Magneto and Genocide

[Dekafox]

Thank you, and my own apologies then for not being clearer, as I seem to have done my own fair share of horribly wording things for us to reach this point in the first place. I'd never seen this topic brought up myself previously but I don't really frequent any regular comic book forums, and given you've seen this over and over, your frustration is definitely understandable.

The X-Men Evolution thing sounds neat - I never gave it a watch myself. My personal thought on a way they could go in the comics? The whole Krakoa thing. I don't know all of Magneto's involvement there as I mostly haven't followed that whole storyline other than hearing bits and pieces(is this where they de-aged him, as mentioned previously?) but it seems like something that happened there could work for as good of an explanation as any.

As for the MCU, I've got a feeling the X-Men stuff is going to be multi-verse related, so if that is the case, I could see them there simply establishing the alternate timeline that brings them in runs at a different pace, so we get 90s Magneto(or even earlier!) in Modern day, which gives them plenty of time before they even have to think about aging or other shenanigans.

 

[MrBlud]

Would anyone consider reinventing Black, Hispanic, Muslim, or LGBTQ+ characters with those traits stripped away? No.

True! …but most of those don’t have their identity intrinsically tied to a historical event and/or already have temporal shenanigans baked into it. Ie, Steve Roger’s and his 70 year ice bath. The Thing is Jewish and he can board a rocket to cosmic rays in 1960 just as easily as he could in 2025.

In the comics, this has never been a concern due to the sliding time scale but the MCU has been trying to hem closer to realism so there would need to be SOME explanation for someone born almost a hundred years ago to be a forty year old man. Especially since his nemesis would likely be the same age…only born four decades later.

Personally, I’d prefer Magneto stay Jewish and I feel like that’s almost assured given his character and history but I could see him being moved from the Holocaust to say maybe being the only survivor of the Munich massacre to fulfill both the tragedy but not quite being so old.

 

[LordGigaIce]

MCU has been trying to hem closer to realism so there would need to be SOME explanation for someone born almost a hundred years ago to be a forty year old man

While the MCU has been trying that in some ways... again, it has a built in precedent of someone who was a young man during WWII being alive and kicking butt in the present. No, Magneto wasn't frozen (though hell... why not, for the MCU's purposes?), but the MCU adapted the Infinity Gem saga without a hint of irony. Grimace's gymbro uncle wielding the power of reality itself? Totally cool. But Magneto being a Holocaust surivour is somehow an issue of believably? I donno.
Factor in the Multiverse, the fact that the MCU's "main" timeline seems to be among the most scientifically advanced that we've seen, and just good ole' comicbook science and you could justify Magneto being a spry 40 in 2024 despite being a kid in the Holocaust a hundred different ways.

 

[Ultra Magnus13]

As Magneto mastered his control of magnetism, he became able to regulate the magnetic field of his own body, to slow his aging nearly to the point of stopping.

When he was a prisoner of the Nazis, the experimented on him with an attempt at the supersoldier serum/ infinity serum. They thought it was failure, but it turns out it just didn't arrest the aging process until old age.

There. Done. He doesn't need a change to his back story, his background, or his age, He can perpetually be in his 50s-60s using his existing power set.

There are no shortage of in universe easy outs for this.

Oddly enough I fell like we have had this exact thread here and other places, yet I've never seen a "do the howling commandos need there origin in the Gulf war" thread.

 

[MrBlud]

Oddly enough I fell like we have had this exact thread here and other places, yet I've never seen a "do the howling commandos need there origin in the Gulf war" thread.

That’s because they usually auto update it without discussion or concern.

ie Tony Stark consecutively being wounded in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan, etc

 

[NovaSaber]

Punisher was tied to Vietnam as a Vet with PTSD, from what I recall. He has the same issue, honestly, in terms of timescales. Does anyone know how his situation has been addressed?

I think they've had him keep getting older faster than other characters (so, same as Magneto), but they might have changed it to a different war by now.

Certainly changing the Punisher's backstory to a more recent war is a much smaller change to his character than doing the equivalent for Magneto, and a thing I would expect to happen in adaptation whether the comics have done it or not.

Would anyone consider reinventing Black, Hispanic, Muslim, or LGBTQ+ characters with those traits stripped away? No.

I wouldn't, but the answer to any question that starts with "would anyone" is usually yes, and most adaptations of X-Men outside the comics have done exactly that with Mystique's bisexuality.
Not even to facilitate a change to her history, just as pure erasure.

 

[Destron D-69]

I'd like them to stop doing it to redheads too... but that's beside the point.

Magneto should stay Jewish. so should the Thing - but nobody ever talks about changing him.

It's comicbooks folks, if you "NEED" reality in them to find enjoyment... i'm afraid you might have missed the point.

Ironman can be updated next week to have had his injuries happen in the war between Russia and Ukraine.... and he can still have been occasionally in fights with Magneto for the last 40 years.

