The X-Men villain Magneto has centered his supervillain career on a singular threat that has never succeeded in any version of the Marvel Universe.ff
At the heart of the X-Men is a moral debate between former friends Charles Xavier and Magneto. Both men want to make the world safe for mutants but their approaches are vastly different, with Xavier’s peaceful intentions often overshadowed by Magneto’s violent threats of upheaval at all costs.
Magneto has often threatened to rally an army of mutants to his cause of mutant supremacy, endangering the entire world. But in almost every reality where that actually comes to pass, Magneto and his allies ultimately don’t last very long.
Xavier’s team of mutant superheroes, the X-Men, have been a repeated deterrent to Magneto’s plans over the years. Under the guidance of the Master of Magnetism, mutants would have been rallied into an army, with which Magneto could have assaulted the human governments of the world and begun the process of taking over the planet. The X-Men resisted these efforts and have fought against Magneto and those he inspired, such as the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants and the Acylotes. The threat of a mutant army under the command of Magneto has been a consistent fear of the world for decades, but here’s the thing: across the multiverse, whenever Magneto has actually been able to raise his mutant army, the situation did not go in his favor.
In almost every reality where Magneto tries to take control of the world by force, his attempts get the mutants defeated…or worse. In the Heroes Reborn universe, Magneto’s mutant army was largely wiped out by the Squadron Supreme, forcing them into hiding. The reality glimpsed in “With An Iron Fist” from Exiles #23-25 saw Magneto lead a mutant revolt against the heroes of the world, only for a villainous Iron Man to wipe them out and personally kill Magneto in battle. Magneto’s Ultimate Universe counterpart was only able to cause massive civilian casualties with massive flooding — but this united the remaining heroes in hunting him down and executing him for his crimes. Even worse, his actions led to mutants being isolated in that world.
Various What If…? realities have explored the possibility of Magneto rallying an army, with none of them going well for the Master of Magnetism either. In What If… #13, a world where Charles Xavier became the Juggernaut, an unopposed Magneto erected an army that attacked the United Nations, only for him and his forces to be defeated. What If… #32 saw Magneto rally the X-Men around him following the death of their world’s Charles Xavier, only for his efforts to lead directly to a timeline similar to the world seen in Days of Future Past. When civil war broke out between the X-Men and Cable in What If…? #46-47, Magneto once again gathered an army but was tricked into activating a nuclear warhead that decimated his forces.
The only reality in which Magneto gained major power was in House of M, which was created by the reality-altering powers of the Scarlet Witch. But even there, seeds of discord existed, and Magneto’s peace was maintained by working with the world instead of simply ruling over it. These examples serve as a good multiversal reminder that the future of the mutant race more than likely will not be saved through violent conquest.
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