Siren's Pull Ap
Player Information
Name: Komix
Age: 26
AIM SN: komikbookgeek
email: komikbookgeek@gmail.com
Have you played in an LJ based game before? I have, yes.
Bonus: How did you hear about Siren's Pull? From thelittlestbub
Character Information
General
Canon Source: Marvel 616
Canon Format: Comics
Character's Name: Magneto, aka Erik Magnus Lehnsherr
Character's Age: 80ish but appears in his early 40's due to being de-aged to infancy and re-aged to adulthood. It appears his body is aging more slowly but this could be a factor of his mutation as he is immune to harm from UV radiation.
Conditional: If your character is 13 years of age or under, please clarify how they will be played.
What form will your character's NV take? It appears to be a standard men's wrist watch, but is actually an advanced comlink unit, powered by Magneto's powers. With a tap, a holographic image pops up, able to display a 'screen' in 2D or 3D, and ranging in size from a credit card to a 12in widescreen display although quality of the 3D images suffer greatly when expanded. Although there is not true keyboard or touchpad, with other taps along the dial holographic images of a keyboard or wheel with arrows pops up to be used, although Magneto can imput data without them. The face of the 'watch' acts as a camera and/or microphone when activated but also displays the time when not active.
Abilities
Character's Canon Abilities:
Magneto is an Alpha level mutant whose primary powers lie in magnetic field manipulation. He can manipulate magnetic fields, be they natural or artificial. This makes his power practically limitless, the only stumbling blocks being Magneto's own perceptions of his power and his physical condition at the time.
The main powers he relies on for defensive combat would be creating magnetic force fields, magnetic flight, and matter manipulation. His force field can be quickly expanded to protect large areas, or to include several people and is capable of withstanding some of the most extreme environments, from nuclear strikes, the vacuum of space, and multiple concurrent attacks. Magneto flight is Magneto's main mode of long-term travel. He can accomplish flight in two ways, by either manipulating magnetic fields between himself and the Earth or by gliding along the naturally occurring magnetic lines of the Earth. While the latter is far quicker, it is also far more dangerous and technically difficult as Magneto does not possess speedster reflexes and enhanced senses in order to travel safety in this way he must use his force field to protect himself and must concentrate a great deal on where he is over the planet. When he is flying at any speed at all by any method, he must take precautions normally through the use of his armor and his force field to protect himself from friction and debris. As a result, typically when he is traveling at speeds greater than twenty miles an hour or while flying through debris filled area he has to use his force field.
During offensive combat Magneto uses pretty much whatever he can to win, or failing winning, survive and escape. Using his powers he can create bolts of magnetic force or lightening, electricity, influence and control other forms of energy or radiation, manipulate gravity, and bend or deflect the visible light spectrum around his body.
While he can use his powers to create magnetic fields around non-ferrous objects this is exponentially more difficult for him, requiring so much effort than while weakened he will not be able to do so.
In addition to combat related purposes, his powers make him capable of matter manipulation, of viewing (and to some level influencing and controlling) the entire electromagnetic spectrum, and organic iron manipulation. He understands the theory of using his powers to be a living MRI machine but has not yet perfected this ability yet.
Magneto has an almost subconscious link to the Earth's EM field. As a result, he forever knows what is happening to it, draws from it unconsciously, and uses it as a sort of permanent map - meaning he doesn't get lost - at the same time, the Earth's field grants him a sort of odd immortality.
In rare instances, his is able to channel vast amounts of magnetic energy to boost his strength, stamina, durability, reflexes, and speed to superhuman levels. There is a cost to his - and a high one - leaving him weakened and exhausted if not unconscious, causing debilitating migraine headaches and occasionally petite mal and grand mal seizures, and leaving him at a high risk of a brain hemorrhage.
He has also been shown as able to use Cerebra and on at least on occasion, enter the Astral Plane.
Magneto suffers from Post-traumatic Stress Disorder but has chosen thus far not to receive treatment. Minor fluxes in energy around him, from lightening storms, power stations and sub stations, and other small surges can affect him, especially if he is caught off guard. Large fluxes, from solar flares, solar storms, near gamma ray bursts, and other surges of EM energy do affect him. In peak health, he can normally monitor for these fluxes and prepare himself for the overload. If he is ill or injured, he is less able to prepare himself and more adversely affected. These effects are the same ones his suffers from due to the nature of his powers, only amplified.
His powers cause chronic migraine headaches, and occasional nose bleeds. He has a history of seizures, mostly petite mal seizures, and brain hemorrhages. Only a trusted few - Charles Xavier and Isabelle - have ever known the full extent of the physical toll his powers place on his body. He is paranoid and distrustful, and there forth not likely to seek medical intervention or help unless in dire need. In that vein, his powers are linked to his neurological health. An injury to his nervous system WILL affect his powers, with an injury to his central nervous system proving the most destructive.
One side effect of his powers is the creation of ozone. While ozone is detectable in high connections to normal people, to those with enhanced sense a lingering order of ozone is always be detected. Ozone in high concretions is toxic however Magneto's body has evolved in order to breathe it safely. While not a side effect to him, pure oxygen is high flammable, a concern he must weigh in combat situations. Ozone is pale blue gas, detectable with normal human senses at around 0.01 parts-per-million and smells like chlorine bleach - it would not be outside the realm of possibility for someone to think he's wearing a freshly washed white shirt most times. From .1 to 1ppm Ozone starts to become hazardous to people, causing headaches, blurry eyes/burning vision, and respiratory distress. Ozone will start to dissipate after about 30 minutes in normal atmospheric conditions but in even low level amounts can harm latex, plastics, and sensitive plant life.
Another side effect is the accumulation of static electricity on his person, meaning he has to constantly discharge it or risk damaging electronic equipment.
Also due to how his body has adapted to his powers, he has a higher need for iron and electrolytes than a normal person, and a slightly higher need for copper. Also, he has slight polycythermia which means that his blood contains more red blood cells than it should, which in a body not built for this would cause many health problems. Magneto's body however adapted to this as it did to the ozone production. There is an added benefit that if someone receives a transfusion of his blood, they get more of the red-blood cells than in a standard donation - like receiving a 'double count' pack of cells, or a pint of blood product with an additional pint's worth of red blood cells added.
An added sidenote, while it may or may not be related to his powers, Magneto gets horribly seasick.
Added notes for Siren's Pull:
When teleported, Magneto's link to the Earth's to the EM field is broken, and the result leaves him violently ill. While able to function on a basic level, he's left mostly unable to utilize his powers save in very basic ways while he readjusts - in a normal place this can happen relatively quickly. In a place like Siren's Pull...there is some interference. Also, Magneto's powers are directly linked to his health over all, and to the health of his nervous system in particular - especially his central nervous system. At the point of canon I took him from, he was only operating on his basic power levels and without Wanda there to boost him, he won't be returning to full power for over a year.
Conditional: If your character has no superhuman canon abilities, what dormant ability will you give them? n/a
Weapons: He makes his own weapons as he needs them but prefers to use his own powers.
History/Personality/Plans/etc.
Character History:
31 October 1928: Born firstborn son to Jakob and Edie Eisenhardt, named Maximillian ‘Max’ Eisenhardt, the second child (Ruthie, born 1926) in Germany
The Eisenhardt family was fairly well off, and well integrated Reform Jews. Jakob had fought in ‘The Great War’ and was a well decorated soldier saving the life of a Major Jurgen Scharf, later in life he was a civil servant.
