Look kids, it's Max Eisenhardt, one of the most beloved villains in the Marvel universe. He may be directly responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of people, but he feels really bad about it so we're giving him a second third fourth fifth chance. Oh, Marvel.
Launched this week as a new playable character in Gazillion Entertainment's massively multiplayer Marvel Diablo, Magneto is one of those characters that really hurts my head if I think about him too much. Over the years the comics and movie folks have done their damnedest to make him a sympathetic character, using his experiences as a young Jewish boy who loses his parents at a concentration camp during World War II to justify his evil actions.
But come on. Mags has done a lot more than rob a few banks. He's brought whole nations to their knees, incited a bloody one-sided civil war between mutants and humans in Genosha. He's killed countless innocents displayaying his power over the years, led various incarnations of the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants — EVIL MUTANTS — and at one point blasted the Earth with an EMP blast so powerful every electronic device on the planet turned off. Imagine that. Planes crashing, hospitals going dark. That's a lot of bodies on his hands.
Oh wait, he's wearing white now. He's okay.
The villain-turned-hero mechanic employed by Marvel Comics has always bugged the hell out of me. Forgiveness on this scale is the biggest fiction of them all, beyond eye blasts or transforming into bio-organic metal.
I'm going to pretend DC's Suicide Squad got a hold of my Magneto and planted a bomb in his head. It's the only way this works for me.