Is Magneto a Villain Anymore? | X-Men Video Essay

[@yonesmohamed3261]

First comment woohoo my name will be memorialized for all of history I demand my comment to stay the first thing that people see when they open the comments tab, I deserve to be pinned if that’s okay with you video essayist senpai

[@agramuglia]

Sure!

[@greyjedi6430]

What was ur comment ??

[@orzen_the_orzo933]

@@greyjedi6430 This one?

[@RodrigoGarcia-ze5em]

​@@agramugliaas someone who has analyzed the history of Marvel and the 60s i feel that part of your video has a mistake, specifically on the fact that you say that the X Men seemed to be defenders of thr status quo, but i think there are things you should take into account when analyzing the early X-Men. Although it's partially true that the idea of mutants was made by Stan so that the characters would be born with their powers, he made clear in interviews that the idea of using it as a allegory for discrimination was already there. This is clear in the story that introduced the sentinels and doctor Bolivar trask, but if you pay attention you will see that Stan didn't want it to be a metaphor for a specific type of discrimination, but discrimination in general, so it was more ambiguous. But besides that, we should also remember that the civil rights movement had the characteristic of not being a "david vs goliath" like the media has portrayed it as for years, both Eisenhower and JFK supported desegregation and later on LBJ and Nixon approved many civil rights laws, the divide between sectors of the civil rights movement was mainly because of that, as many saw it as neccesary to be inside the system to make it better while others argued it was treasonous and that it wouldn't work, as such the X-Men depicted that sort of conflict in those stories. This is clear if we look at the prototype of the X-Men, the Amazing Adult Fantasy story "The Man in the Sky", Written by Stan Lee and Drawn by Steve Ditko, the story is clearly a prototype to what would eventually become the X-Men, as the story depicts a species called mutants which are discriminated by society because of their abilities and a young mutant named Tad Carted is guided to a safe heaven by a wise telepathic mutant teacher who dreams of a world where mutants and humans can live together in peace. As such the end of said story serves as a way of showing the philosophy of early X-Men, which was a common point of view among many people in the civil rights movement "But we will bring you us now, and you will wait with us... We shall wait together until the world is ready to welcome us! We shall wait, in hiding, until that fateful day ... When Mankind Comes of Age". As such this is the philosophical way through which the early years of the X-Men should be analyzed.

[@KeizerSosebee]

Cool

[@thenewmase]

Also, you gotta ask yourself why they keep sending Wolverine to fight Magneto

[@JosephHandibode]

because magneto can kill wolverine but wont because he doesnt want to harm fellow mutants

[@BenjaminSpencer-m1k]

Wolvy is the only Xman that's a full blood killer.

[@burner555]

Why do they keep sending the guy with with adamantine skeleton to fight Magneto? Are they stupid?

[@ShadowNemesis575]

Wolverine is one of the oldest and most skilled fighter, metal skeleton or not he will be useful af on the battlefield. Also everyone has metal on them at some point or is surrounded by it so you wouldn't accomplish much by just not sending logan. I MEAN WE HAVE IRON IN OUR BLOOD. We've also seen him kill a man with a coin, torture Logan (even though he basically always comes back), and Magneto definitely has been a very villainous person but if we're being honest at any point in time he could decide to really choose violence and end Wolverine to send a message but he doesn't. People forget at one point Charles made him relive the holocaust. IDC what he was doing that is beyond fucked. Magneto can be reasoned with even if he's willing to do some really vile stuff.

[@thedarkjw6219]

⁠@@burner555Yeah, Man!

[@MAHAManiac1]

Looking at the 90’s cartoon, it’s safe to say that Magneto actually has a second mutant ability. He’s the MOST JACKED senior citizen of all time!

[@edgbarra]

I think he took super soldier serum

[@ellie8272]

He is the master of attraction after all 🤭

[@MAHAManiac1]

@@ellie8272 very clever. I see what you did there.

[@JohnPeacekeeper]

For a guy who has his powers do all the heavy lifting, he looks like he lifts a lot himself

[@markjaysonmangahas683]

And he can attract Rouge​@@ellie8272

[@SaiyanHeretic]

imho Morrison's take on Magneto is pretty flat and boring. It's not that he can't be portrayed as a pure villain. Some of the most fun and memorable characters are mustache-twirling baddies. But just doing outrageous things, like having him break Professor X's neck, is not a substitute for compelling character writing.

[@matthewschwartz6607]

He didn’t break his neck. He just took the nanities back out that were helping Charles walk.

[@aisnota5192]

That was Jeff Loeb in Ultimatium.

[@ShockwaveFPSStudios]

Hurting the Professor is something the Mainstream Magneto wouldn’t do.

[@sovereigndayyouthkafir3943]

​@@ShockwaveFPSStudiosMaybe not directly, but Magneto beat the X-Men, captured them, cut off their abilities, and made Xavier think they were dead explicitly to cause Charles anguish. I don't recall the issue numbers, but it was in the lead up to the original Phoenix Saga in the early 100s of UXM before the X-Men broke free and most of them went into the Savage Land, only to be presumed dead yet again.

[@jakipop3397]

I would agree, had it not been for Xorn! I have a lot of thoughts about Xorn, that I'm actually saving for a potential video essay of my own sometime in the future, but-- I'd really advise you to reconsider Morrison's Magneto while constantly having Xorn as an entity in mind.

[@apieceofbitsandpieces342]

Everytime I think about Magneto and his villainy, I think to that issue of Uncanny X-Men where he and Kitty Pride go to a holocaust museum and meet some survivors. Kitty is shocked to find out that Magneto was a “Hero” and Magneto’s next line always stuck with me. “Hardly. In those days, Heroism meant holding onto one’s humanity, while the nazi’s tried their best to turn us into animals. The way to defy them…to defeat them…was to lie, to hold onto hope, No matter what. Believe me Kitty, I was no one special. If I am a hero, then so is every other man and woman who survived.” Erik despite his powers is only a man and unlike Charles, I believe some part of Erik knows that. It’s through humanity and cooperation with other mutants, that he’s able to accept that and can achieve anything.

[@reynellfreeman8761]

that is really wrong take Charles does know he and other mutants are human that his whole point what makes magneto a villain is that he ignores or downright refuses other peoples humanity that's what he learned from the nazis

[@matthewschwartz6607]

Are you thinking of the Trial Of Magneto story ?

[@gottesurteil3201]

He sees himself as above human. He calls non mutants "humans" as if he is not one.

[@Ares99999]

The problem is, Magneto would look DOWN on the other Holocaust survivors for being 'merely human'. He would acknowledge their suffering, sympathize due to the shared trauma... but he'd always see them as his lessers. The guy is a supremacist at the core.

[@matthewschwartz6607]

@@gottesurteil3201 -It depends on who is writing him.

[@omechron]

Way back in the 60s, Magneto's goal wasn't just to have mutants be the dominant species. It was to have mutants be the dominant species UNDER HIM. He undermined other mutant revolutionaries because he wanted the new order to feature him at the top. He wasn't just a revolutionary, he was a narcissist and a megalomaniac. If you want Magneto in full villain mode, that's the side you'd have to bring back. But then he's pretty much just diet Dr Doom and I like him better this way anyway.

[@hopekeeley2122]

Yeah. There are ways one could make magneto a real villain again but then he wouldn’t be the unique character he is

[@christopherbennett5858]

@@hopekeeley2122And this backsliding has angered a lot of people. Remember what happened with Emma Frost in Inhumans vs Xmen? Yeah. That was an attempt to make her a full villain again but then people got angry.

[@ВасилийМедведев-з5в]

Yea, that's how I always saw him - a man whose ultimate goal is not just a world for mutants, but a world for mutants where HE is on top. And if other mutants oppose his dominion, he's willing to turn on them in an instant

[@christopherbennett5858]

@@ВасилийМедведев-з5в Whilst I do prefer post trial tiddy-top Magneto, it does remind me of the Xorn we see in New Xmen. How he was so quick to chastise Dust for not fitting his ideal of mutant identity since she’s religious. You do get some flavour of that in Krakoa but more in the sense of Magneto going “see what I’m willing to compromise on?” When you see Fenris of all mutants swanning around on the island. Then, after the trial when he finds out that Anya can’t be resurrected, he bounces and gets reclusive because Krakoa couldn’t provide what he wanted.

[@Seasonal-Shadow_4674]

@@christopherbennett5858because thise people can’t handle villains anymore and need to be constantly spoonfed with every character appealing to them only

[@kail4997]

“I know how you hated my mutant powers…” “You have no idea.” “Worry not, I will kill you with my bare fist… you will die pure.” - magneto to red skull

[@thelordofthelostbraincells]

When did this Happen? And what issue?

[@kail4997]

@@thelordofthelostbraincells March to axis, he smashed his red skull in with a huge chunk of bricks

[@bronsonkim6652]

That line is so RAW I love it when magneto or his family fight Red Skull

[@goroakechi6126]

Magneto being based and killing Nazis with his bare hands

[@dansmith16]

@@goroakechi6126 Now we see how his chosen people act against civilians.

[@westower7898]

Many versions of Magneto he goes from defending mutantkind and willing to use violence to do it, to mutant supremacy. If he is written as mutant supremacy it is bitterly ironic, because that makes his views morally equivalent to the nazis that tried to exterminate him in the holocaust.

[@Underworlddream]

@@Dimitris_HalfYou know they say that Magneto was actually not base off of Malcom X but rather Menachem Begin Isreal former Prime minister. Ironic that the people that like Magneto would hate him knowing who he base off of.

[@hyperion3145]

Which was the point, from the beginning he was modeled after Malcolm X and the Black Panthers who had branches that were Black supremacists and even allied with the KKK under the idea that they would be safe if they were cut off from the rest of the world or dominating it.

[@scarletsabre8383]

To be fair, with fiction, when you have ACTUAL superpowers, and in Magneto's case, contol a fundamental force of the universe, you can at least see the argument for an objectively superior race, the one with actual superpowers rather than just levels of melanin and hair colour

[@garretwoeller7669]

Mag does in some versions believe in Zionism but for mutants ffs he also lives in Israel

[@arnigeir1597]

@@hyperion3145 I know some groups did work with the kkk, but did the black panthers ever do that?

[@nicodemusedwards6931]

I don’t know if any comics have done this, but I think an important thing to consider about Mutants is, despite being TOLD they’re another species… they aren’t. The mutations they have, while extreme, don’t make them a separate species from humanity. At their core, mutants are just humans.

[@nicholasleon787]

X-men never made sense to me . Mutants , mutates their the same thing . Born with powers ,or gains powers later on .

[@aaronlaughter6471]

Big props to DC for just using the term Metahuman, like that makes more sense, its literally human with super powers. Also does not help in the Marvel comics mutant hate makes no fucking sense.

[@The_dude12]

That’s why I simultaneously like and hate the krakoan era. The mutants are like, “fine you want us separate but we will not make it equal,” and they fucking dominate. Which is a cool concept but I think of that almost as a sort of hateful thing, which is genuinely fair for the mutants. But I remember this Alex Ross panel from marvels where these bigots hurl bottles at cyclops and the X-men after they save a child from death. Angel (I believe) goes to fight back but cyclops says, “they’re not worth it,” and they fly away. The reporter main character is in awe not only because he was caught up in this hatred but how much restraint and compassion the mutants have. They truly are homo superior, the best of humanity

[@ExcaliburVids]

To be fair there isn't a hard rule on what defines a species, typically its based on breeding capabilities but there are tons of exceptions.

