I wanna know if more people prefer him to be a villain or not.

Villain.

VILLAIN!!!

As stated above Villain!!!

Hero Mags is such a spaz.

@jhazzroucher: @grenade728: @NlGHTCRAWLER: i say hero because if hes a villian hes just going to get killed

To me Magneto is an anti-hero.

He's great in either role, it just depends on the readers perspective on him.

If I had to pick, though, I'd have to stay true to his roots and go with - Villain.

@PowerHerc said:

To me Magneto is an anti-hero.

He's great in either role, it just depends on the readers perspective on him.

If I had to pick, though, I'd have to stay true to his roots and go with - Villain.

Magneto's one of the most well known Villain. It's like making Joker a good guy it just doesn't make sense.

People often forget why Magneto is a Villain simply because he's a well developed character...

in time...they'll remember why.

Magneto is the greatest villain in comics.

Villain

Villain. Marvel needs to stop making villains heros.

@PowerHerc said:

To me Magneto is an anti-hero.

He's great in either role, it just depends on the readers perspective on him.

Exactly. Magneto is too complex to be pigeonholed, which is what makes him a great character.

villian

Hero. I prefer him as a tragic hero. Unfortunately, most writers don't seem to know how to write him that way. Most of the time a heroic Magneto is too watered down. He's a very complex character but the time he was teaching the New Mutants and the events of the 2004 Excalibur title did not show this off well. Sometimes even a villian version of him is mishandled, the Grant Morrison take on him for example.

A lot of people seem to forget that Magneto is a genius. He is almost entirely self taught and has a great deal of knowedge on the subjects of engineering, genetics, and physics. Then there's all those insane things he did with those skills, especially in the sixties and seventies. I think his powers make him act kind of bi-polar. That and unresolved post traumatic stress are why I think he acts so crazy at times.

I'd love to see a guilt riddled and heroic version of him confront his problems even as most of the rest of the Marvel Universe is against him for all the bad stuff he's done. Even if he acts like a paragon of good, there is no real reason for anyone to believe him! His track record would speak against him. I'd have him work with an unlikely team of minor heroes and former villians, all the while coming into conflict with good guys and bad guys. The good guys trying to stop him. The bad guys being people he wants to stop. The irony, the fun, the drama, and the humor in all that could be so awesome!

Villain. Marvel already has plenty of heroes, but they need villains too.

Villian. He doesn't even do anything as a hero.

hero. either kill him off or keep him an X-MAN. his story as a villian can only go so far. we saw it in ULTIMATIUM, and in PLANET X. it's old and boring. at least as a hero we can develop the character in new ways. perhaps he is watered down as a hero, but it has more story potetial as a good guy. hope they dont shed the work of the last few years too quickly.

Hero. I feel the villian role he has been cast in the past has played out. it can only go too far. either kill him or do something different. as a reluctant hero he can at least be developed as a character. otherwise he shows up every few years, does something "evil" he is beaten and he goes and hides again. ultimatum and planet x dispite their flaws are as far as he can go as a bad guy. either kills everybody off or he himself must die. if marvel wants to keep him around he needs to remain on the side of the x-men, or at least a reluctant ally.

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@lykopis said:

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Badda-Bing Badda-Boom, TRUTH.

Anti-Villain.

Neither. Magneto's potency is that he can play the antagonist as well as the protagonist. Heroes are for characters too naive to get their hands dirty or covered in blood. Villains are the guys that play the dance with the hero. Magneto is the guy who tried to kill Nazi's at a time the United States Government decided they were more important alive and on the side of the west against the evils of the Soviet Union and because of that opted that Magneto and anyone associated with him should die. Magneto is the guy who has already seen his child die and the love of his life look at him with disgust and fear. Magneto is the guy that has never gotten over that. Governments have tried to kill him for punishing Nazis? People's petty politics have gotten his child killed? No one would run into a fire to save an innocent girl? Magneto is the guy that took 20 years to change his mind but he didn't really, he just realized that things around him had changed. He realized that maybe he had maybe become the very thing he hated. Maybe. Maybe he is just waiting for things to change again as they tend to. I prefer Magneto written well.      

@The3rdOption: I think it makes sense for him to be more of an anti hero. He is really a deep charachter, hes been through so much characterization and plot developments. Jokers always been crazy as shit Magneto has always fought for what he thinks is right, but has been an extremist.

what I find funny about this poll. is the people who answer villain, just say "villain". while the people who answer hero or anti hero, or anything other than villain actually take the time to explain why. seems to me that non villain while losing in this poll at least have ideas to support their position rather then just a single word.

Villain.

he isnt bad as a (anti)hero , but he is such a awesome villain

what I find funny about this poll. is the people who answer villain, just say "villain". while the people who answer hero or anti hero, or anything other than villain actually take the time to explain why. seems to me that non villain while losing in this poll at least have ideas to support their position rather then just a single word.

