Changing Magneto's origin for the movies?

[Arsenal]

Giving him the Winter Soldier treatment (minus the successful brainwashing) would likely be the easiest route to bring Magneto to the modern day without giving up his holocaust origin.

[Theleviathan]

It was one of the good things about the fox movies. Magneto is not considered the best marvel villain for just any reason. There is nothing to adjust in a new reboot. It has to be there. Part of Mckellen's interest in doing the movies was because of Magneto's history.

It could be a challenge but its time MCU takes on an actual challenge than always going for the easiest route. MCU is supposed to be making movies about X-Men stories, not making movies about how X-Men can be fitted into the MCU.

It isn’t believable in a world of vampires, sorcerers, and wrapped realities. The MCU movies made a Raccoon possible to speak but we are supposed to suspend our beliefs, of a Holocaust victim who can deage himself? Why? is it because the Raccoon can get more kids in the seats and sell more toys? and the holocaust victim can't?

One of the few good things about Fox movies was appreciating and understanding how every social commentary of X-Men mattered. MCU always made it an afterthought in their films by putting their, humor, generic comic plot cliches and connected universe first. None of these factors should be a top priority in X-Men movies.

Save the "you can do anything you want!" arguments because there is a talking raccoon. If that's all you're capable of arguing, you aren't putting nearly enough depth of thought behind the ramifications of the choices you're recommending. De-aging creates a host of issues. Now you have to explain how mutants have been around for 80 years and completely undetected. It also robs Magneto of multiple key origin points between the Holocaust and the modern world that were informed by the anti-mutant populace and governments. People like Magneto have been around, there is rampant hysteria and hate about mutants, but they just totally accept a bunch of other super-folks? Governments hate mutants but wait until Sokovia to enact anything?

Time warping Magneto or de-aging him are not great solutions. Or, at least, they abound with complications of their own. For me, Magneto's origin is important. A connection to the holocaust is important, but so were many, many incidents between then and his rise to mutant messiah. A fast forward button skips a lot of that. De-aging him causes many issues with that. Adjustments will have to be made, but I'm not sure what will work. (Restating my point because many in this thread are struggling to stay grounded in responding)

[Snoop Dogg]

what if magneto is someone tony stark bumped into in a hallway during college

[Ambaryerno]

what if magneto is someone tony stark bumped into in a hallway during college

You may have said that as a joke, but honestly, I'm still expecting the MCU to have mutants be the result of some Stark Tech gone wrong.

[Beaddle]

You may have said that as a joke, but honestly, I'm still expecting the MCU to have mutants be the result of some Stark Tech gone wrong.

And how do you think X-Men fans would feel about this?

Spiderman fans are already up in arms about Spiderman having two villains who have more connection to Stark than Peter Parker. MCU is going to add X-Men to the list of more Stark tech problem gone wrong,Its murdering the interesting concept of Mutants. What did Phoenix-Jean say at the end of X2.

Mutation: It is the key to our evolution.
It is how we have evolved
from a single-celled organism
into the dominant species on the planet.
This process is slow, normally taking
thousands and thousands of years.
But every few hundred millennia
evolution leaps forward.

No chance that MCU is going to reduce that to some Tony Stark artificial experiment? I have more faith in MCU not to turn X-Men into another Stark Tech gone wrong again.

[CRaymond]

I’ll suggest the MOST significant event in the life of “Magneto” is meeting Xavier and learning of mutantkind. Had he not met him, Erik Lensherr may have remained a solo actor, believing himself to be supernaturally powered avenging angel —a human. Learning of mutants and their plight, THAT is what catapulted the extreme separatist and mutant identity of “Magneto”.

[bat39]

I’ll suggest the MOST significant event in the life of “Magneto” is meeting Xavier and learning of mutantkind. Had he not met him, Erik Lensherr may have remained a solo actor, believing himself to be supernaturally powered avenging angel —a human. Learning of mutants and their plight, THAT is what catapulted the extreme separatist and mutant identity of “Magneto”.

Yeah, I think his history with Xavier is the one thing which, surprisingly, hasn't been brought up on this thread yet.

In Claremont's original story, Xavier and Magneto were contemporaries. But if Magneto is a Holocaust survivor, while Xavier is bound to the sliding timescale, then you basically have a friendship between men from two different generations. Not that it wouldn't work, but the relationship would on some level be different.

The Fox films avoided this problem by not having a sliding timescale and having Xavier be the same age as Eric. But an MCU reboot is almost certainly going to want a 'younger' Charles Xavier...one who's probably in his 40's or 50's at most...not past 90!

That said, I'm in favor of Magneto keeping his Holocaust origin. He certainly SHOULD keep it in the comics. But they need to retcon his backstory with Xavier who, HoX has recently confirmed, is in his mid-50's or so, chronologically speaking. I'm in favor of the idea of him going into suspended animation at some point and being 'awoken' around 20-30 years ago. A few years after that he meets Charles Xavier. And yes, they'd have to deal with the fact that Eric is from the generation of Charles' father, but in the hands of a skilful writer they could even make it work! Xavier can be the young idealist who believes that the world has moved on from the horrors of WW2 and the Holocaust and is different now, but Eric looks around and sees a world that is fundamentally unchanged. Or...Eric can serve as the reminder of the Holocaust and its horrors in a world that wants to forget it.

