Entry tags:

char: magneto/erik magnus lehnsherr, creator: chris claremont, creator: john bolton

Long before X-Men: First Class came out (and before some of the actors were born, just to make me feel old), Classic X-Men was reprinting old X-Men comics with an extra story at the back. There were two about Magneto - "Fire in the Night" which has been posted here before, and this one, "I, Magneto".

Warnings for Nazis, Claremontian foreign language use, fridging and massage. Seven pages from a 35-page comic.



I couldn't help thinking it's an inspiration for early scenes of the movie, but as I re-read it, I realised that there's a scene at the end of this comic where Magneto declares himself an "Ubermensch" which rather closely matches the scene near the end of the movie where Magneto agrees with Shaw's ideology.

This is set after Magneto has met Charles in Israel, but before the X-Men are formed.

At a dusty fortress in South America, a group of Nazis are confused but not scared when a man with magnificent fashion sense walks up to their gate. They shoot at him.



This does not go very well, and Magneto goes after their boss by throwing a tank into their building.





Later, in Rio de Janeiro...



They meet up in a hotel room and kiss, but Magneto can only think of his wife, Magda. Isabelle is a bit cranky about this, as he did say that Magda abandoned him. He explains that he killed people in front of her, gets a bit worked up and his nasty headache comes back. She decides to give him a massage.





Turns out they have a vest with a device that throws Magneto's powers back at him, and now they're going to kill him.



So, just like the movies, the CIA messes it up. Magneto doesn't care about the Cold War - only about mutants. I found it really interesting that he identifies as Jewish (and as an agent of Israel) at the start, but by the end, he's not looking to the past crimes of the Nazis but the future he will make for mutants.