Magneto (Max Eisenhardt) Bio
Magneto (Max Eisenhardt) is a fictional character appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics, commonly in association with the X-Men. Created by writer Stan Lee and artist Jack Kirby, the character first appears in The X-Men as an adversary of the X-Men.
The character is a powerful mutant, one of a fictional subspecies of humanity born with superhuman abilities, who has the ability to generate and control magnetic fields. Magneto regards mutants as evolutionarily superior to humans and rejects the possibility of peaceful human-mutant coexistence; he initially aimed to conquer the world to enable mutants, whom he refers to as homo superior, to replace humans as the dominant species.
Writers have since fleshed out his origins and motivations, revealing him to be a Holocaust survivor whose extreme methods and cynical philosophy derive from his determination to protect mutants from suffering a similar fate at the hands of a world that fears and persecutes mutants.
He is a friend of Professor X, the leader of the X-Men, but their different philosophies cause a rift in their friendship at times. Magneto’s role in comics has varied from supervillain to antihero to superhero, having served as an occasional ally and even a member of the X-Men at times.
His character’s early history has been compared with the civil rights leader Malcolm X and Jewish Defense League founder Meir Kahane. Magneto opposes the pacifist attitude of Professor X and pushes for a more aggressive approach to achieving civil rights. Magneto was ranked by IGN as the Greatest Comic Book Villain of All Time.
Ian McKellen portrayed Magneto in five films of the X-Men film series, while Michael Fassbender portrayed a younger version of the character in four films.
Magneto (Max Eisenhardt) History
Magneto first appeared in the debut issue of X-Men in 1963. Through the 1960s, Magneto appeared in several issues of the original X-Men comics, including Uncanny X-Men, X-Men, Astonishing X-Men, Alpha Flight, Cable, Excalibur, The New Mutants, many X-Men miniseries, and several other Marvel titles.
His first solo title was a one-shot special, Magneto: The Twisting of a Soul (September 1993), published when the character returned from a brief absence; it reprinted Magneto-based stories from Classic X-Men (August 1987 & March 1988), by writer Chris Claremont and artist John Bolton.
In a 2008 interview, Stan Lee said he “did not think of Magneto as a bad guy. He just wanted to strike back at the people who were so bigoted and racist he was trying to defend the mutants, and because society was not treating them fairly he was going to teach society a lesson. He was a danger of course but I never thought of him as a villain.”
In the same interview, he also revealed that he originally planned for Magneto to be the brother of his nemesis, Professor X. Writer Chris Claremont confirmed that Malcolm X was an inspiration for Magneto’s development, as Martin Luther King Jr was for Professor X.
Magneto’s first original title was the four-issue miniseries Magneto (November 1996 – February 1997), by writers Peter Milligan and Jorge Gonzalez, and penciller Kelley Jones. In the miniseries, Magneto had been de-aged and suffered from amnesia, calling himself Joseph; it was later revealed that Joseph was a younger clone of Magneto.
Later, Magneto became ruler of the nation Genosha. Magneto appeared in two miniseries; Magneto Rex (written by Joe Pruett and drawn by Brandon Peterson) and Magneto: Dark Seduction (written by Fabian Nicieza and drawn by Roger Cruz).
A trade paperback novel detailing Magneto’s childhood, X-Men: Magneto Testament was written by Greg Pak and released in September 2008. Pak based Magneto Testament on accounts from Holocaust survivors. Before the publication of X-Men: Magneto Testament, Magneto’s personal background and history were established in Uncanny X-Men (Aug. 1981).
He was portrayed as a Jewish Holocaust survivor; while searching for his wife Magda, a Sinti, Magneto maintained a cover identity as a Sinti. This created confusion among some readers as to Magneto’s heritage, until his Jewish background was confirmed in Magneto: Testament.
Magneto (Max Eisenhardt) Family/Life
Magneto was born Max Eisenhardt sometime in the late 1920s to a middle-class German Jewish family. Max’s father, Jakob Eisenhardt, was a decorated World War I veteran.
Surviving discrimination and hardship during the Nazi rise to power, the passing of the Nuremberg Laws in 1935, and Kristallnacht, Max and his family fled to Poland where they were captured during the German invasion of Poland and sent to the Warsaw Ghetto.
Max and his family escaped the ghetto, only to be betrayed and captured again. His mother, father, and sister were executed and buried in a mass grave, but Max survived, possibly due to the manifestation of his mutant powers. Escaping from the mass grave, he has ultimately captured yet again and sent to Auschwitz, where he eventually became a Sonderkommando.
While at Auschwitz, Eisenhardt reunited with a Roman girl named Magda, whom he had fallen in love with when he was younger, and with whom he would escape the concentration camp during the October 7, 1944 revolt.
Following the war, he and Magda moved to the Ukrainian city of Vinnytsia, and Max adopted the name “Magnus”. Magda and Magnus had a daughter named Anya, and lived uneventfully until an angry mob, spurred on by the first manifestation of Magnus’ powers, burned down their home with Anya still inside.
Magnus was enraged at the mob for preventing him from rescuing Anya, and his powers were unleashed, killing the mob and destroying a part of the city. Magda, terrified at Magnus’ power, left him and later gave birth to the mutant twins Pietro and Wanda before she died.
