Create your own Magneto

[CRaymond]

If the point is to tell a story about a present evil to raise awarness then just tell the story, there´s no need to erase another character background for that, that´s my point.

It's not erasure if it's a new context. 616 exists. MCU exists. My headfanon exists. There's room for all.

[Lucyinthesky]

It's not erasure if it's a new context. 616 exists. MCU exists. My headfanon exists. There's room for all.

It´s erasure, you would be changing a character story and etnicity for another, so definitely it doesn´t seem like you want room for all.

[Michael Watkins]

If a Jewish person is mad that, Another atrocity is being highlighted one with current real-world implications. They need to go read up on the Holocaust was honestly.

your logic won't work here. even if it's not spoken aloud, people rank atrocities.

I don't see why he would be uninteresting it is the same villain with a slightly different story

he wouldn't be the same villain. the only problem with your idea is using Magneto. you could change someone like Moses Magnum or Exodus to fit what you're talking about. but enough of Magneto's backstory has been shown in movies to create an expectation.

What good does knowing who the Nazis are today do?

it's essential. i grew up around legitimate card carrying white supremacists. people still rep the nazi ideals. the mistake is to think that the war is over. it's not just jewish people on the hit list.

Do they know who is Isis or Janjaweed is ?

i sure do. the Ten Rings were basically the MCU's answer to that. but they and the Mandarin lacked substance.

Do they know Rohingya being killed in Myanmar? Okay Nazi are the villains people should care about?

it's not about 'should.' i'm not saying that people shouldn't care. i'm saying that people don't care. the media certainly don't care. because it's part of their job to educate people about such things. not comic book movies. the Hyperion vs Nighthawk comic used the Janjaweed as villains. notice the lack of discussion about it. sometimes it's that the readership isn't receptive to the message.

Nobody is more high profile than Magneto, You just don't want the character changed which I get.

it's not even that. i became a Magneto fan because i could empathize with him. i knew that he was both a villain and an underdog/someone who had been mistreated because of genetics and ethnic background. i, personally, wouldn't be bothered by Magneto being changed. but i know how people would react to it. i know that it would result in the character no longer being seen as high profile. the message will be lost in the backlash to the perceived erasure of his ethnicity. it's an action that will be very hard to defend. and there are other characters to use.

This isn't some complex thing if the opportunity to shine a light on real world issue and update character to fit setting comes up it should be an option.

can you think of a time when something like this has happened, been well received, and yielded a better product?

[CRaymond]

It´s erasure, you would be changing a character story and etnicity for another, so definitely it doesn´t seem like you want room for all.

Are we even having the same conversation? I'm asserting that imagination is infinite.

[Killerbee911]

It´s erasure, you would be changing a character story and etnicity for another, so definitely it doesn´t seem like you want room for all.

Make him an Ethiopian Jew. Now he is both things need for the story.I am curious if that solves your issue

[Frobisher]

He should be a white guy - we’re always moaning about how oppressed we are, so obviously it makes sense to have someone with the militant entitlement of Magneto flying around with his arms folded being a total dickhead. I mean, how many school shootings and DEA sieges are even being instigated by minorities?

[Michael Watkins]

I am not talking about them like they are interchangeable, they aren't they are different things but you are putting a character in Modern setting they provide some similar things you can't use the other event. Vietnam and the Gulf War are different things but in retelling punisher, they use the gulf war. They aren't interchangeable but they are similar things that can stand for the other thing if one isn't available.

if they could have kept the Vietnam War, they would have. but the war is only a minor component of Frank's history. it's the murder of his wife and kids by organized crime figures that is essential to the plot. so to bring this back to the Magneto analogy, imagine if Frank's origin was updated to high light the blue lives matter movement. instead of Frank's family dying, it will be several of his cop 'family' members. so his war of crime is now fueled by the deaths of his fellow officers. i'm sure that there's an audience for it. but is it a better story. and is he still the Punisher?

[Michael Watkins]

He should be a white guy - we’re always moaning about how oppressed we are

i'd say that anyone who experienced what the the fictional character did would have some claim to oppression; no matter what some old irrelevant hack writer had to say about it.

[GigaBalls]

Grigori Rasputin

An Ancient Mutant the myths behind this villain aren't all they seem to be. He had mutant powers of regeneration, incredible intellect, and pheromone control that allowed him to easily manipulate people, not quite Purple Man levels, but similar. He was also an incredibly powerful shaman/sorcerer. Trained in the arcane, he was also a high ranking member of the Hand. He has previous ties to Mr. Sinister, Apocalypse, and even Dracula. He was able to control the highest echelons of the Russian government and had control of even the Czar. Secretly he had been granted power by Dark Old Gods, and seeked to summon the Old Gods Shuma-Gorath and Hoggoth to Earth.

He had witnessed man's destruction of everything they didn't understand or argree with, watching over the years as his people the Slavic Cossacks where wiped out by the Russian empire. He even fought along side the legendary Taras Bulba against the predominantly Orthodox Jewish Russian Empire forces for refusing to give up their old ways and convert.

Realizing that humans couldn't even get along with themselves, he came up with a plan to make humanity slaves to a higher race. He had been working alongside Mr. Sinister at the time, not only trying to breed mutants, but also creating an army of Vampires and Werewolves for the Russian army. He had used this army to conquer several other dimension including Limbo and had added many demons to his army as well.