[@patrickripleyiii134]

Yeah mutants are in no way a new species

[@ViruZ42]

I feel like Magneto is a perfect example of an anti-villian he has heroic motivations but in desperation lashes out with radical and dangerous methods.

[@jamman9569]

There's nothing heroic about being a supremacist who's attempted genocide.

[@professorpigeon6517]

But he doesn’t have heroic motives he believes in the complete destruction of humanity and he’s is just as bad as all the bigots he fights

[@liteney]

His motivations are racial supremacy.

[@Ares99999]

I would say Magneto has Heroic Motivations IN HIS OWN MIND. And his lashing out is partly desperation, partly bigotry, partly arrogance.

[@ez6888]

@@Ares99999where else would motivation lie if not in one’s own mind

[@ВасилийМедведев-з5в]

I honestly prefer him as a villain. Not the "irredeemably evil" type, but as a man who is so stuck on his own past demons that he genuinely doesn't see peaceful coexistence with humans as an option because he is defined by his (sometimes justified) fear of them turning on mutants, and his immediate response is just "attack them first". He believes he fights for the sake of mutants, but he is too much of a scared old man with issues to recognize what's best for them

[@SockieTheSockPuppet]

To me Magneto will always be an example of a tragic villain. The road to Hell is paved with good intentions, and he became the very type of thing that he had wanted to save Mutants from.

[@matthewgagnon9426]

Killing the designer of the Sentinels does kinda seem like a good thing imo. She invented a weapon which has the sole purpose of genocide, that's pretty monstrous.

[@liteney]

You're 100% wrong. The sentinels are not for the purpose of genocide, they're for protection from super powered human beings, ie: mutants.

[@zcgamerandreacts2762]

​@@liteneyprotect? It outright hunts down mutants. They don't subdue they don't arrest they just slaughter that is my understanding of the sentinels.

[@liteney]

@@zcgamerandreacts2762 Again you're lying, Sentinels are robot cops for super powered humans, and we've seen the sentinels apprehend mutants for years. They have wires that come out of their hands and entangle the mutants. Why are you so blatantly lying?

[@zcgamerandreacts2762]

@@liteney not lying just my limited knowledge of X-men. Saw the show from the 90s. Then some of the movies but never read any of the comics except some readings from youtubers if I can recall but not much.

[@OneofmanyASMR]

​@zcgamerandreacts2762 you are in fact correct ther bassicly giant guns. The only times sombody is captured is when they surrender themselves then humains detain them while the sentinels still have ther blasters targeted on them.

[@PaladinesAngel]

I love that in the first iconic Secret Wars the Beyonder landed Magneto in with the Heroes and not the villains

[@slibertas1996]

Hence his ascent to heroism. Marvel has officially put him on the side of heroes

[@DragonbIaze052]

And Wolverine even says in that event that Magneto was right.

[@gota7738]

14:28 Nathanial Essex never stopped being villainous and is set to be the Big Bad of the Krakoa era (or a version of him is). His "second chance" is very much meant to be Krakoa's own Operation Paperclip, with represcussions in the long run.

[@rotten2thebit221]

Was literally gonna type this

[@wunclerlaufenbumcorneliusu7047]

If someone was systematically killing a group I was a part of and I had the power to rearrange the polarity of a freaking planet then I wouldn’t be nice either.

[@quantumvideoscz2052]

Nobody would. The problem is that doing so would just kill everyone including you and your kin, making it a pretty damn stupid idea.

[@goroakechi6126]

@@quantumvideoscz2052 And that’s what that plot line is: stupid. Magneto goes full omnicide for no reason whatsoever.

[@shizachan8421]

@@goroakechi6126 Thats it. Magneto going full omnicide and reverse the polarity of the planet can make for a compelling storyline, but it makes more sense as a reaction to events that would push him towards total nihilism and despair, as a final fuck you to life.

[@Chrismw81]

You'd punish 8 billion people because of a couple of loony scientists?

[@michaelmairone5406]

​@batboy9997 I think you mean "The United Nations sanctioning an attack by giant robot that exterminates 16 million of my people in a single incident, and then being told by my friends and allies that it's an election year and I should 'Get Over It'." Where do you think Bastion, Gyrich, Trassk, and that treacherous snake who was LITERALLY the UN's ambassador got the money? Legit, how many world governments in the UN would you tolerate after learning that their people gave the overhead? How else would Bastion have gotten these new sentinels WORLDWIDE if he didn't have the means for global outreach? And its very heavily implied that the UN's got a good few members willing to do this, so, how do you want to separate the wheat from the chaff when the MUTANT RELATIONS OFFICER was part of the chaff and nobody knew?

[@Grf1556]

If I had powers I would hope that I would use my powers to make the world a better place, to do good and be good. But I know…deep, deep inside my heart…that if I had powers and went through what Erik went through…I would be just like him, maybe even worse that Magneto. That absolutely terrifies me. But that also makes Magneto feel so very real and more than just a comic character.

[@LavenderJack540]

Hear, hear.

[@jamman9569]

You'd be a supremacist and attempt genocide? Not something you should admit.

[@liteney]

You're wrong, allot of people suffer horrible things, and do not turn out to be villians, only villians are villians, as they feel justified in harming others.

[@UnlimitedIvory]

​@liteney thats just because a lot of them dont have the power to back it up. Plus last time i checked no one really goes threw the holocaust like that.

[@liteney]

@@UnlimitedIvory I'm Slavic, 10's of millions of us went through the holocaust like that, please don't speak nonsense. You have no idea what you're talking about.

[@reig_mago]

A guy told me once that "Magneto will never be a hero because he is a revolutionary written by people in the most imperialist country of the world " and I believe that's why he usually has inconsistent characterization, he oscilates between being a revolutionary and a tool in a political narrative to justify the existence of opression with the fear of the opressed.

[@Bojoschannel]

Pure truth. Perfect example of this are all the MCU villains that do have a point and question the status quo, such as killmonger or the flag smashers. They have to turn them into evil maniacs out of nowhere to show how change = bad and the heroes just remain as world police

[@visisius9339]

Dumb. You mean that country that started with the most glorified revolution in history?

[@manolgeorgiev9664]

Idk, X-Men 97 did a pretty good job making him a hero.

[@shadewolf0075]

@@Bojoschannel killmonger was a racial supremacist who would sacrifice traditions of his people in the name of power and the flag smashers are ultimately people who were angry that the return of those erased by thanos resulted in them not being the ones to sit by while others suffered the consequences of them being erased against their will

[@StephenKary]

He is the personification of Israel, he's imperial af

[@michaelcox9855]

Magneto walks the line between anti-hero and villain more often than not. Does he have a point? Yes. Is he often right? Also, yes. He takes things too far though, often making those who would have been his allies into his enemies. Indeed, his viewpoint is far too black and white, he needs to acknowledge more often the grey. There are humans who don't hate mutants, who are not guilty of the atrocities he would seek to stop, however by refusing to see this he becomes the type of bigot he would seek to destroy. This is what makes him cross the line often into villain status. If you view all of a group as a monster, it is easy to become a monster. He see and treats humans the same as the humans often treat him, and in so doing he is guilty of the same wrong.

[@tjjordan4207]

Is Magneto right? Well, the answer is actually a cliched one. Yes and no. He’s right in wanting to protect his race from humans, being prepared for war, and creating a nation for mutants. But at the same time, to say that he’s done nothing wrong is false. He’s wrong in how he goes about things because he’s ruled by the past. Innocents on both sides have suffered and died, who had no say in any of the violence. Magneto’s one flaw is that he’s too quick to choose violence. As for Charles Xavier, he too is right and wrong. He’s right for wanting to be a diplomat between mutants and humans, to want to improve relations and more peaceful. But he’s wrong for having too much faith in humans. It’s the never ending cycle between two points of view. One side is never truly right. And the irony is that despite humans and mutants being labeled as different species, they’re ultimately still part of humanity.

[@ofrund]

I agree with your take, no civil rights movement ever won peacefully. Yet at the same time, mass crimes against humanity isn't the way to bring change.

[@acediamond5373]

@@ofrund yup, fighting for your rights to live free and without persecution is one thing, fighting to kill and slaughter the people who hurt you under the guise of rights and freedom is another

[@2kx62]

I think that he was right but the way he went about it and tried to solve the problem is where he went wrong.

[@iveyyewitt1621]

Humanity in Marvel keeps proving his point for him.

[@RandomOldPerson]

As well as humanity in real life

[@RetroRadianceLight]

Humans are the true monsters. Good people are the exception, not the rule, both in comics and in real life

[@johnmeehan7884]

​@@RetroRadianceLight

[@stripedgillette3580]

​@@RandomOldPersonIf that was true, or Magneto was really right, my life would be significantly worse.

[@Tyler_W]

Having a valid point does not mean that your prescruption for the problem is either good or correct. The same could be said for humanity. Humans actually have very good reason to fear and be wary about and around mutants. They are the next stage of human evolution, and their prosperity means the extinction of homo sapiens, not to mention mutants often cause death and destruction with their abilities, and regular humans have little recourse to protect themselves effectively. Their grievances with mutants are just as valid as Magneto's skepticism toward humanity. That's why the X-Men doesn't work as a direct allegory for persecuted and marginalized groups. X-Men only ever works when tackling broad, universal themes. If there's any point to be made with the X-Men, it's that if humans and mutants, two groups with real defferences, grievances, and conflicts of interest, can strive to live at peace and learn to cooperate for a mutually better future, then how much more can we jn the real world when our differences are so much mire trivial in comparison?

[@BATCHARRO]

I think Americans(you should read that in a strong accent) have a bit of an overall rosy view of violent revolution in general that kinda paints it as something you just do and just win and not, as it often is irl, something where you just go just kill, just die and leave things no better off than before. In a way Ultimate Magneto is just kinda what it is if you go for a full violence approach to change. What, you think you're gonna get to the rich and powerful without going through all their security and their families? You think your pipe bombs are only gonna get The Bad people? There's a group of people called accelerationists. They believe that the only way to uppend the status quo is to ruin things so much people will drop their complacency of systems and will want to Do a Revolution/ You can find them rooting for the worst candidates in politics knowing they are the worst . These people believe that a good enough bad status quo makes people too comfortable to want that change bad enough to be willing to fight the government in a fistfight for it. But so far all their ambitions have been thwarted by reality. When things get bad as the result of the worst people taking over , people (broadly speaking) retreat back into The Status Quo. It is, after all, better than Far Right Regime and way better than writing liberty with your blood. So to me if you want to do villain Magneto today you have to make it so there's SOME advancement in Mutant Rights and their perception by regular humans, with some strong backlash by human forces, and Magneto and The X-Men caught in the middle. X-Men want to keep advancing their small gains, "Magneto is like this is incremental bullshit that will be rolled back the minute they can" and he's like trying to get people on hi side to do a revolution, which would be bloody and costly and might end up not even succeeding. And they can team up when you know something's a big threat to mutants or everyone and whatever, but they fundamentally recognize what he wants is too terrible to consider.

[@kingofhearts3185]

An accelerationist version of the character could definitely make for an interesting run.