15 September 1935: Nuremberg Laws passed causing some hardship for the family.
1936: Berlin Olympics - Jakob takes Max to Berlin by train to meet with Major Scharf and try to get his job back. Jakob is arrested by the Gestapo and badly beaten. Major Scharf knocked Max to the ground, nearly knocking him unconscious, and leaving him in a crumbled heap on the sidewalk. Many hours later, Major Scharf brings Jakob out, declaring the Gestapo would have killed him without his intervention, and they are now even. Jakob and Max return home by train.
9th - 10th November 1938: Kristallnacht
11 November 1938: Family Jakob, Edie, uncle Erich, Ruth, and Max flee Germany to Poland, where they are forced into the Ghetto. There, unknown to each other, Max and his Uncle Erich become smugglers. They are both quite successful even though the Eisenhardt family, Ruthie in particular, are suffering the effects of starvation. At one instance, when Max witnesses a Nazi kill a Jew, he attempts to go after him with a penknife. He is stopped by his Uncle Erich, who tells him that if he had been able to succeed, many of their people would have died.
19 April, 1943 - 16 May, 1943 Warsaw Ghetto Uprising Uncle Erich stays behind to fight in the Uprising. Young Max wants to, but is convinced to go with his mother, father, and sister. This night, young Max gets a life lesson from his father. “You were too YOUNG to hear all that. Ach, you're STILL too young. But Max. Max...Sometimes in this life...you get a MOMENT. A time when everything lines up. When anything is possible. When suddenly...you can make things happen. God help us if we TAKE that moment. And God FORGIVE us if we DON'T. My beautiful son...”
April 1943: Jakob, Edie, and Ruth killed by Nazis in mass shooting. Max survived, thanks to his powers, but it left him unconscious, and he was buried alive. He dug his way out, and attempted to flee but was captured.
May 1943: Arrival at Auschwitz II-Birkenau - Max is told by his former headmaster to lie about his age, stating he is eighteen. This saves his life, he was only fourteen at the time. When another boy confesses to being fourteen, he is taken outside and shot.
June 1943: Became Sonderkommando to escape the ‘attention’ of a man, who Magneto recalled as playing a piece of music by Franz Schubet. He worked with Mengele, and was called ‘Naseferatu’ by the children, due to him being so pale. It was there he found the bodies of those the man had chosen, mutated into monsters. Magneto would spend years searching for him, but never found him.
2-3 August, 1944: Gypsy Family Camp murdered - Magda (13) moved to Jewish Woman’s Camp by Max (15), by trading favors. He had been a smuggler in the Ghetto, he continued this trade inside the camps. Years later, Kitty Pride was told how he had saved lives smuggling food and medicine to those in the camp. Moving Magda cost him a lot, and by entrusting her into his care, as far as the other Roma where concerned, her father consented to their marriage.
7 October, 1944: Sonderkommando revolt. Three members of the SS were killed and 451 of the Sonderkommando. Max escaped death this day.
19 January 1945: ‘Max’ and Magda escape Auschwitz II as the camp was being shut down by the Nazi by rushing into the woods and through a hole in the fencing while the guards were busy. One foot, ill, weakened, and near death, they travel to the Carpathians, where Magda still have family.
April: Max and Magda arrive in a Carpathian Mountain village in the Ukraine, Rom community considers Max and Magda wed - Max begins working/learning a trade in construction, while studying at home to make up for his lack of education. Max changed his first name to ‘Erik’ in part to honor his uncle and in part to better fit in with the local population.
September: Erik and Magda Eisenhardt marry in town hall.
30 May: Anya Eisenhardt born, named after Magda’s mother. Erik calls her his talisman, his hope. After all he’s lost, he has blood kin now, and she is his hope for the future, physical proof that things MUST be better now.
21 May: Eisenhardt family moves to Vinnytsia, in part so Erik can further his education.
22 May: Erik takes a day labor’s job and is cheated out of half his pay. After a fight with his (former) employer in which he accidentally uses his powers to fling a crow bar, he returns home. The man calls the KGB and informs the towns’ people. Magda was at market while Anya slept in the inn where they were staying. When the couple arrives home, their find their home aflame, their baby still inside. Although Erik attempts to get inside, his way is blocked by the KGB, and he is brutally beaten while the building - and his child - burns. When Anya’s corpse hits the streets, Erik uses his powers in a big way - destroying much of that section of town and killed, in fact vaporized, all but two people in a multi block radius - himself and Magda. Unable to fully control his powers, he reaches for her hand, meaning to take it and flee, but an arc of magnetic lightening shoots off and Magda thought he meant to kill her too. She fled, leaving him alone with the body of their child. He scooped up Anya’s body and fled, hearing more soldiers. In the woods, in ground still cold, he buried her, alone and unmarked, before the KGB managed to catch up. There he turned their own guns on them and continued to flee.
Later that year, he takes name of ‘Erik Magnus Lehnsherr’ and had paper work forged by George Odekirk and begins search for Magda.
July: He moves to Israel, claiming he needs to find his soul after searching so long for Magda and begins working as an orderly at a psych hospital in Haifa, met Charles Xavier. There, under the urging of Xavier and other doctors, he begins medical school and completes it within four years, beginning his internship after he takes his boards.
June: Baron Strucker and HYDRA attack the hospital where Erik and Charles are working in the month after Erik takes his boards. Patients, including Gabby Haller, are abducted and the two young men go after them. It is during this time they show each other they are mutants, defeat HYDRA. Erik and Charles fight, and Erik leaves, taking the gold with him the Nazis were hiding.
Soon after he began working for Mossad, pushed in direction of CIA, where he hunts Nazi War Criminals while turning them over the Mossad, and keeping their gold, art work, and other stolen treasures. Some he returns to their owner's families, if the families still exist. Some, belonging to his own family, he keeps. During a hunt for Josef Mengele, he meet Isabelle Romao, a doctor. She becomes his physician, and later the two fall in love and she joins him while he continues his hunt. Isabelle is murdered in retaliation for his working for Moassd and Magneto is born.
For years he wages small 'war', fighting much as he did in the Ghetto's - a guerrilla fight against people he no longer trusted to run the world. Sadly this included almost all of the human population. During this time he fought the original X-Men, and eventually, the new group, is deaged to an infant and reaged (during this time Dr Moira MacTaggert 'tinkered' with his DNA, fixed a problem that had been making him mentally unstable, although he has yet to forgive her) and it was during this time when he was attempting to force the world to surrender their nuclear armaments, he badly injuries thirteen year old Kitty Pride. He believes he has killed her and has, in fact, came close. This causes a crisis of conscious for Magneto, so much so, he was willing to allow Storm to kill him. He hands Kitty's body to Storm and flees, going into seclusion on an island he raised in the Bermuda Triangle. While there he meets Aleytys "Lee" Forrester, who later becomes his lover.
Soon after, with Charles Xavier dying, he askd him to step in as headmaster, which he did. During this time the Morlock Massacre occurs, the students were killed and resurrected, Magneto and Storm joined the Hellfire club, and for this and other reasons, his time as headmaster of the New Mutants came to an end.
Soon after Zaladane kidnapped him and Lorna Dane, leading to adventures in Antarctica. With SHIELD’s assistance, Magneto was able to stop her plans and killed her.
After this, he built Avalon, and had it destroyed.
Shortly after the ‘Magneto Protocols’ were enacted which blocked him from using his powers inside the net - blocking him from the planet. When he unleashed a worldwide EMP, fought the X-Men, ripped the adamantium from Wolverine’s bones and due to Xavier’s actions, Onslaught was born.
