Magneto (X-Men Movies)

Magneto (real name Erik Magnus Lehnsherr) is the main antagonist of the X-Men film series. Magneto is an extremely powerful and ruthless mutant with the ability to manipulate all forms of magnetism. Despite his different views on mutant superiority, he has close bond with fellow mutant and longtime friend Charles Xavier, who believed that there was still good in Erik despite his actions. 
Despite being an enemy of Charles and the X-Men, he has assisted them on numerous occasions to stop bigger threats, such as Sebastian Shaw, William Stryker, Apocalypse, and the D'Bari.
He is portrayed by Ian McKellen (who also played Gandalf in The Hobbit & Lord of the Rings Trilogy) in the modern-day films and by Michael Fassbender (who also played Callum Lynch and Aguilar de Nerha in the Assassin's Creed film, and Walter in Alien: Covenant) in the prequel series. 
In X-Men: The Official Game, he was voiced by Dwight Schultz, who also played H.M. Murdock in The A-Team tv series, and Amis in Babylon 5, and also voiced Mung Daal in Chowder, Helios in God of War: Chains of Olympus, and O'aka XXIII and Maechen in Final Fantasy X and Final Fantasy X-2.
==Biography==
===X-Men: First Class (2011)===
Magneto appears as his younger self and is one of the two protagonists in this film. He starts out as young Erik Lensherr who is a Holocaust survivor. When he is persuaded by Dr. Klaus Schmidt to use his power of controlling metal, he refuses. After Schmidt kills his mother, Erik gets enraged and bursts into a rage thus enabling his powers.
Years later, Erik searches for Schmidt and vows to kill him in his quest for revenge. When he finds Schmidt (now calling himself Sebastian Shaw), he meets Charles Xavier, who assists him in the investigation of his plans of launching missiles onto Cuba thus triggering World War III. He starts a close friendship with Charles and a romantic relationship with his fostered sister Raven (Mystique).
When Erik (now dubbed Magneto) and Shaw finally come face to face in Shaw's submarine, Magneto destroys part of Shaw's telepathy shield, removes his helmet and allows Charles to paralyze him long enough to stop him. Unfortunately, Magneto dons the helmet to block Charles' mind. He reluctantly kills Shaw by placing a Nazi coin through his brain (while ignoring Charles' begging to stop). Later on, the USSR and the US launched missiles at the mutants threatening to kill them and stopping World War III.
Magneto takes control of the missiles thus turning them on their launchers. CIA agent Moira McTaggert tries shooting at Magneto, but Magneto deflects the bullets accidentally paralyzing Charles' legs. He invites the rest of the mutants of the Hellfire Club and the other X-Men to join him in his quest to protect mutant-kind. The X-Men refuse but Mystique joins him and the rest of the Hellfire Club. At the climax of the film, Magneto and his newly formed Brotherhood of Mutants break Emma Frost out of her prison and asks her to join them.
===X-Men (2000)===
Magneto appears as the main antagonist of this film. He believes that a war between mutants and humanity is fast approaching and must prepare for it. His Brotherhood of Mutants in this film include Mystique, Sabretooth and Toad. His first scene in the film is when he is leaving the Senate hall before he is stopped by Professor X and persuades him to stay out of his way and not to interfere with his plans for humanity.
He is next seen when Sabretooth informs him of the attack on Wolverine and Rogue and that Prof. X and the X-Men knew about their whereabouts in Alberta, Canada. Magneto sees a small dog tag around Sabretooth's neck and grabs it magnetically and examines a bit of what the Wolverine is capable of. He then informs that the time has come to put his plans into action by testing a machine that turns humans into mutants (unknown to Magneto that his machine kills them after their mutation). Magneto sends Mystique and Toad to kidnap Senator Robert Kelly and test his machine on him stating 'Let's just say that God works too slowly'. After Kelly falls to his apparent death, Magneto proceeds with kidnapping Rogue plans to use her as a pawn for his machine to mutate the World Leaders on Ellis Island.
On Liberty Island at the climax, Wolverine attempts to save Rogue, but Magneto holds him hostage just as the machine starts expanding towards Ellis Island as he holds the other X-Men hostage. Cyclops blasts him and Magneto is therefore sent to a plastic prison. He is visited by Professor X as the two play chess. Just before Prof. X departs, Magneto states 'The war's still coming Charles. And I intend to fight it.'
===X2: X-Men United (2003)===
Magneto returns as an anti-hero in this film.
He is visited by Col. William Stryker various times while he retrieves information on Prof. X's mansion and Cerebro, the machine that locates mutants around the world. While conversing with Prof. X, Magneto states that his war has already begun. Later, with help from his associate Mystique, Magneto escapes prison by using the metal in the blood of one of his prison guards.
