived through the Holocaust only to watch the world learn NOTHING from it over the next 70 years would be a pretty horrifying villain.

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this is amazing, i need this

 

[Uzumaki Goku]

Magneto had the backstory in the 90s cartoon. They didn't directly refer to as the Holocaust because that was a big no no but the basics were there.

 

[Calvin Leonard]

Isn't this what the multiverse is for? Just make him time displaced in 2022. An angry holocaust victim from the 1960's dropped in 2022 pretty much writes itself.

 

[808s & Villainy]

Just have slow aging be part of his mutant powers or a side effect of his control of magnetism

 

[PlanetSmasher]

Isn't this what the multiverse is for? Just make him time displaced in 2022. An angry holocaust victim from the 1960's dropped in 2022 pretty much writes itself.

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That's not how the multiverse works. And an angry guy from another universe punishing a planet he isn't even from for a thing we never saw doesn't sound like a very good way to write a character.

All you have to do is make him age slowly or have him be taken out of commission for most of the 20th century. Ripping him out of the multiverse just overcomplicates it.

 

[Calvin Leonard]

That's not how the multiverse works. And an angry guy from another universe punishing a planet he isn't even from for a thing we never saw doesn't sound like a very good way to write a character.

All you have to do is make him age slowly or have him be taken out of commission for most of the 20th century. Ripping him out of the multiverse just overcomplicates it.

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So other universes can't have their own holocaust? Similar but different is a easy explanation. Why would our universe be the only one with Nazis?

 

[PlanetSmasher]

So other universes can't have their own holocaust? Similar but different is a easy explanation. Why would our universe be the only one with Nazis?

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The point is that Magneto's hatred and anger needs to be personal to the planet he's actually from, rather than a guy changing dimensions to attack a completely different world. It's silly. "I'm not from this universe, but fuck you guys!" isn't really a satisfying villain motivation compared to "I gave you people a chance to fix things, and you wasted it. Now you need to be forced to understand."

 

[Calvin Leonard]

The point is that Magneto's hatred and anger needs to be personal to the planet he's actually from, rather than a guy changing dimensions to attack a completely different world. It's silly. "I'm not from this universe, but fuck you guys!" isn't really a satisfying villain motivation compared to "I gave you people a chance to fix things, and you wasted it. Now you need to be forced to understand."

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I think Magneto would hate racism and oppression no matter what universe he's in.Being in new universe and time, seeing the same shit would give him even more motivation

 

[PlanetSmasher]

I think Magneto would hate racism and oppression no matter what universe he's in.Being in new universe and time, seeing the same shit would give him even more motivation

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But then the prime universe doesn't have a Magneto. Why even bother telling stories about Marvel's biggest characters if it's just gonna be a bunch of variants? What's the point of the MCU being a single focal universe if characters have to be shunted in from other universes just to exist?

 

[GMM]

Just bring in Fassbender from another Dimension, fixes the need for retconning the Quicksilver/Wanda connection.

 

[Mansa Mufasa]

He's a Mutant. Just say he as slow aging.

 

[Rygar 8Bit]

I like the idea of having him been on ice all this time, in maybe a forgotten abandoned Hydra base and something happens to cause whatever to free him. It also keeps it fresh in his mind what the Nazi's have done to him.

 

[Watchtower]

There is something really juicy about Magneto having been experimented on by Hydra after and even during the Holocaust. I can totally imagine it being the origin of his supervillain alias, Hydra attempting to turn him into some kind of living battery and him co-opting it out of revenge. There's plenty of ways from there to explain his longevity: periods of being put on ice, an injection of a form of the Super-Soldier Serum, him naturally slowing his aging with magnetic fields, a secondary mutation, etc. The only other thing then is him being out long enough for him to have that storied relationship with Xavier.

I feel like Marvel would not be foolish enough to take the most prominent Jewish character in comics history and switch him into a Palestinian (or a survivor of another atrocity). They have to realize the optics of switching Magneto's origin out for something else would do irreparable harm to the character.

That's not to say there isn't VALUE in a Palestinian Marvel character who survived Israel's aggression, but that's not Magneto. That's a new character.

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I agree with this. There is value in a Magneto-esque character that highlight the atroicities done by Israel and America turning a blind eye to support them, or highlighting any other sort of lesser-known human atrocities, but we shouldn't take away Magneto himself for that sort of character. Magneto is too valuable at a time when the Holocaust is on the cusp of becoming a distant memory, a time where so many people are falling for the same populist traps that allowed Hitler to rise to power. And say what you will about Killmonger and the Flag Smashers but the MCU's definitely shown room to allow enough edge for it to mean something.

 

[Alienous]

You can probably use what they've established with Bucky to justify it. The MCU approach following Endgame has been 'I don't have to explain shit' so I wouldn't overthink it.

Magneto is captured and put on ice by HYDRA from the mid-1950s to whichever decade enables him to be the same age as Xavier. The mutant gene is some key to adapting humanity to harness the Infinity Stones, so he's sort of a father to Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver.