Astra kidnapped the comatose Magneto and created a clone named Joseph. During this time he was known as ‘Erik the Red’ and murdered George Odekirk. Afterward, he returned to his terrorist cause, blackmailing the world into giving him Genosha. In the end, when declaring war on the rest of the world, Wolverine got his revenge, and crippled him.
Due to his injuries, he was unable to protect Genosha from Cassandra Nova’s attack and believed to have perished. While a being known as Xorn posed as Magneto, he quietly recovered on Genosha, meeting with Xavier to rebuild the shattered nation. While there, he felt the distress of Wanda. When he attempted, almost on instinct, to open a wormhole to rescue her, he was pulled away and landed...somewhere else.
Point in Canon: Excalibur 8 - Magneto while helping to clean up Genosha feels/hears a distress call from Wanda. Unable to leave Genosha but conventional means and desperate to rescue his child, Magneto reached with his power, wrapping gravity and magnetic points for form a wormhole. Rather than land in New York and rescuing Wanda, he finds himself in Siren's Port.
Conditional: Brief summary of previous RP history: n/a
Character Personality:
Conditional: Personality development in previous game:
If one were to ask Magneto to describe his personality, the answer given would be quite different than the answer one might come to through observation.
Which does not mean there are not places where Magneto would agree with any observational data presented.
Magneto is, by nature, a loner. This was not a result of the War, but something he speaks to Xavier about, that even as a boy he wanted to be left alone, to explore nature, “As though the fierce unyielding emptiness without struck a resonant echo within my heart and soul.” There is something haunting about a man who can admit to such loneness, even as a child, and the weight of that has not diminished over time.
Magneto admits his happiest time was in the USSR with Magda and Anya, a self and home taught scholar working as a carpenter to support his family while dreaming of being an engineer. However quiet an existence this was, even still he was a man of action, actively tutoring himself in a Roma village where books and formal education are met with suspicion at best, while working a physically demanding, punishing job as a primarily a carpenter but also as a day laborer. This is not the action of a man who is able to sit around on his thumbs.
He is also devoted, even obsessively so, to his family and those he loves. He has told Cyclops there are none left that bear his name, and that he comes from a large family - given he himself changed his name post-War, it is not difficult to imagine others doing so. Then there were children smuggled away and adopted out - and yet, he knows he is the sole surviving member of his family. That takes an obsessive level of devotion. As does his searching Europe, mostly on foot, for Magda after she abandoned him. To quote himself, ““I was willing to deny who I was, everything that my family died for, so that I could find one woman…” This speaks highly of the lengths he is willing to go. The people and causes that matter to him are placed above his own needs - and certainly, an IDENTITY is a fundamental need.
Magneto gives himself, often times, completely to his cause, be it discovering the fates of his family members, searching for his wife, hunting War Criminals, or working as an orderly in a hospital. These are selfless actions, and in them, he becomes so devoted that he loses sight of the bigger picture. He’ll become so devoted to a task he forgets his own needs, or believes to be to be less important, even when dealing in matters of sleep and food.
Through a Mirror, Darkly:
For a man with such extensive in field training of medicine and psychology, Magneto is frighteningly, cripplingly blind to his nature.
Magneto would tell you he is a realist and has a will to survive second to none. Magneto would not deny having a healthy ego.
The fact that his ‘ego’ is sometimes twisted in megalomania, and that he has been blindly arrogant is more related to the ravages of his powers than an ego out of check. He isn’t a braggart, nor is he falsely modest. For the most part, you are not going to injury him by striking at his ego, although those he has a strong attachment to will. However due to being brought to adulthood in a world that did not tolerate weakness - indeed weakness would mean certain death - he may not allow the wounds to be seen. His own sense of self assuredness can leave him blind however, meaning that it takes an incredibly forceful metaphorical kick to the head to make him realize the error of his ways. Which is not to say he cannot grow and change - but it is slow and subtle, so much so that he often believes himself incapable of it. And this is perhaps what hamstrings him. One has to wonder if a man born bare the surname of ‘Eisenhardt’ was meant to embody is so completely.
Certainly, he has a strong will. It has been credited to be so strong as to give him equal footing against Xavier in a telepathic attack. It certainly takes a strength of will often unseen to survive what he has survived - life in the Ghettos, the murder of his family, being buried alive, Auschwitz-Birkenau, life as a Sonderkommando, the murder of a child, the lost of a beloved wife, the murder of a lover, trust betrayed again and again by those he should have been able to trust, and the genocide at Genosha, to name a few - and to continue to pick himself up, keep going, keep breathing, keeping believing that the world can be made to be a better place.
But that is not the behavior of a ‘realist’. That is a behavior of a romantic - even an idealist. Magneto is certainly romantic in his relationships with women, and certainly seems to believe that relationships are long term. His grief over the loss of Magda, even over thirty years later, and his devotion to his lover Lee, even long after their relationship ended speaks to how completely committed he is to those he loves. He truly believes in the strength of his own will, given to melodrama and grandiosity, his ability to carry a grudge and hatred years after the event and his ability to carry love and loyalty to person years after others would have given up all point to a deeply romantic nature. Even his work - and what many forget for all his political scheming, Magneto is a genius and a devoted scientist. His devotion to his work - and the rage at losing it - it was caused him to nearly kill Kitty Pryde. He is a man ruled by his heart, his passions, with that great intellect put to work after the fact to explain it, and explain it so well that he believes himself.
Clinical Pathology:
Is Magneto a victim or a survivor in the psychological sense of resilience?
Despite the fact that Magneto has a strong will to survive, and strong survival instincts, he is not what psychologists would call a model of resilience. He has remained very much a victim of his experiences.
An external lotus of control:
How an abused child views fate and control.
An external lotus of control is a belief that one’s fate lays outside one’s hands. This is not uncommon in children who have been abused. They were so completely powerless, so helpless, and despite as adult intellectually knowing better, often believe the abuse they suffered was their own fault. Magneto wasn’t the “classic” example of an abused child - it was not his parents or a family member that abused him. Not even a teacher - his headmaster was quite fond of him. No, Magneto was abused by his classmates, by strangers, by the police, by soldiers, and later by medical personal, camp guards, and other inmates. Even his uncle Erich’s intervention when the young man acted to avenge a murder of a Jewish boy by a Nazi in the Ghetto’s reinforced his on helplessness. Strike back against those that abuse you and your people, and you will simply be the cause of more of us being slaughtered. A necessary lesson, to be sure, but at the cost of teaching Magneto that others are in control of his fate, and that even acting in a justified manner only causes more death.
He grew to blame fate. And in denying fate, he absolves himself of responsibility for his own choices. Fate is the fault of his broken children, not his own choices, the damage wrought by children having a terrorist for a father. He blames the past for shaping him while denying his own responsibility for making the choices that have cost so many lives, and lead to so much suffering. He reacts, he doesn’t act. This leaves him feeling as if he never in control of his life.
And, like most who believe the centralizing forces that control their lives are beyond their control, Magneto attempts control EVERYTHING around him. He’s built grand citadels and staffed them with robots, when he staffed them at all. He ‘commanded’ his Brotherhood with ruthlessness. In several instances with the women in his life, when they have attempted to leave him, he has physically stopped them - or in Magda’s case, attempted to. Even his twins, who he no doubt feels a very strong paternal responsibility for, and loves - but doesn’t trust - he attempts to ‘cultivate’ a relationship, built on loyalty rather than love, to bind them to him and control the situation. He was only beginning to learn the error of his ways when Pietro interfered and Wanda created the House of M world - and when Magneto found out how his son had manipulated him, he reacted in sheer blind rage - the result, had Wanda not intervened, would have been him beating his only son to death for accidentally tripping over one of the worse triggers Magneto has - ripping the control of his life away from him.