[@DreamersOfReality]

"Magneto is like this is incremental bullshit that will be rolled back the minute they can". This is a factual statement that we've seen play out time and time again. Ever hear of a little something called Roe v. Wade? Even the Civil Rights Movement was almost an abject failure. You don't know anything about that period in history if you don't think it was. Incrementalism is hubris. It doesn't work. A system whose purpose is oppression cannot be "reformed" away. That's impossible by the very definition of the word "reform": to improve within the constraints of a particular system. Nobody has the right to determine the timetable of another person's freedom. Liberation is not an unreasonable demand!

[@thebigboss1824]

Tell me you don't know anything about Accelerationism without telling me you don't know anything about Accelerationism.

[@kingofhearts3185]

@@thebigboss1824 It’s accurate enough, especially since we're talking about using it in a slightly different context.

[@andrellnogueira]

​@@kingofhearts3185 Should be noted that for mutants, like the LGBTQ+ people they have often represented, a lot of mutants have families and friends who aren't mutants. The violent revolution would pit one against the other, and have these people the mutants love killed. This would of course, make many of the mutants side against Magneto. The situation simply can't be resolved by violent upheaval and nothing else.

[@louthegiantcookie]

Here's the question I would ask you, if you consider Magneto a hero: Does he view any humans as good or have the capacity to befriend them? Or does he judge the whole as evil? If he does, by what right is he justified or heroic? Oppression is not an excuse to harm those who have done you no wrong, and then to retroactively paint them as 'evil' because of what they ARE rather than what they've DONE. Magneto harming people but viewing it as a cruel necessity? That's one thing. Mags happily harming humans because he fundamentally sees them as inferior? How can he do so and be sympathetic still?

[@citysmall3427]

Yada yada prejudice plus power or something like that is how they usually justify it

[@WithoutFear804]

I wouldn't say I see him as a hero but I understand why he's doing what he's doing. America literally has Neo Nazi rallies every year now I can't get on twitter without seeing thousands of racist accounts spreading hate. As time goes on my worst fear is that humanity will prove magneto right.

[@zacharybosley1935]

​@@citysmall3427 an omega level mutant is still not more powerful than a culture that fundamentally reviles his kind.

[@TheBiggestMoronYouKnow]

You’re saying that about the universe where humans consistently commit genocide or stand by while it happens? 😅 I think you need to go bad to the drawing board with this thought exercise

[@citysmall3427]

@@TheBiggestMoronYouKnow except for the ones that dont. Like Moira MacTaggart. Those are the ones hes talking about.

[@cannibalgrape9863]

The best written villains are those that are only a step or two away from being antiheroes. Their ideas are right, their methods are not.

[@gota7738]

14:51 Outside of the mass deaths incidents like the EMP, I think some of the genuinely unjustifiable things he does is how he treats those under him like his children or his followers. Such as murdering Pietro that one time. It's not nearly to the same extent as Griffith, but it is in that same vein. That he doesn't always treat his fellow mutants as equal to himself and can buy in to his own reputation. It's something about him that never got retconned since the silver age, and while he tries to do better he can slip up badly. And I like that. Being flatly good is as uninteresting as flatly bad, and it's entirely possible for someone to be sincere in their beliefs and ideals while failing to wholly practice them. And unfortunately, centralised power over others is really is easy to abuse. I liked the recent issue of Resseruction of Magneto where he confesses to having condemned lower status Mutants unjustly to a form of conscious stasis for eternity alongside Charles, and feels really bad about it...but shows no inclination to go back and free them. It's not untill he learns of what happened to/with Xavier is he inspired to return, which is both sweet and horribly self-interested of him. He's a person, with biases and priorities which is fine untill you give that person absoloute power with no checks and balances.

[@christopherbennett5858]

Might be why Emma Frost is my favourite X men character. Shes got the edge but, when written accurately, the children come first for her. As opposed to Wolfsbane where the kids need to flee from her. There is one thing I’d love to know about Magneto during the Krakoan era; was he the one that granted the pardon to Fenris? And, if so, why?

[@gota7738]

@@christopherbennett5858 I think the Krakoa'n invitation was open to ALL mutants (though secretly, perhaps not precogs) so everyone (well, it's complicated for Sabretooth) got an oppertunity for a clean slate, including the Fenris twins. They do squander it eventually and turn enemies of Krakoa, but I don think Magneto is involved in any of those storylines.

[@christopherbennett5858]

@@gota7738 No, he isn’t. I did love Monet and Angel trolling them in X corp. Well, all mutants aside from Maddie. So I’m like “Xavier, you let Sabretooth, Selene, Apocalypse, Sinister AND Thing Ein und Zwei in. Even Cassandra Nova who is really more of a doppelgänger… but we couldn’t have Scott’s ex.

[@gota7738]

@@christopherbennett5858 To be "fair" I think the rule against clones was in regards to resurrection since Gabby was allowed ON Krakoa. The no "pre-cogs" rule apparently functioned like this since it wasn't official. There was a lot of shifty-ness though. Sabertooth was only allowed in for a minute before he got sentenced to the pit for breaking a law that didn't exist yet. Some Mutants got more leniency than others.

[@cooldud7071]

Griffith murders people to save Humanity. Magneto murders people to subjugate Humanity. Griffith sacrificed those for a tangible good, one that furthered the whole of the race. Magneto is an active enemy of Mankind, who sees no qualms in murdering non-mutants. Magneto is pretty flatly bad. You'd have to be ignorant to believe otherwise.

[@LuigiLonLon]

I think what people often never adress be fans or writers is Magneto's hypocrisy wether he realizes it or not. He is a Holocaust survivor, he was oppressed and almost killed by a group of people that believed they were genetically superior to anyone else, and yet here we have Magnus talking about "the next step in evolution", those "inferior Homo Sapiens", how humans are afraid of mutant superiority and fight the natural order. History is repeating itself and Magneto realizing it or not now he's on the other side since a lot of his talking points devolve into mutant supremacy.

[@nielsfrederiksen6636]

This. I cant believe people don't pick up on this. It's literally trading 1 evil for another.

[@fluidthought42]

​​@@IbnRushd-mv3fp Incorrect. Not only were there prominent Jews like Einstein opposed to racism and ethnic bigotry of all sorts of the day, there are Jews and even Israeli Jews who stand up for example the Palestinians and their plight. Nobody pays attention to them because the US has backed Netanyahu's regime for decades now, and America lacks any drive to keep its client states on a leash. Same as how the Saudis are allowed to commit atrocities in Yemen, Qatar is allowed to do slavery, and how Afghanistan warlords were shielded by US interests despite individual soldiers speaking up about their horrendous brutality. It's not about Jews, it's about American hegemony and the price in innocent blood a superpower like the US is willing to pay to pretend it can control the world.

[@IbnRushd-mv3fp]

@@fluidthought42 American hegemony is another issue, but culturally and historically the supremacy among them is hard to shake off even in comparison to other faiths which have been liquidated by some of these culturally j individuals.

[@fluidthought42]

@@IbnRushd-mv3fp Supremacy? My dude, they have been minorities for over a thousand years before the creation of modern Israel. Modern Israel is practicing what it is because it's a colonialist state, not because it has Jews in it. See for example Rhodesia or the Afrikaaners in South Africa. Hell, look at how colonialism exacerbated tensions in Rwanda! It's not about any individual culture being prone to domination, it's about an inherent human quality, expressed along a spectrum, that can make individuals and eventually countries vulnerable to authoritarian ideology.

[@IbnRushd-mv3fp]

@@fluidthought42 the problem with your framing is that you expect me to blame colonialism (which is fact of human life) for something very SPECIFICALLY in the vain of proxy warfare, really Israel isn't a huge colonial force it's a small like you said "minority" that uses bigger friends as enforcement, everything is in quasi religious terms and very calculating fashion, it's a personal vendetta on a large scale. and don't mistake me for a *social darwinist* because it's not the fact that people are ethnically jewish, it's simply that we all know judaism is an inherently left brained philosophical tradition that works well in environments like liberal capitalism because of its moral ambiguity and "CYOA" = "cover your own ass" attitude.

[@ilucasz]

Every time Magneto isn't morally grey, he's awful. Magneto is nice to follow because of how ironically human he is. Magneto is someone with huge empathy for those he sees as his equals, but is also a supremacist that doesn't want to live in piece, putting himself above every single thing that he considers hostile to him. He's no hero, he's no villain, he's an asshole that doesn't know what is the meaning of "ponderation" and should go seek a therapist for his traumas.

[@Mimic_Gaming]

I originally HATED Xorn being revealed as Magneto because I loved the idea of Xorn as a character. But I would LOVE if they used it for a big climactic reveal in Deadpool 3

[@maxrichards3881]

Well, Xorn merely impersonated Magneto.

[@19Pyrus70]

I'll throw in my worthless opinion(s) on this one: 1. Magneto is Jewish and a Holocaust survivor. Having him commit villainy because of his origins provides a hypocrisy that can be pointed out to take away from the issues that make him act evil. 2. Xavier's intent is to convince people mutants aren't a threat to be feared or hated by having mutants do "comunity service" vigilantism & training mutants to "properly" control & live with their mutant traits ('Cause many mutants' powers manifest in an out of control manner). Detractors may decide to see this as Xavier being a "pick me" or "Uncle Tom" mutant.

[@Underworlddream]

Yeah, people seams to forget that often time mutant Power manifesting is often lethal to those around them, it not uncommon for a mutant to accidentally kill people or their entire family the first time their power show up. Hard to not make people afraid if anytime this can happens.

[@ExcaliburVids]

​@@UnderworlddreamYeah no, there have been several million mutants and only a handful of cases of their powers emerging catastrophically like that, and in many of those times it only becomes deadly because of anti mutant backlash like the purifiers showing up.

[@MeepChangeling]

Xavier's side is stupid for one simple reason. Some mutants can genuinely end all life on the planet if they want to. Others can do that too, weather they want to or not. Yes those are rare, but they exist. Much more commonly, a single mutant could destroy an entire city, even a major city, within minutes. If they wanted to, or if they lost control. Mutants are something to fear, even if you are a mutant. There is no amount of diplomacy that can make a sane person decide that a living nuclear bomb who happens to be a 15 year old boy is not a huge danger to EVERYONE. Which is why the entire idea of the books breaks down. Mutants. Are. A. Threat. Real life minorities are not. The allegory fails because they changed something fundamental about the topic so much that the "bad guys" are just right. By bad guys, I mean the people who want to purge mutant kind entirely. You only have to look at the existence of School Shootings to know that if mutants were real we'd see entire cities crumble to dust and millions of lives lost simply because some depressed looser with super powers was turned down for prom.

[@19Pyrus70]

@@MeepChangeling That there are some mutants who can kill everyone -- whether of their own free will or by accident because they can't control their traits -- isn't an excuse to hate mutants who aren't able to kill everyone or who aren't trying to. Nor is it an excuse to keep them from having homes or jobs, nor an excuse to deprive them of common courtesy or decency. It also shouldn't be a justification for killing any & all mutants while still in the womb, just after being born, or while their powers are manifesting. Also: 1. Within the Marvel Universe are mutants & other super-powered people who can absorb, suppress, or even take away mutant powers (can't think of their names right now). 2. They have technologies to do this as well (think of Forge's neutralizer gun from way back in the comics in the 90's).

[@ExcaliburVids]

@MeepChangeling it's extremely rare for a mutant to have a power that strong, literally like 1 in 10 million considering how many mutants there have been, most mutants don't even have combat abilities. It doesn't matter that minorities don't have laser eyes, those that fear them will still act as if they are a threat to humanity. Killing everyone who poses a threat to you isn't realistic, even in your own example what do you think the solutions to school shootings are, to kill every depressed teenager?

