I've always wanted to see a storyline where he realizes that he's actually not a very good leader, at all. He mainly attracts fanatics, criminals, and the desperate. Anyone with real courage, decency, and common sense eventually leaves. He doesn't inspire others. He preys on their zealotry, greed, and fear.

With regards to question 2, I agree if he had suddenly showed up on the front door, out of the blue, in #201 saying "Hi, I heard Charles isn't around anymore and you guys have an opening for a new headmaster. How about it, guys?" If you taker into account his character arc from # 150 to # 200, it does make a little more sense. The Magneto pre #150 didn't deserve it.

Michael: Yes, yes, yes, yes, Yes! Doom discovered time travel! Doom seized the Power Cosmic! Bested the devil in Hell. Doom dares all! He is the most capable, brilliant, dangerous man the world has ever known. He could do it all! A new Julius Caesar or Sammy Davis Jr!

wwk5d:
On Question 1:I actually have to point out, that Jews are part of the human race?

On Question 2: occasional mutterings are not a rejection. They did forgive and forget extremely easily. He never should have got through the front door.

How do you see that?

"OTOH Making him too good, as Claremont did at times, can be worse than making him too evil. Showing a human side, or having been wronged does not absolve evil deeds, past or present or future. At the very least making a wanted man head of your school, is a tad irresponsible. And that most X-men seemed to accept the introduction of a wanted murderer into their lives, didn’t say much about them. Were they afraid to question Prof. X, or just they just didn’t care if he killed a bunch of norms? It seriously weakened the X-Men’s moral authority, which is all that separates outlaw heroes from militia groups."

They weren't all accepting. Cyclops was very against the idea (tho he left a couple of issues later, so kind of a moot point), and Wolverine and some of the others would occasionally let their feelings be known that, while they were willing to give him a chance, they wouldn't forgive and forget so easily. Interestingly enough, the New Mutants were far less accepting of Magneto, it felt like whenever he sneezed, one of them would freak out that he was "showing his true colors again!"...

Also, this whole fuss over whether it's "wrong" to show a few sympathetic traits in the villains is just silly, and really kind of a non-issue. Giving a _fictional character_ a few extra dimensions, including a positive or relatable trait here or there is a harmless writer's tool, and to suggest that it's turning people into real-life fascists is utter nonsense. By far the vast majority of "Doom fans" I've come across are those who thinks it's funny to talk in florid, melodramatic egomaniacal statements while pretending to hold a giant goblet. There exist no "Doomists" who've been seduced by the shameful, insufficiently rigid sympathetic portrayals of irresponsible writers, simple as that.

No, no, no, no, NO! Wrong! Doom is NOT the greatest man in the Marvel Universe, because Reed Richards is a better man than him in every way that truly matters. That's the whole POINT.

People keep saying super*heroes* are adolescent power fantasies. I always wonder if they've taken a good look at the super*villains* lately.

Of course, this trapping doesn's concern only Magneto, but basically every comic book character that has an open-ended, in.continuity story. But Magneto happens to be a particularly good example of the phenomenon.

But, I did not quite express the argument i wanted to give. I didn't feel 'the victims becomes no different from his tormentors' scenario fit Magneto. He did not became a Jewish Supremacist. He became a Jew who sought the extermination of Jews.

As for Magneto's moral status, or anyone's, It takes a lot of discipline from writers to deal with any kind of moral ambiguity.
Most can't, especially in the Marvel U of today, where hurt feelings can absolve you from any crime.(chilling if it's that's a reflection of the fans). Anyway making him too bad, has been addressed satisfactorily, in the above comments.

OTOH Making him too good, as Claremont did at times, can be worse than making him too evil. Showing a human side, or having been wronged does not absolve evil deeds, past or present or future. At the very least making a wanted man head of your school, is a tad irresponsible. And that most X-men seemed to accept the introduction of a wanted murderer into their lives, didn't say much about them. Were they afraid to question Prof. X, or just they just didn't care if he killed a bunch of norms? It seriously weakened the X-Men's moral authority, which is all that separates outlaw heroes from militia groups.