Survivor’s Guilt and PTSD:
Wanda and Pietro aren’t the only twins in Magneto’s life.
The fact that Magneto suffers from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder seems to be only hidden from himself. The chronic insomnia; routine flashbacks and constant nightmares causing him to relive not only the Holocaust but the death of Anya and the loss of his wife; inability to form and maintain interpersonal relationships passed a superficial level - with the exception of Xavier, leaving him emotionally cut off; the irritability, aggression, and violence that colors his nature; the quickness of his mind to make connections between past negative events and current ones, as well as the permanence of them; and how they rule his thinking - these are all textbook of PTSD. The only difference between Magneto and the “classic” presentation is that rather than avoid the circumstances that caused the trauma, he seeks them out. He attends Holocaust memorials, has visited Auschwitz at least once, placed Avalon of the co-ordinates of Anya’s grave - what better marker for his beloved child than that! - and has visited the marker he set up for his beloved wife.
There are sub fields within PTSD and in Magneto’s case, he crushing load of Survivor’s Guilt. This only makes sense - twice now he has been one of the few survivors of Genocide. Twice now, he has been (or thought to have been) the single survivor of an event which was planned to murder his entire family. And in both acts of genocide, in both losses of family - he had the power to stop it. To save them all. If only he had known. If only he had been prepared.
Guilt & Self Hatred, Depression & Suicidal ideology:
And like Wanda, Survivor’s guilt has created its own set of twins, though there are two set.
Guilt & Self Hatred:
There is no mistaking the guilt that comes with Survivor’s Guilt. The need to apologize for surviving when others died by making one’s life WORTH something - that is Magneto in a nutshell. But coming with guilt is self-hatred. And Magneto has it. In soul crushing amounts. Magneto didn’t just witness the massacre of his people - he HELPED. Had he been fed enough, he would have had have the power to save them. But instead, he helped in not only their murder, but in the desecration of the bodies. While he has mostly convinced himself that he has overcome the shame he once felt by convincing himself he did what he must to survive, he has not been able to do so any more than he has overcome the self hatred. Even his actions as Auschwitz - continuing his smuggling as he had in the Ghettos - which saved lived doesn’t ease that, as it was born partly out of shame for how he was surviving. This is also something he has never spoken about to anyone, save Xavier, and is probably the reason that friendship has remained throughout all - Xavier knows, to Magneto’s mind, the true extent of what horrible things Magneto has done, knows the true extent of what a horrid person he is - and yet, has remained his friend, despite them both acting against each other, although self-sabotaging behavior is normal with that level of self-hatred. He vents his rage, or blinds himself to betrayals he should have seen coming, or simply alienated those who would be his allies.
Depression & Suicidal ideology:
Nor is his self hatred limited to subconscious acts. He may have an indomitable strength of will, but he has been suicidal on and off longer than he has known Xavier. “I should have died…” he has said. At another time, “Too late to do anything but die!” Most recently, he quite calmly asked Xavier to kill him, choosing to die rather than witness the loss of another child. He simply stated he want to be at peace.
Hatred and Prejudice:
To which ‘-ism’s is Magneto guilty of?
There are a few ‘-ism’s Magneto could be accused of, sexism, ageism, racism/speciesism being the ones most often thrown around.
Two of the three can be answered in one example - he willing followed Storm’s orders, without there being an issue, while working with the X-Men. If he were discount someone solely based on age or sex, then there would not have been a frictionless working relationship between them. But there are countless dismissive comments towards females - exclaiming “Woman!” or - even worse - “Foolish Female!” on more than one occasion, and his fairly common “My dear” really isn’t much better. But is this sexism or merely the product of having been raised in the 1930’s? Again, refer to his relationship with women and you see it’s not born of sexism but of a different time. It is masculinity without machismos - he needed flirt or seduce with every female he crosses, or doesn’t underestimate women in their opinions or training - in fact seems to enjoy working with strong women, rather than being threatened by them.
Now, to the bigger question, is Magneto racist? No. Speciesist yes. Without a doubt. Sort of. In general, Magneto is more than a bit of a misanthrope, and clearly guilty of speciesism but at the same time - his wife Magda, Isabelle, Lee Forester - these were all HUMAN women he did love. Two of them at least cared for him as well, despite knowing he was a mutant. He’s shown attending a Holocaust memorial, clearly on good terms with a couple there - he can get passed the attitude and the prejudice, when he stops seeing someone as ‘human’ and sees them as a person, an individual.
Character Plans:
No huge plans. Magneto was just beginning a journey towards realizing what the cost of his life had been on those he loves, starting with his children. It is something he will need to continue to work on.
Appearance/PB: http://www.comicvine.com/magneto/29-1441/earth-616-magneto/108-2/85771-magneto/105-287726/
Writing Samples
First Person Sample
[He lifts his wrist, comlink open to audio, the air filled with the high-pitched whine, soft static, and intermittent sharp crackles of the energy from being inside his EM forcefield.]
Wicked? Freakshow? Children? Callisto? Someone, come in.
[after a beat, the air goes quiet, he reroutes to X-Men and various groups comlink channels]
Hello various X-men. Contrary to common belief, I am not dead. I am however trapped and the Scarlet Witch is in desperate need of help. Somehow I was lost while trying to rescue her. Assistance requested.
[just empty static, but he waits before switching to open channels]
If anyone can overhear this transmission, my name is Erik Lehnsherr, also known as Magneto, President of the Republic of Genosha. My transportation appears to have been hijacked en route to New York. It is imperative that I be on my way. Anyone offering assistance with be rewarded. Thank you.
[the air goes mostly silent as he stops transmissions but leaves the unit open]
Third Person Sample
Magneto rested his chin on his hand, making a careful study of the reports over the screen. Most would have given up hours ago, content to search out the mistake in the morning, but Master of Magnetism was no ordinary person. Somewhere in his data there was a mistake. Whether an error in his data or a key stroke mistake he wasn’t sure, but he wanted this simulation run by morning - or at least sun up as it was morning now. Around three, if his internal clock was to be trusted.
Reaching out with his palm upturned, the handless metal coffee cup lifted off the warmer plate near the central panel and landed in his hand. Wrapping his fingers around the warmth, he raised it and took a sip, enjoying the aroma. He stroked his thumb along the cup, the subtle texture to the metal a pleasure to his senses. As he watched the lines of data move over the screen, his eyes focused. Something didn’t seem right. Making tiny motions with a fingertip, the movement slowed to a crawl, backed up, and line by line played out. THERE! A simple inversion in the binary. With a couple soft clacks of the keys, the information was corrected and he began to play the simulation.
Prefect. Just as his research had suggested it would occur. Saving the baseline, he begin reading the other factors, accounting for various adverse weather phenomenons, well meaning but ill trained interventions by others, various mutant powers and their effects, and combinations of the three, and suggestions as how to correct damage done. Satisfied with the work, he saved his data, sent his mug to the sink, rinsing it out and turning it upside down on the towel to dry and stood. He stretched slowly, his muscle knotted and complaining, protesting his long period of sitting in a chair however comfortable it was made to be. As he turned to dim the lights, he stroked a finger along his jaw. He hadn’t shaved since the morning before, and the stubble rasped against his touch. A shave then, and a shower, then perhaps sleep if fate where kind.