Wanted by the authorities for the deaths and destruction in Vinnytsia, and while searching for Magda, Magnus paid a Romanian forger, Georg Odekirk, to create the cover identity of “Erik Lehnsherr, the Sinte gypsy”. “Erik” relocated to Israel, where he met and befriended Charles Xavier while working at a psychiatric hospital near Haifa where Gabrielle Haller resided.
There, the two debated the consequences humanity faced with the rise of mutants, though neither revealed to the other that they were mutants. However, they were forced to reveal their inherent abilities to one another while facing Baron Strucker and Hydra.
Following the battle, Erik, realizing that his and Xavier’s views were incompatible, left with a cache of hidden Nazi gold, which provided him with the finances to pursue his goals
Magneto (Max Eisenhardt) Daughter
Magda and Magneto had a daughter named Anya, and lived uneventfully until an angry mob, spurred on by the first manifestation of Magneto’s powers, burned down their home with Anya still inside. Magneto was enraged at the mob for preventing him from rescuing Anya, and his powers were unleashed, killing the mob and destroying a part of the city.
Magneto (Max Eisenhardt) Son
Magneto was enraged at the mob for preventing him from rescuing Anya, and his powers were unleashed, killing the mob and destroying a part of the city. Magda, terrified at Magnus’ power, left him and later gave birth to the mutant twins Pietro and Wanda before she died.
Magneto (Max Eisenhardt) Powers and Ability
Magneto is a mutant with the power to manipulate magnetic fields to achieve a wide range of effects.
The primary application of his power is control over magnetism and the manipulation of both ferrous and nonferrous metal. While the maximum amount of mass he can manipulate at one time is unknown, he has moved large asteroids several times and effortlessly levitated a 30,000-ton nuclear submarine.
His powers extend into the atomic level (insofar as the electromagnetic force is responsible for chemical bonding), allowing him to manipulate chemical structures and rearrange matter, although this is often a strenuous task. He can manipulate a large number of individual objects simultaneously and has assembled complex machinery with his powers.
He can also affect non-metallic and non-magnetic objects to a lesser extent and frequently wears metal bracelets on his ankles and wrists allowing him to levitate. He can also generate electromagnetic pulses of great strength and generate and manipulate electromagnetic energy down to photons. He can turn invisible by warping visible light around his body.
Another way in which Magneto frequently uses his power is the projection of force-fields which selectively block out matter and energy. These fields are strong enough to withstand the simultaneous detonation of multiple thermonuclear weapons, hence Magneto is invulnerable to most harm when surrounded by his shield and can survive in deep space thanks to it.
His shields have at times withstood the likes of the X-Men, Thor, Jean Grey as Phoenix, and briefly during Secret Wars an attack from Galactus. He can also channel his powers through his own body to increase his strength and durability far beyond human limits and has a baseline reaction time 15 times faster than those of regular humans.
On occasion, he has altered the behavior of gravitational fields around him, which has been suggested as evidence of the existence of a unified field which he can manipulate. He has demonstrated the capacity to produce a wormhole and to safely teleport himself and others via the wormhole.
Magneto has been frequently depicted as able to resist all but the strongest or most unexpected of telepathic attacks. A number of explanations have been proposed for his unusually strong resistance to telepathy, among them: technology wired into his helmet, some physical aspect of his electromagnetic powers that can interfere with telepathy, latent telepathic powers of his own or sheer force of will.
The theme of latent telepathic powers has been explored in a number of stories, among them the Secret Wars limited series. In some of his earliest appearances, Magneto was depicted as capable of engaging in astral projection. He has used Cerebro to locate mutants at great distances while leading the New Mutants. He has also, on rare occasions, been shown reading others’ dreams, issuing telepathic commands, and probing the minds of others.
He has demonstrated the ability to shield his mind, while in intense meditation, so completely that even Emma Frost was not able to read his thoughts, despite being directly in front of him and actively attempting to do so.
In addition to his powers, Magneto has many other skills. He is a genius with competence in various fields of advanced science, especially in genetic manipulation, particle physics, engineering, and other fields of technology.
He has engineered advanced weaponry, space stations, superpowered humanoid lifeforms, devices that generate volcanoes and earthquakes, that block telepathy, and that can nullify all mutant powers across a few miles except for his own. He has promptly reconstructed such computerized devices from memory. He has bio-engineered new species including the Savage Land Mutates, and, using Deviant technology, Alpha the Ultimate Mutant.
He is fluent in many human languages and once single-handedly deciphered the unknown language of a lost civilization. He possesses extraordinary skill in “reading” the microexpressions on others’ faces and sensing what they are thinking and feeling, whether they are lying, fearful, etc. a skill which he refers to as “taking your enemy’s measure”.
He also is a master strategist and tactician with extensive combat experience and has often been successful in single-handed combat against entire groups of superhuman adversaries. He also has some military training in hand-to-hand combat and has been shown to be effective with his fists, but he prefers to use his powers when in combat situations.
Magneto (Max Eisenhardt) Movies and TV Shows
1. X-Men: Dark Phoenix
2. X-Men: Evolution
3. X-men: Apocalypse
4. X-Men: First Class
5. X-Men: Days of Future Past
6. X-Men
7. The Wolverine
8. X-Men: The Last Stand
9. X2
10. Magneto
Magneto (Max Eisenhardt) Helmet
He specifically wore the helmet in order to prevent his brainwaves from being read by the telepaths, Charles Xavier and Emma Frost.
After the battle, Magneto decided to keep the helmet for himself, as both a trophy from his victory over Shaw and as a safeguard against Xavier’s telepathy.