Magneto Was Wrong – The Ultimate Terrorist

Magneto is one of the classic all time comic book villains. Powerful, driven, an antithesis of the heroes he opposes. A long standing force in the Marvel Universe, he was even voted as the number 1 comic book supervillain of all time by IGN. Often written with more depth than one would require for a guy in purple and magenta tights, Magneto is noteworthy for more than being one of the few Marvel characters to rock a full length cape.

A fan favorite for his extremist outlooks that he fully believes in, Magneto is considered a somewhat sympathetic villain. He was a victim of racial violence as a young man – specifically as a Jewish boy in Nazi Germany. As a mutant, he has witnessed further racist – or perhaps speciest – violence against “his” people. Determined that the future of Mutankind is not only sepearate from, but often instead of homo sapiens, Magneto leads a crusade for the betterment of his species. However, at the end of the day, as noble as Magneto may believe himself to be, he is little more than a terrorist, a superhuman mass murderer with a Jack Kirby costume.

Magneto in the primary marvel Universe

Before delving into the true subject matter of this article further, I should provide a little bit of background on the twin subject matter to be discussed, namely political terrorism as well as the fact that there are a multitude of Magneto's which we can discuss.

While criminal justice is readily associated with more mundane topics such as street crime, criminal courts, corrections and their superpowered counterparts, the discussion of political terrorism as a criminal act does fall, at least in part, under the auspice of criminology. Terrorism is an interdisciplinary field, combining aspects of “criminology, criminal justice, history, law, philosophy, political science, psychology, religion, and sociology” (Ross 2006, 6). Since here at the CJL we primarily focus on criminal justice and criminology, that is enough to get our sausage fingers into the pie that is political terrorism.

Switching tracks now back to the Master of Magnetism. Magneto's most common real name (or 'human' name), is Erik Lehnsherr. Being such a popular and iconic villain, Magneto has been reimagined and retooled into various alternate versions. Perhaps the version most immediately identifiable to the popular culture would be the film version portrayed by Sir Ian McKellan. Now dubbed Eric, this version of Magneto would be the principle villain of the first and third X-Men films, while also being a major character in X-Men 2: X-Men United. In the funnybooks from where the films drew their inspiration, Magneto has still had several primary incarnations. The three most notable would be the 'standard' Marvel version of Magneto, the Age of Apocalypse Magneto, and the more recent Ultimate Magneto. Of the three versions, the standard Magneto has had the most changes in characterization, ranging from standard megalomaniacal villain to gritty antihero to harmless old man. In the Age of Apocalypse storyline, Magneto is presented primarily as a hero, and as such will not be much discussed as a terrorist. For the purposes of this article, we will be discussing the modern 'reboot' of Magneto from Marvel's Ultimate line.

Magneto during the Age of Apocalypse

Launched in 2001 as part of their new continuity for new, modern readers, Ultimate X-Men revamped the classic X-Men nemesis Magneto. From the beginning this Magneto was far more intense, more dangerous, and much less morally ambiguous than the Magneto from either the current mainstream comics or the recently released X-Men film. It is this Magneto that today I will describe as a terrorist with a political agenda.

Labeling someone a terrorist has an unusual difficulty that one might not recognize – terrorism is in and of itself immensely difficult to define. It is fortunate to us, then, that many previous scholars and academics have gone through the arduous process of analyzing terrorism and attempting to grant a workable definition. Here at the CJL, we will be working from the Alex P Schmid definition of terrorism which he first presented in 1983.

