10 Comic Book Supervillains Who Should Actually Be Heroes
2. Magneto
Magneto was born Max Eisenhardt at the height of Adolf Hitler's persecution of the Jewish people in Europe. After his family fled to Poland, Magneto spent his youth in a Warsaw Ghetto. Eventually, Magneto's entire family was executed, leaving him as their sole survivor. He was sent to the infamous Auschwitz concentration camp. There, he was forced to remove the victim's bodies from the German gas chambers. As far as backstories go, this is about as brutal as you can get.
Magneto's turn to evil isn't that unexpected, and while we may not agree with it, it's easily understood. As a child, Magneto witnessed society as they demonized, and murdered, millions of innocent people. As an adult, he once again saw society demonize mutants. He knew where these politics of demagoguery and division led.
Still, Magneto had the perfect opportunity to turn it all around and bridge the gap between mutantkind and humans. When he ran into and befriended, a young Charles Xavier in a hospital in Isreal, Magneto could have joined Xavier in his crusade for peace. But, that was probably impossible for such a deeply traumatized individual like Max Eisenhardt.