[@SimianScience]

0:49 i had the original movie on in 2001. an uncle of mine came over and saw this scene and said "whoever controls magnets controls the world" and my dad who was a x-men fan explaining that magneto is insanely powerful. also this was 2 days before the 9/11 attacks.

[@zeke7972]

Sleep Patterns by Merchant Ships

[@tyronechillifoot5573]

Magneto makes me think of a quote Today’s monster is tomorrow’s hero, today’s hero is tomorrow’s monster

[@chocov1233]

Reminds me of the plot of Metal Ger Solid 3: Snake Eater. Though that theme is shown throughout the story of the Metal Gear games, from Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater to Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance.

[@Mcelly58]

That applies more to Beast than you think

[@bijuutamer729]

Makes me think about before; Superheroes would be shown stopping bank robberies and nowadays people will look at that and ask why a superhero is protecting companies.

[@whathell6t]

Basically, Godzilla. Once a nuclear horror that will forever have a grudge against humanity, especially the Japanese, into a force of nature that humanity cheers on to stop major threat, be they alien invasion or malevolent gods, hellbent to destroy Planet Earth.

[@Lunacorva]

I've said this before. Having Magneto switch sides to join the X-Men is fine. That's character development. That's a redemption arc. But by trying to say he was right all along, you not only miss the point of what he was meant to stand for in the first place, you actually ruin what the X-MEN stand for. If Magneto's only crime is "Perfectly reasonable self defense against mutant genocide" if he is as reasonable as "You're trying to opress people like me and I have powers, I'm done being nice." Then WHAT reason do you give the X-Men to oppose him? If Magneto is an enemy of the X-Men, AND a perfectly reasonable character who is clearly in the right... then you must make the X-Men UNREASONABLE in order to oppose him. See, the X-men... They embody everything that people think Magneto stands for. They aren't pacifists. They're action heroes. They're willing to get their hands dirty. To stand between a human suprecamist and their victim and MAKE them put the gun down. They're willing to fight. Magneto isn't evil because he wants to stop mutant oppression. He's evil because he wants mutants to BE the oppressors. He's israel murdering palestinians because "We suffered through the holocaust. We're justified." He is every victim of bullying that thought the only way to survive was to become as cruel as the bullies themselves. THAT is why the X-men oppose him. Because they save innocent lives. From EVERYONE. But stories that turn Magneto into the "true hero" have to strip that away from the X-men. Have to turn them into something they're not. Bootlickers and cowards who would stand their and wring their hands while mutants suffer. After all, if Xavier rushes to save a mutant, what's left for the great Magneto to do? Magneto's propaganda team is so good it broke the fourth wall.

[@Peasham]

None of this is correct. The X Men refuse to get their hands dirty and kill people even if said people are the root cause of their systemic oppression because Charles is an idealist who refuses to see reality, the X Men do not go around murdering congressmen and presidents oppressing mutants, it's Magneto who does that.

[@theotherjared9824]

The great tragedy of magneto is that he fell into the same mindset of his subjugators, but it's okay when he does it. He can be right about everything, but advocating for war, segregation, genocide, and everything in between is never okay.

[@tatianalyulkin410]

He forgot that he was Sebastian Shaw's victim- not his son. There is no excuse for how he treated Raven.

[@Peasham]

What you missed with your bit about Griffith, I'd argue, is that the story makes it obvious that he's not actually interested in any grand or noble goal, he just wants to be a Monarch with power over people. That's the only way to really write a "revolutionary" turned villain, by pointing out that revolution was never their actual goal, as this actually happens in reality, unlike fictional media where antagonists who are correct the whole movie or show get taken down because they randomly decided they wanted to kill innocent people, while still fully believing in their goal.

[@agramuglia]

This is a good point, and honestly, i feel Griffith deserves his own deep dive.

[@ExeErdna]

Yup Griffith wanted "legitmancy as a noble" which is hard due to him just not being such. He was broken due his spiral downward as he wanted to do more. Guts was a warrior realizing he had nothing else to prove by slaughtering armies. Griffith on the otherhand was obsessed with being a noble this meant he wasn't placated until he finally was such. Griffith was never a revolutionary he was mercenary trying to be a lord and lost everything.

[@shizachan8421]

I would argue that he has noble and grand goals as a ruler, the issue is that those don't stem from genuine ideals, but from his own childish power fantasy that he tries to creat. Not disagreeing with you here, but I think its an important facette of his character. He wants to live in a power fantasy, where he is the hero and he sacrifices the entire world to do so.

[@ExeErdna]

@@shizachan8421That's because he realized after maybe after decade maybe of fighting he wasn't going anywhere. He was just a super good mercenary band that people above him used to suit their ends. They lashed out Griffth for playing in their world when really Griffith could have taken theirs if he didn't want to play fair. That's why he did what he did. He wanted to be a Lord by legit means yet most of those lords murdered to get that power. He only realized his mistake after they took him. Thus the sacrfice should be been towards to nobles that destroyed him not the people that loved him. Yet that's not how the God Hand works.

[@AnonTDegenerate]

@@ExeErdna Sorta, he wants to be the god of a idyllic society. But he has levels of humanity within him, which is why he could use the behelit. He loved and cherished his band of the hawk. The biggest point of contention comes from seeing them as individuals and friends or just pawns he cares for and whos awe belongs to him. I'd have to say something in the middle. He hates them dying, even if it progresses his dream, but sacrifices them anyway as they looked up to him. Even with all of fantasia he doesn't feel content unlike other godhand members. But with Guts and Casca even when he was broken he had some moments where he envisioned a life with them. Sure he wasn't happy about it, but he tried to force Casca down and end himself in that same moment. I always saw that as him being possibly content but in his state of mind he couldn't accept or understand anything. He was never a revolutionary sure, he never wanted to reform anything, just be a slightly better king (anyone would have been atp lol). But he had a strange amount of depth and hypocrisy which I doubt we'll ever get answers too.

[@morbidchid]

Magneto has been a hero or an anti-hero for a much longer time period than he ever was a bad guy.

[@skimp1974]

I’ve been collecting comics for almost 40 years, and I just can’t see Magneto as a villain. He is the result of mankind’s hatred of the other, and just because Magneto is better with violence…well, he’s the “monster” mankind made him.

[@King_Nex]

A tragic monster is still a monster

[@MilkyMocha315]

I feel like, on the subject of ultimate Magneto, it’s worth bringing up that most of the ultimate universe characters are vastly worse people than their mainline counterparts: Ultimate Wolverine tried to sleep with a teenage Mary Jane when he got stuck in Peter Parker’s body. Ultimate Carol Danvers kills aliens for fun. Ultimate Captain America, the France panel, need I say more? Ultimate Nightcrawler kidnapped Rogue because he was sexually attracted to her. And I’m not even gonna talk about how Mark Millar butchered my man, Bruce Banner. So ultimate Magneto being just a worse version of 616 Magneto is kinda par for the course for the ultimate universe.

[@scarletsabre8383]

You forgot a couple of points Ultimate Wolverine was an assassin sent by Magneto and the Brotherhood to assassinate Xavier, who immediately banged Jean Grey (who was like 16), because Cyclops was too much of a boyscout to rawdog her like she wanted, then pushed Cyclops off a cliff and left him for dead with a broken neck and limbs. He was also mind swapped with Ultimate Spidey SPECIFICALLY because Ultimate Jean Grey was tired of him eye-fucking all the girls in the school in his head And Ultimate Magneto also thought he was God's chosen, and that the Mutants were Gods people and he was on a holy war... which now that I think about it is really leaning into the terrorist vibes and the wankery of the US military industrial complex that the Ultimate had...

[@jesusleondarias2821]

the france line is the most tame of all these, the ultimate universe had a somewhat good start but eventually devolved into "how much edgier can we make the 616 universe" and just massacred most of its characters before and after ultimatum

[@Evoker23-lx8mb]

A character like Magneto is one of the many examples of one of the best kinds of villains in my opinion, certainly one of my favourite kinds of villains at least. Characters like him have understandable and relatable, even good and noble ends that on the surface seem like they’d make them heroes but it’s the means that they use to achieve his ends that ends up making them villains. For example, take a female villain. She wants to end male violence against women, a good end, but the means she uses to go about that end is killing every single men whether they’ve ever laid a hand on a woman or not, something objectively bad. She wants to achieve something good but she’s doing bad things to get it so she’s a villain. Magneto’s a similar case, he wants to liberate his own kind from discrimination, objectively that’s a good thing. But he goes about it by attacking even innocent humans, ironically he’s trying to fight discrimination with more discrimination so he’s a villain. As the age old saying goes, actions speak louder than words.

[@aVerveQuest]

Considering how many hundreds of times Wolverine pulled his claws out on magneto I think ripping the adamantium from his body was completely justified... And seemingly the only way Wolverine would understand the principles of magnetism

[@commanderclown8620]

Would you say a serial killer stabbing someone is justified if that person first attacked the serial killer to try and stop them from harming innocent people?

[@nerdcorner2680]

I always loved the magneto vs any other hero dynamic. Like in secret wars where Cap innocently assumes sinse magneto is the bad guy the mutants would help him defeat him, but instead they choose the side of magneto because mutants stick together. It is like a toxic family relationship where even though they treat you horrible, you stand by them because they are family.

[@caesar0frome950]

Your analysis of poison ivy is completely wrong The whole environmentalism motivation is a lot more of a relatively edition

[@vs5133]

She's been an environmentalist since the 1992 animated series. Before that, the concept of her being an undergrad preyed upon by her much older college professor has been around since the 70's.

[@MeepChangeling]

Do... Do you think that 30 years ago is "recent"? My dude, please re-evaluate what time is.

[@cassiewatson3870]

This is an excellent essay on Civil Rights. As an African American and a reader of comics, I have always observed the comparisons of Magneto and Professor Xavier to MLK and Malcolm. Also, as a student of history there has always been a saying through the 20th Century, One Man's Terrorist is another Man's Freedom Fighter. Anyone that is fighting for Human Rights of others is a hero to one group and a villain to another. The reality is that when people, or mutants, who are trying to be tested with dignity and respect, peaceful or violent means, people just want to be respected as an individual or a group. This was an awesome essay about societal choices of how to be treated with dignity.

[@anonygent]

That's simply false, and it's easy to understand the difference. Terrorists attack civilians, freedom fighters attack military targets.

[@cassiewatson3870]

@@anonygent It depends on your perception. What you see as a Terrorist, someone may see a Freedom Fighter. It depends on what side you are sitting on.

[@Ares99999]

@@cassiewatson3870 It doesn't always depend on that. I feel people use that 'It's all a matter of perception' so much and so often that its more of an excuse than anything else. Magneto is a Terrorist fighting other Terrorists. Have you ever considered that both sides are bigoted, that both sides are wrong?

[@quincyconnors9391]

​@Ares99999 So the solution is to take both bad sides down? What then? Edit: I agree that they should be taken down, but violence is only removing the tumor, not curing the cancer.

[@Ares99999]

@@quincyconnors9391 I'm saying both sides are fundamentally wrong, and peace will never be achieved with these elements leading the relations between the two sides.