To take another villain, Dr. Doom's awesome talent and charisma, his personal code of honor, and his occasional lapses of human feeling, should only make people think has the answers. To make emotion overide reason. (Really, there should be a communist-like secular cult around Doom. If there was a guy who had true super-science at his command, wouldn't he get a following?)
But, Doom is still driven primarily by anger and arrogance, not altruism. He may be greatest man in the Marvel U (That is how he should be written, not as the joke he is today, but I digress) as far as talent goes, but he still wastes them in his low, squalid hatred of Richards, and his selfish need to have everyone bow to him...as it should be! Good impulses may flesh a villainous character out, but they should never overwhelm there the flaws that make them villains.

One more thing on Mags, it began to make create an Arch-villain vacuum with the X-men. A vacuum of such force that it called into being one lame baddie after another in it overwhelming need to be filled.

Also, It doesn’t flow naturally that a man whose family was killed by a racial supremacist becomes one.

That's actually one of my favorite parts of his characterization and far from lacking in real world examples as well. One of the main reasons Israel still doesn't have a constitution after all these years is because they can't seem to draw one up that falls into agreement with the overzealous religious part of their population without being basically fascist (The 'Jewish country strictly for Jewish people' versus the more secular 'equal rights for all citizens' debate).

The problem I have with the portrayals of Magneto by Morrison, Lobdell, and others after Claremont is that they simply returned him to a raving batshit homicidal maniac without taking into account anything that happened with the character under Claremont, or even under Louise Simonson when she wrote him during New Mutants after Claremont left. I don't have a problem with Magneto being a villain, - as others pointed out, it's not about being a fandom wanker who think anyone who portrays Magneto outside of Claremont’s standard as being untrue to the character isn't really true - I have a problem with people who portray Magneto solely based on his 60s characteristics while ignoring everything that happened to the character during the 80s. That's what made the Morrison arc disappointing for me, in that he didn't do something new with Magento the way he did with the franchise as a whole.

And yes, I realize that was his point, that Magneto's way was old and outdated, etc, etc....but I expected more, that's all, or at least, a new, fresh, unique take on the character (the closest we saw was maybe during the end of the Kelly/Davis story, the Magneto War, where I saw lots of potential of setting up Magneto as a mutant Ben-Gurion, sadly that went nowhere). Magneto setting up human concentration camp style furnaces works if the 80s never happened, but those stories did happen, and to ignore them does a disservice to the character. But, that's just my opinion, others can (and will) disagree...

Brian, what exactly did Claremont retroactively change about the character? I don't really recall Magneto having much of a back story before he began working on him, so there wasn't much to change, was there? And one of the bigger retcons was that Magneto was the father of Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch, but Claremont didn't write that story...

In Claremont's version of the character, however, Magneto comes to see his actions as too extreme. He lets that doubt manifest itself when Kitty Pryde gets injured, and it grows into a new philosophical outlook. He may not care for humanity, but he realizes he has become a monster. Xavier sees his change, sees the good in him, and (in a heroic act of faith) makes him his successor. Claremont's Magneto experienced real growth and change, unusual in serialized fiction, Of course, it was undone years later, but the character arc was still impressive.

Anyone else remember the Joe Kelly & Alan Davis issue, in which Magneto decides whether or not to attack humanity again based on the actions of one man? I liked that one.

I've known way too many Israelis that fall under that heading to be surprised by it at this point. Being a victim doesn't make one into a saint.

I think the fact that Claremont's writing deteriorated into parody so long ago, makes people more willing than they should be to dismiss his work. The entire X-franchise as fanboi's know it today rests on a foundation of Claremont's ideas and work. Plus his Marvel Team-Ups were awesome.

Claremont/Byrne were a formidable team all over the Marvel U in the late 70s / early 80s, not just on X-men. Sad when their partnership dissolved. But the Claremont / Paul Smith X-men were also amazing.

Doom-fandom runs way too close to "Fascism isn't so bad, after all" to my tastes.