15 Most Notoriously Controversial Storylines In Comic Book History

7. The Death And Retcon Of Magneto

Grant Morrison took over the X-Men with the title New X-Men, which saw sweeping changes to the the team that included new costumes, new relationships, and a load of new mutants. One of these mutants was the mysterious Xorn, a Chinese mutant with a star for a brain, which resulted in him having to wear a specially designed metal mask. Xorn worked his way into the X-Men, and even began teaching his own class of mutants. Eventually it was revealed that Xorn was in fact Magneto, who is under the influence of the mutant drug known as Kick. with his mental psyche suffering from his Xorn identity and the pressures of the drug, Magneto Attacks New York, and fatally injures Jean Grey, resulting in her death. Wolverine, driven to a berserker rage, decapitates the long-time foe of the X-Men. This came as a surprise to many fans, and is generally considered one of the most shocking moments in the X-Men's history. The controversy lies in the fact that Marvel got cold feet over the loss of Magneto, and immediately retconned the situation. Magneto appeared alive in the pages of Chris Claremont's new Excalibur series, and a new Xorn appeared in Chuck Austen's Uncanny X-Men, with a fairly ridiculous explanation. Apparently it was Xorn's brother who had been impersonating Magneto the whole time for undislcosed reasons, and it was never actually Magneto. Readers were confused by this backpedalling, and Grant Morrison wasn't too impressed wither, seeing as his storyline was basically made irrelevant by the retcon.