[@MrChupacabra555]

13:50 : I remember this i both the comics and, just recently, in the X-Men '97 series. You are right, it wasn't this scene where he crossed the line for me, it was the scene where he did an EMP to the entire world, killing who knows how many people (in hospitals on life support, in planes that crashed, etc.). In the show, Prof. X even said that 'thousands have been killed'. Thing is, again on the show, he was close to these 'enhanced human sentinels' for a long time, probably long enough that he could have tuned his EMP to just take out them and only them, but he choose to send humanity back to the 1800s instead.

[@JMObyx]

Of literally all of the Villains that are getting Lionized in reboots: Magneto is the one who deserves such treatment the most in my eyes. Imagine having the heroic X-Men fight against Magneto, but he's not some some silver-tongued terrorist, but a man at the end of his rope, who has goals and objectives that align with the X-Men frequently, but in many instances they butt heads, they disagree on things, but not on fundamental moral issues, and they still operate separately. Antagonist doesn't equal villain, and I for one think X-Men would go to remarkably interesting places if Magneto was a non-villainous Antagonist, especially with how many people are finding out his inspiration: Malcom X, is being vindicated in many many regards.

[@meathir4921]

Isn't this just First Class though? By the end of the film, Erik takes things into his own hands.

[@Lunacorva]

The problem with that though, is if Magneto is a perfectly justified hero doing only what is necessary to protect mutants, and the X-men are also the same... why would they fight each other?

[@ShilohLux.13]

Magnetos inspiration was Menachem Begin not Malcom X. Chris Claremont has said this many times.

[@tino9117]

29:13 I mean, to be faaaair, Charles can't really do shit while in that chair, he got his mind power sure, but I understand why he has a strike team fighting for him, and in the original series he would join them on some missions

[@OverlordZenith]

As a young black person, i was always told by older people "theres a right way and wrong way to change things." And cite dr. King. They always got quiet when I said "Dr. King was a man of peace and reason and you shot him in the head anyway. I will not be protesting in a way you find easy to ignore."

[@elowin1691]

Fuck yeah.

[@mattw6993]

I believe that they shot King in the head because he couldn't be ignored.

[@sifuhotman8595]

But Dr. King wasn't ignored.. and he used peace and reason at a time when the opposite would have been more than justified and he made significant legal change with that methodology.

[@RealTalk720]

​@@sifuhotman8595 he still got shot tho

[@TheRichandmighty]

@@RealTalk720 So did Malcolm X so if being shot means you can be ignored I guess there are no civil rights period in the U.S (whether they're enough is a different matter)

[@justsomejerseydevilwithint4606]

Magneto was wrong to lead with his approach back in the 60's, but now? Now that mutants have been killed and beaten and even when they are far from humanity, in sanctuaries built for them, slaughtered? Even despite the X-Men saving the world multiple times, humanity has proven their inability to cohabitate with mutant kind. Magneto, for his part, has left behind the ways of "The Brotherhood Of Evil Mutants" and has instead focused on the protection of mutants in danger. I don't think he's so in the wrong anymore.

[@Lunacorva]

That's rather an indictment of Marvel's writing. In order to justify a racist, mutant supremacist who wanted to opress all humanity and mutnatkind as the superior species, they had to make humanity worse and worse until his attitude was completely justified. In doing so, they strip the world of it's hope. Turn it into another grimdark setting where wiping out humanity is not only justified, it would be indefensible NOT to wipe them out. To make Magneto good, they had to make everyone else evil.

[@ravenovf7817]

Magneto becoming more nuanced is a good thing, doesn't mean he can't still be a bad guy or a threat. Just makes him more interesting.

[@callmev3531]

2:25, This point of characterization of Erik as a “mad terrorist” hidden behind a pragmatic revolutionary is actually rather consistent in much of his cartoon and film appearances, as he is often more motivated by his hatred of humans and his feelings of superiority over them rather than his care for mutantkind. This hatred and ego is often portrayed as tempered by beliefs (or rather, his assertions) that his crimes are in the service of mutantkind, but how much of that is true and how much is just a thinly veiled attempt to conceal the fact he is just indulging his own rage and desire to feel powerful after his days of being powerless varies between adaptations. However, the films and cartoons, more often then not, lean into Erik’s spitefulness and vengefulness more than his devotion to his species, putting more focus on him as a terrorist than as a revolutionary, seemingly with Fassbender’s iteration of the character that constantly returns to villainy whenever tragedy strikes, causing widespread collateral damage and death each time without any consequences. Unfortunately, even X-Men 97’ has Erik revert to his “mad terrorist” role, draining the planet’s electromagnetism instead of having him after the Genosha Massacre instead of having him specifically targeting Bastion. If there is going to be a more nuanced depiction of Erik in the future, it arguably should focus more on Erik as a hero, or at least a hero to mutants, having him be a leader and mentor to the Brotherhood Of Mutants, show him protecting and teaching mutants in a manner that mirrors Charles, only in a more militaristic fashion, but most importantly committing to either being an antagonist that becomes an ally or committing to his role as a representation of everything the X-Men choose not to let their power or their tragedies turn them into. Erik may be right about war between the species being inevitable and he may be right to judge humanity’s flaws, but others are also right to judge because he too is human, just as capable of virtue and depravity, as much as he may excuse or deny this fact.

[@Xtra_Medium]

I have never understood why people try to make the Adamantium scene Magneto's crossing the Rubicon Especially since it was in reaction to Wolverine LITERALLY TRYING TO DISEMBOWEL HIM🤦

[@commanderclown8620]

To be frank his "step too far" was just prior to that scene. Where he kills god only fucking knows how many innocent humans by releasing a global EMP. Probably more than there are mutants on the entire planet.

[@HailSpikeHayden]

I love Magneto’s characterization specifically because of the irony that he is a racist (against Homo sapiens) despite having been a victim of the holocaust. Not only that, but the idea where the main villain of the narrative is still cordial, even friendly, with the “heroes”, is still fresh and hasn’t quite been done as well since.

[@samuelclayhills3298]

At least movie Magneto basically just became mutant Hitler. Hell he agreed with the ideology of the guy who murderd his mother and was legitimetly a nazi until he just wanted to genocide humanity for mutant supremacy. The second Mystique isn't a mutant anymore he just abandons her because she isn't one of them anymore.

[@garrisonwhaley-sharp7676]

Sinister has definitely been changed in recent years but i dont see how he has been remotely "rehabilitated." His most notable character trait is being flamboyantly evil sociopath.

[@DuskyPredator]

My favourite Magneto versions are the ones who really believes that he is helping his people, but just might act a bit too far in a way that be attributed some to his trauma. And all the same these Magnetos can sometimes be shown to have been correct, that some of his fears can be very justified. He can be wrong, but how he is wrong should not be something like a pure evil. To some, who might be at risk to the things he fights against, he can be a hero. He should at least be as right as Xavier himself can be flawed and have blind spots.

[@matthewschwartz6607]

Like in X2? He tried to use Xavier to kill humanity .

[@DuskyPredator]

@@matthewschwartz6607 After humans tried to do it first, by brainwashing a mutant.

[@strengthmonk]

I think it's quite easy to view Magneto as a villain. He doesn't just want liberation; he wants supremacy, to essentially replace a hierarchy. True liberation would be a complete dissolution of these structures that uphold the bigotry Magneto's brotherhood would essentially update to favor and propogate mutantkind supremacy as opposed to humankind supremacy.

[@mka6245]

I think the point is that since Magneto has teamed up with the X-Men he doesn't really want that anymore. The Michael Fassbinder Magneto generally wants deterrence (making sure humans know that mutants can defend themselves against any human attack) not supremacy. Arguably the Powers of X version does want mutants to rule though

[@Tyler_W]

Yup. Motivations mean nothing. Actions define who you are. Magneto can be heroic, but at the end of the day, he's the warning modern society doesn't want to acknowledge, that the oppressed can easily become oppressors themselves.

[@channel45853]

​@@Tyler_Wbut if the oppressed weren't oppressed, there would be no danger of them becoming oppressors, no?

[@badart3204]

Most people don’t have a problem with oppression they only dislike that they are the ones being oppressed. Look at Liberia for example where the former slaves immediately enslaved the native Africans.

[@95keat]

Depends on the version of course but the problem with his plan isn't that it wouldn't work it's that it would work in keeping mutants safe but it would make the hate perpetual. The only way to truly fix things is through the potential early danger of coexistence.

[@DungForever]

We shift our opinions because we add our experiences to the issue at hand. When I was a child watching the cartoons, it told me Magneto was the villain and because I didn't have any experience in the real world, I believed it at face value. But now as an adult that has gone through life, I understand him better. Magneto has always been consistent. He wants MORE than just tolerance for his kind. He's seen his people persecuted TWICE now. As you navigate our world and see even more groups of people be persecuted over and over again, it's not hard to side with Magneto and demand better for our people.

[@Ares99999]

The problem is that you miss that Magneto wants the same status quo. He wants mutants on top of humans in the social order. And, lets be fair here, he wants HIMSELF to lead them. He considers himself to be better than most other mutants, and his way of dealing with Mutans with lesser powers goes from pity to condescention to outright contempt. At the core, Magneto is a supremacist who tends to see anybody with less power than he as 'lesser'. Make no mistake: Magneto wants his 'people' to rule over humans 'as is their right as the superior species'. I don't see why I'd side with someone who thinks like that.

[@lizzy1876]

​@@Ares99999They writers chose to make him like that though, they decided to make a holocaust survivor act like a Nazi. They tried to make him sympathetic while making him a villain, which doesn't work.

[@christopherbennett5858]

@@lizzy1876Here’s the crazy thing; the holocaust survivor stuff came about when they were stopping his role as a villain and making him the head of the institute. But, because they wanted him to be a villain again, the backslide happened in the 90’s.

[@YouthRightsRadical]

@@Ares99999 Magneto is pretty transparently opposed to the status quo. That's what defines comic book villains as opposed to heroes. Villains try to remake the world to match their vision of what the world should be. Heroes thwart attempts to change the status quo. At his core, Magneto is a man who doesn't trust humanity. He sees no hope for an end to the conflict between mutants and non-mutants that doesn't end in bloodshed. And as a result, he is determined to win the war he sees as inevitable. He fundamentally WANTS to be proven wrong about people, and for Xavier to be proven right. But humanity keeps living down to Magneto's worst expectations. Over the years, Magneto has tried many things in pursuit of safety for his people, sometimes genocide of the non-mutant population, sometimes separatism with multiple "mutant Israel" attempts, sometimes attempting conquest and enslavement of the non-mutant population, sometimes even working with the X-Men on the off chance that maybe just this once humanity won't fuck things up. He doesn't care too much about the details. He cares about preventing the genocide of his people. He fails to prevent that genocide again and again, mostly thanks to his efforts being thwarted by the embodiment of respectability politics, Xavier and his X-Men.

[@Ares99999]

@@YouthRightsRadical You're making it too one-sided. You ignore that Magneto has himself played a part in the vicious mutant-human cycle. Magneto also has a very selective memory, and refuses to think that good-hearted, reasonable humans are anything but an exception. He's also a man who can throw whole buildings around with his power, and has made sure to show off that power many times, as graphically as he can... and yet when humans react badly to his very scary outbursts, he sees it as proof that humans are unreasonable. I don't see in what way humans being scared of a racist, elitist and supremely arrogant man who can flatten a city in a fit of temper is somehow supposed to be seen as 'humans are horrible people'. What I mean is that Magneto is monumental hypocrite in many ways.

