I like this idea in theory but Magneto's too important and beloved a character to leave in the past.
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Will MCU Magneto keep the Holocaust back story?
- Thread starter Maligna
- Start date
I like this idea in theory but Magneto's too important and beloved a character to leave in the past.
Changing his holocaust backstory, even for innocent reasons, would easily be construed as anti-semitic or whitewashing history by enough people that it would blow up and they don't want that kind of heat.
Just write in some anti-aging mutant bullshit, no one will care.
Just write in some anti-aging mutant bullshit, no one will care.
Being a holocaust survivor is too important to his backstory. You either have him aging slower as a side effect of his mutation or the nazis experimented on him when they realised he was a mutant- injecting him with proto-super soldier serum etc.
I mean, they have to do something right? it's unfathomable to have a character who was alive during WWII in the current day, that's why this question keeps getting brought up, right? the MCU audience has shown an unwillingness to engage with something like this, clearly. couldn't be anything else
anyway speaking of the MCU what's the next Disney+ show coming out?
anyway speaking of the MCU what's the next Disney+ show coming out?
Yea outside of maybe a random cameo we are not seeing the Foxverse X-men going forward, besides Deadpool like you mentioned. And that is fine. I actually liked the Fox series overall for the most part, despite its flaws, but it is time to move on and reboot for a new generation.
I think the more interesting question is, if they DO keep Magneto old, what do they do with Professor X? Historically you have them as peers - roughly the same age, roughly the same amount of experience - but if you're doing some "he ages slow" stuff for Magneto, you'd have to do the same for Xavier. You could make him significantly younger, but that throws things off. Maybe that could be a fresh take, though? More of a master/student dynamic?
The Falcon and the Winter Soldier starts 3/19. Six episode run.
My best guess is they'll keep the Holocaust history, maybe even have Captain America come back for a cameo in his origin, and then have Magneto somehow have been put on ice for decades.
The world has had more than its fair share of genocides and racially motivated attacks, I don't think the Holocaust is integral to the character as much as a specifically human atrocity is to radicalize your would be mutant liberator.
hell he could be American at this point.
hell he could be American at this point.
Yeah. I don't mind. I like Jackman's Wolverine but I don't need him to come back if he doesn't want to, and I don't care enough about the First Class timeline to really want to fight for those actors getting to continue their parts after four bad movies.
One exception: Fassbender was a good Erik but I don't think we need to reuse him. He got enough focus.
They should absolutely leave that Holocaust backstory. If they try to change that they might as well retire the character.
People in the US elected a man in almost his eighties to be the president...
I bet Magneto can be around that age (Making him a kid in the latter part of the war) without time travel / de-ageing shenanigans.
The opening of the original X-Men film is such a "this was not focus grouped" scene and ends up being one of the best parts of those movies. I doubt the MCU version will have anything like it, but that aspect of Magneto's character can't just be dropped.
And making him the victim of a more recent (or more American...) genocide would be too "political", so it'll be the Holocaust with a hand-waving explanation as to why he doesn't look 90 years old.
And making him the victim of a more recent (or more American...) genocide would be too "political", so it'll be the Holocaust with a hand-waving explanation as to why he doesn't look 90 years old.
To be fair, Hydra is already part of his backstory in a way
This is exactly what will happen anyway.
They won't just pop-up the classic X-Men Mutants out of nowhere in the same world where the last 15 years of MCU happened.
They will come, of course, from a different universe.
This is my hope. I want Holocaust Magneto and centuries-old Wolverine, but I've already suspended my disbelief enough with "this character was actually here all along, just hiding." With Eternals coming up I don't think I'll have any suspension left.
Slow aging Magneto is fine with me. Have him just broken by humanity's cruelty over the last 80 years. Maybe some kind of Hydra experiment slows his aging on top of his magnetic powers.
Xavier is the one you can move around easier age wise, it would just feed into Magneto thinking he's naive.
Xavier is the one you can move around easier age wise, it would just feed into Magneto thinking he's naive.
Hopefully not, as having all of these characters in a universe where none of them have any history has its own set of problems for doing stories with them.
Just having Magneto age slower is so much less complicated than having time travel or universe-hopping.
They don't really need too. Superheroes have only been publicly around since 2010 or so in the MCU, and it'd be easy to slot Mutants into the backstory as "we've always been around but there's not a whole lot of us and we kept it on the down low." Then you've got the X-Men as Xavier's attempt and creating a Mutant Superhero team to sell to the world that he's been training in secret (so this way the cast can be in their 20s) before Magneto makes his big declaration that Mutants are here to replace humans, forcing the X-Men into the role of ambassadors for a people the world only now knows exists.
I'd rather that they come up with some bullshit about him aging slower. These days with neo-nazism on the rise I think it's important for him to keep his original backstory.
What do you mean? They have their own history in their own world that we just didn't saw.
Which makes completely sense with all of them being new actors.
And if they want to show us some of their stories (partly again) they can do that in new single films in that universe and then without making us think "where are the freaking avengers right now?" Because we know it's a different universe, easiest explanation ever. And they're introducing multiverse anyway sooooo, 1+1.
I think the important back of his backstory is how his ethnicity/race was the "justification" used to murder his people to reflect his actions as Magneto with mutants and non-mutants. So with that said I think you could swap the Jewish origin for another that was the target of ethnic cleansing / genocide. Its not like we lack those sadly.
First Class Magneto theme was gooooood. Wish they gave Fass more stuff to do.
On topic: yes, secondary mutation to slow aging. It's too integral.
That is, unless they decide to go for a different race Magneto, but to my knowledge there's not a lot of Jewish heroes/anti-heroes/villains in Marvel so I don't see it happening. I think Spider-Man was/is iirc but it's never been integral the same way that it is for Mags.
Would kinda make sense to have him frozen since that'd explain how a character with such a strong desire to change things and such great powers has not had an impact on the MCU yet.
Or if you want him really angry, have him stuck in some sort of suspended animation but fully conscious in a Hydra facility.
They could do this. I do think they shouldn't shy away from the genocidal past because it is core to help understanding his motivations. If they wanted to modernise it, they could do something with the regions of Yugoslavia and have that be the backstory, but I fear Disney aren't brave enough to do that.
Yes, the multiverse where we are going to get the mutants are simply not at the same point in time that we are today. All of the mutants that come over from the other timeline are going to have to adjust to being in a world that is more advanced than the 80s (or 90s). It would add a fun dimension to all of these characters instead of "now there are more guys with powers but they don't have origin stories for their powers"