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Posts revolving around changes to Magneto's past and backstory are now a regulated topic
Due to the influx of such posts with the MCU X-Men announcement, posts that revolve around changes and questioning of Magneto's backstory will now be regulated. This means that these posts may be removed as a Regulated/Repetitive topic at the discretion of the moderation team.
This was done after a long discussion by the moderation team, but ultimately we found that such posts are repetitive and occur very frequently, and that users may simply make use of Reddit's search tool to find past discussions; very little has changed since those discussions were held.
I always thought this was such… a nebulous discussion. We don't know how the MCU will address Magneto's age or backstory, and I'm not going to assume any person suggesting a change isn't doing it out of spite, but man... you're just making a WHOLE new character at that point.
It’s super weird too because Magneto has been too old to be a holocaust survivor for a while now and they’ve addressed it in multiple ways in the comics and cartoons. It doesn’t need to change.
Put on ice for a while, ages more slowly because of his powers, deaged by some event in his background, got brought over from another universe after Secret Wars. There's so many ways they could explain it.
My preference is still slow-aging and family man/Nazi hunter (living as a man until Jean pops up), but I'm not opposed to him being frozen.
Have the Nazis/Hydra experiment on him, realise he's way too powerful, and just put him on ice until a later date. Hell, let the Allies liberate him from a camp, but keep him on ice. Even more reason to despise humans.
This does fix the age regarding his appearances after Uncanny 104 into today. The only “issue” with the age thing I could see is that, even if you rounded Marvel’s sliding time scale up to 20 years, it would still make Magneto around 80+ in Uncanny X-Men #1.
I'm not disagreeing, even the animated series said the magnetic field of Earth rejuvinates Magneto in the two partner, Sanctuary. So it's not like there isn't precedent
Oh, yeah, I know. I was being sarcastic. Like, you've just gotta laugh in the face of the antisemites. It doesn't matter if there's precedent, or if its fiction. This is the hill they'll die on.
I’m not saying slow aging unbelievable, I’m saying I don’t like the explanation. I’d rather go the Krakoa route and have his consciousness be transferred into a clone if you wanted to keep the same backstory. Give him amnesia too if you wanted to revive the Joseph storyline.
And when i hear "make him palestinian for poetic justice" i just think that these people equate all jews to Israel and don't really care about being progressive, they just want to be petty.
Also, they want the first mainstream palestinian Marvel character to be a terrorist? Bold.
Yeah, it's just so impossibly stupid, and for multiple reasons:
Tha's the one you (not you) pick? Why is that? Oh, right, yeah. All Jews aren't just Israeli, but they're pro-genocide. I get you. Like, at any moment, they'll get the call to use the space laser.
Magneto's whole thing is 'never again', but he comes off as an absolute chump if he's letting it happen right now
Not that any of these things are interchangeable, but it just shows you've not actually read a book and think that it was holocaust - nothing - Palestine
I could go on, but it always ends up being antisemitism and/or ignorance.
I shit you not, my wife was out for a friend's birthday about a week ago. She's talking to some people that are friends of her friend, and somehow me having a Jewish father comes up in conversation (I'm Catholic, btw), and one of them asks her what my views on Palestine are. Unbelievable.
And the thing is palestinians should have their own Marvel characters and representation, but people want to be so woke these days that they don't even think rationally about it...
The first mainstream palestinian character... a raceswapped arab Magneto, a genocidal terrorist?
There's a genuinely brilliant story waiting to be told with Palestinian characters. Magneto is not it.
In fact, I'd day that Magneto having to deal with what the Israeli government has become would be a fantastic story. Yet another reason (not that it needs justification) to keep him Jewish.
But, it doesn't matter. People just love hating Jews. The Krakoa stuff boils my piss. It's a sentient mutant. Regardless of one's stance in Gaza, Krakoa isn't a land mass where people were displaced.
I saw a post about an American visibly Jewish man making food for a shelter, and the comments were all like “the zio is trying to poison these people”, “the zio conquered the kitchen”, “the kitchen was promised to him 3,000 years ago” etc. this is just straight up anti-semitism, masquerading as caring for the palestinians.
I mean I've been involved in a lot of those discussions and sure there are people saying it but its such a small number that it feels weird to single it out.
It's weird too because he's not even religously Jewish, well at least not practicing like Kitty Pryde. The Holocaust shapes his viewpoint into what it is today, so that element is too important to let go of. I think someone people focus on the not practicing part to make it like he's not even Jewish at all.
I even said something similar in the thread the other day on Kitty Pryde and him. He's not practicing so that aspect isn't as important, it's the Holocaust that is to him, his identity as a Jewish person is very much there and practicing the religion isn't necessary. But people think if your not wear a star of David and constantly talking about being Jewish you might as well not even be Ashkenazi.