 

[Rygar 8Bit]

There is something really juicy about Magneto having been experimented on by Hydra after and even during the Holocaust. I can totally imagine it being the origin of his supervillain alias, Hydra attempting to turn him into some kind of living battery and him co-opting it out of revenge. There's plenty of ways from there to explain his longevity: periods of being put on ice, an injection of a form of the Super-Soldier Serum, him naturally slowing his aging with magnetic fields, a secondary mutation, etc. The only other thing then is him being out long enough for him to have that storied relationship with Xavier.



I agree with this. There is value in a Magneto-esque character that highlight the atroicities done by Israel and America turning a blind eye to support them, or highlighting any other sort of lesser-known human atrocities, but we shouldn't take away Magneto himself for that sort of character. Magneto is too valuable at a time when the Holocaust is on the cusp of becoming a distant memory, a time where so many people are falling for the same populist traps that allowed Hitler to rise to power. And say what you will about Killmonger and the Flag Smashers but the MCU's definitely shown room to allow enough edge for it to mean something.

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I guess we can have him been freed for a bit maybe a decade or 2 so he can build up that relationship with Charles.

 

[Cocamantis]

Something something Mr.Sinister was fucking around with some mutants and he aged slowly or was in cryo or whatever. We have a talking tree with a racoon for sidekick and we're gonna get into the specifics of a character's look for his age?

 

[SuperHans]

Have him be a Bosnian Muslim or a member of any of the other ethic groups that have been victims of genocide in the last 40 years.

 

[PlanetSmasher]

Have him be a Bosnian Muslim or a member of any of the other ethic groups that have been victims of genocide in the last 40 years.

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Again, that's a different character. Magneto's Jewish heritage is too important to erase like that.

 

[deimosmasque]

As much as I love What If stories and the multiverse and all that.

I really wish it had never been introduced to the MCU too many people seem to want it to be used in the laziest ways imaginable.

 

[M.Bluth]

I think the way they should do it is have the X-gene exist in the MCU but laying dormant. Mutants exist but are very rare so you can have Xavier, Magneto, Wolverine (Chris Evans WW2 flashback cameo) and Apocalypse who are already established but hidden.

Have the second snap from the hulk or multiversal tampering activate the X-gene and explode the mutant population in the MCU. It forces Xavier and Magneto into trying help and guide the mutant population while also letting you easily integrate versions of these characters so the audience can adapt to this change within the MCU with the characters.

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This is it. The snap and the multiverse can play a role in activating the X-gene, but the characters have to be from the MCU's 616 earth.

WandaVision already said that Wanda had powers before Strucker's team experimented on her. The Mind Stone basically unlocked her powers further.
It seems the bracelet did the same for Kamala Khan.

Mutants have always been around, most of them have their powers dormant as you say, but interaction with the infinity stones or other artifacts are what's unlocking their powers right now in the MCU. Others might've had more access to their powers, but not quite fully.
The Snap extended that interaction to the entire universe, thus more mutants will have their full powers unlocked, and younger/newborn mutants will now work as they do in the Marvel lore.

In Magneto's case, PlanetSmasher 's suggesting is pretty good. He could've been one of the mutants that had their abilities manifesting in a more powerful manner, so the Nazis took more interest in him. Hydra could've exposed him to the Tesseract or something.
I lean more into the freezing him thing. Like what if Hydra tried to use him like the Winter Soldier and he fucked them up real bad? You could have him escape sometime in the 90's... Live with very limited powers, frustrated and embittered by injustice in the world, literal fascists returning to power... and his powers not being enough to do much about it.

Then the snap happens and he returns with full Magneto powers.

 

[Dale Copper]

For 16 years he wasn't Jewish and for 41 years he has been. I'd say it's a core part of his character now.

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Pretty much, the Claremont era formed the basis and what made the X-Men and every movie, comic, tv show uses what Claremont and co created as a basis

 

[Dale Copper]

Have him be a Bosnian Muslim or a member of any of the other ethic groups that have been victims of genocide in the last 40 years.

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Nice to wipe away Marvels most prominent Jewish character

 

[Trey]

I think Magneto would hate racism and oppression no matter what universe he's in.Being in new universe and time, seeing the same shit would give him even more motivation

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racism is Magneto's entire bag lmao, he is very much a mutant supremacist

 

[Calvin Leonard]

But then the prime universe doesn't have a Magneto. Why even bother telling stories about Marvel's biggest characters if it's just gonna be a bunch of variants? What's the point of the MCU being a single focal universe if characters have to be shunted in from other universes just to exist?

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Because it's not? Dude, alternative universes is kinda Marvel's jam lol. I remember X-Man and Dark Beast ran around the 616 for like 10+years.

 

[PlanetSmasher]

Because it's not? Dude, alternative universes is kinda Marvel's jam lol. I remember X-Man and Dark Beast ran around the 616 for like 10+years.

