10 Things You Didn't Know About Magneto

9. He Has Identity Issues

Magneto X-Men
Marvel Comics

For someone so sure of his mission as the dark saviour of mutantkind, Magneto certainly gets his personality played with a lot. For starters, he has at least two 'human' aliases that he seems to switch between at random; Erik and Max. Add to this other identities such as Magnus, Erik the Red, the White King and the Grey King, and things start to get pretty complicated. Finally, with his mind being wiped, restored, and wiped again almost every decade and his near constant shifts from hero to villain, and it starts to feel like there must be at least three different Magnetos running around out there.

Things came to a head in 2001 where, a few months after Magneto's apparent death, the X-Men welcomed new character Xorn onto the staff at Xavier's School. After spending much of his life in a specially-built prison in China, Xorn was a sort of super-powered messiah-monk who was eventually put in charge of the school's 'Special' class. Everything was going swimmingly until Xorn removed his mask, revealing himself to be Magneto in a new costume.

Having successfully spent several months tricking everyone into thinking he was an Asian man with a star for a brain, Xorn/Magneto proceeded to destroy the school, enslave the population of New York, and set about trying to invert the Earth's magnetic poles. He also built a Nazi-esque crematorium, which is exactly the kind of behaviour one expects from a European Jewish character. After his defeat, and death, at the hands of the X-Men, Marvel were quick to rewrite Xorn as a separate entity who simply thought he was Magneto due to mental illness.

The change partially occurred when it was decided that Magneto needed to be alive for the upcoming House of M storyline, and that the actions of 'Xorn' were too brutal and destructive to be forgiven. Although later retconned, it was always then-writer Grant Morrison's intention that Xorn be Magneto in disguise, and the confusion surrounding the link between the two characters remains to this day.

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With a (nearly) useless degree in English literature and a personal trainer qualification he's never used, Freddie spends his times writing things that he hopes will somehow pay the rent. He's also a former professional singer, and plays the saxophone and ukulele. He's not really used to talking about himself in the third person, and would like to stop now, thanks.