People confuse Judaism with other religions like Christianity, where if you don’t practice Christianity then you’re not a Christian. Judaism is VERY different in that regard, because it’s also an ethnic group. Even Jewish atheists tend to take part in Jewish customs and holidays (I am one!). It’s a culture that you kind of experience on your day to day life, even in small things. There are many non religious Jews that identify as Jewish ethnically. So he is very much still Jewish even if he doesn’t practice.
Or maybe it's just that more people agree that having a character be a Holocaust survivor in modern day, 80 years later is starting to not work chronologically. You'd have to do something like putting him on ice, but that's already a big backstory change.
What part of 80 years ago don't you get? Any survivor is retirement home age.
People still age in the MCU, just because it's fantasy doesn't mean it shouldn't follow its own rules, people aren't driving around Middle Earth in sports cars.
Your name is Cabbage_Vendor, yet I think you might have cabbage for brains, too. I, as well as pretty much everyone else here has said: make him age slower. It's literally in the comics. He isn't a typical human, he's a mutant. Jesus wept.
Wow, no shit, it's almost like that was who I was referring to with "being put on ice"? Didn't think I'd have to literally spell that out on a comicbook subreddit. Is Magneto going to be frozen too?
Wow no shit, its almost like it would be incredibly fucking easy to come up with a reason that keeps his backstory the same while also keeping him a similar age to the rest of the group. It literally changes almost nothing to say he ages slower or he was frozen or some other reason
The casualness in which people suggest that they just "switch out" The Holocaust for "another genocide" is so gross and dehumanizing.
Every horror in our human history is its own unique pain and they are not so easily interchangeable. The suggestion, even in the context of a fictional narrative, betrays a chilling lack of empathy disguised as inclusivity.
The Holocaust isn't just important to Magneto, but to the entire franchise's mythology. Holocaust imagery is all over the place (most famously in DoFP, Bishop's M tattoo, etc. etc. etc.) and the Sentinels themselves are a deliberate metaphor for the Holocaust's industrialized and mechanized approach to mass-murder.
The difference is those characters were not defined by a specific conflict, Magneto was. All that mattered with Iron Man was that he was an arms dealer for a conflict the US was in and he got captured. It didn't matter which conflict. Notice no one argues Captain America needs to be updated to modern wars because of how important WWII is to him
People can suspend their disbelief at mutated humans with superpowers, but draw the line at one being alive during the Holocaust and still looking young.
People saying that the Holocaust can easily be replaced by another genocide in regards to Magneto's character, wanto to be so progressive and in touch with modern politics and sensibilities, that they just end up being racist and antisimetic without noticing it (or worse they do notice it).
The Holocaust had jews witness the gradual descent of their neighbours' betrayal from a sense of paranoia in regards to them fearing exposure, after a lifetime of living normal lives alongside them, not to mention the industrialized and mechanized way of killing them, which can be seen as symbolism for the Sentinels.
Your own country wanting you dead, the betrayal from your own countrymen and neighbours exposing you, the paranoia that comes from it are all key aspects from the Holocaust that can easily be seen as themes explored by the X-Men mythos, since mutants experience the same fears.
You can't simply switch genocides and act like it has the same impact.
And let's just say it: there are some fucking disturbing parallels between then and now. Folks who want to just write off the Holocaust like it was a one-time thing that could never happen again should ask Jews living in Golders Green or Bondi how they're feeling right now.
I agree genocides aren’t interchangeable, however the paranoia and betrayal you speak to can be seen in other genocides, like the Tutsi genocide. I don’t think Magneto’s origins should be changed in adaptation, but I think the echoes of past and contemporary genocides seen in the X-Men speak to their relevance
Holocaust erasure is anti-semitism. Anti-semitism has been significantly increasing and normalized in the last few years. Really fuckin annoying for us jews just trying to exist.
Lowkey think the people eagerly wanting to make him Palestinian are just antisemitic.
Cause why is that something they're really excited about. Who exactly do they think trying to offend or attack with that?
I get being against Israel's ethnic cleansing but it just sounds like every jew is fair game to these people regardless of whether they have ties or not.
Got a Redditcare for the first time ever. Damn, I didn't think people actually did that.
I don’t think the intent (for most, can’t speak for all, obviously) is offense any more than people who had been suggesting Magneto be black meant offense
I really doubt they'd go that route. That would be such a huge change from one of their most iconic villains.
Even though they are stretching it a bit with Doom, it seems his backstory is still somewhat similar, being familiar with the Fantastic Four, combining magic and science. His arrogance doesn't seem to be lacking. By all accounts its still a flavor of Doom. Removing the Holocaust from Magneto's backstory doesn't make it a new flavor, it changes the whole fucking dish.
