Magneto

"...Every heel [bad guy] needs to believe he is justified in his actions, no matter how wrong the logic behind those actions may be." - Mick Foley, page 222, Foley is Good.

Yes, that is a quote from a professional wrestler autobiography being used to introduce a post about a comic book character. I am dork. But if you have been reading this blog for more than a week, you know this already. This quote is necessary in order to understand Magneto, and I think even to understand some ugly parts of ourselves.

First though, I need to address those of you who have no idea who I am talking about. Magneto is the arch-nemesis/occasional partner of the X-Men. On the surface he is just old guy, who feels comfortable wearing purple and can bend some metal. In reality (or the comic book version of reality) he is one of the most powerful people in the Marvel universe, has a loyal following of powerful friends and he views himself of some sort of messiah to mutants. He is an old man in a young man's body (don't ask), in fact he is old enough to have been a child in Auschwitz, a Nazi concentration camp. Which would mean that the "master of magnetism" is a Jewish-Mutant, a member of two minority groups with histories of persecution. His parents were killed in Auschwitz, his wife left him when she learned of his powers. He is a close friend of Professer Xavier, though is the ideological Malcolm X to Xavier's Martin Luther King Jr. Magneto is a world criminal (terrorist?) who has on more than one occasion actually saved the world. His philosophy is not complex; humans need to get out of the way, it is time for mutants to rule the world.

So what can be made of a character who has endured, but also has caused so much pain? It is impossible not to sympathize with the pain that the man has endured, to be imprisoned and rejected for not what you have done, but instead for who you are would and has caused many good people to give up trying to act justly and instead act with one's own interests in mind. Yet Magneto has hardly become selfish, instead he has become fanatical for his people, the mutants. His desire has become to create a world where his pain will no longer become the norm. He is the product of the evil of man. Of the hatred of man. Of the brokenness of man.

Unfortunately, he is not simply worthy of our sympathy, but if we are to put ourselves into the shoes of the people who occupy the Marvel universe, he is also the object of our fear. He is a weapon of mass destruction. A weapon with every reason to not believe that peace is possible. What evidence has he ever seen of different people working together? Living together? He knows no peace, yet his power will always be there to tempt him into believing that he can make peace.

Magneto is sympathetic and dangerous, but he is also and equally so, compassionate. He cannot stomach the pain of mutants. He has witnessed to many mutant genocides than he can bear. He has seen the world of man go back and forth, from seeking peace to mutant eradication. He has seen death and broken promises. Many times he has retired to a new country or a new space station, only to be brought back into the fight, not by his own desire for power, but instead by suffering mutants, begging him to return, to save them. How can his conscious allow him to do nothing?

The final characteristic of Magneto that cannot be ignored is his moral consistency, he is the most morally consistent character I have ever encountered in comic books. While other characters violate the ethics that guide them constantly, Magneto remains steadfast. He is for mutantkind, by any means necessary. While the human governments go back and forth and the X-Men follow the whims of those governments, Magneto stays the course, steady and straight. As a result, he can be an ally or foe to the X-Men or to any other character, depending on the situations that surround him. It also should be noted here that X-Men comics have explored parallel universes and alternative futures often, Magneto is rarely a villain in any of these universes. In these universe's bigotry and hatred has won, humans have sought the death of all mutants and Magneto has never backed down, he has stood strong by his persecuted people. He has been a hero.

So why is he part of a study of evil? How can this sympathetic, compassionate, morally consistent character be evil? Is it simply that he is dangerous? No, we are all dangerous, more so than we realize. Magneto is evil because I cannot believe that good and evil are only determined by the the situation that surrounds us. Magneto be a hero when the world has been at war, but that doesn't make him good. Good and evil can't be that shaky, that fluid. Magneto is evil because his convictions, as consistent as they may be, are born from a desire for revenge. His pain cannot make his methods morally acceptable, because methods born from his desire for revenge will never end the cycle that has created Magneto. Revenge, like all other evil is insatiable, it can never be quenched. Magneto can never truly retire or succeed, because no matter how many Nazi's, human bigots or politicians die, he will never be whole. The true danger of Magneto is not his mutant power, no matter how prolific it may be, it is the desire for revenge that cannot be filled.

I want to make Magneto a hero, because I see too much of myself in him. I want to keep my grudges. I want to keep my hatreds. I want to be justified in my anger against people who have crossed me. I want to allow myself to driven to succeed by people who have had the nerve to question whether I can make it. This is abstract I realize, so I will attempt to make it more real. Every time that I feel doubted by anyone, letting go of that has been extremely difficult. Even as I type this blog, I can feel old hurts resurfacing, whether those hurts are from high school, or even about deciding to go on staff with InterVarsity. I feel tempted to derive my strength from proving others wrong. Ironically, these motivations of mine, only serve to prove those doubts to be more founded than I want to believe that they are. I have to choose, that there is a better path to follow, than the one that is defined by people, whether they are right or wrong. I have to believe that call of Jesus is more important than what I am good at or bad at. More important than proving anyone right or wrong. With Jesus I feel like I have hope in being more than I am, which is necessary for me to ever be of any service to anyone.

Without Jesus, I am Magneto.