Magneto in other media

Magneto is an enemy of the X-Men, and has been included in almost every media adaptation of the X-Men franchise, including film, television, computer and video games.

Cartoons

Magneto appeared in several Marvel cartoons from 1967 to 1991. Strangely, it was some time before he actually appeared on a show with the X-Men.

Spider-Man (1967 TV series)

In the 1967 Spider-Man cartoon, Spider-Man battled a scientist named Dr. Matto Magneto wielding a magnetic gun in "The Revenge of Magneto". The character was (very) loosely based on the Magneto character from the comics, and more closely resembled Albert Einstein. His name is mispronounced "Mag-netto" instead of "Mag-neeto."

Fantastic Four (1978 TV series)

In the 1978 Fantastic Four cartoon, Magneto (voiced by John Stephenson) briefly took control of the team in "The Menace Of Magneto". Here, he isn't depicted as a mutant.

Spider-Man (1981 TV series)

The solo Spider-Man cartoon from 1981 featured Magneto in the episode "When Magneto Speaks... People Listen".

Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends

Magneto returned in Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends, attempting to free his fellow mutants from prison in "The Prison Plot". He was voiced by Michael Rye. In spite of his Spider-Man television appearances, he has appeared in only two issues of a Spider-Man title.

Pryde of the X-Men

Magneto was the main villain in the animated X-Men pilot Pryde of the X-Men - his first actual animated appearance battling the X-Men. Ronald Gans did the voice.

X-Men (TV series)

File:Magani.png

Magneto's first appearance in X-Men animated series.

Magneto's voice was provided by David Hemblen in the animated television series X-Men. In the series, he first appears in the third and fourth episodes where he launches a missile but it is stopped by the X-Men. Then he attacks a factory to draw Professor X out, but is stopped by the Professor's telepathy. In the first season finale, he helps the X-Men defeat the Master Mold and the Sentinels. He appears in nearly every episode in the second season, in which he and Professor Xavier are powerless and travel throughout the Savage Land. At the end of that season, all of the X-Men save them from Mr. Sinister, and they regain their powers. In the fourth season, he helps defeat Apocalypse. Later, he lives on Asteroid M until it is destroyed. Disheartened by the destruction of his Asteroid M mutant sanctuary, he does not care about even the impending assimilation of mankind by the Phalanx, until he receives news from the Beast, Forge, Mr. Sinister and Amelia Voght that his son, Quicksilver, has been kidnapped by the Phalanx in the second part of the two-part fifth season premiere. He teams up with them to defeat the Phalanx and save everyone they had captured or assimilated. By the end of the series, he has gathered up an entire army of rebellious mutants, and is poised to conquer the world, but receives news from Wolverine, Cyclops and Jean Grey that Professor Xavier is dying. Relenting, Magneto uses his power in conjunction with Xavier's in order to contact Lilandra Neramani, who takes Xavier to her planet where there is a suggestion that he may be cured.

X-Men: Evolution

Magneto's voice was provided by Christopher Judge in the animated television series X-Men: Evolution. During the show's first season he is a shadowy, mysterious manipulator where the X-Men, except for Professor Xavier, do not know of his existence, until the first X-Man, Wolverine, figures it out, although Magneto becomes a more direct threat from the first season finale. In the first season he uses his agent Mystique to assemble a team of mutants (The Brotherhood), and even recruits his own son Quicksilver to spy on them. In the first season finale, he pits the Brotherhood against the X-Men and brings the winners to Asteroid M in an attempt to convince them to join his cause. His decision to leave Mystique behind leads her to betray him (although flashbacks indicate that they have been at odds since Magneto separated Mystique from her newborn son Nightcrawler), and their vendetta lasts throughout the second season. In the second season, Magneto personally recruits a new team, the Acolytes, de-ages himself using the same technology that created Captain America, and finally reveals the existence of mutants to the public after the X-Men and Brotherhood fight off a Sentinel which was meant to destroy every mutant known. In this time his daughter Wanda is introduced, who hates Magneto for abandoning her as a child and leaving her in a mental asylum (when asked about what specific event led to Magneto institutionalizing Wanda, X-Men: Evolution's head writer Greg Johnson stated that "There was no specific event. It was just years of him trying to handle a hostile, out of control child whose powers were promising to be very destructive if he didn't get her put away." [1]). She hunts him down relentlessly until he uses the mutant Mastermind to change her memories, painting him in a new light. In the third and fourth seasons of the show, Magneto dedicates himself to preventing the awakening of the mutant Apocalypse, although all his attempts fail and upon Apocalypse's awakening he is transformed into one of his Four Horsemen after he is thought to have been killed by Apocalypse. He is freed of this enslavement in the finale episode Ascension: Part Two, and is last seen being helped by his two children. In the final moments of the episode, Charles Xavier reveals that he witnessed the future in the mind of Apocalypse, and among the visions he saw was Magneto becoming an ally of the X-Men and training the New Mutants, like he did in the comics.

Wolverine and the X-Men

Magneto has been confrimed to appear in Wolverine and the X-Men voiced by Tom Kane. Magneto is shown on a billboard with the word "GENOSHA". In the second trailer, he is shown to rule Genosha and mentioned to have found Professor X unconscious on Genosha after the destruction of the X-Mansion.

Movies

• Magneto was played by two-time Academy Award-nominee Sir Ian McKellen in the movie X-Men and its sequels, X2: X-Men United and X-Men: The Last Stand. In the first and third film, he is the main villain. In all of these films, he wishes for mutant prosperity, but is not above battling the X-Men or killing innocents to do so.

