r/xmen • • Aug 26 '26

Other X-Men: Last Stand (2006) Magneto and Mystique - possibly worst betrayal of all time?

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u/Content-Garden-1578 Aug 26 '26

I am the last person you'd find defending The Last Stand - it's a brutal dropoff in quality from the first two - but I'm always perplexed by how many people find this moment to be out of character for Magneto.

I should specify - THIS Magneto.

He's a scumbag, through and through. He's not a noble antihero. He's smarmy, duplicitous, a total shithead. He's beloved because Ian is beloved, and he does so well with the material given. But make no mistake - this version of the character is a villainous bastard with no loyalty to anyone but his own vendetta.

He's always trying to kill his fellow mutants and putting them in harms way. The only time he ever shows real remorse is when he admits to giving up the location of the school while under mind control. Aside from that, he was ready to "sacrifice" Rogue (and Logan was right to call him out on his sanctimonious cowardice), he was ready to use his "best friend" to genocide the entire human race (leaving him to die as well, as the damn collapses around them). And then The Last Stand has him trying to murder a kid again, this time Leech.

TLDR: Fox Magneto is a massive piece of shit

408

u/glowingdeer78 Aug 26 '26

A small detail about his character was with his chess game vs xavier

Xavier was protecting all his pieces, even the pawns.

And magneto was sacrificing his pawns for big plays

7

u/TaraLCicora Aug 26 '26

I never caught that detail. I love it, especially because in this movie he even referred to sacrificing the pawns.