From: eeb1@panix.com (Elizabeth Bartley)
Subject: Magneto (Was Re: Jewish Superheros)
Date: Wed, 29 Jul 1992 03:44:14 GMT
Distribution: na
Organization: PANIX Public Access Unix & Internet, NYC

In article <Brtu3I.2A1@news.cso.uiuc.edu>
tgt33358@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (Deus Imperator) writes:

>I seem to recall in a backup story in either U-Xmen or an annual, a powerful
>tale with few if any words contained.  Magnus is living in a town, apparently
>without Magda (Probably thinking she's dead).  He has a daughter, and is 
>working doing menial tasks.  However, he is an undesirable, and one day, 
>he arrives home to find his house aflame, and a crowd of people surrounding
>the house, few with sorrow in their eyes.  Just then, he hears his daughter
>crying out in pain, and goes to help her, but is forcibly restrained by the
>villagers.  She appears in a second story window, on fire, and jumps to
>the ground, dying even before she makes hit.  Magnus is so enraged that his
>powers manifest for the second time (the first time scared off Magda), and
>he wipes out every person in the town.  Being a great fan of Magneto, and

(Me too.  Want to have an e-mail "what if" conversation about him?)

>seeing him embrace the corpse of his child, I could only mutter, "WOWOWOWOWOW."
>Does anyone else remember this, or when it appeared?

I remember a story about like this in Classic X-Men (uh ... 13, I think;
number definitely between 10 and 20), but the details don't match up.

The story started with Magneto asleep, knowing he's dreaming but unable
to wake.  The dream starts "as always" in Auschwitz -- an Allied victory
appears certain, and the guards are slaughtering the prisoners because
they don't want witnesses.  Magneto clubs one over the head just before
he shoots Magda, grabs his gun, pulls Magda up off the ground, and flees
with her into midwinter.  He talks her into not giving up (among other
things, he says that he doesn't expect persuit because they'll figure
we'll freeze or starve to death; in any case, they aren't caught) and
they make it to a village.  They live there for a while (years), heal
some, get married, and have a daughter named Anya.  Magda wants to stay
but Magneto has too many dreams, too much ambition and, and too great a
thirst for knowledge to be content in one village.  They leave, wandering
towards a city (Leningrad?).  They stop for a while in a town.  Magneto
finds work as a carpeter and at the end of the day is paid less than
half of what was agreed.  Without thinking about it, Magneto throws
something (an axe?) without touching it, barely missing the man that
hired him (the second time he used his powers, I think; the first was 
to save his life on a Nazi firing line).  He's paid the remaining sum.
He walks back to the inn the three are staying in, wondering what the
heck happened and not paying too much attention until he realizes the
inn is on fire -- then he heads for it at a run.  He gets inside the
first floor, to find Magda trying to get up the stairs to Anya on the
second floor.  The ceiling collapses and he creates a force field, then
heads outside with Magda.  Anya calls to him from the second floor.  He
says something to the effect of, "I'm coming," tries for an instant to
figure out how his powers work, and is clubbed from behind by one of
a few (three?) soldiers led there by the man that had tried to cheat
him.  Magneto begs for help.  Anya screams and is silent.  The man that
had cheated him says something like "So sorry for your child but it was
all your own fault; no one will help an enemy of the state."  Magneto
loses his temper and lashes out, killing the man and the soldiers.
Magda stares at him, calls him a monster, and flees.  Magneto's too
weak to follow; he wakes himself up calling after her.

Magneto wakes up to find a nearby building's on fire with a woman and
her child trapped on an upper story.  He wonders if the smell
prompted his dream and dismisses the two as humans and none of his
concern, but on the next page appears in the room and takes them out.

(Magneto-note: I believe that after Quicksilver goes nuts, the
Scarlet Witch (who's none too emotionally stable herself) decides that
there's heriditary insanity in the family.  Maybe, but if so I think
it came from Magda; if Magneto was biologically prone to insanity, he
would be a nonfunctioning wreck somewhere after all the various
traumas in his life.  (Nazi firing line killing his family and falling
into the grave, Auschwitz, Anya's death (which was made much harder on
him because to him she was proof that life was worthwhile in spite of
everything), Magda's desertion (which was made much harder on him by
the sheer timing), Isabella's (his doctor and she would've been his
lover if she'd lived a couple more days) murder (in his presence,
behind his back, by CIA agents in retribution for his hunting a Nazi
that had been cooperating with America against Russia), and either
Charles Xavier (his best friend at the time) trying to telepathically
influence him or at least Magneto's conviction that he had.
Impressive list, isn't it?)

--
Pro: Magneto, Cerebus, Sandman, Gaiman, Watchmen, Miracleman, Old New Mutants
Anti: Marvel, Louis Simonson, Toxic Crusaders, fight-fight-fight comics

                        - E. Elizabeth (Beth) Bartley

Newsgroups: rec.arts.comics