Magneto is... complicated. A Jewish survivor of the Holocaust who is determined to save his fellow homo superior from the fate of his fellow Jew, he sometimes seems fated to repeat some of the Nazis' mistakes, pursuing the subjugation of homo sapiens in favour of homo superior. He is – as producer Tom DeSanto told Bryan Singer when he was trying to persuade him to make the first X-Men movie – Malcolm X to Professor X’s Martin Luther King. His ‘by any means necessary’ approach has seen him commit hideous atrocities in the past, including the sinking of a submarine full of sailors, and yet he’s not evil – not in the traditional sense of the word, anyway. Even though he’s traditionally their number one nemesis, he has been known to actively align with the X-Men, even taking over as the team’s leader/teacher in the absence of Charles Xavier, while he’s previously had a relationship with Rogue. Currently in the films, he’s depowered, and living life as a human – which, for him, is purgatory. But we’re sure his powerless state won’t last for long.

FIRST APPEARED IN X-MEN #1 (1963)
CREATED BY STAN LEE AND JACK KIRBY