Comics not only have a sliding time scale, they also have a sliding canon LOL the X-men especially so.

rambling aside. If people young enough not to have a direct connection to WW2 - have no ability to contextualize abstract thoughts about it.. like lets say "bad things happened, and we need to make sure it doesn't happen again" ..well then we're at a point in society where I don't think updating Magneto's time frame is the issue... it's that there was something just as bad to switch him too - which means there's no need to have his character around because we failed to learn the lesson that he exists to teach us.

 

[Caldwin]

rambling aside. If people young enough not to have a direct connection to WW2 - have no ability to contextualize abstract thoughts about it.. like lets say "bad things happened, and we need to make sure it doesn't happen again" ..well then we're at a point in society where I don't think updating Magneto's time frame is the issue... it's that there was something just as bad to switch him too - which means there's no need to have his character around because we failed to learn the lesson that he exists to teach us.

*almost goes on rant on his hope/trust in humanity*

*backs out*

 

[Dekafox]

So I was curious about if the Krakoa thing had de-aged him(among other things), and it looks like Marvel's current editor has basically outright said that they've decided slow aging is literally a part of his powerset now.

Marvel explains why Magneto keeps getting older but other Marvel heroes stay the same age

Marvel explains why Magneto keeps getting older but other Marvel heroes stay the same age

www.thepopverse.com

So we don't need to worry about Marvel being dumb about this either, given they've now publicly stated this.

Also found out they were messing around with his age in the comics even back in 1972, as that was his first de-aging(and re-aging as he was baby-fied back then). And you know? On reflection I could see Magneto intentionally seeking out stuff like this too, to keep up the good fight, if it ever does become needed... and at this point I wouldn't be surprised if it has. Most of my familiarity with the X-Men stuff revolves around the 90s era and the material it directly references, and apparently he's actually been de-aged quite a few times that I was not aware of(especially given the first time was that early on!)

And yes, in regards to the Krakoa stuff he was killed AND ressurrected, so yeah, that was a de-aging incident too(given they were resurrecting them by mutant power cloning I believe).

 

[Caldwin]

In short, Magneto and Wolverine are going to be friends for a long, loooong time.

I mean, a guy whose powers are magnetizm and a guy who's bones are bonded with metal, I can see the attraction.

 

[Destron D-69]

Lol ... they actually don't often like each other.

 

[Echowarrior]

Well I'd hold a grudge if someone ripped the metal coating from my bones too.

 

[Caldwin]

Ugh! Always throwing that in my face!

 

[LBD "Nytetrayn"]

I think they've had him keep getting older faster than other characters (so, same as Magneto), but they might have changed it to a different war by now.

Certainly changing the Punisher's backstory to a more recent war is a much smaller change to his character than doing the equivalent for Magneto, and a thing I would expect to happen in adaptation whether the comics have done it or not.

Yeah, I think they've changed his war to be something more current (and maybe less specific) the way they have Tony Stark.

While the MCU has been trying that in some ways... again, it has a built in precedent of someone who was a young man during WWII being alive and kicking butt in the present. No, Magneto wasn't frozen (though hell... why not, for the MCU's purposes?), but the MCU adapted the Infinity Gem saga without a hint of irony. Grimace's gymbro uncle wielding the power of reality itself? Totally cool. But Magneto being a Holocaust surivour is somehow an issue of believably? I donno.

Personally speaking, I feel like this is two very different things.

Like, while they're all fantastic in some way or another, there's usually levels to this stuff.

You have your street level stuff, like Spider-Man, Daredevil, and The Punisher.

Then you take it up a level, and you have the big, world-ending threats with Avengers, X-Men, Fantastic Four.

Then above that, there's what I believe is referred to as "Cosmic Marvel," which is where Thanos and the Infinity Gauntlet resides.

Usually.

Not that they always "stay in their lane" and can't or haven't crossed over, of course, but...

I don't know. I guess what I'm saying is that Magneto's Holocaust origins feel a bit more grounded to me, more real. More "street level," per se. Well, between that and world-ending threats, really, which I'm thinking of like Magneto shifting the Earth's poles or Sauron turning everyone into dinosaurs or something.

Anyway, it's not really my place to say, but I feel like conflating the two kind of diminishes Magneto's origin somewhat, since that comes from a much more real place than the Infinity Gauntlet.

But then we have Captain America and the Invaders and Red Skull and Hydra, so I dunno. I feel like they occupy a different part, like a different space of that whole World War II thing, though.

In any case, the comics have addressed it in numerous ways, so I think it's fine to keep him as a survivor there.

But I do wonder about other new media and such. People who aren't as familiar with how bonkers comics can actually be. Though, I feel like making him a slow ager like Wolverine handles the issue nicely.

If it wasn't for that, though, I do wonder if something like having him be descended from people who died in the Holocaust would work. I know that event can affect people who weren't actually in it too well, but I wonder if something like that would at all be sufficient?

Just to emphasize, I'm not saying they should. Again, love the aging thing being like Wolverine (even if he looks older than the much older Logan), and that's my preference here.

It's okay for a Jew to be a sympathetic bad guy, but it's not okay for a Jew to be a good guy?

Personally speaking, while Magneto makes a great villain, it's when he's doing the hero thing that I absolutely love him the most.