He soon become so powerful, even Mr. Sinister fear him. Sensing that he was about to bring about the end of the world by bringing an Old God into the world, the Sorcerer Supreme at the time, the Ancient One, assembled a powerful group of unlikely allies to stop him. The group included Apocalypse, Mr. Sinister, Dracula, the Iron Fist, the Ghost Rider, and all the sorcerers of Kamar-Taj. Together they were barely able to defeat him. Due to his mutant healing factor and his dark gifts, they found they were unable to kill him. Instead he had his hands and tongue cut off and cauterized and tattooed with magical seals to keep them from regenerating to keep him from using his magic. He was then buried alive and seal in an hidden underground crypt for eternity.

That is until a group of Archeologists stumble upon him....

Quoting since its like the only post in the thread actually relating to the OP and got lost in the side discussion.

[Lucyinthesky]

Are we even having the same conversation? I'm asserting that imagination is infinite.

Of course it is but the result of the use of that imagination on mass media still has concrete and real implications.

Make him an Ethiopian Jew. Now he is both things need for the story.I am curious if that solves your issue

I would not have a problem with that but I can see how that change could cause the opposite reaction you are seeking.

[JudicatorPrime]

Grigori Rasputin

An Ancient Mutant the myths behind this villain aren't all they seem to be. He had mutant powers of regeneration, incredible intellect, and pheromone control that allowed him to easily manipulate people, not quite Purple Man levels, but similar. He was also an incredibly powerful shaman/sorcerer. Trained in the arcane, he was also a high ranking member of the Hand. He has previous ties to Mr. Sinister, Apocalypse, and even Dracula. He was able to control the highest echelons of the Russian government and had control of even the Czar. Secretly he had been granted power by Dark Old Gods, and seeked to summon the Old Gods Shuma-Gorath and Hoggoth to Earth.

He had witnessed man's destruction of everything they didn't understand or argree with, watching over the years as his people the Slavic Cossacks where wiped out by the Russian empire. He even fought along side the legendary Taras Bulba against the predominantly Orthodox Jewish Russian Empire forces for refusing to give up their old ways and convert.

Realizing that humans couldn't even get along with themselves, he came up with a plan to make humanity slaves to a higher race. He had been working alongside Mr. Sinister at the time, not only trying to breed mutants, but also creating an army of Vampires and Werewolves for the Russian army. He had used this army to conquer several other dimension including Limbo and had added many demons to his army as well.


He soon become so powerful, even Mr. Sinister fear him. Sensing that he was about to bring about the end of the world by bringing an Old God into the world, the Sorcerer Supreme at the time, the Ancient One, assembled a powerful group of unlikely allies to stop him. The group included Apocalypse, Mr. Sinister, Dracula, the Iron Fist, the Ghost Rider, and all the sorcerers of Kamar-Taj. Together they were barely able to defeat him. Due to his mutant healing factor and his dark gifts, they found they were unable to kill him. Instead he had his hands and tongue cut off and cauterized and tattooed with magical seals to keep them from regenerating to keep him from using his magic. He was then buried alive and seal in an hidden underground crypt for eternity.

That is until a group of Archeologists stumble upon him....

We know his real name is Grigori Rasputin, but what is his nom de guerre?

[JudicatorPrime]

Does it have to be genocide? Isn't it enough, say, to have been the kid crumpled beneath the bodies of his parents as they sacrificed themselves to shield him from a racist extremist shooter armed with an AK-47?

[Rivka]

Are we even having the same conversation? I'm asserting that imagination is infinite.

The human imagination is infinitely capable of imagining the most horrible, racist, genocidal scenarios but how does that make it okay for a mass media company, for an entertainment company, to dramatize it in a movie, tv show, or comic book except in a responsible way? Erasing a minority character, changing their history and their identity just because it's inconvenient or it bothers you or because you think it's okay to replace this character with another minority, is irresponsible and enacts the very goals of the racists, haters, anti-Semites.

It is not okay to erase, destroy, remove a Jewish character because you think you have a better oppressed minority to take his/her place. That is a kind of racism in and of itself. It's not okay to do this to ANY minority character.

If you want to create another character like Magneto, then go for it! Pick your favorite genocide, make up your favorite atrocity. But taking Magneto, or any minority character, and erasing him to make your own personal political point is pretty much the same reasoning as the perpetrators used when they committed your favorite genocide in the first place.

Chris Claremont gave Magneto his backstory after many years of thought, after talking to survivors of the Holocaust. It wasn't some sudden need to exploit anything, but one of the ways he wanted to tell his X-Men story. This was his X-Men belief-system--the redemption arc. The belief that characters are complicated, that heroes aren't always heroes and villains may have tragic histories and motivations we can understand. This is Marvel's Magneto, in the comics and the movies thus far. This is who the character is, like Storm is African American, and Bobby Drake is gay, and Xavier is of Dutch and Spanish decent (a very cool historical story in that, too, if any Marvel writers would bother to do the research), and Rahne is Scots Presbyterian--essential to her character!

Anyway, I appreciate the OPs attempt to divert the discussion in a more healthy direction, but the people who are obsessed with removing Magneto's Jewish identity won't take you up on the challenge. Make up your own Magneto, but also make up your own name and power-set for him too. Or her. But always think about the impact of such a decision on the audience, on the culture, on the minds of people ignorant of history and susceptible to the lies of racist politicians.

[CRaymond]

A proto Magneto needs to be a part of a distinct oppressed group, and personally subjected to dehumanization. That SHAPES the character, but it’s not until [he] learns about mutantkind and the potential for his traumatic experiences to repeat that he becomes triggered.

[Michael Watkins]