Magneto is seen afterwards and rendezvous with the X-Men and their allies, giving them information about Stryker's plan to annihilate all mutants. The X-Men and the Brotherhood form an uneasy alliance to stop Stryker for the freedom of mutation.
Once at Alkali Lake, Magneto along with Mystique, arrives at Cerebro and switches it around thus revealing his intentions to destroy all humans instead of mutants. Later on, he meets up with William Stryker and nearly chokes him to death. Just before a narrow escape, Magneto recruits young Pyro, who takes his advice 'Your a god among insects.' and is not seen at the time of the flood of Alkali Lake.
===X-Men: The Last Stand (2006)===
Magneto returns as the secondary antagonist of the third film.
In a flashback scene, Magneto and Prof. X recruit a young Jean Grey to join their School for the Gifted which she reluctantly accepts.
Several years later, after learning of a special cure for mutations, Magneto declares an all-out war and expands the Brotherhood of Mutants with new members such as Juggernaut, Multiple Man, The Omegas (Callisto, Arclight, Kid Omega, Psylocke) and various others in addition to his old members Mystique and Pyro.
After a rescue attempt and recruitment, Magneto was to be stunned by the cure, but Mystique sacrificed herself and was abandoned to live amongst the humans. Just as Magneto starts to expand his new army, he learns that Jean Grey (now known as the Phoenix) has survived her death and attempts to recruit her with only Prof. X, Wolverine and Storm standing in his way. He sends for Juggernaut and the Omegas for back-up to distract Wolverine and Storm. Persuading Jean to think that Prof. X wants to control her power, Jean goes insane, destroys her house and kills Prof. X in her outrage. Feeling heartbroken, Magneto takes Jean with him back to his lair.
As Magneto sets out to destroy the source of the mutant Cure, he senses that Wolverine was in his midst and stops him from taking Jean away from the Brotherhood.
On their way to Alcatraz, Magneto and his Brotherhood army use the Golden Gate bridge to destroy everything on Alcatraz to reach their goal of destroying the cure. After fighting the X-Men, he is cured by Beast from behind. In defeat, he says to Jean 'This is what they want for all of us'. Feeling regret on what he did to Jean and all the things that he has done in his life, he flees the Dark Phoenix's final stand and have a change of heart but, with Xavier apparently dead and with the affect and love by his friends lost Magneto remains unluckily alone.
At the climax of the film, Magneto reluctantly moves a chess piece magnetically thus getting his powers back.
===The Wolverine (2013)===
At the post-credit scene, Magneto appears before Wolverine in search of help to fight a new kind of war that could destroy every mutant in the world with a revived Professor X.
===X-Men: Days of Future Past===
Erik Lensherr / Magneto, appears as a protagonist in the future (2023), but in the past (1973), he is the anti-hero turned central antagonist. He is one of the characters necessary to help change the future from the dystopia filled with Sentinels created by Dr. Boliviar Trask. He first appears as a prisoner held in the 100th floor below the Pentagon in a specially made cell. However, he gets freed with the aid of Charles Xavier, Wolverine, Beast, and Quicksilver. Magneto later tries to kill Mystique by putting a bullet into her, specifically, her ankle, to ensure the Mutants' future and survival, but fails to do so. Afterwards, a public showcase of the Sentinels at the White House is made to make sure that people will be kept safe from Mutants. However, Magneto has commandeered the Sentinels by inserting metal into their polymorph bodies and also uses a lifted up stadium to keep other humans out. Announcing Mutant supremacy on live television, Magneto is attacked by Beast and Wolverine but keeps them at bay. However, when threatening the President, Mystique disguised as Nixon shoots him. After Mystique spares Trask at Xavier's urging, the Professor allows Mystique and Magneto to leave, believing that there is hope for both of them to change for the better.
Meanwhile in the future timeline, Magneto helps the X-Men fend off the Sentinels but is injured badly during the war of the sentinels. Right before the Sentinels can finish him off along with Xavier, Wolverine, and Kitty Pryde, the future is changed. What became of Magneto in the revised timeline, and how much of the original still occurred, is unclear at the moment but it's known that he's not alone anymore and is completely redeemed and changed.