Magneto attempts to mutate the world leaders in the first film, though he is unaware of its lethality. In the second film he escapes from prison and becomes more ruthless, manipulating Xavier into killing humans (just after foiling William Stryker's plan of vice versa). At the end of the third film, after attempting to destroy a mutant cure facility, Magneto is injected with the "cure" that strips him of his powers, although the final scene indicates either it may not have had a full effect on him or it may be wearing off.

In the X-Men films Magneto's resistance to mental attack does not stem from his own natural powers but is technological in nature; his helmet contains some kind of a psychic shielding component, able to completely negate both the telepathic abilities of Charles Xavier, and also the illusion-casting abilities of Mastermind. In these films Magneto is credited with helping Xavier to build Cerebro; it would seem that in the process of building a machine designed to amplify telepathy, Magneto learned enough to develop a means of shielding himself from it.

Magneto spin-off

• A movie entitled Magneto was announced after X-Men 3, planned for 2009, reveals more about him and how he became Magneto. 20th Century Fox has registered http://www.magnetoorigins.com giving belief that the Magneto spin-off film may be called Origins: Magneto or Magneto Origins. There has been no official confirmation of the film title from the studio.

Video games

• Magneto is the final boss of the X-Men arcade game. He kidnaps Professor X and Kitty Pryde during the first two stages, prompting the heroes to go on a rescue mission.

• Magneto appears in X-Men: Children of the Atom. He was the non-playable boss of the game whom the players must defeat at his space station Avalon. His abilities rendered him very difficult to defeat.

• In Marvel Super Heroes and X-Men vs. Street Fighter he returns as a playable character, toned down from his appearance in Children of the Atom.

• In Marvel vs. Capcom: Clash of Super Heroes, Magneto was a partner assist.

• Magneto is a character in Marvel vs. Capcom 2: New Age of Heroes, and usually regarded as one of the game's better fighters due to his extreme mobility and powerful combos. He is a default character in the arcade version, but must be unlocked in the console version.

• A capeless and non-helmeted version of Magneto was a playable character in the game, Marvel Nemesis: Rise of the Imperfects. In story mode, he is the last playable Marvel character in the game's story mode and like many Marvel heroes and villains in the story, is taken down and (possibly) killed (a strange "swooshing" sound is heard as he faints/dies, indicating that he actually indeed dies. As a sequel to Marvel Nemesis is scheduled for release later in 2007, he may be in it if he did not die.) by the most powerful Imperfect, Paragon, after she refuses his offer of an alliance (She mistakes him for Niles Van Roekel, the man who kidnapped her, annihilated her village, froze her for several centuries and mutated her).

• In X-Men 2: Clone Wars, Magneto served both as a boss and, for the first time in X-Men video game history, as a playable character. Upon defeating him in the third level aboard Asteroid M, Magneto joins the X-Men when he discovers that his entire crew had been assimilated by the alien Phalanx invasion.

• Magneto was one of the main villains in X-Men: Madness in Murderworld.

• In the Quake conversion X-Men: The Ravages of Apocalypse, the player played a cyborg created by and working for Magneto.

• In X-Men Legends, Magneto is voiced by Tony Jay. Like the other characters in the game, he appears in his Ultimate costume, though his personality and his relationship with Xavier is more similar to his 616 incarnation.

File:Magnetolegends.PNG

Magneto as a playable character in the video game X-Men Legends II.

• In X-Men Legends II: Rise of Apocalypse, Magneto was made the main playable character as part of the game's Brotherhood, and is voiced by Richard Greene. He sided with the X-Men when Apocalypse kidnapped Quicksilver when rescuing Professor X and fighting the forces of Apocalypse. He has special dialogue with Zealot.

• Originally, Magneto made a brief appearance in a cutscene in Marvel: Ultimate Alliance, lying on the floor next to Professor X, both having been defeated by Doctor Doom. However, the new Xbox 360 downloadable content features him (with his classic costume, 80's costume, Ultimate costume, and Xorn as alternate costumes) as a playable character with Richard Green reprising his role. Magneto has special dialogue with Professor X and Fin Fang Foom.

References in music

• The album Venus and Mars by Wings includes a song about superheroes called "Magneto and Titanium Man". Paul McCartney was said in the Bullpen Bulletins to have toured the Marvel offices soon after the album came out, and it was claimed that he was a fan of Marvel Comics. The song references the names of two other Marvel villains (Titanium Man and the Crimson Dynamo). In the song, the three supervillains try to convince the singer/narrator that a woman police officer trying to halt a bank robbery (which he is apparently in love with) is in fact the bank robber herself.

• Another song to mention Magneto is the Tearjerkers "Comic Book Heroes" from the various artists compilation Through the Back Door, in which some of the lyrics are "Doc Ock, Von Doom and Magneto, don't wanna be like them."

• Magneto is a song by the post-hardcore band Brigade, fronted by Charlie Simpson's brother, Will.

• In the song "Space Game" by MC Lars, Magneto is mentioned alongside a long list of other fictional characters who 'can't stop him'.

• In the song "Physical Stamina" off Jeru tha Damaja's Wrath of the Math, rapper Afu-Ra states that he is "strong like the Juggernaut, electric like Magneto."

• In the song "Secret Wars" by rapper/producer the Last Emperor, in which rappers fight marvel characters, Magneto battles Ras Kass.

Toys

• Magneto has appeared in the Marvel Legends toy line in Series 3 and in the X-Men Legends box set.
• Toy Biz produced a Magneto figure for their X-Men toy line in 2006.