Name: Komix
Age: 26
AIM SN: komikbookgeek
email: komikbookgeek@gmail.com
Have you played in an LJ based game before? I have, yes.
Bonus: How did you hear about Siren's Pull? From thelittlestbub
Character Information
General
Canon Source: Marvel 616
Canon Format: Comics
Character's Name: Magneto, aka Erik Magnus Lehnsherr
Character's Age: 80ish but appears in his early 40's due to being de-aged to infancy and re-aged to adulthood. It appears his body is aging more slowly but this could be a factor of his mutation as he is immune to harm from UV radiation.
Conditional: If your character is 13 years of age or under, please clarify how they will be played.
What form will your character's NV take? It appears to be a standard men's wrist watch, but is actually an advanced comlink unit, powered by Magneto's powers. With a tap, a holographic image pops up, able to display a 'screen' in 2D or 3D, and ranging in size from a credit card to a 12in widescreen display although quality of the 3D images suffer greatly when expanded. Although there is not true keyboard or touchpad, with other taps along the dial holographic images of a keyboard or wheel with arrows pops up to be used, although Magneto can imput data without them. The face of the 'watch' acts as a camera and/or microphone when activated but also displays the time when not active.
Abilities
Character's Canon Abilities:
Magneto is an Alpha level mutant whose primary powers lie in magnetic field manipulation. He can manipulate magnetic fields, be they natural or artificial. This makes his power practically limitless, the only stumbling blocks being Magneto's own perceptions of his power and his physical condition at the time.
The main powers he relies on for defensive combat would be creating magnetic force fields, magnetic flight, and matter manipulation. His force field can be quickly expanded to protect large areas, or to include several people and is capable of withstanding some of the most extreme environments, from nuclear strikes, the vacuum of space, and multiple concurrent attacks. Magneto flight is Magneto's main mode of long-term travel. He can accomplish flight in two ways, by either manipulating magnetic fields between himself and the Earth or by gliding along the naturally occurring magnetic lines of the Earth. While the latter is far quicker, it is also far more dangerous and technically difficult as Magneto does not possess speedster reflexes and enhanced senses in order to travel safety in this way he must use his force field to protect himself and must concentrate a great deal on where he is over the planet. When he is flying at any speed at all by any method, he must take precautions normally through the use of his armor and his force field to protect himself from friction and debris. As a result, typically when he is traveling at speeds greater than twenty miles an hour or while flying through debris filled area he has to use his force field.
During offensive combat Magneto uses pretty much whatever he can to win, or failing winning, survive and escape. Using his powers he can create bolts of magnetic force or lightening, electricity, influence and control other forms of energy or radiation, manipulate gravity, and bend or deflect the visible light spectrum around his body.
While he can use his powers to create magnetic fields around non-ferrous objects this is exponentially more difficult for him, requiring so much effort than while weakened he will not be able to do so.
In addition to combat related purposes, his powers make him capable of matter manipulation, of viewing (and to some level influencing and controlling) the entire electromagnetic spectrum, and organic iron manipulation. He understands the theory of using his powers to be a living MRI machine but has not yet perfected this ability yet.
Magneto has an almost subconscious link to the Earth's EM field. As a result, he forever knows what is happening to it, draws from it unconsciously, and uses it as a sort of permanent map - meaning he doesn't get lost - at the same time, the Earth's field grants him a sort of odd immortality.
In rare instances, his is able to channel vast amounts of magnetic energy to boost his strength, stamina, durability, reflexes, and speed to superhuman levels. There is a cost to his - and a high one - leaving him weakened and exhausted if not unconscious, causing debilitating migraine headaches and occasionally petite mal and grand mal seizures, and leaving him at a high risk of a brain hemorrhage.
He has also been shown as able to use Cerebra and on at least on occasion, enter the Astral Plane.
Magneto suffers from Post-traumatic Stress Disorder but has chosen thus far not to receive treatment. Minor fluxes in energy around him, from lightening storms, power stations and sub stations, and other small surges can affect him, especially if he is caught off guard. Large fluxes, from solar flares, solar storms, near gamma ray bursts, and other surges of EM energy do affect him. In peak health, he can normally monitor for these fluxes and prepare himself for the overload. If he is ill or injured, he is less able to prepare himself and more adversely affected. These effects are the same ones his suffers from due to the nature of his powers, only amplified.
His powers cause chronic migraine headaches, and occasional nose bleeds. He has a history of seizures, mostly petite mal seizures, and brain hemorrhages. Only a trusted few - Charles Xavier and Isabelle - have ever known the full extent of the physical toll his powers place on his body. He is paranoid and distrustful, and there forth not likely to seek medical intervention or help unless in dire need. In that vein, his powers are linked to his neurological health. An injury to his nervous system WILL affect his powers, with an injury to his central nervous system proving the most destructive.
One side effect of his powers is the creation of ozone. While ozone is detectable in high connections to normal people, to those with enhanced sense a lingering order of ozone is always be detected. Ozone in high concretions is toxic however Magneto's body has evolved in order to breathe it safely. While not a side effect to him, pure oxygen is high flammable, a concern he must weigh in combat situations. Ozone is pale blue gas, detectable with normal human senses at around 0.01 parts-per-million and smells like chlorine bleach - it would not be outside the realm of possibility for someone to think he's wearing a freshly washed white shirt most times. From .1 to 1ppm Ozone starts to become hazardous to people, causing headaches, blurry eyes/burning vision, and respiratory distress. Ozone will start to dissipate after about 30 minutes in normal atmospheric conditions but in even low level amounts can harm latex, plastics, and sensitive plant life.
Another side effect is the accumulation of static electricity on his person, meaning he has to constantly discharge it or risk damaging electronic equipment.
Also due to how his body has adapted to his powers, he has a higher need for iron and electrolytes than a normal person, and a slightly higher need for copper. Also, he has slight polycythermia which means that his blood contains more red blood cells than it should, which in a body not built for this would cause many health problems. Magneto's body however adapted to this as it did to the ozone production. There is an added benefit that if someone receives a transfusion of his blood, they get more of the red-blood cells than in a standard donation - like receiving a 'double count' pack of cells, or a pint of blood product with an additional pint's worth of red blood cells added.
An added sidenote, while it may or may not be related to his powers, Magneto gets horribly seasick.
Added notes for Siren's Pull:
When teleported, Magneto's link to the Earth's to the EM field is broken, and the result leaves him violently ill. While able to function on a basic level, he's left mostly unable to utilize his powers save in very basic ways while he readjusts - in a normal place this can happen relatively quickly. In a place like Siren's Pull...there is some interference. Also, Magneto's powers are directly linked to his health over all, and to the health of his nervous system in particular - especially his central nervous system. At the point of canon I took him from, he was only operating on his basic power levels and without Wanda there to boost him, he won't be returning to full power for over a year.
Conditional: If your character has no superhuman canon abilities, what dormant ability will you give them? n/a
Weapons: He makes his own weapons as he needs them but prefers to use his own powers.
History/Personality/Plans/etc.
Character History:
31 October 1928: Born firstborn son to Jakob and Edie Eisenhardt, named Maximillian ‘Max’ Eisenhardt, the second child (Ruthie, born 1926) in Germany
The Eisenhardt family was fairly well off, and well integrated Reform Jews. Jakob had fought in ‘The Great War’ and was a well decorated soldier saving the life of a Major Jurgen Scharf, later in life he was a civil servant.