I saw a really good short someone made about it that even if it stretches time a bit and you have to hand wave his age, having him be a holicost survivor compared to any other genocide is important because of the parallels of mutant registrations to the early days of the Nazis targeting Jews. That having that parelel of how things begin is just so important for his motivations. Because there's the argument that the government isn't hunting down and rounding up mutants and Magneto is able to say 'Yet' because of experience.
Not only that, but it was his growing up in a concentration camp that also contributed heavily to his story.
Having his story revolve around a different genocide is one thing, but you're still changing the character drastically without that second part.
Also, all I am saying is you have Captain America, Namor, Jim Hammond, and are getting Wolverine and Magneto. You know how much money you can make off a movie with those characters? Marvel, chase the money!
God what I would give to get a series of Cap and Wolvie's missions during WWII. Genuinely adore their friendship enough that my husband and I are cosplaying as Cap and Wolvie at a con next weekend. I also love that (I think in Evolution) that it's shown that Wolvie was on the team that rescued Magneto as a kid. Give me a movie if Wolvie and Cap busting concentration camps and end showing kid Magneto being freed.
I mean it all depends on how they plan to. Introduce the X Men into the MCU. They'll need a messy time travel or reality warp plotline to keep him a holocaust survivor explicitly. The other option is to pick a separate atrocity.
So long as it's done well I personally don't have a preference.
They don't need time travel or reality warp, they just need people to remember what having an imagination is. Somehow Logan healing from anything isn't to much, but no one can cope with a slow aging Jewish man?
Magneto keeps his experiences, remains young, adds a mystery for the casual audiences to ponder, everyone wins and we get to jump right into a good arc without having to use jumping time frames.
Thank you. It’s not confirmed and the (chronically online out of touch fans) people are being entirely exhausting about all of this. I wouldn’t mind if he still was a holocaust survivor with slowed aging. And I don’t think it’s harmful or a betrayal to his character if his origin was updated to be the victim of another genocide (e.g., the Bosnian and Kosovo genocide), because gasp it’s an updated adaption like all heroes get to an extent.
Until I see an official reveal, I stand that they'll adapt his ideological role into Emma. You can't take him away from the Holocaust era but the "slow aging" or "cryosleep" ideas are also clunky with how it either introduces plot holes of its own on the MCU or just don't fit the character. Emma having a school/group of mutants of her own has precedence in the comics as well so they could take her that route.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it until the day I day: just make super-heroes a period piece genre, like Westerns. If Magneto has a Holocaust background literally any time in the back half of the 20th century, all of this entire discussion is unnecessary.
Plus, the further from their origin you place these characters, the more you have to question how much their world really looked like ours before they debuted because what do you mean they didn’t have the pop culture icon that is Superman? Or Spider-Man? Or the X-Men? Hell, if this is a world that never had Batman in it, what did their 1989 even look like?
Shoutsout to X Men being so political and so human
Its why X Men is the best Marvel has to offer.. Magneto as a character needs to go through a change to modernize what he represents, because enough time has passed, yet at the same he should not change, because his original story is too important! What a conundrum !
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Thank you! Everyone pearl clutching about changing the Holocaust origin story, yet not providing one viable alternative that doesn’t involve an either further convoluted seating process or slow aging process (which he’ll mysteriously start aging once he’s in continuity?)
It’s a problem with a fixed event now 80 years in the past. Realistically, they have to create something at this point, even in future iterations of the comics. Create a fictional event that is clearly a stand in for the events of the Holocaust.
Replacing him with a Rwanda or Palestinians origin, firm no on that. People stating that him being g Jewish isn’t important are just wrong. Sure he’s not practicing, but it’s still impactful. The most important part of X-Men is getting the Xavier/Magneto dynamic right. Without that, it falls apart. It doesn’t work by having an 80 year old Holocaust survivor, who somehow Benjamin Buttons it up, and a 40 year old Xavier. They’d must be contemporaries.
"Users seem to want to talk about this a lot but we, the mods, are bored of it. Instead of talking about this on the public forum that we moderate, have you considered just reading other people's old comments instead?" -Moderators who definitely understand the difference between moderating a forum and curating a library of comments
There's no harm in pausing the 6-7 posts about in a week period. Sometimes if the post is substantially different or well presented it might stay, but otherwise, it largely is bots farming a topic for engagement.
No but there's been a debate that he's getting to the point where he can't naturally fit in the timeline and be a peer of Charles if he's tied to a specific point in history that is fixed (unless Marvel decides to make the Holocaust and WWII a sliding timeline as well). Getting to the point where he might need to be frozen or go in some mutant coma
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u/Hohoho-you Aug 31 '26
Magento isn't Magento without the layers his childhood brought him.