Starting off this week long look at what villains have influenced me and my writing is a character who has almost a fifty year history and is considered one of the most influential characters of comic book history. That right- first up for this week is the leader of the Brotherhood of Mutants: Magneto.
While I am aware of the character's history, the part I will be focusing on will be the first two X-men movies as those were more of what impacted me personally than reading the comics. I *know* there is so much history in the character, but for the sake of somewhat brevity, sacrifices must be made.
Born as Max Eisenhardt, but more often known as Magnus or Erik Lensherr, things were not easy for our young villain. Then again, that is to be expected when one is Jewish and also living in Nazi Germany. The opening scene of the first X-men movie shows Erik and his family in a concentration camp. While his age isn't explicitly stated, he appeared roughly ten or so years old. Anyways, his stay in the camp gets even worse when his parents are taken from him, presumably to be executed in the showers or by some other equally horrible method. Naturally, this would traumatize anybody, a child especially. Problem is that sometimes a scared kid can grow up to be a sociopathic mutant. With nigh godly abilities.
For those of you unfamiliar with the X-men universe, the idea is this: it's about half past the future and mutants are starting to be discovered all over the world. Now, mutants can have a variety of abilities such as the ability to fly or walk through walls or superhuman strength, but other than that they look remarkably like ordinary human beings (ignoring also, that all of the mutants are played by attractive actors and actresses, but the point stands). Anyways, the US Senate is nervous about the growing mutant "threat" as the government really isn't sure what to do with people with such power. One senator calls for the registration of all mutants and wants to keep them under watch, but cooler minds seem to be prevailing for the time being. However, a now adult Erik watching the Senate session has a sinking feeling that this situation seems all too familiar to the Holocaust.
Except instead of being a boy, he now is a powerful man with the ability to control magnetic fields. This may not sound incredibly impressive at first glance, but when one realizes that Magneto can effortlessly pick up and throw cars, stop tens of bullets in the air and even move the Golden Gate bridge himself, it is a power worth respecting. Or fearing as the case may be.
Now, if he was born Erik, why does he go by Magneto other than the fact that it is a really catchy name and alludes to his power? As evidenced by the second X-men movie, he seems to view having an alternate "mutant" name as a way of having embraced ones mutant identity.
Given the Senate's predictable "anti-mutant" stance (of course the general public fears what it does not understand), Erik/Magneto naturally will not take this whole mutant registration act laying down and of course plans to fight it by any means necessary.
Magneto's old friend and leader of the X-men (a group of mutants who work together to help younger mutants use their powers for the benefit of humanity), Prof. Charles Xavier senses that Magneto may be thinking rashly and confronts him. Magneto shrugs him off and continues his plan to assert mutant superiority over ordinary humans (how he goes about it, I'll leave you to watch the movies).
But, as powerful as he is, he is also charismatic and intelligent. It's quite fitting that he is played by Sir Ian McKellan, a Shakespearean actor. He isn't the sort to go in guns a blazin' though there are a few scenes where he literally turns said blazin' guns back on their users. No, in all of his plans he doesn't rage to the world to fear mutantkind but sits back smirking and watches as various machines and his allies do the work for him. It is worth pointing out that Magneto and the whole X-men comics has been seen as a bit of an allegory to the Civil Rights struggle of the 1960s. Mutants, of course, being seen as the minorities to the normal human population are juxtaposed against African Americans in their struggle against highly racist sentiments from the Caucasian dominated America.
In this vein, Magneto and his idea of using violence was taken from the real life personality of Malcolm X who advocated violence when need be in case of struggles against their oppressors. Which is exactly what Magneto plans to do in both films- why wait for the humans to start up mutant concentration camps when humans could respect and fear mutants now? I mean, it hardly excuses Magneto's attempts at genocide but it is easy to see his thought process. In fact- the first watching of the first X-men movie, I was almost on board with Magneto except for his complete and total disregard for life. How would have WWII have been different (or the Holocaust) if the Jews would have had the capacity to fight back against their Nazi oppressors? And please don't bring up Inglorious Basterds- I like Tarantino, but that film, I did not. But what if it was possible? Could things have worked better for the Jews if such a military force was assembled? This is more Magneto's thought process though his preemptive killing of humans before they pass legislation against humans is completely uncalled for. And it gets worse...
A character defining moment is in the first film where Magneto has a machine that kills any non-mutant within its radius. The machine takes someone with the power of magnetism to run, though whomever is running it will suffer a deal of fatigue from powering it, and with more use, it will kill the user. Instead of running the machine himself and sacrificing himself for his ideals, Magneto instead straps a teenage girl named Marie in the machine and has her run it instead. While the machine is powering up with her in it and her life draining away, Magneto coldly assures Marie that "[y]our sacrifice means our survival." Wow. Moral event horizon has been crossed...
So, sympathetic (somewhat), ambitious and a self-righteous bastard, Magneto has a lot of offer the world of villains and writing. Tune in tomorrow for the next villain.
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