Top Twelve X-men-Number 10

Magneto/Joseph
When it comes to the X-men, there isn't a figure with more importance to the book than Magneto. Sure there's Charles Xavier and all the other team members, but what good is the book without the most important villain in the mutant world. If there wasn't a Magneto threatening to blow up the world at the beginning to X-men #1 (either series of the book) there would not be an X-men comic today. There may be plenty of other enemies out there, but this is the one who defines who the X-men are.

But we're not here to talk about Magneto as a villainous would-be world conqueror, we are here to talk about him as an X-man. Those of you following the X-men at the moment (and I am not closely following the X-men at the moment, but I keep up with the story lines) will know that Magneto is currently working with the X-men, but you may not know that this is not a new story line. There have been several other times this has happened.

Now before you start giving me a hard time about Magneto being so low on the list let me explain. If I were writing a Top 12 list of X-men enemies, Magneto would be at or near the top. (I just realized I might actually write such a list so I should give myself some space to work.) However, as an X-man, Magneto is not nearly as important. In fact, we'll talk in just a moment about his shortcomings as a hero.

The first time we get to see Magneto as a good guy is in the "Days of Future Past" storyline. This is a massively significant storyline that has shaped X-men comics since it happened. In the storyline, a future version of Kitty Pryde switches places with her younger self to stop the newest version of the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants from killing a senator. In the future, we get to see a world overrun and dominated by Sentinels. the Sentinals aren't new to the X-men, but the idea of the Sentinels actually winning is. Mutants are locked up in concentration camps and humans are ruled by the Sentinels. In the story line, Magneto is old and confined to a wheelchair. He uses the last of his powers to distract the Sentinel guards to allow the other X-men to escape.

In the 80's, the writers decided that Professor X needed to go away so different story lines could be addressed. They also decided that it would be great to add Magneto to the mix just to make things interesting. Before Professor X takes off for space with his lover, the Empress of the Shiar Empire, he asks Magneto to take over as the headmaster of the school. This leads to a lot of conflict. Cyclops ends up leaving the team because of his past history with Magneto, and Magneto is always facing consequences of his past actions. 

Magneto's promise. (You can click on the image to see the full size if you can't read what they're saying.)

Eventually, Magneto's change of heart changed again and he was back with a vengeance. That is until Professor X's son Legion went back in time to kill Magneto and accidentally killed his father instead. That led to the Age of Apocalypse story line where Magneto and an alternate group of X-men try to save the world from Apocalypse and his attempts to take over the entire world.

In the 90's, there was a great storyline where Magneto was missing and a stranger with no memory and the face and powers of Magneto appeared out of nowhere. This character ended up calling himself Joseph and had a wonderful angsty time trying to figure out who he was and if he was destined to wake up one day as Magneto. Joseph was the hero that Magneto could have been. In the end it turned out that he was just a clone created by one of Magneto's enemies to draw Magneto out of hiding. Joseph died in the final show down and proved himself a hero to the end.

I don't really want to talk about the current storyline of the X-men, but I have to if I'm going to talk about Magneto as a good guy. Magneto has recently joined the X-men in their attempt to create what I have to call a new mutant nation to replace Genosha. I think it's just an opportunistic power grab for the Master of Magnetism, but it did provide the storyline for Shadowcat to come back for her exile in the super bullet. I won't get into how wrong it is that the moment of her return was so poorly done, but it was.

Anyway, that's Magneto. He's definitely better as a bad guy, but he's had his moments. Feel free to comment below. Hopefully, I'll get part 9 done a lot sooner.