15 September 1935: Nuremberg Laws passed causing some hardship for the family.
1936: Berlin Olympics - Jakob takes Max to Berlin by train to meet with Major Scharf and try to get his job back. Jakob is arrested by the Gestapo and badly beaten. Major Scharf knocked Max to the ground, nearly knocking him unconscious, and leaving him in a crumbled heap on the sidewalk. Many hours later, Major Scharf brings Jakob out, declaring the Gestapo would have killed him without his intervention, and they are now even. Jakob and Max return home by train.
9th - 10th November 1938: Kristallnacht
11 November 1938: Family Jakob, Edie, uncle Erich, Ruth, and Max flee Germany to Poland, where they are forced into the Ghetto. There, unknown to each other, Max and his Uncle Erich become smugglers. They are both quite successful even though the Eisenhardt family, Ruthie in particular, are suffering the effects of starvation. At one instance, when Max witnesses a Nazi kill a Jew, he attempts to go after him with a penknife. He is stopped by his Uncle Erich, who tells him that if he had been able to succeed, many of their people would have died.
19 April, 1943 - 16 May, 1943 Warsaw Ghetto Uprising Uncle Erich stays behind to fight in the Uprising. Young Max wants to, but is convinced to go with his mother, father, and sister. This night, young Max gets a life lesson from his father. “You were too YOUNG to hear all that. Ach, you're STILL too young. But Max. Max...Sometimes in this life...you get a MOMENT. A time when everything lines up. When anything is possible. When suddenly...you can make things happen. God help us if we TAKE that moment. And God FORGIVE us if we DON'T. My beautiful son...”
April 1943: Jakob, Edie, and Ruth killed by Nazis in mass shooting. Max survived, thanks to his powers, but it left him unconscious, and he was buried alive. He dug his way out, and attempted to flee but was captured.
May 1943: Arrival at Auschwitz II-Birkenau - Max is told by his former headmaster to lie about his age, stating he is eighteen. This saves his life, he was only fourteen at the time. When another boy confesses to being fourteen, he is taken outside and shot.
June 1943: Became Sonderkommando to escape the ‘attention’ of a man, who Magneto recalled as playing a piece of music by Franz Schubet. He worked with Mengele, and was called ‘Naseferatu’ by the children, due to him being so pale. It was there he found the bodies of those the man had chosen, mutated into monsters. Magneto would spend years searching for him, but never found him.
2-3 August, 1944: Gypsy Family Camp murdered - Magda (13) moved to Jewish Woman’s Camp by Max (15), by trading favors. He had been a smuggler in the Ghetto, he continued this trade inside the camps. Years later, Kitty Pride was told how he had saved lives smuggling food and medicine to those in the camp. Moving Magda cost him a lot, and by entrusting her into his care, as far as the other Roma where concerned, her father consented to their marriage.
7 October, 1944: Sonderkommando revolt. Three members of the SS were killed and 451 of the Sonderkommando. Max escaped death this day.
19 January 1945: ‘Max’ and Magda escape Auschwitz II as the camp was being shut down by the Nazi by rushing into the woods and through a hole in the fencing while the guards were busy. One foot, ill, weakened, and near death, they travel to the Carpathians, where Magda still have family.
April: Max and Magda arrive in a Carpathian Mountain village in the Ukraine, Rom community considers Max and Magda wed - Max begins working/learning a trade in construction, while studying at home to make up for his lack of education. Max changed his first name to ‘Erik’ in part to honor his uncle and in part to better fit in with the local population.
September: Erik and Magda Eisenhardt marry in town hall.
30 May: Anya Eisenhardt born, named after Magda’s mother. Erik calls her his talisman, his hope. After all he’s lost, he has blood kin now, and she is his hope for the future, physical proof that things MUST be better now.
21 May: Eisenhardt family moves to Vinnytsia, in part so Erik can further his education.
22 May: Erik takes a day labor’s job and is cheated out of half his pay. After a fight with his (former) employer in which he accidentally uses his powers to fling a crow bar, he returns home. The man calls the KGB and informs the towns’ people. Magda was at market while Anya slept in the inn where they were staying. When the couple arrives home, their find their home aflame, their baby still inside. Although Erik attempts to get inside, his way is blocked by the KGB, and he is brutally beaten while the building - and his child - burns. When Anya’s corpse hits the streets, Erik uses his powers in a big way - destroying much of that section of town and killed, in fact vaporized, all but two people in a multi block radius - himself and Magda. Unable to fully control his powers, he reaches for her hand, meaning to take it and flee, but an arc of magnetic lightening shoots off and Magda thought he meant to kill her too. She fled, leaving him alone with the body of their child. He scooped up Anya’s body and fled, hearing more soldiers. In the woods, in ground still cold, he buried her, alone and unmarked, before the KGB managed to catch up. There he turned their own guns on them and continued to flee.
Later that year, he takes name of ‘Erik Magnus Lehnsherr’ and had paper work forged by George Odekirk and begins search for Magda.
July: He moves to Israel, claiming he needs to find his soul after searching so long for Magda and begins working as an orderly at a psych hospital in Haifa, met Charles Xavier. There, under the urging of Xavier and other doctors, he begins medical school and completes it within four years, beginning his internship after he takes his boards.
June: Baron Strucker and HYDRA attack the hospital where Erik and Charles are working in the month after Erik takes his boards. Patients, including Gabby Haller, are abducted and the two young men go after them. It is during this time they show each other they are mutants, defeat HYDRA. Erik and Charles fight, and Erik leaves, taking the gold with him the Nazis were hiding.
Soon after he began working for Mossad, pushed in direction of CIA, where he hunts Nazi War Criminals while turning them over the Mossad, and keeping their gold, art work, and other stolen treasures. Some he returns to their owner's families, if the families still exist. Some, belonging to his own family, he keeps. During a hunt for Josef Mengele, he meet Isabelle Romao, a doctor. She becomes his physician, and later the two fall in love and she joins him while he continues his hunt. Isabelle is murdered in retaliation for his working for Moassd and Magneto is born.
For years he wages small 'war', fighting much as he did in the Ghetto's - a guerrilla fight against people he no longer trusted to run the world. Sadly this included almost all of the human population. During this time he fought the original X-Men, and eventually, the new group, is deaged to an infant and reaged (during this time Dr Moira MacTaggert 'tinkered' with his DNA, fixed a problem that had been making him mentally unstable, although he has yet to forgive her) and it was during this time when he was attempting to force the world to surrender their nuclear armaments, he badly injuries thirteen year old Kitty Pride. He believes he has killed her and has, in fact, came close. This causes a crisis of conscious for Magneto, so much so, he was willing to allow Storm to kill him. He hands Kitty's body to Storm and flees, going into seclusion on an island he raised in the Bermuda Triangle. While there he meets Aleytys "Lee" Forrester, who later becomes his lover.
Soon after, with Charles Xavier dying, he askd him to step in as headmaster, which he did. During this time the Morlock Massacre occurs, the students were killed and resurrected, Magneto and Storm joined the Hellfire club, and for this and other reasons, his time as headmaster of the New Mutants came to an end.
Soon after Zaladane kidnapped him and Lorna Dane, leading to adventures in Antarctica. With SHIELD’s assistance, Magneto was able to stop her plans and killed her.
After this, he built Avalon, and had it destroyed.
Shortly after the ‘Magneto Protocols’ were enacted which blocked him from using his powers inside the net - blocking him from the planet. When he unleashed a worldwide EMP, fought the X-Men, ripped the adamantium from Wolverine’s bones and due to Xavier’s actions, Onslaught was born.