[@HelghastTrooper]

Magneto is a hero when he either operates in tandem with the X-Men's views, competes with a far, far worse alternative, or his worldview is literally the last logical bastion of hope in the name of mutant survival. If he gives up his competing views and embraces Xavier's ideology of peace, he becomes genuinely heroic. If all of mutantkind is at extinction's door and the only means of preventing it is to fight back against their oppressors in one desperate struggle, it's righteous. Magneto is an antagonist at worst when his ideology of winning mutant supremacy or mutant rights through forceful methods competes with Xavier's ideology of equality and coexistence through peaceful means, akin to Malcolm X's views vs. Martin Luther King Jr's. His cause is more than sympathetic, even justifiable. But using violence against violence is just not the solution; it's just needless war and bloodshed instead of sharing words and finding understanding with one another. Magneto is a complete villain when his take on mutant supremacy transforms, or is otherwise corrupted into outright extremism and tyranny. He becomes the very thing he fought to depose. He has become just another perpetuator in the eternal conflict; a full-on supremacist too blinded by his (understandable) hatred to even presume that coexistence is a possibility. He terrorizes, he kills, and he enslaves those different to him and his people. And he will be so overtaken by this view that he might willingly do things he would never have done before, like kill his fellow mutants to see his goals through, or become an outright hypocrite. It's all about how extreme the methods are versus the end goal, and whether or not acting so radically will cause preventable atrocities on both sides down the line, or lend credence to the cause that opposes yours. The road to Hell is paved with good intentions, and all that. The means are one thing, but how justifiable is quite another topic to be analyzed when a character like Magneto acts out his defining worldview -- Magneto sincerely wants to unselfishly aid mutantkind against their oppressors, but certain methods he takes are not without their limits or consequences. You just need to remember that the motives of many villains aren't black and white (cough, Red Skull, cough, inhuman levels of irrational hatred for literally all living things for no reason whatsoever, cough), but so much more complicated than just that, complete with philosophical arguments that really makes one think before they judge after all is said and done. It all ultimately depends on how the writer chooses to, well, write the people and stories. I also find it interesting that you choose to describe Poison Ivy as being heroic these days. While there are definitely iterations of her that either provide a more nuanced take on her actions or give her an unambiguously heroic/anti-heroic resolve, throughout her most popular incarnations, she is still very much a villain. Even today. It's because, while Ivy is written as pro-environment and pro-feminist, she takes these two terrifically positive concepts (especially the former) to their utmost radical, violent, and worst conclusions. She wants to save the world, but resorts to destructive eco-terrorism to do it, heedless of the cost. She wants women to be freed of the yoke of man-made cultural inventions, but will instill it against the opposing sex through brute force and murder instead of taking the time to change minds for the better. Yes, Ivy wants to save the world from the ravages of human greed and man-made inventions that harm the environment -- but she does this at the express expense of human life as her go-to method. She sacrifices other's freedoms and rights in the name of her own self-righteous worldview. She trades one evil concept for another -- and therein lies the madness that consigns her to Arkham whenever Batman defeats her. Poison Ivy is, at the core of her character, a deeply, deeply misanthropic individual, who would eradicate anyone who stands in her way if it meant preserving even a single scrap of the nature she holds so dear as to seem irrational. She holds positive connections with a select few individuals who do not subscribe to her extremism and eco-terrorism, but they are the exception in her mind's eye, not the norm.

[@DreamersOfReality]

All that can stand against violence... in the end, is violence. Ending tyranny and oppression through violence is neither immoral nor evil. What do you do when it becomes clear the boot pressing your face into the dirt, isn't going to lift itself? It's an uncomfortable truth, that pacificsm only ends in bodies.

[@zainmudassir2964]

Magneto in x-men 97 is amazing ❤.

[@fusionspace175]

These villains SHOULD be seen as evil, and it's a lack of humanity and the respect for it that's led to the shift in attitude. Magneto and poison ivy are still evil because they place no value on human life, they are murderers in an unjust sense. They represent the violent backlash impulse of any hurt party, but it is always a mistake to give in to that urge. Responding to violence with violence only continues the cycle, it resolves nothing. That is the essential flaw in these villains' morality. Also, Magneto killed a bunch of people in his attack on earth in fatal attractions, and his acolytes open the event by attacking a hospital and slaughtering sick and innocent helpless humans just for being human, and Magneto gives his approval for these methods, while crashing illyanas funeral and ripping apart Charles's wheelchair. So I wouldn't say taking wolvies adamantium was the worst thing he did then, by a long shot.

[@fusionspace175]

@@Dimitris_Half Maybe under some writers. I would not call that part of their essential longstanding characters, though. Quite the opposite, in my experience, and something they must have started doing after I had stopped reading in 2011, and not something that is carried over into most of the adapted versions I'm aware of. As far as I know them, both characters may have individual humans they care for, but as a whole they view humanity as the source of their troubles, and their greatest enemy in their chosen fights, Magneto because he identifies mutants as separate from humans, and Poison Ivy because she aligns more with plant life than with animal, and neither often hesitates at killing humans to achieve their goals.

[@Peasham]

@@fusionspace175 That's the entire point, under good writers he does care about humanity and is at worst an anti-hero.

[@anotherrandomguy8871]

@@Dimitris_Half​​⁠​⁠Ivy doesn’t give a crap about humans, most of the time she’s tried to genocide humans and turn them into plant monsters, otherwise she seducts humans to use them as mindless henchmen until they die, they are mere objects to her. I wouldn’t go near her within 10 miles. She’d murder me, and I don’t think outside of a few people, she cares about humans. Magneto is at least somewhat smart, I can talk to him for 5 minutes without him trying to kill or SA me like poison Ivy and even then anyonne who tries to destroy my entire species or is hateful to, I doubt they care much about that species, in this case humans.

[@anotherrandomguy8871]

⁠@@Dimitris_HalfIvy does not care about humanity much and tries to actively genocide humanity, tries to turn humans into plant monsters, and if not all that she will commonly seduce people into forcefully doing her bitting until dying for her like pawns, humans are like mere evil inferior objects to her. Same with Magneto, but I can at least talk to him for maybe 5 minutes without him trying to kill or mind control me via using creepy advances like Ivy, but even then I wouldn’t say he cares about humanity consedering he also is genocidal to humans and sees us as inferior. A person or character that is trying to mass kill off your race or species, or sees your identify as inferior, does not care largely much about said race or species, in this case humanity.

[@thereseemstobeenanerror1219]

​@@Dimitris_Half No they don't, lol

[@Tacticslion]

29:31 - so there are lots of good points in this video, but citing Professor X as not being a front-line fighter as an argument against him has always been incredibly empty. He literally does not have use of his legs (dependent on continuity, of course). And a floating hover chair sure is neat, but that only exists in some iterations, and it is never depicted as swift or militarily capable. Plus, Xavier's particular talents are not really frontline abilities. Guys with telekinesis, ice powers, explody vision (or explody cards) all have to be forward for the sake of using those - telepathy doesn't need that. And on that, to speak to an earlier point, coincidentally, they *do* need training. Explody vision is neat, but not if it breaks all your stuff. Likewise, telekinesis is nice, but if you accidentally murder a girl because she said something mean to you, that does you no good and her no good. Specifically mutants learn about themselves being mutants (for the most part) around puberty: they have not had their entire life to learn mastery of their powers and abilities. They need to know how to not harm themselves and others. Speaking to 30:30 - Striker is the villain... but so is Magneto. The films are pretty clear about that: both are wrong and both are willing to kill others from fear, which is the bad thing. Just like it's wrong (earlier in this video) for "humanity" to blame all mutants for the actions of a few (even if those few are incredibly deadly and evil), it's wrong for Magneto to blame all of humanity for the actions of a few (even if those few are incredibly deadly and evil). And in the first film, he experimented on terrible people, but he had no idea if his device would turn someone into a mutant or outright kill them - and he didn't care: he was ready to afflict it on everyone, regardless. He's so blinded by race, he just... presumes that by murdering a large number of people and forcibly race-switching the rest will just make conflict vanish. It's not only stupid, it's willfully blind. The entire plot to turn humans into mutants while killing the rest is exactly the same as the Nazi goal of creating a "pure" genetic group who mesh with a certain set of acceptable forms, and killing those (or forcibly changing those) who don't conform to it. What makes Xavier "better" is that he knows they have power and teaches his kids to control their powers not just for comfort of the normies, but for the well-being of the kids themselves. The comics even address this on more than one occasion. Rogue is a mutant who *can't* control her powers, and it has destroyed her life - and there are examples of those who go through far worse. His students are there so that they don't become the (very dark humor) joke about Superman: man of steel in a world of glass. And they're specifically trained as paramilitary... *because* Magneto exists and does his thing. Xavier explicitly doesn't want to train combatants, but does so because they're already in a war. Xavier isn't perfect, but he is absolutely reasonable. Magneto's solution was, "Hey, kid, you might kill all those around you, traumatizing yourself and costing the lives of all you care about and also innocents, but I'mma either leave you with no training and tell you to get over it, 'cause you're 'superior' - hey, also, try murder, it's the only valid solution - or, if I do train you, it's also to be child soldiers." This is self-demonstrably bad. "Hey, there's a group of people with specific genes that do bad things. Time to do bad things to all people with those specific genes." is literally what we call the most evil man in history. It's toxic, and it reflects how Eric learned the wrong lesson from Adolf's institutionalized brutality. It's understandable, to be sure. But at its heart, it's a man who was hurt wanting to hurt others and doing nothing but perpetuating a cycle. Anyway, interesting video, for sure.

[@damianpatterson9363]

I think you have to look at in regards to where the bulk of the writing lands and what stories are most popular, especially over the course of time. Are the stories focusing on Magneto's villainy more popular or are the stories focusing on him being a revolutionary/anti-hero more popular? And btw, I would argue that the Worst thing Magneto did in the 616 continuity wasn't ripping Wolverine's adamantium from his skeleton. It was murdering over 200 Soviet sailors by sinking their submarine after they fired nuclear missiles at his island base after he threatened to end life on Earth if the governments of the world didn't give him total political control in 7 days in Uncanny X-Men #150.

[@ethanbell5901]

Magneto is just a classic example of the question “do the ends justify the means?” He is a character willing to do terrible things to achieve sympathetic goals.

[@Axelwayne12]

His goal is literally the superiority of mutants over humans, in which he sincerely believes that mutants are superior to humans.

[@monauralsnail0669]

Good video but I think your take on falcon and winter soldier is completely wrong. The flag smashers throughout the series are portrayed as the misunderstood heroes while the world governments are portrayed as the villains or at least inept bureaucrats and the USAgent is portrayed as their weapon which they ultimately turn. The flag smashers routinely kill innocent bystanders and even the people they are “advocating” for, while the world governments are dealing with the unimaginable challenges of half the population disappearing and then reappearing 5 years later to a world that has lost the infrastructure and ability to support that population. The USAgent while a flawed man is a soldier serving his country who is asked to adopt the mantle and role of one the world’s greatest heroes after the original pick rejected it, which he accepts and spends his entire tenure as Captain America trying to put an end to the flag smashers campaign while upholding the ideals of his mantle while being criticized and belittled by the men who he shares a mission with.

[@alflundgren8138]

Yeah, that statement he made about John Walker being heroized was lunacy. What show did he watch?

