20 Of Our Favorite X-Men Characters

8. Magneto

Oh, Magneto. With your crazy plans and twisting, turning story plots, it’s impossible to forget about you. Plus, Sir Ian McKellen played you in the first round of X-Men films.

As you may have guessed by his name, Magneto has the ability to generate and control magnetic fields. Sometimes, this makes sense, as when he manipulates metal objects like bullets, fences, and walls. Sometime, it strains believability, as when he levitated a 30,000 ton nuclear submarine or moved an asteroid out of its original path. Honestly, it largely depends on what author is writing Magneto at the moment.

Originally, Magneto was a two-dimensional bad guy, through and through. However, later writers fleshed out his back story and made the character more complex. Most notably, he’s now written as a Holocaust survivor. This clearly informs his current opinion of the human species, which is… uh, bad.

Previously, Magneto was even friends with Professor X. However, their responses to the mutant struggle have since cast a great divide between them. Where Professor X wants to act with nonviolence and cooperation, Magneto believes that such peaceful efforts are a lost cause. He refers to mutants as “homo superior” and most often works to conquer the world. With Earth under his control, he plans to make it the home of mutants only.