      Why does anyone owe you a speach about it.   Quite frankly he's more interesting as a villain than he's ever been as a hero and the anti-hero thing only goes so far when you are as over powered as Magneto is.  He's not repentatant and that is what it would take to make him a hero but that would take out all that makes him interesting.  To really use his power to its best and his ability to sway disenfranchised and angry mutants is to return him to where he has control not being Scott's cheer leading squad.  The X-books are DESPARATELY in need of good villains and Magneto is a great villain that you can understand why he's so messed up even if you don't like or agree with him while he's a crap anti-hero because he's too god like for people to worry about him being threatened and a horrible hero because honestly no one should trust or forgive him as easily as they have.  Now a villain you have to work with now and then because it makes sense but can't trust is fine (ala how No more mutants made him and Scott strange bedfellows) but the X-books need some top villains again and he's one of the better ones.  Honestly I hope he attacks the Uncanny Avengers because of the contrast with them also having Red Skull as a villain.  Magneto needs to be a magnificent manipulative bastard again not the Magneto behind Scott's Magneto.                

               

I prefer him as a PARIAH.

Definitely a bad guy. Seeing your entire family get and being a holocaust survivor would definitely make you go mad and want to prevent others from suffering the same fate, consequences be damned.

Villain by far. We don't even see him in action as a hero.

hi sarah.

I dont feel I need a speach about it, just something more then a one word answer. there is no discussion with simply saying villain. your reasons are sound. marvel is lacking in solid bad guys right now. but that is a creative issue as much as anything else. back in the day jack kirby and stan lee created 12 new villains a year for each title. look at what kirby did just on the new gods. only darkside was repeated as a recuring badguy. there seems to be a fear by the writers and artists to create new villains today. which is why I so strongly supported the evolution of magneto's character. he may be a little watered down, but sure, but he is growing as a character.

and black claw. gotta tell you I am jewish and in my life I have met many survivors of the holocaust. men and women who saw their brothers, sisters, fathers, and mothers killed in front of them. or taken away and never seen again. I can tell you first hand that for all those people I have met, they did not go mad and want revenge, or want to kill anybody. they focused on education, and tolorance. not murder. I like the aspect of magnetos character that survived the holocaust, I like that it shapes his character. I don't like people using that as an excuese for his murderous rage.

Magneto is not a villain. He hasn't really been a villain since the Silver Age.

Sympathetic villain

He can work in multiple ways but the X-Men are in severe need of real villains to work with. If they have resorted to the kiddie Hellfire Club we need Mags back to his old ways stat.

@jhazzroucher:

I prefer him as a hero, simply because he has more depth that way. As a villain, he was always bland, one dimensional, and every encounter with him was exactly the same old song and dance. Apocalypse fills the "supremacy villain" role much better.

Plus as a villain, every battle just comes down to "use plastic".

I think his time on villain should stop for now after House of M. after his death turning out to be someone impersonating someone who was also impersonating magneto which was a copout and confusing, and the death after that he impersonated someone who was impersonating him… Yeah that is getting too far. He got to rethink his life.

Heroic villain?

@Duke_Nasty said:

Villain. Marvel needs to stop making villains heros.

True, but they do alot of that at every company. Off the top of my head Bane, Riddler, Heatwave, Sinestro, and Maxima have all held fairly long (over a year) stints as heroes or anti-heroes, Bane and Maxima for at least half if not the majority of their careers. Two-Face and even Doomsday (yes Doomsday) have played the hero before (this is all main continuity too). Invincible Spoilers:

It's a lame gimmick because they use it so much, but marvel isn't alone in doing it.

I like him as a Hero. But one that will cross the line if his ideals arnt met. Not really a anti hero but a hero with his own views

DC has turned a bunch if their villains into Anti-hero recently, more than it seemed before seems odd. Magneto has always been my favourite Anti-hero, but he is a villain first and foremost.

In my opinion, the character development has been just fine with him, so I like him in his nowadays "hero" side, just because it was justifiable to his character to found himself as that. But it seems that we will be seeing more of the Magneto's "villain" side now and I would like him like that too. =)

Human Hating Nazi killer!!!!

Hero or Anti-Hero....Magneto's last runs as a villain came off kind very uncoordinated and made him seem self destructive. I like him as the smart bad guy who you can understand makes mutants consider him over Xavier, not the "I just built Genosha into a mutant paradise...welp time to start a war that proves everyone was right about me from the beginning."

Antihero of course. He was never villian for the sake of villianity, he always fights for what he thinks is right.

I would say "villain" but I never viewed him as such. He was just the antagonist to the X-Men because they had conflicting ideologies. Most villains you wouldn't want to be on their side, Joker would kill you, Galactus would eat your planet, Darkseid would make you a slave. Magneto was the only villain I could see myself teaming up with because I could sympathize with him very well. Based on his childhood, him viewing what humans were capable of in the holocaust was enough evidence to support his theory that mutants and humans will never co exist. He understand that humans are the next step in evolution and there is no reason to be hunted down like dogs when they are superior. I don't like the idea of Magneto discarding this belief and being a goody two shoes hero. It's just not him.

God this thread reminded me how much I love X-Men lol

Has Magneto truly been a villain?

anti-hero, fights in his own corner. This means he comes up against heroes and the authorities, but not a villain make...