[@luigigustav8687]

I think that professor x suffers narratively because the status quo itself cannot change. Over time this ruins the character, just as, for example, Batman, who will never save Gotham, ends up looking like a millionaire who wants to beat up criminals. In Charles' case, he gets the treatment that good men get in long-term stories, "becoming horrible people." This is due to a sinism of several authors. The truth is that not only does the extremist revolutionary suffer narratively by being portrayed as villains, but the "good revolutionaries" suffer from sinism that begins to write them off as naive or hypocritical.

[@marksalmoneussorcerersupreme]

Complex Sympathetic villains are a double edged sword because the more you do it the more their status as a villain comes to question. He was a generic villain created by Jack Kirby and then they made this Holocaust survivor backstory after Kirby left Marvel. Unfortunately Magneto has become a template for revolutionary villains, such as Killmonger, Amon, Kuvira, The White Fang, The Flag smashers, Grindelwald, etc. Its all part of a project of conditioning to make liberation abhorrent to us, and it is to protect the status quo.

[@hartthorn]

It would honestly be kind of interesting to do a story that's basically the opposite of Breaking Bad. START with a cold, calculating monster of a character, but that has ostensibly noble aims like the characters you mention. And then, over the course of the narrative you see them get BETTER. They accept that some of their tactics went too far, but are still able to use the attention and reputation these earlier acts give them to actually progress their cause. Have the show end with a fundamentally different "status quo" than it started with BECAUSE of this revolutionary's direct actions.

[@pn2294]

What is the status quo?

[@hartthorn]

@@pn2294 general phrase meaning "how things are". In many stories, the entire fight is about restoring things to that state, the villain has "disrupted" society and they must get back to that. Handful of stories explore changing how things are for the better. (And some very rare "for the worse")

[@kingjoeblack5]

Killmonger did nothing wrong

[@silverprimus321boi9]

magneto is just a supremacist who can't look in the mirror and realise he's just like Mr mustache man. And the last time marvel tried to change the status quo of the x men (krakoa), they turned them into xenophobic isolationists that would make wakanda and latveria blush, build a literal ethnostate and then start demanding countries across the planet to hand over any mutants they have. The real issue is that the x men and mutants in general just do not fit a traditional allegory of civil rights, because they're people with literal superhuman abilities (or in some cases disabilities). The fear people have for mutants within the comics is very much a natural response, since unlike inhumans (who have identifiable Kree genes and their power is awakened by exposure to terrigen gas), the X gene can appear out of nowhere, can't be traced, and it's effects range from growing a 3rd arm to sneezing with the force of a nuclear bomb. Senator Kelly and his mutant registration act on surface sounds reasonable as you could log all mutant abilities and figure em out (of course the comics showcase the flaws in this). Even the Sentinels, as ridiculous as they are (seriously, the US government builds big ass robots that could very well be deployed for any form of conflict but they choose to make them only be for mutant suppression) make a bit of sense considering the insanity of Earth being filled with 20 different forms of abnormal shit. Xavier's school would attempt to remedy this fear by enrolling mutant kids and educate them on their mutant ability, and hopefully master it and live with it, or use it for good. This would prevent scenarios where mutants could pose a threat for themselves and others, living in fear of their power, or abusing their power for selfish gain (with great power comes great responsibility more or less). Magneto on the other hand is a holocaust victim who saw the fear around mutants, got auschwitz PTSD thinking history was going to repeat again and then turned into a mutant supremacist to combat this.

[@LucasDarkGiygas]

You argued that Magneto doesn't have that many supremely evil acts besides extracting Logan's adamantium, but in this literal same arch he caused in an EMP in the entire planet. That must have killed at least hundreds of thousands of people, possibly millions.

[@swtormadness]

I never read the comics, so I can't speak for them. I watched the cartoon, but I probably forgot most of it. Hence why I will stick to the movies that I still remember. To me the scene in 2nd movie, where he turns around the machine is on some level understandable, but also flawed at its core. Because if Magneto is a Holocaust survivor he should not wish a genocide upon another, even if that group is the group of his oppressor. Because as Holocaust already showed, trying to erase an entire group of people to fix the problem is not the answer. From another hand though I see in it an opportunity to explore how traumatic event in your life can radicalize you and make you think in the same way as the people who oppressed you, and then proceed to deconstruct that as the ideology of the oppressor that Magneto inevitably was taught when being subjected to it. It further's the goal of the oppressor to make you act in accordance with the scale of violence they see as "ends justify the means". Making Magneto realize that is something I'd sincerely want to see. How he'd deal with such realization that his own actions are no different than the actions of his oppressor, no matter the reason he has. If Charles truly killed all of humanity, this would be a truly traumatic event to him, because it goes against everything he stands for. And I believe making it happen should also be a traumatic event to Magneto, because it proves that he never actually managed to get out of his oppressor's clutches. That by trying to save mutants he commited attrocities, orphaned children etc. just like his oppressors did to his people and his own family. That to people who will survive he will be the monster that he saw in them when he was their age and that cycle will continue and will never break if someone doesn't put a stop to it. People can't heal through repetition of cycle of abuse. Killing Striker is just. Killing all of humanity for the crimes that Striker and people of similar views as him commited against mutants is not.

[@matthewschwartz6607]

Wasn’t it kind of cold to just leave Charles in Cerebro like that ? Wouldn’t that have either killed or depleted Charles ? And weren’t they friends?

[@swtormadness]

@@matthewschwartz6607 Exactly my thoughts. And with addition of the X-Men First Class it's even weirder because this movie make it look as if they were also lowkey gay for each other, so imagine that. But even if they weren't in some kind of toxic gay love, Magneto seems to go back and forth between saving Charles, hurting Charles, saving Charles so on and so forth.

[@mildhoof]

I commented this on another video too, but seriously you should be publishing these as podcasts too, they work perfectly in audio format. Love your deep dives!

[@khenmozhione4473]

BOTH, Jack Kirby & Stan Lee stated that Xavier and Magneto were based on MLK and Malcolm X!?!

[@gravemind76]

Glad someone said it.

[@MxChloeB42]

When? I'm not seeing anything for Jack Kirby and only the one quote from Stan Lee in 2000 liking the idea of the X-Men as a metaphor for the Civil Rights Movement around the release of the first movie.

[@gotmog22]

Long story short... No, they didn't. The first one that thought such was Chuck Austen, but the first one that made explicit thematics of X-Men as minorities (Stan Lee and Jack Kirby were NOT those, at least not intentionally so) was Chris Claremont that compared them to two Zionist prime ministers of the time

[@georgeliquor1236]

That's one of those famous myths that parroted around because it sounds good and cool, but thats far from the truth, they never stated that.

[@gravemind76]

@georgeliquor1236 Stan Lee said it in an interview. So I looked into it and they weren't originally based on it, but later developed to be based like them.

[@zachialadams9279]

The representation of Magneto we see most often now is the one that sees the wider humanity as directly contentious not just to the existence of mutants, but to thier very nature as beings with free will. As arguments in modern day go on, it gets harder and harder to say he's just a tyrant.

[@BrandonWinarto]

I completely disagree regarding the flag smashers part, the show tries to portray the Flag Smashers as sympathetic while taking every chance to spit on US Agent, yet somehow misses its intention so badly that the opposite happened for the audiences. US Agent, despite being portrayed as the bad guy, spends most of the series doing his best, yet being spat on by both the show and the main characters despite offering help in good faith. He then gets completely villainized for killing a Flag Smasher, a superhuman terrorist, after they killed his best friend and bombed a bunch of innocents. He in no way showcases anything resembling jingoistic attitude except maybe during the time where he goes of the deep end, just coming off as a guy doing his job and trying to live up to the legacy he is given. The Flag Smashers, despite being portrayed as the sympathetic side (See Falcon's don't call her a terrorist line) are straight up just bad guys who barely blink about murdering innocent civilians.

[@alflundgren8138]

Agreed. That line annoyed me too.

[@mka6245]

A few thoughts on this: First, the more I think about it the more I think the Deadly Genesis retcon was an unnecessary assassination of Professor Xavier's character. He had already done enough shady things to be understood as someone who started out with good intentions but became somewhat corrupted by the power he had as leader of the X-Men, and the whole ethics of training children is questionable in itself, but showing that he did something as morally compromised as erasing Scotts memories very early in the Xmens history destroys his character to me. Second, I don't think people see Magneto as a villain because he tore apart Wolverine that one time , that was arguably a tactical measure to remove a combatant from the fight permanently. And if he wanted to kill him he could have literally thrown him into the sun. They see Magneto as a villain because he constantly breaks into government facilities and kills random guards that are just doing their jobs and probably have nothing to do with whatever top secret sentinel tech is buried under the building. He kills these people without offering any opportunity to surrender. And even in normal fights the X-Men are shown as trying to limit bystander casualties while Magneto often does not.

[@DreamersOfReality]

Your final point reeks of apologia. Do you know who were just doing their jobs? The train conductors and railway operators who were transporting jews to concentration camps. There were innocent janitors and cooks on the Death Star. Should Luke have not blown it up, then? "I was just doing my job" is a coward's excuse.

[@farhaaz237]

​@@DreamersOfRealityThe difference between a security guard guarding a tech lab ten floors below ground level and train drivers to concentration camp is knowledge. Do you really think a guard knows what's happening 10 floors below. No he doesn't. The train drivers or people working on death star knew what they were doing. Magneto does not kills because he has to, he kills because he wants to.

[@lonelywolf5659]

​@@DreamersOfReality dim the main literally found at the Brotherhood of evil almost dropped a meteor on a planet and don't even get me started on letting a psychopath do whatever they want Sabertooth pyro, in X-Men evolved into what they hated looks at X-Men green chick kills innocent person Magneto the X-Men just don't do it again without getting caught.

[@ironbaysqiureg4827]

Nope he's a villain for a reason. Just because you can understand or even relate to somebody doesn't mean Any of their evil is excused. I don't care if he was a victim he still is going to make me A second class citizen if he's in charge.

[@Peasham]

Ah yes, he's going to make you a second class citizen by making his own country.

[@ironbaysqiureg4827]

​@Peasham That's cute House of m when he rule the world. Proves me right ten times over. Sorry mags only compromised with an island Because The villain got pushed back by heroes and poeple.

[@mastlast9578]

​@ironbaysqiureg4827 This is a SUBJECTIVE TOPIC. I hate how people just say things like this. This topic is subjective. Stop telling people there wrong on a topic that's subjective. Especially since house of M didn't actually happen, and was just a fake universe created by Wanda, which makes your point on that specifically wrong.

[@ironbaysqiureg4827]

​@mastlast9578 fake universe that is formed Out of everyone in the room secrets desires. There's a few that we're change To try to prevent interference But Most had the best lives one could ever have. And has magneto Ruling over the world With mutant on top. Weird I wonder why That was the set up When it comes down to granting The secret wishes Of the x-men and the avengers. But let us Ignore that contacts and just say Alternate universe. You do know The living magnet over here has had multiple statements of saying mutant superiority. Throughout multiple years of comics. Some people have played around and made it less intense But he always drifts back over and that direction As a supremacist Because that's what he is. You can take that "subjective" crap Somewhere else.

