Magneto: Anti-hero or Full Villains

[LAWtoyoto 432]

When I first watch the movie of "X-Men" trilogy, Magneto is alway potray as a main villains. But in the prequel franchise, he mostly serve as a deuteragonist to the plot of the movies. But I am pretty not sure how that work in the comics. Does he turned back to villain roots once and suddenly change the new leaf. Which ones do you think he potray most of the time?

[Zelena]

It depends on the author, on the era… Sometimes he is a misunderstood sensitive man, sometimes a mutant supremacist, sometimes an old wise man…

As a variable-geometry character, he can be the one you want, you just have to choose the comics that fit your liking… Personally, I don’t like the current one.

[Exodus]

When I first watch the movie of "X-Men" trilogy, Magneto is alway potray as a main villains. But in the prequel franchise, he mostly serve as a deuteragonist to the plot of the movies. But I am pretty not sure how that work in the comics. Does he turned back to villain roots once and suddenly change the new leaf. Which ones do you think he potray most of the time?

I really love what the movies have done with him. X1 and X2 portraits him so beautifully as an antagonist. He is not a villain. He fights for mutant rights, although how he does it is super problematic and violent. I think the X-Men movie really create the most compelling villain in any superhero movie.

[Lady Midnight]

Magneto is our Most Holy Lord from which who all blessings flow.

[staptik777]

Anti-Villain
An Anti-Villain is the opposite of an Anti-Hero — a character with heroic goals, personality traits, and/or virtues who is ultimately the villain. Their desired ends are mostly good, but their means of getting there range from evil to undesirable. Alternatively, their goals may be selfish or have long-term consequences they don't care about, but they're good people who might even team up with the hero if their goals don't conflict.

[Huntsman Spider]

Anti-Villain
An Anti-Villain is the opposite of an Anti-Hero — a character with heroic goals, personality traits, and/or virtues who is ultimately the villain. Their desired ends are mostly good, but their means of getting there range from evil to undesirable. Alternatively, their goals may be selfish or have long-term consequences they don't care about, but they're good people who might even team up with the hero if their goals don't conflict.

That works. He's ultimately too complex and sympathetic at his core to be a straightforward villain, but he's also extremely unrepentant about his penchant toward violence to achieve his ends, not to mention deeply (and understandably, if not rightfully) cynical about human nature, which doesn't necessarily make for a good hero, either. Then again, as Magneto himself put it at one point to Storm, "Hero or villain is just how the times cast us." Something to that effect.

[Celgress]

I prefer him as an anti-hero all be it one who when he feels it is necessary without hesitation crosses the line into full-on villainy in the name of his cause (or what he perceives as the "greater good" for his people).

[rcaguy]

I prefer him as an anti-hero all be it one who when he feels it is necessary without hesitation crosses the line into full-on villainy in the name of his cause (or what he perceives as the "greater good" for his people).

Prefer him as an anti-hero also. Let's face it, Following the example of the Avengers will only get 99.9% of mutants killed.

[Huntsman Spider]

Prefer him as an anti-hero also. Let's face it, Following the example of the Avengers will only get 99.9% of mutants killed.

The problem with the Avengers' example is that it works for them to the extent that they are perceived to be aligned with "human interests," which more often than not really just means the vested interests of those used to holding and retaining power in human society, power that is (potentially) threatened by superhumans, individually or collectively, acting on their own recognizance. The moment they defy, challenge, or controvert those vested interests, they become perceived as a liability, if not an outright threat, to those same vested interests, which then use their sociopolitical, economic, and/or cultural power to sway the public against them, which they've been finding out the hard way ever since formally distancing themselves from the U.S. government after they made the Black Panther their chairperson.