Magneto’s traded the purple and red for chrome.
A newly revealed variant cover by Alessandro Cappuccio shows the Master of Magnetism bearded and encased in chrome and white armor, hoisting an arsenal of metallic spheres with his powers. Behind him: Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver, attending their onetime father, who looks as dangerous as he ever has.
He’s suiting up because something is coming for every mutant on the planet. And this time he’s not the one causing it.
The imprint that turns the X-Men into a horror story
On October 7, Marvel launches its new Midnight imprint, a whole new continuity where classic superheroes get combined with classic monsters and dark horror themes. Midnight: X-Men comes from Jonathan Hickman, Matteo Della Fonte, Matt Hollingsworth and Cory Petit, and it drops homo superior into the ultimate battle for survival against a vampiric army.
Cappuccio’s cover is the first real clue as to how Magneto fits into that fight.
Everyone’s picking a side, and some of them have fangs
The book depicts a war between multiple factions. There’s Cyclops’ mutant X-Men. There’s a group known as the “empyres” – mutants who have been turned into vampires, but aren’t allied with the traditional armies of the undead.
Storm may be leading the empyres, and variant covers imply Iceman and Gambit will be among their numbers.
Cyclops, meanwhile, is now known as “Cyclops: Vampire Hunter,” and works alongside Nightcrawler to battle for survival. Say it out loud. It sounds ridiculous. It also sounds like exactly the kind of thing you want from a horror-inflected X-Men line.
Magneto is one of the few characters not depicted as a vampire in Marvel’s preparatory art. Full armor, family in tow – that framing suggests he may even constitute a faction in his own right, the group being known as the “House of M” in some continuities.
The villain who kept getting rewritten
Magneto debuted in 1963 as a classic megalomaniacal supervillain in the mold of Loki or the Red Skull. Later stories reinvented him as a far more sympathetic and layered character, one whose tragic past motivates him to reject humanity and embrace mutant supremacy.
For decades now he’s been more ally than enemy to the X-Men, having come to see the error of his ways and the importance of standing together against larger threats.
But even with that attitude, he never expected what’s coming next for mutants.
The family problem nobody has explained yet
Here’s where the cover gets strange. Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver were once believed to be Magneto’s children. That hasn’t been the case since 2014, when Scarlet Witch’s magic revealed there is no biological link between Magneto and the twins.
The pair aren’t even mutants. They’re genetically altered humans whose powers come from the experiments of the High Evolutionary. In a conflict defined by species loyalties, Pietro and Wanda standing with Magneto is a genuinely odd sight.
So is Midnight: X-Men set in a world where they never learned the truth? Or is there another reason for them to work with their “father” against the vampires and empyres? Scarlet Witch’s costume appears to have shifted to a darker color, which may hint that the vampire and empyre war has upset the rules of magic.
Why Hickman writing this matters
Hickman is known for morally dubious characters and multi-faction conflicts. That’s his whole register. Fans can expect Magneto to have a key role in this reimagining of X-Men lore rather than a cameo in someone else’s war.
And as an Omega-level mutant with near-total control over magnetism, he’ll likely be a prime mover here. Imagine a rain of stakes with metal tips. Now imagine what happens if either of the undead factions manages to recruit him.
Midnight: X-Men #1 arrives October 7.
