University of Panels

1: Magneto

(Max Eisenhardt; Erik Lehnsherr, Magnus)

 

The master of magnetism, former friend of Professor Charles Xavier, and mortal nemesis of the X-Men is hands down not only my all-time favorite comic book villain, but villain in all of fictional media! I don't even know where to start with this guy... might as well start at the begining!

 

The man who would  become one of the most feared mutant terrorists of all-time was once a young boy named Max Eisenhardt, who grew up to a Jewish family in Germany. Unfortunately, it was the time when Hitler had become Chancellor of the nation, and had begun an all-out campaign to erradicate the Jews from existance. As a result, Max lost his family to the henious attrocities of the Nazis, and was forced to survive as a SonderKommando in the heart of all darkness in the Holocaust known as Autchwitz. Having witnessed the deaths of half a million people, men, women, and children, Max was determined to ensure that a genocide of that magnitude would never happen again. Surviving the nightmare, Max soon gained the mutant ability to create magnetic fields, as well as manipulate any body of metal. He traveled the world, eventually meating Charles Xavier, another mutant who possessed telepathic abilities. The two formed a close friendship, but as the years went by, the two drew further apart. While Xavier strived for a world where mutants and humans could form a peaceful coexistance, Magneto was more skeptical. Having survived through the Holocaust, Magneto knew the evils that humans were capable of, and became convinved that peaceful relations between humans and mutants was an impossible dream. He left Xavier, determined to ensure the protection of mutantkind himself, as he wanted to prevent what happened to the Jews to happen to mutants, waging war against humanity with a Brotherhood of Mutants devoted to his cause. His terrorist actions against humanity have brought him into conflict with Charles Xavier and his X-Men, who are determined to bridge the gap between humans and mutants, an ideal that Magneto believes is a fools errand.

 

What makes Magneto my number one favorite villain is how every aspect of his character is well-developed, and serves to contribute to who he is and what his motivations are. Because of his status as a Holocaust survivor, Magneto fears that mutants may suffer the same attrocities that the Nazis inflicted upon the Jewish people. This has led him to wage war against humanity, as he feels that humans and mutants can never live peacefully, and that mutantkind must make the first strike to ensure it's survival. His justification that his past provides his motivations also makes him a sympathetic villain, as the reader can understand that he's not truly evil, but is driven to prevent a second Holocaust, but has gone to extreme methods in order to obtain it. His rivalry with Charles Xavier also reflect's the X-Men's themes of racism, prejudice, and differing ideologies. Both have their own perspectives on human and mutant relations, causing them to go in different directions in order to obtain their goals. 

 

Magneto is both my favorite all-time favorite villain in any medium due to his complex characterization, his tragic backstory which justifies his motivations, his highly compelling dualistic rivlary with the X-Men's leader Charles Xavier, as well as his ability to have readers sympathize with him rather than be turned off by him! 

 

He is everything that a good villain should be!