Acquiring

Target 14 of 30 · X-Men

Magneto

IdentityConfirmed

Real nameMax Eisenhardt; also Erik Lehnsherr, the forged identity he took later, and the name the X-Men films use

CodenameMagneto

ContinentX-Men

In DoomsdayIan McKellen, as Magneto¹

First seenX-Men #1, September 1963²

Created byStan Lee, Jack Kirby²

Threat to DoomRated by fans

?/ 4

No fan ratings yet.

Awaiting the fans

Doom: Rate this threat. Once three fans have, I will pass judgement.

How much of a threat is Magneto to Doom?

Fan opinion · one rating a day

Marvel's power grid, comics⁷

Marvel's own ratings, 1 to 7 on six stats. They measure raw power, not telepathy, reality-warping or cunning, so they set no ranking here.

Your judgementFan opinion · this device

How shall Your Majesty regard Magneto?

Level 1 // The briefDecrypted · 30 seconds

WhoA Holocaust survivor and master of magnetism, once Charles Xavier's friend, who became his rival because he believes humans will always persecute mutants.³

AbilitiesMastery of magnetism: he can move, bend and fling metal, even stadiums.³

In DoomsdayMarvel's third teaser (6 January 2026) featured Ian McKellen as Magneto, alongside Patrick Stewart's Professor X and James Marsden's Cyclops.¹

Last seenX-Men: Days of Future Past (2014), as Magneto (older): In a bleak future he defends the X-Men and apologises to Charles for their feud.⁶

Sources

Level 2 // Surveillance recordOn screen · 8 sightings, 0 in the MCU

Every live-action sighting of Magneto, and everything Marvel has confirmed.

2000
X-Men FOX
Ian McKellen (Brett Morris as young Erik) The film opens with young Erik bending a camp gate as he is torn from his parents. As an adult he sees Senator Kelly's push for mutant registration as an echo of the Holocaust and plans to use a machine to turn the world leaders at the Ellis Island summit into mutants, kidnapping Rogue to power it in his place because it drains him. The X-Men stop him on Liberty Island and he ends up in a plastic prison, playing chess with Xavier.¹²
2003
X2 FOX
Ian McKellen Stryker drugs Magneto in prison to learn about Cerebro, but Mystique gets him out by dosing a guard with liquid iron. He works with the X-Men against Stryker, then secretly turns the copy of Cerebro on ordinary humans before the X-Men stop it. On his way out he leaves Stryker chained at the foot of the bursting dam and takes Pyro with him.³²
2006
X-Men: The Last Stand FOX
Ian McKellen Magneto raises a mutant army to destroy the company making the mutant 'cure', and his words to Jean about Xavier's mental blocks lead to Charles's death, which visibly horrifies him. He tears loose the Golden Gate Bridge to reach the cure facility on Alcatraz, where Beast injects him with it. In the final scene, alone in a park, he makes a metal chess piece twitch.⁴²
2011
X-Men: First Class FOX
Michael Fassbender (Bill Milner as young Erik) As a boy in a camp, Erik watches Sebastian Shaw kill his mother to force out his powers, and he spends his adult years hunting Shaw until he meets Charles Xavier. He helps Charles gather the first young mutants, kills Shaw during the Cuban Missile Crisis and turns the fleets' missiles back on them, and a bullet he deflects paralyses Charles. He leaves with Raven and Shaw's followers, puts on Shaw's helmet and calls himself Magneto.⁵⁶
2013
The Wolverine FOXCameo
Ian McKellen In the mid-credits scene, two years on, Magneto appears with a living Xavier to approach Logan after his return from Japan, his powers apparently back. The two former rivals warn Logan of a coming threat to all mutants.⁷²
2014
X-Men: Days of Future Past FOX
Michael Fassbender and Ian McKellen In 1973 the younger Erik (Fassbender), jailed beneath the Pentagon over President Kennedy's death, is broken out to help stop Mystique, but tries to kill her and then seizes the new Sentinels, dropping a stadium around the White House and holding the President hostage until Mystique stops him. In the Sentinel-ruled 2023 his older self (McKellen) defends the X-Men in China, is badly wounded and tells Charles he regrets their years of fighting before history is rewritten.⁸⁶²
2016
X-Men: Apocalypse FOX
Michael Fassbender Living quietly in Poland as a steelworker with his wife Magda and daughter Nina, Erik is exposed when he saves a co-worker, and police accidentally kill his family. Apocalypse recruits him as a Horseman and amplifies his power until he is tearing metal out of the planet. Appeals from Raven and Charles's allies turn him against Apocalypse, and he helps rebuild the school.⁹⁶
2019
Dark Phoenix FOX
Michael Fassbender Erik runs Genosha, a refuge for mutants on land the government gave him, and sends away a desperate Jean Grey. After learning she killed Raven he sets out to kill her, is beaten and captured, then fights alongside the X-Men against the alien D'Bari on a prison train. At the end he finds the retired Charles in Paris and the two sit down to play chess.¹⁰⁶