[@ironbaysqiureg4827]

​@@mastlast9578 Okay A fake universe That was Constructed out of the secret desires Of everyone in the room. With a few exceptions altered so they Don't cause any interference And one of those outcomes is to have Magnet man Himself ruling the world With mutants as the dominant species. Weird Why is that Out of all the different outcomes That could just have been made. It ends up with that. But fine Let's just ignore all that contacts Interstate alternate universe

[@TerminalTalent]

Well, this video grew even more relevant...

[@TroyNaumu808]

Magneto is neither villain nor hero but something in-between.

[@HELLO_KORO]

He's an anti hero whose also a antagonist because his morals go against the X mens

[@williammarshall7831]

A berserk section in a magneto video essay? Sign me up. 10/10

[@Decembirth]

You put so much work into this only to brush off complexity of Falcon - Winter's story.

[@Peasham]

The writers kinda did that when they made the correct people murder random civilians because they're supposed to be villains.

[@mackeym10]

My middle name is xavier. I'm about twenty minutes into the video. I'm so glad that you're explain magneto In such a nuance way. You do the things that I hate most people don't try to even do when they're looking at villains. Care about why they did it instead of just what they did.

[@eyeofodin01]

I think your take is pretty interesting. There are two things I would disagree with. 1. From what I could tell, it seems that Dr King's quote about riots is being taken out of context in your video. He wasn't speaking in support of them. In fact, in the other America speech where that quote came from, he calls them counterproductive. 2. It's interesting how we pull two very different interpretations from Falcon and the Winter Soldier. From what I could see, efforts were made to lionize The flag smashers. Or at the very least, to humanize them. Whereas, the show seems to go out of its way to portray US agent as a villain long before he snaps. Anyway, thanks for the vid!

[@quantumvideoscz2052]

The problem is the author of this video lacks actual media literacy, aka the ability to understand what a piece of media is saying and critically analyse it.

[@BaneClandestine]

The subversion of characters like Magneto and comics books in general, at least in regards to X-men, is that has made the reader identity with the "other" and not oneself, that is why Magneto's harm of humans can be justified or waved away, because the reader has been subverted to think they are *not* human.

[@horrordragon2255]

I mean I agree with the Poison Ivy being less of a villian. Buuuut she still kills people, sure they destroy and pollute the planet but killing them is still wrong. Same with Magneto, his motivation is empathetic but his actions are still opressive and destructive

[@anotherrandomguy8871]

Yeah we gotta remember with villians, being a vicirm or having a “good cause” and good intentions doesn’t wreaktify them being villians because these things should never excuses these types of actions of attempted genocide or murder of innocent people just because you view their species as inferior. Yes it can be for a good cause, but verbal morals and philosophy means little to nothing if your just a bad person and the end result is that you just murder anyone and everyone that’s not exactly you.

[@Peasham]

The people poison ivy ought to kill are responsible for more death and destruction than she could ever cause and have rigged the system so as to never face formal punishment for their crimes. What else would you have her do?

[@Peasham]

​@@anotherrandomguy8871That's some nice morals and philosophy you got there. What did you say about them again?

[@n0refuge]

Making Magneto a survivor of the Holocaust and keeping that at his core of his character making him more misguided in his actions makes him a more complex and interesting character.

[@LezCharming]

I agree that Magneto is a very sympathetic character. I think he's astonishing at tactical direct action. But he fails at alliance building. And that's crucial. Mutants need Magneto and Xavier,for their varying skills. To speak about IRL,the Resistance will need supporters in major institutions like Hollywood and even foreign governments like China or Sweden in order to have a lasting impact. We must be both Magnus and Xavier.

[@TheVeritas1]

Great post.

[@Ares99999]

Resistance to... what exactly? And what will you do? Kill those in charge and put your people over the rest. Because mark my words, Magneto would establish a world that would have mutants as first-class citizens, 'mutates' as second-class citizens, and humans as third-class citizens. And even in the first-class citizens, it wouldn't be equal. You think Magneto would ever, EVER think himself equal with a guy whose mutant power is to far gas that happens to be blue?. Magneto would tear down a bigoted system to install one just as, if not more, bigoted. That's not a solution. The only lasting solution would be to erase the bigotry itself. That's the true battle.

[@ChainSawKillerTV]

In Uncanny X-men 150 Magneto declared himself ruler of the world and killed people on a Soviet submarine which he was later trialed for. He threatened entire world with destruction while Professor X's team at that period fought against Sentinels and other human bigots and tried to prevent mutant-holocaust in Days of Future Past originally caused by Brotherhood killing Senator Kelly. In issue 150 he has a realization that he was wrong when he hurts Kitty and because of that later goes willingly to trial. Even his redemption arc is about him becoming mentor for New Mutants like Xavier. You say Xavier created ''paramilitary'' org but Magneto created Brotherhood of ''Evil'' Mutants with known freedom fighters like Pyro, Mastermind, Sabretooth and Mystique. I also like how Xavier is a bad guy for fighting Mr Sinister and Apocalypse but Magneto isn't for fighting mutants on X-men team who sometimes are children. I like how cher. Also he kills his own son but who cares. Moral of the story, get off your fake Twitter revolutionary bullshit, Quentin Quire. Magneto is a complicated character that's why I like him but you try to simplify his character and demonize Xavier (there are some valid points like being shit dad to Legion or constantly bailing on his team to bang Lilandra but you presented nothing except Deadly Genesis and that's not coming close to anything Magneto did). Saying both his sides are symathetic is profoundly stupid (one of which means mutant supremacy and oppression of humanity) and erases his moral complexity. Don't just cherry-pick facts you like.

[@cardsgamble4905]

Preach brother!!!

[@MennydorgesERArchive]

Being right doesn’t exclude you from being a villain. But in all honesty, having a bunch of superpowered people capable of even destroying continents or planets being “oppressed underdogs” was always a joke of a premise

[@strengthmonk]

Not every mutant is capable of "destroying continents" and this comment is a perfect example of you not just missing the broader point of the comics but ironically having the same mindset as the mutant-fearing humans in the series.

[@Dare5358]

she didn't say "every", she said "a bunch". eh, not important. Magneto would erase a human bigot like her and be right to do it, huh?@@strengthmonk

[@ExeErdna]

@@strengthmonk No, she's still right. Yes a majority of mutants get trash for powers or their powers simply kill them. Yet that doesn't mean humans are unjustifed for fearing psychics from doing whatever with their perception of reality. Then you have Sabertooth who's perfectly fine going rampages that make Hulk sick to his stomach. You have Storm whom can coat Earth in Jupiter like global storms. Hell, you forget the "Civil War" was kicked off because of Nitro a mutant going "KABOOM" and he's considered mid tier in power scaling...

[@Peasham]

Damn, would be a shame if they were in a universe full of superheroes who aren't subjugated for their superpowers, or something.

[@ExeErdna]

@@Peasham Even the world of Myhero had it's issues even if it is Magneto's dream

[@bnashee]

Ultimate Magneto doesn't work at all because they had to literally change everything about the character and the world to make him a true villain. If you have to change everything that makes the character who he is, then its not going to work to convince anyone that hes Truly Evil.

[@ShawnnyPerkins]

Remember kids. Terrorism is always Terrorism.

[@danieladamczyk4024]

Someone didn't understud how Godhand works. You *have* to reject your humanity to get power from them.

[@kpat5655]

As much as I love Magneto and I feel bad for his tragedy the dude is ultimately a mutant terrorist. But he’s not wrong mutants will always be in danger and mutants must protect themselves but not his way.

[@WebbedManiac]

What way then? How else to you defend yourself if not by striking back at those who strike you?

[@Hawkatana]

The long & short of it is: "It depends on who's writing him".

[@MrProdigy810]

The general does not send his soldiers to fight where he himself would not walk. That’s a wild thing to say to professor X. I’m certain he would fight if he didn’t think he’d be a detriment

[@ink3487]

Professor X gesturing at his wheelchair "walk? Magnus what the fuck are you talking about"

[@bmagada]

The only people who praise Magneto dont understand this way never works. He could win and then what? He becomes what made him evil in the first place. A lot of people in here clearly never read Age of Apocalypse.

[@LordFreizaAndFreizaArmy]

Right right. He is very much along the same vien of Homelander in that he believes in the superiority of mutants, and while he has the connection to the Holocaust, he is also a man driven to violence and destruction, Hell is paved with good intentions.

[@RFDN0]

It is why the most important thing about any revolution is the plan for what is to happen after it succeeds. Magneto and many others have points. Those points can be good or bad but their actions are judged by the groups who see them and the survivors of the aftermath.

[@prospero2405]

@@RFDN0 Even then, after revolution ends, many of the people who made it successful are no longer needed. The creation of a new system and it's maintainance is completely different to what the revolution needs to succeed, so many of the fighters are not going to be relevant afterwards.

[@sterd1149]

Capaldi had a chilling line in an episode between two warring sides "Sure, you win. This war. But what of the next? What are you going to do with the troublemakers once you've established your perfect utopia? What are you going to do with the people like you?"

[@DreamersOfReality]

No. Xavier's way doesn't, and can't, work. An analogy is of course "MLK Jr. and Malcolm X", but there is something most don't seem to understand. Both of them failed. The Civil Rights Movement was an almost abject failure. Neither leader got anything close to what they actually wanted. Hint: MLK JR. was a socialist who advocated for a new bill of economic and human rights that never happened.

[@armorbearer9702]

To be fair, Professor X is in a wheelchair. He cannot go into battle with his students.

[@Houtont]

He could go into battle but he doesn't seem to like just straight up mind controlling people.

[@Peasham]

Professor X could single-handedly cease mutant oppression, or any oppression, with a single thought, he just doesn't do this for moral reasons.

[@orzen_the_orzo933]

What I believe Magneto should be like, is a villain who has a point but goes too far and too violent. I think having Magneto and Prof X both be not 100% correct or incorrect would make it interesting.

[@j.d.cunegan302]

To your point at the end about the catharsis of fiction, I quote the header to my website: "Fiction is the weapon I wield against an unjust world I am powerless to change."

[@thepaladxn]

Underrated channel, if it's all this quality

[@kiddprofit2500]

I always thought as magneto as someone who will do whatever to get the job done

[@BETMARKonTube]

From my prospective: no matter your good intentions, or if at the end you redeem yourself (somehow). If you willingly killed innocent people, you ARE a villain and nothing can erase that.

[@lostonegrey1555]

I do like when magneto is complex but still is very much the villain. A character that is similar to magneto and his complexity but remains a villain is the beast from infamous 2. Essentially in the infamous series there are a rare group of people who have the conduit gene. This gene once activated grants people with superhuman abilities. a plague is spreading infecting and killing all, except people that have their conduit gene activated. The beast realises this and uses his powers to activate the dormant gene in those people. But at a devastating cost of regular people. As activating the gene needs a large amount of energy with creates a devastating blast killing all except the people that are now conduits. The beast is committing worldwide genocide, killing millions and creating conduits as the new dominant race. But hes not pure evil and doing it for sadistic pleasure. But to save whats remains of humanity and he will kill whoever gets in his way because if he die’s humanity could well and truly be lost. To me thats a good set up for a complex villain. They are willing to commit something as extreme as genocide for their goals which is morally bad. But humanity could be doomed if they dont. Not saying magneto needs to copy this 1-1. but i would love a new story with magneto to have that level of complexity but remain a villain because of his actions even if hes right.

[@RestrictedAudiencesOnly]

Magneto is responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands if not millions. Yes, Magneto is quite obviously a villain to anyone who has paid attention to the comics theyve read