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Eric Lensherr was a poor Jewish man
living in Europe who, due to his emerging mutant powers, was
the only survivor who watched his family and community fall
victim to a Nazi slaughter. Distraught, he wandered the world,
where he soon met a young Charles Xavier when both were a
member of the Peace Corps in Israel. Xavier befriended
Lensherr and revealed their mutual mutant identity, but an
attack by Xavier’s son, Legion, from the future, began their
ideological split that would divide the two for years to come.
At another point, in the Balkan nations, Magneto engaged in an
affair with a gypsy woman, who would flee to Wundagore
Mountain to give birth to the future Quicksilver and Scarlet
Witch.
Lensherr took the name Magnus, alias Magneto, and began to
militantly champion for mutant supremacy. He collected other
mutants to form the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, (unknowingly
recruiting his children, Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch,)
in trying to force his plans of domination on the world, only
to be defeated by Xavier’s plans for peace, embodied in his
own team, the X-men. The X-men would routinely clash with
Magneto, who often acted alone, but at times reformed the
Brotherhood and also formed Mutant Force (now, Redeemers) and
the Savage Land Mutates. Among his plans of mutant supremacy
was to take over a small South American nation, form his own
orbiting space station, Asteroid M, and holding a Soviet
nuclear submarine hostage, ultimately killing all on board. At
one point during this period, he discovered the truth about
the Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver, although the two wouldn’t
agree to join him again.
During one such encounter with the X-men, Magneto was defeated
and scientifically reduced to the state of an infant by
geneticist Moira MacTaggart in the hopes that rearing Magneto
"properly" would rid his ideals of mutant supremacy. Although
he recovered, perhaps Magneto was indeed changed somehow, as
later, Charles Xavier, leaving the planet, left Magnus in
charge of his "X-mansion" and its students, the X-men and the
New Mutants. Magneto tried to lead the X-men, but instead
found their ranks diminish in the so-called "Mutant Massacre,"
found himself on trial by the UN for his crimes against
humanity and infiltrating the villainous Hellfire Club in a
misguided attempt to subvert their ranks. Soon, the X-men were
scattered across the globe, and the New Mutants off-planet,
and Magneto left their ranks. He found himself investigating
the Savage Land’s wicked queen, Zaladane, who had succeeded in
stealing her "sister’s" magnetism’s powers, and later,
Magneto’s own. He had teamed up with a recently resurrected
Rogue, engaging in a brief romance, and ultimately defeated
Zaladane by killing her in cold blood, to the shock and dismay
of Rogue.
Magneto resumed his earlier, villainous ways, attempting to
subvert the Scarlet Witch again, to be defeated by the
Avengers. Not fully recovering to his former power levels,
Magneto was "nursed" back to health by a manipulative Fabian
Cortez, who, for purposes of his own, found "worshippers" of
other mutants, forming the Acolytes of Magneto. Magneto agreed
to lead them and formed a new Asteroid M. Cortez’s attempt to
control Magneto and his followers failed due to the X-men’s
intervention, but Xavier nonetheless decided to shut down
Magneto’s mind to end his villainy, placing him in a coma but
allowing an opportunity to create the persona Onslaught.
The Acolytes kept Magneto’s comatose body, but were later
defeated by Apocalypse, who caused Asteroid M to crash to
Earth, leaving the status of Magneto’s body in question. An
amnesiac man resembling a youthful Magneto reappeared and soon
entered the life of a wandering Rogue, finding themselves
joined with the X-men again, and with the romantic feelings
between them resurfacing. Whether or not this man, calling
himself "Joseph," turns out to be the true Magneto remains to
be seen.
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