What Marvel confirmed

The film. Avengers: Doomsday opens 18 December 2026.¹²
6 January 2026 The X-Men will return. The third teaser featured Patrick Stewart as Professor X, Ian McKellen as Magneto and James Marsden as Cyclops.¹¹

Sources

Level 3 // Deep archiveThe comics · since September 1963

Origin, the comics by era, abilities and recorded feats.

Origin

Max Eisenhardt grew up in a middle-class Jewish family in Nuremberg as the Nazis tightened their grip on Germany. He saw his uncle beaten and publicly shamed by a mob, and after he twice won a school javelin contest he was accused of cheating, expelled and attacked by classmates. His father Jakob, a First World War veteran, at first could not believe his country would turn on him, but after Kristallnacht he moved the family to Warsaw. Trapped in the ghetto, Max smuggled to keep them alive; when deportations began in 1942 the family fled, were caught and were shot, and Max survived only because his father pushed him out of the line of fire.

Max was later captured and sent, still in his early teens, to Auschwitz, where he was forced into the Sonderkommando, the prisoner detail made to deal with the dead. He was the only member of his family to survive the Holocaust. In the camp he found Magda, a Sinti Romani girl he had admired at school in Nuremberg, and the two escaped together during the Sonderkommando uprising. They married and had a daughter, Anya. His powers, held back by hepatitis caught in the camp, first surfaced in the Soviet city of Vinnytsia, and that same day a fire trapped Anya while police held Max back, and she died. In his grief he lashed out with his power, killing his captors and wrecking much of the city; Magda fled from him, unaware she was pregnant.

Max had a forger create a new identity, Erik Lehnsherr, a Sinti survivor, so he could search for Magda among her people, never learning that she had died. As Magnus he volunteered at a hospital in Haifa, Israel, for Holocaust survivors, where he befriended Charles Xavier and argued that humanity would always persecute anyone different. After the two men rescued their friend Gabrielle Haller from Hydra and revealed their powers to each other, he left with Hydra's hoard of Nazi gold. For a time he hunted Nazi war criminals, until his CIA handlers murdered his girlfriend Isabelle in front of him; he killed them, lost what trust he had left in humanity and took the name Magneto. Years later, wearing a helmet built to block telepathy, he gathered the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants and opened his war by attacking the Cape Citadel missile base.¹²³⁴⁵⁶⁷⁸⁹¹⁰