Astra kidnapped the comatose Magneto and created a clone named Joseph. During this time he was known as ‘Erik the Red’ and murdered George Odekirk. Afterward, he returned to his terrorist cause, blackmailing the world into giving him Genosha. In the end, when declaring war on the rest of the world, Wolverine got his revenge, and crippled him.
Due to his injuries, he was unable to protect Genosha from Cassandra Nova’s attack and believed to have perished. While a being known as Xorn posed as Magneto, he quietly recovered on Genosha, meeting with Xavier to rebuild the shattered nation. While there, he felt the distress of Wanda. When he attempted, almost on instinct, to open a wormhole to rescue her, he was pulled away and landed...somewhere else.
Point in Canon: Excalibur 8 - Magneto while helping to clean up Genosha feels/hears a distress call from Wanda. Unable to leave Genosha but conventional means and desperate to rescue his child, Magneto reached with his power, wrapping gravity and magnetic points for form a wormhole. Rather than land in New York and rescuing Wanda, he finds himself in Siren's Port.
Conditional: Brief summary of previous RP history: n/a
Character Personality:
Conditional: Personality development in previous game:
If one were to ask Magneto to describe his personality, the answer given would be quite different than the answer one might come to through observation.
Which does not mean there are not places where Magneto would agree with any observational data presented.
Magneto is, by nature, a loner. This was not a result of the War, but something he speaks to Xavier about, that even as a boy he wanted to be left alone, to explore nature, “As though the fierce unyielding emptiness without struck a resonant echo within my heart and soul.” There is something haunting about a man who can admit to such loneness, even as a child, and the weight of that has not diminished over time.
Magneto admits his happiest time was in the USSR with Magda and Anya, a self and home taught scholar working as a carpenter to support his family while dreaming of being an engineer. However quiet an existence this was, even still he was a man of action, actively tutoring himself in a Roma village where books and formal education are met with suspicion at best, while working a physically demanding, punishing job as a primarily a carpenter but also as a day laborer. This is not the action of a man who is able to sit around on his thumbs.
He is also devoted, even obsessively so, to his family and those he loves. He has told Cyclops there are none left that bear his name, and that he comes from a large family - given he himself changed his name post-War, it is not difficult to imagine others doing so. Then there were children smuggled away and adopted out - and yet, he knows he is the sole surviving member of his family. That takes an obsessive level of devotion. As does his searching Europe, mostly on foot, for Magda after she abandoned him. To quote himself, ““I was willing to deny who I was, everything that my family died for, so that I could find one woman…” This speaks highly of the lengths he is willing to go. The people and causes that matter to him are placed above his own needs - and certainly, an IDENTITY is a fundamental need.
Magneto gives himself, often times, completely to his cause, be it discovering the fates of his family members, searching for his wife, hunting War Criminals, or working as an orderly in a hospital. These are selfless actions, and in them, he becomes so devoted that he loses sight of the bigger picture. He’ll become so devoted to a task he forgets his own needs, or believes to be to be less important, even when dealing in matters of sleep and food.
Through a Mirror, Darkly:
For a man with such extensive in field training of medicine and psychology, Magneto is frighteningly, cripplingly blind to his nature.
Magneto would tell you he is a realist and has a will to survive second to none. Magneto would not deny having a healthy ego.
The fact that his ‘ego’ is sometimes twisted in megalomania, and that he has been blindly arrogant is more related to the ravages of his powers than an ego out of check. He isn’t a braggart, nor is he falsely modest. For the most part, you are not going to injury him by striking at his ego, although those he has a strong attachment to will. However due to being brought to adulthood in a world that did not tolerate weakness - indeed weakness would mean certain death - he may not allow the wounds to be seen. His own sense of self assuredness can leave him blind however, meaning that it takes an incredibly forceful metaphorical kick to the head to make him realize the error of his ways. Which is not to say he cannot grow and change - but it is slow and subtle, so much so that he often believes himself incapable of it. And this is perhaps what hamstrings him. One has to wonder if a man born bare the surname of ‘Eisenhardt’ was meant to embody is so completely.
Certainly, he has a strong will. It has been credited to be so strong as to give him equal footing against Xavier in a telepathic attack. It certainly takes a strength of will often unseen to survive what he has survived - life in the Ghettos, the murder of his family, being buried alive, Auschwitz-Birkenau, life as a Sonderkommando, the murder of a child, the lost of a beloved wife, the murder of a lover, trust betrayed again and again by those he should have been able to trust, and the genocide at Genosha, to name a few - and to continue to pick himself up, keep going, keep breathing, keeping believing that the world can be made to be a better place.
But that is not the behavior of a ‘realist’. That is a behavior of a romantic - even an idealist. Magneto is certainly romantic in his relationships with women, and certainly seems to believe that relationships are long term. His grief over the loss of Magda, even over thirty years later, and his devotion to his lover Lee, even long after their relationship ended speaks to how completely committed he is to those he loves. He truly believes in the strength of his own will, given to melodrama and grandiosity, his ability to carry a grudge and hatred years after the event and his ability to carry love and loyalty to person years after others would have given up all point to a deeply romantic nature. Even his work - and what many forget for all his political scheming, Magneto is a genius and a devoted scientist. His devotion to his work - and the rage at losing it - it was caused him to nearly kill Kitty Pryde. He is a man ruled by his heart, his passions, with that great intellect put to work after the fact to explain it, and explain it so well that he believes himself.
Clinical Pathology:
Is Magneto a victim or a survivor in the psychological sense of resilience?
Despite the fact that Magneto has a strong will to survive, and strong survival instincts, he is not what psychologists would call a model of resilience. He has remained very much a victim of his experiences.
An external lotus of control:
How an abused child views fate and control.
An external lotus of control is a belief that one’s fate lays outside one’s hands. This is not uncommon in children who have been abused. They were so completely powerless, so helpless, and despite as adult intellectually knowing better, often believe the abuse they suffered was their own fault. Magneto wasn’t the “classic” example of an abused child - it was not his parents or a family member that abused him. Not even a teacher - his headmaster was quite fond of him. No, Magneto was abused by his classmates, by strangers, by the police, by soldiers, and later by medical personal, camp guards, and other inmates. Even his uncle Erich’s intervention when the young man acted to avenge a murder of a Jewish boy by a Nazi in the Ghetto’s reinforced his on helplessness. Strike back against those that abuse you and your people, and you will simply be the cause of more of us being slaughtered. A necessary lesson, to be sure, but at the cost of teaching Magneto that others are in control of his fate, and that even acting in a justified manner only causes more death.
He grew to blame fate. And in denying fate, he absolves himself of responsibility for his own choices. Fate is the fault of his broken children, not his own choices, the damage wrought by children having a terrorist for a father. He blames the past for shaping him while denying his own responsibility for making the choices that have cost so many lives, and lead to so much suffering. He reacts, he doesn’t act. This leaves him feeling as if he never in control of his life.
And, like most who believe the centralizing forces that control their lives are beyond their control, Magneto attempts control EVERYTHING around him. He’s built grand citadels and staffed them with robots, when he staffed them at all. He ‘commanded’ his Brotherhood with ruthlessness. In several instances with the women in his life, when they have attempted to leave him, he has physically stopped them - or in Magda’s case, attempted to. Even his twins, who he no doubt feels a very strong paternal responsibility for, and loves - but doesn’t trust - he attempts to ‘cultivate’ a relationship, built on loyalty rather than love, to bind them to him and control the situation. He was only beginning to learn the error of his ways when Pietro interfered and Wanda created the House of M world - and when Magneto found out how his son had manipulated him, he reacted in sheer blind rage - the result, had Wanda not intervened, would have been him beating his only son to death for accidentally tripping over one of the worse triggers Magneto has - ripping the control of his life away from him.