===X-Men: Apocalypse (2016)===
Magneto returns as the secondary antagonist turned supporting character. He tried to live like a normal human in Poland and worked in a factory under name Henryk. There he used his powers to save his colleague from a falling heavy metal bucket. However his colleague reported him to local police. When he was about to be arrested for his terrorist action of the policemen accidentally shot his daughter and wife. Despaired Erik killed them all and returned to the factory to kill all his colleagues. There Apocalypse appeared, killed ones Magneto wanted to kill and recruited him as a Horsemen of the Apocalypse under name "War". Magneto is then sent to the ruins of where he destroys the camp after remembering . He then appears in Cairo where he and the Horsemen assist Apocalypse in destroying civilization to remake the world in the image of Apocalypse but the X-Men come to save Charles. During the battle, Mystique arrives and tells Erik that he hasn't lost everything and thus, has a change of heart and betrays Apocalypse. After a brutal battle, Jean unleashes her powers on Apocalypse and destroyers his armor which allows Magneto to impale him and Jean to finally finish him off. He then helps rebuild the X-Mansion but leaves still being distrusting of humanity.
===Dark Phoenix (2019)===
Magneto would return in Dark Phoenix, appearing to return as somewhat as an antagonist who aids Jean on her dark path as the Phoenix. Before the events of the film, he decided to take Charles' words by helping other mutants and giving them asylum on an island.
==Personality==
Magneto is a man of conflicted morals. While he is indeed xenophobic and ruthless, he is in no way an evil person and could easily work as well with the X-Men as he did against them. Magneto is overly righteous, he believes that mutants and humans can never exist in peace and that they should have been wiped out which makes him genocidal. He values his fellow mutants as friends, specifically Mystique who is his partner and possible romance however this did not stop him from simply abandoning her after she was "cured". While Magneto was reluctant to willfully kill or harm mutants he would still murder Rogue and Jamie who were both children only to help his just cause.
Behind this Magneto was a deeply troubled man, a surviving member of the Holocaust and then later witnessed his mother murdered before his eyes. As a young man Magneto was motivated by a sense of revenge against his mentor Sebastian Shaw, the man who killed his mother. He brutally tortured a banker and three Germans at a bar to get information on Shaw, he was somewhat suicidal as when after he failed to kill him and Shaw was escaping on his submarine, he desperately tried to use his magnetic powers to being it back and ignored the fact that he might have drowned. However after meeting with Charles Xavier, he began to work with his team to bring down Shaw and his team, soon the two began to value another as friends and Xavier was able to give him advice on how to control his powers and he actually helped a troubled Raven (later named Mystique) when she wanted to be a human like everybody else. Eventually his desire for revenge proved to be great as when he forced a coin through Shaw's brain and then fired missiles on Russian and Americans submarines.
==Powers and Abilities==
===Powers===
*Magnetogenesis: Magneto can generate, create and project magnetic fields from both his hands or his entire body.
*Magnetokinesis: Magneto is capable of controlling and creating magnetic fields, this allows him to perform various and powerful techniques. In X-Men: First Class, he was able to easily manipulate metallic objects, deflecting bullets, and later on being capable of turning a massive satellite dish, lifting an entire submarine, and redirecting multiple missiles. In the original X-Men films Magneto has been shown to easily catch the X-Jet and in X-Men: The Last Stand, he moves the Golden Gate bridge. Being surrounded by, above or below large amounts of metal also enables Magneto to defy gravity. It is revealed in X-Men: First Class that prior to meeting and training with Charles Xavier, Eric used anger to utilize his abilities, and thus couldn't perform to his full potential, however, it should be noted he was able to move a massive anchor and take down an entire ship while still using his ability through anger. Once Charles Xavier helped Eric reach greater potential by finding a point between rage and serenity Magneto took his powers to new heights and was able to move much more metal at much greater distances. He can levitate and achieve limited flight, as he did when he tried to bend a gate at Auschwitz, to magnetically tether himself to Sebastian Shaw's submarine, which dragged him underwater, and send himself flying onto a Trask Industries train. In X-Men: Apocalypse, due to Apocalypse's enhancement, he is now able to control metal within the earth itself. His new abilities allow him to control Earths magnetic poles and rip the metallic particles from the earth, which made him capable of destroying whole parts of the planet. He can even create powerful magnetic force fields and barriers that nothing can penetrate.
*Ferrokinesis: Magneto can manipulate all forms of metal, even non ferrous ones, seemingly by using his powers to make any metal magnetic. This allows him to levitate, move, push, pull, launch, crush and otherwise manipulate metallic objects, no matter the size. This allowed him to telekinetically manipulate metal or metallic objects as small as a bullet or as large as the Golden Gate Bridge. In X2: X-Men United and X-Men: Days of Future Past, he was able to deform and manipulate the hardness of both solid and liquid metals. This allowed him to make liquid iron that was infused into one of his prison guard's bloodstream by Mystique into ball shaped projectiles that could pierce and smash through plastic and flesh with ease. He was also able to cause railroad bars to break apart into strips and fuse into the deactivated Sentinels, which allowed him to control and command them. In addition he can also make himself fly or levitate towards metal or magnetic objects, as he did when he tried to bend a gate at Auschwitz, to magnetically tether himself to Sebastian Shaw's submarine, which dragged him underwater, and send himself flying onto a Trask Industries train.