The record, by era

1963-1964
Master of Magnetism The Silver Age debut
Magneto first appears sabotaging rockets and seizing the Cape Citadel missile base, until Professor X's new X-Men force him out. He then takes over the South American nation of Santo Marco with his Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, a group that includes the twins Wanda and Pietro Maximoff, and rules it until the X-Men free the country. Retreating to his orbiting base Asteroid M with a captured Angel, he loses it when the Scarlet Witch sabotages the device he meant to use against the X-Men.¹²¹¹¹²
Key issues: X-Men #1 (1963) · X-Men #4 (1964) · X-Men #5 (1964)
1969-1977
The Creator, an infant and a second youth Wilderness years
Hiding in the Savage Land, Magneto turns local people into the Savage Land Mutates, who worship him as their Creator, until the X-Men wreck his base. Later he uses alien technology to engineer Alpha the Ultimate Mutant, who turns on him and reduces him to a baby. Xavier leaves the infant with Moira MacTaggert, who tries to correct the strain his powers put on his mind, but the Shi'ar agent Eric the Red restores him to adulthood, younger than before, and sets him against the X-Men again.¹¹³¹⁴¹⁵
Key issues: X-Men #62 (1969) · Defenders #16 (1974) · X-Men #104 (1977)
1981-1983
Doubt and an uneasy alliance A crisis of conscience
Demanding that the world give up its nuclear weapons, Magneto sinks a Soviet submarine and destroys a town before the X-Men storm his island base. When he believes he has killed the young Kitty Pryde, who like him is Jewish, he is shaken into remembering his past and abandons his plan. A flashback the following year shows his friendship with Xavier in Haifa, and in God Loves, Man Kills he works alongside the X-Men to rescue Xavier from William Stryker's Purifiers.¹¹⁶⁸¹⁷
Key issues: Uncanny X-Men #150 (1981) · Uncanny X-Men #161 (1982) · Marvel Graphic Novel #5 (1983)
1985-1989
In Xavier's place Headmaster
Magneto surrenders to stand trial before the World Court in Paris, with his old friend Gabrielle Haller defending him. When an attack by the Fenris twins leaves Xavier close to death, Charles asks Magneto to take over his school and the New Mutants, and he agrees. He spends several years teaching and fighting beside the X-Men before concluding that he cannot follow Xavier's way, and leaves to play the villain again so the world's fear will focus on him.¹¹⁸¹⁹²⁰
Key issues: Uncanny X-Men #199 (1985) · Uncanny X-Men #200 (1985) · Uncanny X-Men #253 (1989)
1991-1993
Asteroid M and Fatal Attractions The Acolytes
Now seeking only a refuge for mutants, Magneto settles on Asteroid M with the worshipful Acolytes, and a clash with the X-Men leaves him badly hurt. Learning that Moira altered his mind while he was a baby, he turns on her and Xavier, and the station is destroyed in an apparent death engineered by the traitor Fabian Cortez. He returns aboard a new base, Avalon, and when the United Nations activates the Magneto Protocols to keep him off Earth he answers with a pulse that knocks out the planet's electronics. Confronted on Avalon, he rips the adamantium from Wolverine's skeleton, and Xavier shuts down his mind.¹²¹²²²³
Key issues: X-Men Vol 2 #1 (1991) · X-Men Vol 2 #3 (1991) · X-Men Vol 2 #25 (1993)
1999-2003
Ruler of a mutant nation Genosha
By seizing control of the Earth's magnetic poles, Magneto pressures the United Nations into handing him the island of Genosha as a mutant homeland. Once the Legacy Virus is cured he tries to build an army from its mutants, and a stopgap X-Men team stops him only after Wolverine leaves him gravely injured and unable to walk; Polaris later confirms she is his daughter. When giant Sentinels destroy Genosha he is believed dead, and his face and the slogan 'Magneto was right' become symbols for young mutants, while an impostor called Xorn commits atrocities in his name.¹²⁴²⁵²⁶
Key issues: X-Men Vol 2 #87 (1999) · X-Men Vol 2 #113 (2001) · New X-Men #135 (2003)
2005-2009
No more mutants House of M
When Wanda's reality-warping powers spiral out of control, Magneto takes her to Genosha and is pushed to consider ending her life, until Pietro talks her into remaking the world into one where mutants rule under Magneto. Once heroes break the illusion, Wanda blames her father for what she and her brother became and strips most of the world's mutants, Magneto included, of their powers. Powerless, he helps Exodus rebuild Xavier's damaged mind, then lets the High Evolutionary put him through a risky procedure that restores his abilities.¹²⁷²⁸²⁹³⁰
Key issues: House of M #1 (2005) · House of M #8 (2005) · Uncanny X-Men #507 (2009)
2009-2014
Utopia and beyond Cyclops's revolution
Magneto arrives at Utopia, the X-Men's island home built from his old Asteroid M, kneels in front of Cyclops and asks to talk, praising him for uniting mutantkind. He backs Scott through the Schism and the war with the Avengers over the Phoenix, then joins his underground revolution while struggling with damaged powers. Going solo, he hunts down people who kill mutants and confronts the Red Skull's prison camp in the ruins of Genosha.¹³¹³²³³
Key issues: Uncanny X-Men #515 (2009) · Uncanny X-Men Vol 3 #1 (2013) · Magneto Vol 3 #1 (2014)
2019-2022
Founding father The Krakoan age
Reconciled with Xavier, Magneto helps found the mutant nation of Krakoa, welcomes foreign envoys and takes a seat on its Quiet Council. He leads the mutants who terraform a planet as a new home for the island of Arakko, unveiled at the Hellfire Gala, and is briefly suspected of murder when Wanda Maximoff, whom he still calls his daughter, is found dead that night; she is later resurrected. After resigning from the council he moves to Arakko and joins its Great Ring, and in the fight against the Eternal Uranos he holds on long enough to help defeat him before dying in Storm's arms.¹³⁴³⁵³⁶³⁷³⁸
Key issues: House of X #1 (2019) · X-Men: The Trial of Magneto #1 (2021) · A.X.E.: Judgment Day #4 (2022) · X-Men: Red Vol 2 #7 (2022)
2024-2025
Return and decline Resurrection
In the afterlife Magneto is made to relive every life lost through his actions, until Storm reaches him and shows him a second wall listing the people he saved. They escape through the Shadow King's realm and he is reborn, then joins the final assault on Orchis that destroys Nimrod. Afterwards he moves to Alaska with Cyclops's new X-Men, but a sickness linked to repeated resurrection soon costs him control of his powers and the use of his legs.¹³⁹⁴⁰⁴¹⁴²⁴³
Key issues: Resurrection of Magneto #1 (2024) · Resurrection of Magneto #3 (2024) · Fall of the House of X #5 (2024) · X-Men Vol 7 #7 (2025)