Terrorism is a method of combat in which random or symbolic victims serve as instrumental target of violence. These instrumental victims share group or class characteristics which form the basis for their selection for victimization. Through previous use of violence or the credible threat of violence other members of that group or class are put in a state of chronic fear (terror). This group or class, whose members’ sense of security is purposively undermined, is the target of terror. The victimization of the target of violence is considered extranormal by most observers from witnessing audience on the basis of its atrocity; the time (e.g. peacetime) or place (not a battlefield) of victimization or the disregard for rules of combat accepted in conventional warfare.The norm violation creates an attentive audience beyond the target of terror; sectors of thisaudience might in turn form the main object of manipulation. The purpose of this indirect method of combat is either to immobilize the target of terror in order to produce disorientation and/or compliance, or to mobilize secondary targets of demands (e.g. a government) or targets of attention (e.g. public opinion) to changes of attitude or behavior favoring the short or long-term interests of the users of this method of combat. (Schmid 1983, 96-99)

Ultimate Magneto, Ultimate Terrorist

Ok, take a minute to read that once or twice more, there is a lot of information condensed in that definition. Schmid himself even went on to admit that. In order to facilitate easier understanding of the definition, all you truly need to grasp is that there are five primary elements of a terrorist act.

1. “Random or Symbolic Targets” - the direct victims of the violent act are either chosen at random, such as random civilians, or is something symbolic, such as a location or structure which represents something to the targets and/or the attackers.

2. “Previous use of violence or the credible threat of violence... state of chronic fear.” the violent act is designed to scare people. To have them worried, nervous, paranoid, and generally disrupted and kept on edge.

3. “Considered extranormal by most observers” - the level or intensity of the violence is of such an extreme degree that it would be considered by most individuals and organizations to be far beyond what could possibly be deemed necessary or even acceptable

4. “Targets of attention” - whatever group the terrorist actors hoped to persuade or influence via their actions

5. “Targets of demands” - whatever group the terrorist actors wish to extract political concesions from.

Now that we have a definition of what terrorism is, let's take a look at a terrorist and their actions. The comic book example we shall be working with in this article is the miniseries “Ultimate War” written by Mark Millar and penciled by Chris Bachallo. Running from December of 2002 through February of 2003, this was a crossover story bridging the Ultimates (an Ultimate revamp of the Avengers) and the Ultimaxe X-Men, both of which were presently being written by Mark Millar.

The miniseries actually begins with a terrorist attack on New York City. Within the span of five pages, the Brooklyn bridge is bombed, and nearly 800 people are killed. The bombing was perpetrated by Brotherhood of Mutants members Toad, Juggernaut, Rogue, Hard-Drive, Vanisher, and Unus at the behest of Magneto, who commandeered public airwaves to claim credit for the attack.

Magneto as portrayed by the actor Sir Ian McKellan

Now, using Schmid's definition, let's take a look at what precisely made this incident a terrorist attack. The first criteria is random or symbolic targets. The pedestrians on the Brooklyn Bridge were all chosen at random. Yes, the site was deliberately chosen for the attack – perhaps due to the symbolic nature of it as a famous landmark, but the individuals chosen for attack were random. Now for previous use of violence, Magneto had, in a prior storyline, hijacked a fleet of killer robots, sent them after Washington, DC and humiliated the president on live television, so his potential was well known. While Magneto's initial broadcast makes no overt threats of further violence, he does pledge a 6-month deadline for his 'demands' to be met. Can the violence of Magneto's actions be considered extranormal to most observers? One would assume this to be the case, as a bridge full of civilians was bombed, and, as Magneto prove moments later, he needed no violence with which to broadcast his message to the world. Finally, in this case, the targets of attention and the targets of demand are in some ways interlinked. Magneto wanted to capture the attention of the world's homo sapiens population, which he did. And while his demands that they prepare themselves for the rule of homo superior was technically addressed to the general public, it would fall to the governments of the world to either comply or reject what he demanded.

It should be further noted that the majority of the plotline of this miniseries involves a throwdown between the Ultimates and the X-Men over the X-Men's founder Charles Xavier having lied to the United States government about the prior demise of Magneto. At the end of the story, Xavier is captured, the X-Men are fugitives, and Magneto is still at large, although at least one of his Brotherhood cells had been apprehended by S.H.I.E.L.D and The Ultimates.