===Weaknesses=== 
*Non-Metallic Objects: If Magneto is in an area with no metal, he is almost completely helpless. However, this mostly applies to his older-self, as his younger-self was highly athletic and capable of physically fighting others.
==Relationships==
<tabber>
|-|Original Timeline =
===Family===
*Jakob Lehnsherr † - Father
*Edie Lehnsherr † - Mother
*Peter Maximoff - Son
===Friends===
*X-Men - Teammates and Former Enemies
**Charles Xavier/Professor X - Best Friend and Former Archenemy
**Armando Muñoz/Darwin † - Former Student
**Marie D'Ancanto/Rogue - Former Enemy and Rescuee
**James Howlett/Wolverine - Enemy turned Ally and Friend 
**Ororo Munroe/Storm † - Former Enemy
**Bobby Drake/Iceman † 
**Piotr Rasputin/Colossus †
**Kitty Pryde/Shadowcat
*Brotherhood of Mutants - Former Teammates
**Angel Salvatore † - Former Student and Former Enemy
**Emma Frost † - Former Enemy
**Azazel † - Former Enemy
**Janos Quested/Riptide † - Former Enemy
**Victor Creed/Sabretooth
**Mortimer Toynbee/Toad †
**John Allerdyce/Pyro †
**Cain Marko/Juggernaut
**Jamie Madrox/Multiple Man
*Ms. Maximoff - Former Lover
*Kurt Wagner
*Omegas
**Ash
**Callisto †
**Psylocke †
**Maxwell Jordan/Quill †
**Philippa Sontag/Arclight †
**Darian Elliot/Spike †
**Victor Borkowski/Anole
**Dominic Petros/Avalanche
**Starfish
**Vanisher
**Glob Herman
*Free Mutants
**Clarice Ferguson/Blink †
**Lucas Bishop/Bishop †
**Roberto de Costa/Sunspot †
**Warpath †
===Enemies===
*Sebastian Shaw † - Torturer and Victim
*Moira MacTaggert - Former Teammate and Attempted Victim
*Alexander Summers/Havok - Former Student and Former Teammate
*Hank McCoy/Beast - Former Student and Former Teammate
*Sean Cassidy/Banshee † - Former Student and Former Teammate
*Senator Kelly †
*William Stryker †
*Department of Domestic Security and Defense
**Marcus Lyman † - Victim
*Jason Stryker †
*Raven Darkholme/Mystique - Former Student, Former Lover and Former Teammate
*Warren Worthington III/Angel † - Former Teammate
*Jean Grey/Dark Phoenix † - Former Teammate
*Sentinels - Attempted Killers
|-|Revised Timeline =
===Family===
*Jakob Lehnsherr † - Father
*Edie Lehnsherr † - Mother
*Peter Maximoff - Son and Former Teammate
*Magda Gurzsky † - Wife
*Nina Gurzsky † - Daughter
===Allies===
*X-Men - Former Teammates and Former Enemies
**Charles Xavier/Professor X † - Best Friend
**Raven Darkholme/Mystique † - Former Student, Former Lover and Attempted Victim
**Hank McCoy/Beast - Former Student and Attempted Killer
**Armando Muñoz/Darwin † - Former Student
**Moira MacTaggert - Attempted Victim
**Jean Grey - Former Enemy
**Scott Summers/Cyclops
**Kurt Wagner/Nightcrawler
**Ororo Munroe/Storm
*Brotherhood of Mutants - Former Teammates
**Angel Salvatore † - Former Student and Former Enemy
**Emma Frost † - Former Enemy
**Azazel † - Former Enemy
**Janos Quested/Riptide † - Former Enemy
*Ms. Maximoff - Former Lover
*Ariki
*Humans
===Enemies===
*Bolivar Trask
*James Howlett/Wolverine † - Former Ally
*Apocalypse † - Savior and Leader turned Enemy
*Horsemen of Apocalypse - Former Teammates
**Betsy Braddock/Psylocke
**Warren Worthington III/Archangel †
*D'Bari
**Vuk †
</tabber>
==Quotes==
==Trivia==
*The late Christopher Lee, the late David Hemblen, the late Patrick McGoohan and Terence Stamp were considered for the role of Magneto.
**Hemblen previously voiced Magneto on X-Men: The Animated Series.
*Sir Ian McKellen was initially reluctant to accept the role of Magneto, but accepted it after seeing the character's costume.
==External Links==
*
*
*The original timeline version of Magneto on the Inconsistently Heinous Wiki.
*The revised timeline version of Magneto on the Inconsistently Heinous Wiki.
*Magneto on the Inconsistently Admirable Wiki
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