That said, in terms of giving Magneto a new origin, I once came up with one. Its a thoroughly politically-incorrect origin, and will p#ss off the left and the right! So it will never be published in a comic, let alone make it to the big screen. But anyway, here goes...

Basically, Eric Lensherr is an Israeli military officer or Mossad agent. He's the son or grandson of Holocaust survivors who grew up hearing horror stories of what his people suffered. His determination to make sure that such suffering doesn't happen again is what motivates him as an Israeli officer. He uses his powers basically as a one-man special forces team against the Palestinian forces and, as 'Magneto', becomes a feared figure among the PLO/Hamas, as well as Palestinian civilians.

Then, at some point, he meets Charles Xavier, who's working at a clinic in Israel, similar to the original story of their meeting. And he learns that he's a mutant and about the atrocities that mutants are secretely being subjected to by governments. He realizes that the Israeli government too is just using him as a weapon. So he decides to make his crusade now about saving his 'new' people - the mutants - the same way he saved Jews...by being a force of terror against those who would wish to destroy them.

Like I said, it'd never happen, but its interesting to think about...

[Agent Z]

Cap had that story built because marvel wanted to explain him being alive as well as his age in the modern MU too, now that I think about it Black Widow also had to be given an explanation for her age and Magneto situation is no different.

Magneto´s post Holocaust story had those important moments:

- Marriage with Magda, birth and death of Anya.

- Magneto goes to Israel: Magneto meets Baron Strucker and Xavier.

- Magneto nazi hunter years

I believe those moments can be kept, I would just change the order.

- Marriage with Magda, birth and death of Anya.

- Magneto in Israel:meets Baron Strucker.

- Magneto nazi hunter years (here he can be put in suspended animation)

- Magneto meets Xavier.

In fairness, they did change Black Widow's origin for the movies.

[Lucyinthesky]

In fairness, they did change Black Widow's origin for the movies.

In the comics she´s older than she looks. JDW recently made a comment about that but I agree that isn´t the case in the MCU as far as we know unless her solo movie changes it. My comment was about how marvel build explanations for Black Widow and Cap in the comics so they can be around in the modern world and that Magneto´s case is not different.

[Theleviathan]

In the comics she´s older than she looks. JDW recently made a comment about that but I agree that isn´t the case in the MCU as far as we know unless her solo movie changes it. My comment was about how marvel build explanations for Black Widow and Cap in the comics so they can be around in the modern world and that Magneto´s case is not different.

In the comics Black Widow should be using a walker to get around and cashing social security checks. Because comic book fans all collectively choose to put their fingers in their ears and sing "la la la" at that notion so continuity makes some sense.

Movies do not have that luxury, which is why Widow's origin does not look much at all like the comic book one.

[Vegeta]

Just remember that any wild revision the movie series makes to Magneto will be hamfistedly retconned into the comics. (Like original Nick Fury being replaced by previously unheard of son.) So if they drop the WW2 Holocaust survivor origin in the films, be prepared to see it glossed over in the comics. You know, for synergy.

[Snoop Dogg]

Just remember that any wild revision the movie series makes to Magneto will be hamfistedly retconned into the comics. (Like original Nick Fury being replaced by previously unheard of son.) So if they drop the WW2 Holocaust survivor origin in the films, be prepared to see it glossed over in the comics. You know, for synergy.

Movie synergy only goes this hard like 1 out of 100 times. They'll never change his origin on the page.

[Maestroneto]

Movie synergy only goes this hard like 1 out of 100 times. They'll never change his origin on the page.

They changed the origin of Pietro and Wanda.

[Lucyinthesky]

In the comics Black Widow should be using a walker to get around and cashing social security checks. Because comic book fans all collectively choose to put their fingers in their ears and sing "la la la" at that notion so continuity makes some sense.

Movies do not have that luxury, which is why Widow's origin does not look much at all like the comic book one.

The movies have suspended animation so the MCU could have the Winter Soldier and Captain America, who were both born before WWII, fighthing an alien who wanted to use magic stones to erase half the universe, so excuse me if I don´t see the problem with having a character with slow aging on the MCU.

Just remember that any wild revision the movie series makes to Magneto will be hamfistedly retconned into the comics. (Like original Nick Fury being replaced by previously unheard of son.) So if they drop the WW2 Holocaust survivor origin in the films, be prepared to see it glossed over in the comics. You know, for synergy.

I agree that´s why it´s important to keep his origin intact but if that requieres too much "suspension of belief" as some posters said maybe Magneto should not be in the MCU.

[Vegeta]

Movie synergy only goes this hard like 1 out of 100 times. They'll never change his origin on the page.

Well besides the twins and Nick Fury Jr. we also saw the movie version of Negasonic Teenage Warhead appear in the books replacing the Grant Morrison version, Star Lord going from old grizzled space cop to handsome rogue, and that weird Spider-Man story where he gave birth to himself just so he could have organic web shooters.