Capabilities

Magnetism control

Commands magnetism and metal on a vast scale: he has moved mountains, raised islands, changed the course of rivers and assembled complex machines in seconds.¹

Force fields

Keeps near-constant magnetic shields that have held against Thor's hammer, Cyclops's optic blasts and nuclear detonations.¹

Flight and space travel

Flies long distances on magnetic field lines, and crosses space inside a bubble of air held by his force field.¹

Electromagnetic spectrum

Generates and redirects electricity, light and other electromagnetic energy, and can bend light around himself to turn invisible.¹

Organic iron control

Moves the trace iron in living things, enough to tug at blood flow to the brain; he once pulled adamantium straight out of Wolverine.¹

Telepathic resistance

Trained himself to resist telepaths even while unconscious, an edge his helmet strengthens further.¹

Scientific genius

An expert geneticist and engineer who built magnetic spacecraft, space stations, robots and machines that cancel mutant powers.¹

Seasoned fighter

Decades of combat; boosting his body with his powers, he can hold his own against Iron Man.¹

Source of power

Born a mutant, now confirmed Omega-level, with near-limitless command of magnetism.¹

Recorded feats

comics Fought Thor by magnetically keeping him from his hammer long enough that the thunder god turned back into Donald Blake. Journey Into Mystery Vol 1 #109 (October 1964)⁴⁴
comics Ripped the adamantium out of Wolverine's skeleton with magnetism during the X-Men's raid on his orbital base, Avalon. X-Men Vol 2 #25 (October 1993)²³¹
comics Dragged the giant bullet holding Kitty Pryde back from deep space to Earth; the strain left him in a coma. Uncanny X-Men Vol 1 #521 to #522 (April to May 2010)⁴⁵⁴⁶¹
screen Atop the Statue of Liberty, he stopped Wolverine's claws in mid-strike to protect his mutation machine. X-Men (2000)⁴⁷
screen Pulled liquid iron out of a guard's blood, shaped it into metal balls and smashed his way out of his plastic prison. X2 (2003)⁴⁸
screen Tore the Golden Gate Bridge loose and used it to link the mainland with Alcatraz Island. X-Men: The Last Stand (2006)⁴⁹⁵⁰

Notes from the archive

Magneto's camp tattoo was first shown as 214782 in Uncanny X-Men #161 (1982). A later Excalibur story changed it to 24005 because the first number was too high for the date he would have arrived, but 214782 has since reappeared.¹⁸
After Magneto was believed killed on Genosha his face became a T-shirt and graffiti image; New X-Men #135 (2003) is the first time Quentin Quire wears his 'Magneto was right' shirt.¹²⁶
In the Brotherhood's first outing in X-Men #4 (1964), its members mostly call him 'the Leader' rather than Magneto.¹¹¹

Sources