Survivor’s Guilt and PTSD:
Wanda and Pietro aren’t the only twins in Magneto’s life.
The fact that Magneto suffers from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder seems to be only hidden from himself. The chronic insomnia; routine flashbacks and constant nightmares causing him to relive not only the Holocaust but the death of Anya and the loss of his wife; inability to form and maintain interpersonal relationships passed a superficial level - with the exception of Xavier, leaving him emotionally cut off; the irritability, aggression, and violence that colors his nature; the quickness of his mind to make connections between past negative events and current ones, as well as the permanence of them; and how they rule his thinking - these are all textbook of PTSD. The only difference between Magneto and the “classic” presentation is that rather than avoid the circumstances that caused the trauma, he seeks them out. He attends Holocaust memorials, has visited Auschwitz at least once, placed Avalon of the co-ordinates of Anya’s grave - what better marker for his beloved child than that! - and has visited the marker he set up for his beloved wife.
There are sub fields within PTSD and in Magneto’s case, he crushing load of Survivor’s Guilt. This only makes sense - twice now he has been one of the few survivors of Genocide. Twice now, he has been (or thought to have been) the single survivor of an event which was planned to murder his entire family. And in both acts of genocide, in both losses of family - he had the power to stop it. To save them all. If only he had known. If only he had been prepared.
Guilt & Self Hatred, Depression & Suicidal ideology:
And like Wanda, Survivor’s guilt has created its own set of twins, though there are two set.
Guilt & Self Hatred:
There is no mistaking the guilt that comes with Survivor’s Guilt. The need to apologize for surviving when others died by making one’s life WORTH something - that is Magneto in a nutshell. But coming with guilt is self-hatred. And Magneto has it. In soul crushing amounts. Magneto didn’t just witness the massacre of his people - he HELPED. Had he been fed enough, he would have had have the power to save them. But instead, he helped in not only their murder, but in the desecration of the bodies. While he has mostly convinced himself that he has overcome the shame he once felt by convincing himself he did what he must to survive, he has not been able to do so any more than he has overcome the self hatred. Even his actions as Auschwitz - continuing his smuggling as he had in the Ghettos - which saved lived doesn’t ease that, as it was born partly out of shame for how he was surviving. This is also something he has never spoken about to anyone, save Xavier, and is probably the reason that friendship has remained throughout all - Xavier knows, to Magneto’s mind, the true extent of what horrible things Magneto has done, knows the true extent of what a horrid person he is - and yet, has remained his friend, despite them both acting against each other, although self-sabotaging behavior is normal with that level of self-hatred. He vents his rage, or blinds himself to betrayals he should have seen coming, or simply alienated those who would be his allies.
Depression & Suicidal ideology:
Nor is his self hatred limited to subconscious acts. He may have an indomitable strength of will, but he has been suicidal on and off longer than he has known Xavier. “I should have died…” he has said. At another time, “Too late to do anything but die!” Most recently, he quite calmly asked Xavier to kill him, choosing to die rather than witness the loss of another child. He simply stated he want to be at peace.
Hatred and Prejudice:
To which ‘-ism’s is Magneto guilty of?
There are a few ‘-ism’s Magneto could be accused of, sexism, ageism, racism/speciesism being the ones most often thrown around.
Two of the three can be answered in one example - he willing followed Storm’s orders, without there being an issue, while working with the X-Men. If he were discount someone solely based on age or sex, then there would not have been a frictionless working relationship between them. But there are countless dismissive comments towards females - exclaiming “Woman!” or - even worse - “Foolish Female!” on more than one occasion, and his fairly common “My dear” really isn’t much better. But is this sexism or merely the product of having been raised in the 1930’s? Again, refer to his relationship with women and you see it’s not born of sexism but of a different time. It is masculinity without machismos - he needed flirt or seduce with every female he crosses, or doesn’t underestimate women in their opinions or training - in fact seems to enjoy working with strong women, rather than being threatened by them.
Now, to the bigger question, is Magneto racist? No. Speciesist yes. Without a doubt. Sort of. In general, Magneto is more than a bit of a misanthrope, and clearly guilty of speciesism but at the same time - his wife Magda, Isabelle, Lee Forester - these were all HUMAN women he did love. Two of them at least cared for him as well, despite knowing he was a mutant. He’s shown attending a Holocaust memorial, clearly on good terms with a couple there - he can get passed the attitude and the prejudice, when he stops seeing someone as ‘human’ and sees them as a person, an individual.
Character Plans:
No huge plans. Magneto was just beginning a journey towards realizing what the cost of his life had been on those he loves, starting with his children. It is something he will need to continue to work on.
Appearance/PB: http://www.comicvine.com/magneto/29-1441/earth-616-magneto/108-2/85771-magneto/105-287726/
Writing Samples
First Person Sample
[He lifts his wrist, comlink open to audio, the air filled with the high-pitched whine, soft static, and intermittent sharp crackles of the energy from being inside his EM forcefield.]
Wicked? Freakshow? Children? Callisto? Someone, come in.
[after a beat, the air goes quiet, he reroutes to X-Men and various groups comlink channels]
Hello various X-men. Contrary to common belief, I am not dead. I am however trapped and the Scarlet Witch is in desperate need of help. Somehow I was lost while trying to rescue her. Assistance requested.
[just empty static, but he waits before switching to open channels]
If anyone can overhear this transmission, my name is Erik Lehnsherr, also known as Magneto, President of the Republic of Genosha. My transportation appears to have been hijacked en route to New York. It is imperative that I be on my way. Anyone offering assistance with be rewarded. Thank you.
[the air goes mostly silent as he stops transmissions but leaves the unit open]
Third Person Sample
Magneto rested his chin on his hand, making a careful study of the reports over the screen. Most would have given up hours ago, content to search out the mistake in the morning, but Master of Magnetism was no ordinary person. Somewhere in his data there was a mistake. Whether an error in his data or a key stroke mistake he wasn’t sure, but he wanted this simulation run by morning - or at least sun up as it was morning now. Around three, if his internal clock was to be trusted.
Reaching out with his palm upturned, the handless metal coffee cup lifted off the warmer plate near the central panel and landed in his hand. Wrapping his fingers around the warmth, he raised it and took a sip, enjoying the aroma. He stroked his thumb along the cup, the subtle texture to the metal a pleasure to his senses. As he watched the lines of data move over the screen, his eyes focused. Something didn’t seem right. Making tiny motions with a fingertip, the movement slowed to a crawl, backed up, and line by line played out. THERE! A simple inversion in the binary. With a couple soft clacks of the keys, the information was corrected and he began to play the simulation.
Prefect. Just as his research had suggested it would occur. Saving the baseline, he begin reading the other factors, accounting for various adverse weather phenomenons, well meaning but ill trained interventions by others, various mutant powers and their effects, and combinations of the three, and suggestions as how to correct damage done. Satisfied with the work, he saved his data, sent his mug to the sink, rinsing it out and turning it upside down on the towel to dry and stood. He stretched slowly, his muscle knotted and complaining, protesting his long period of sitting in a chair however comfortable it was made to be. As he turned to dim the lights, he stroked a finger along his jaw. He hadn’t shaved since the morning before, and the stubble rasped against his touch. A shave then, and a shower, then perhaps sleep if fate where kind.