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Dark Beast is super unpopular and basically everybody hates him. And he only works, when he works, because he's an alternate version of an existing character.

The main Magneto in the MCU will be from the prime universe. Variants will only be used to show alternative takes.

 

[cursed knowledge]

i fully agree with PlanetSmasher, those takes regarding the multiverse are cheap and audiences won't give a fuck about the already established MCU world if everyone just starts coming from other universes

 

[Calvin Leonard]

i fully agree with PlanetSmasher, those takes regarding the multiverse are cheap and audiences won't give a fuck about the already established MCU world if everyone just starts coming from other universes

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Yes they will😂 is the Loki from the TV the "main" Loki? No, but his show was the most popular anyway. As long as they are vaguely similar and well written, people will care.

 

[NCR Ranger]

They either have to put him on ice like the Cap, slow age him, or de-age him, ie have him be an old man and have something make him decades younger, perhaps even activating his mutant gene which would also explain why he has been chilling for many decades.

Though if they take the "lazy" option and do some multiverse shenanigans I doubt most people will give two shits.

 

[TheDestructiveSquirrel]

They are not going to turn a major Jewish character into a non-Jew

They'll have him age slow or have been on ice or something like Captain America or Bucky.


And how many times are we going to do this thread and have the Jews of ResetEra explain why Magneto's origin story is pretty important to us.

 

[Tavernade]

Just have his mutant abilities allow him to age slowly. Someone can go "you seem a little young for someone born in the 1920s/30s" and Magneto can say something like "it's a wonder what you can accomplish with metals." Done.

 

[ScoobsJoestar]

Man I'm really uncomfortable with the "lol make him not Jewish who cares" posts. Especially the ones going "just pick another atrocity who cares if he's not Jewish anymore."

 

[Xero grimlock]

Yes they will😂 is the Loki from the TV the "main" Loki? No, but his show was the most popular anyway. As long as they are vaguely similar and well written, people will care.

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The point is dont introduce the characters as variants. Having variants of existing characters is different then introducing tons of new characters from alternate universes. This has been said numerous times already.

 

[ToddBonzalez]

Just have his mutant abilities allow him to age slowly. Someone can go "you seem a little young for someone born in the 1920s/30s" and Magneto can say something like "it's a wonder what you can accomplish with metals." Done.

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What does metal have to do with slow aging though. That would feel like too big of an asspull imo.

 

[deimosmasque]

Yes they will😂 is the Loki from the TV the "main" Loki? No, but his show was the most popular anyway. As long as they are vaguely similar and well written, people will care.

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People care about the variant Loki because Loki was already a fan favorite character played by the same actor.

It is a completely different thing.

 

[Tavernade]

What does metal have to do with slow aging though. That would feel like too big of an asspull imo.

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I dunno, there's metals in the human body. He made them do a thing.

Like his actual power set is far more outlandish than 'is somehow 100 years old." I really don't think they need to waste that much time justifying it. Maybe he was trapped in a mindstorm or an evil book or something. How he's old but was also a Holocaust survivor is less important than him being a Holocaust survivor, they should be able to just hand wave it or 'a wizard did it' and move onto the actual meat of the story instead of trying to over complicate it.

 

[Alpheus]

Have him either age extremely slowly due to a secondary mutation, or Hydra caught him and put him on ice for a couple of decades. Simple.

Honestly, a Magneto who lived through the Holocaust only to watch the world learn NOTHING from it over the next 70 years would be a pretty horrifying villain.

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yea this

 

[Calvin Leonard]

People care about the variant Loki because Loki was already a fan favorite character played by the same actor.

It is a completely different thing.

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I get that, but Prof. X was a variant but a version that was recognizable for meta reasons. If the "main" version is going to unrecognizable (i.e. not Patrick Stewart) then Magneto should be also.
I really DGAF lol, I just like arguing about the Multiverse with people who don't like it even though its a cornerstone of all Marvel media.

 

[Elegant Weapon]

He'll be Solider Boy'd

 

[Khezu]

Multiverse is kinda janky.

Rather just have him be a Hydra prisoner that was cryoed and experimented on, and got free during the snap or something.
Could even work that into him being the twins father.

This is just always going to be a problem with Mags.

 

[Calvin Leonard]

racism is Magneto's entire bag lmao, he is very much a mutant supremacist

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Just make him and Xavier black, this would fix the Holocaust and the age problems

 

[Sean C.]

There's not going to be a multiverse or whatever. The MCU will do what it always does when introducing a new element/mythos: they will show up, they will have been there the whole time, and then we will move forward. Just like the MCU suddenly had wizards, whole additional pantheons of gods, etc.

 

[Calvin Leonard]

But then the prime universe doesn't have a Magneto. Why even bother telling stories about Marvel's biggest characters if it's just gonna be a bunch of variants? What's the point of the MCU being a single focal universe if characters have to be shunted in from other universes just to exist?

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Nobody said there is no "prime" Magneto, we just don't know how they will be introduced. I say make him and Xavier Black to solve both problems.