History Characters / MarvelComicsMagneto

[[MagnetismManipulation The Master of Magnetism]]. [[TheLeader Leader of the]] [[AntiVillain Brotherhood of Mutants]]. [[DarkAndTroubledPast Defined and Shaped]] [[FromNobodyToNightmare by the Holocaust]]. [[ArchEnemy Professor X's]] [[EvilCounterpart Greatest Opposite]].

'''[[TropeCodifier The]]''' SuperSupremacist.

* WellIntentionedExtremist: He'll do what he must to ensure mutants never suffer any more at the hands of you humans. [[spoiler: Indeed, [[VideoGame/MarvelVsCapcom3 when his universe was merged with the universe known as Capcom]], he was able to finally build a world for Homo Superior to live on.]]

* SurpriseIncest: Downplayed. When he used his mind control powers on (the then long since heroic) Wanda the Scarlet Witch, there was no physical abuse (that we saw, at least), but he did force his "pretty puppet" to [[BellyDancer dance suggestively]] for his pleasure. This is, of course, hardly something to be proud of in any case, but it was made a lot worse by the revelation that she is really his ''daughter''. This is one of those incidents that is quietly ignored nowadays, for obvious reasons. Though Wanda occasionally accuses him of doing horrible things to her, it's vague enough that she could just mean having her join the Brotherhood at all.

* SpellMyNameWithAnS: People are often confused as to the spelling of his preferred civilian name. Erik is sometimes written as Eric, and Lehnsherr is written as Lensherr as often as not.

* RoguesGalleryTransplant: It doesn't happen too often, but many readers first came to know Magneto through his appearances in crossover with ''ComicBook/SpiderMan'' and appeared in ''WesternAnimation/SpiderManAndHisAmazingFriends''. He also appeared in a prominent story in Creator/StanLee's newspaper Spider-Man strip, which allowed Peter to show off his scientist smarts by using his knowledge of magnetism against the Master.

** [[https://screenrant.com/professor-x-xavier-magneto-martin-luther-king-malcolm/ Chris Claremont himself]]–who helped reinvent Magneto away from his one-note supervillain characterization–based him and Professor X off of Menachem Begin and Prime Minster David Ben Gurion, respectively. Begin being a radical terrorist before evolving into a Nobel Prize winner for brokering peace, [[WhatCouldHaveBeen which was an arc Claremont planned for Magneto]].

* IHaveManyNames: Erik Magnus Lehnsherr and other shortened variants such as Erik Magnus, Magneto (of course), The Master of Magnetism. To be honest, his REAL name is Max Eisenhardt, a German-Polish Jew. In most other retellings, he's content with simply "Magnus." In the movies, it's always "Erik."

** On another occasion, he worked with several of the Marvel Universe's most despicable villains, including the Red Skull, in what was colloquially referred to as the "Acts of Vengeance", in an attempt to destroy the "heroes" who constantly interfered with their plans, through he and the other participants in the plot were manipulated by ComicBook/{{Loki}} the trickster god, and Magneto used the team-up as an opportunity [[KickTheSonOfABitch to trap the Red Skull in a ditch with no food or water whatsoever]].

* KickTheSonOfABitch:
** Twice he's done this to the Red Skull, with the second time killing him outright.
** He ''might'' have done this to the Future Brotherhood in ''X-Men: Blue'', killing them for disrespecting Charles's vision, using time-travel for their own ends, and just being ass-hats. ''Might have'', because we never see what he did... but they never turned up again, either.

* EarlyInstallmentWeirdness: That Magneto had been a Holocaust survivor wasn't part of his backstory until Creator/ChrisClaremont wrote him in the '80s, a good couple of decades after his debut. In the early Creator/StanLee-Creator/JackKirby run, [[https://graphicpolicy.com/2016/03/03/peoples-history-of-the-marvel-universe-week-6-this-man-magneto/ Magneto was more or less a mustache-twirling villain without any benevolent attributes]], {{Gaslighting}} his own subordinates, exploiting his own children as pawns, and as a kind of PoorMansSubstitute for Dr. Doom (i.e. Central European tyrant), with retroactively out-of-character moments such as leading a Nazi-styled invasion of San Marco.

* ByronicHero: He's driven to the things he does only because he believes that his people need someone willing to stand up and fight for their rights in the face of a world that will always hate and fear them. If this causes him to engage in behaviour that would not be considered "heroic" from a human perspective, then so be it. Michael Fassbender, the actor who portrays his young self in the ''X-Men'' film series, even portrayed Rochester, a classical example of this trope, in a 2011 adaptation of ''Film/{{Jane Eyre|2011}}''.

* BigGood: In the ComicBook/AgeOfApocalypse timeline, he led the mutants opposing Apocalypse and his twisted minions.
** The main incarnation has become the chief mentor of the time-displaced X-Men, who came from an era where Magneto tried to kill them every other week. Both sides are entirely aware of the irony.

* MayDecemberRomance: Some fans are bothered by the age difference between himself and Rogue, even though thanks to being turned into a baby by Alpha the "Ultimate Mutant" and later returned to adulthood by a Shi'ar agent, he now has a body that is physically in its thirties. The age difference is never brought up when people talk about Wolverine's romantic relationships with women of roughly Rogue's age (ComicBook/JeanGrey, Mariko Yashida, Yukio, etc.) even though Wolverine is old enough to be ''Magneto's'' grandfather (probably because Wolverine is older than any real human, but Magneto isn't ... [[RefugeeFromTime yet]]). Regardless, Rogue and he have married and started a family in [[ComicBook/AgeOfApocalypse at least one universe]].

** One that has started many an argument of varying maturity. To some, he's a WellIntentionedExtremist supremacist mass-murdering terrorist demagogue, with occasional outright genocidal ambitions; alternately, some people [[RootingForTheEmpire still root for the Brotherhood despite their muddled blood]], [[SympathyForTheDevil weep for Magneto's cause]], or [[TragicVillain have contempt for his position in life]], and DependingOnTheWriter, his ideals can be portrayed as rightfully accorded because he lives in a CrapsackWorld where all of humanity are [[HumansAreBastards persecuting scum]] who have it coming... which again, is all Depending on the Writer.

** In [[WesternAnimation/XMenTheAnimatedSeries the '90s cartoon series]], he was stripped of his status as a Holocaust survivor, as World War II and the Nazis were not allowed due to the "moral code" of the animation producers (i.e. FOX). Instead, he was given a background as a boy from a [[{{Ruritania}} more generic Eastern European country]] which was invaded and conquered in a more recent armed conflict, with his parents being killed during the invasion. Though not quite as horrific as the Holocaust, it still convinced him that using reason in the face of violence was a foolish gambit, and that humanity was far too brutal and warlike to make coexistence a possibility.
--->'''Magneto:''' When I was a child, my people talked while others prepared for war! They used reason when others used tanks, and they were destroyed for their troubles. I won't stand by and watch it happen again, I WON'T!
*** ''WesternAnimation/XMenEvolution'' was allowed to reference World War II in relation to his backstory, and shows Wolverine and ComicBook/CaptainAmerica rescuing him as a child from what is clearly a concentration camp, though the show does not explicitly identify it as such.