Magneto

A Holocaust survivor who seeks to ensure mutants become the planet's dominant species.

Magneto, primarily portrayed by Ian McKellen and Michael Fassbender in the X-Men film series, is a powerful mutant capable of manipulating magnetic fields. Born Erik Lehnsherr to Jewish parents in Düsseldorf, Germany, he survived the Auschwitz concentration camp as a boy, an event that defined his life's mission. He regards mutants as superior to humans, seeking to enable them to replace mankind as the dominant species on the planet. Appearing in eight franchise installments, his character spans multiple timelines, with McKellen playing the older version and Fassbender the younger, both converging in X-Men: Days of Future Past.

Quick Facts

Series

X-Men film series and Marvel Cinematic Universe

First

X-Men (2000)

Based on

Magneto
Stan Lee
Jack Kirby

Adapted by

Bryan Singer; Tom DeSanto

Full name

Erik Magnus Lehnsherr

Also known as

Henryk Gurzsky

Species

Human mutant

Occupation

Government agent
Terrorist
Steel mill worker
President of Genosha

Lore & Background

Erik Lehnsherr was born in 1930. As a boy in Auschwitz, he manifested his powers to bend a metal gate separating him from his parents before being knocked unconscious by Germans. In Dr. Klaus Schmidt's office, when forced to move a coin failed, Schmidt killed Erik's mother. This tragedy triggered a surge of power that crushed the helmets of German guards and destroyed a laboratory.

By 1945, after Auschwitz's liberation, Erik emigrated to the United States, arriving at Ellis Island by 1949. He later had a brief relationship with a woman named Maximoff before leaving her prior to their son Peter's birth. His life became defined by hunting Nazi war criminals, including Schmidt, whom he tracked to a cruiser near Miami. There, telepath Emma Frost knocked him off the ship.

Charles Xavier, also pursuing Schmidt, rescued Erik from the water and brought him to Division X, a CIA project for mutants.

Reader's Guide

In the original Earth-10005 timeline, Magneto targeted Senator Robert Kelly, subjecting him to electromagnetic radiation that mutated and killed him. This served as a trial for a plan to mutate world leaders at an international meeting on Ellis Island using a machine that would drain his life force; he attempted to use Rogue to channel the power instead. When foiled by the X-Men, he was imprisoned in plastic. In X2 (2003), prisoner Magneto escaped after Mystique injected a guard with excess iron.

He allied with the X-Men to stop William Stryker's Cerebro plot, using his helmet to remain immune to telepathy while stopping Jason Stryker. Afterward, he trapped Stryker in chains beneath a rupturing dam. In X-Men: The Last Stand (2006), Magneto raised an army of mutants against a 'cure' derived from Leech. He uprooted the Golden Gate Bridge to attack the Worthington facility on Alcatraz Island but was depowered by Beast's serum, though he later moved a metal chess piece.

Did You Know?

Ian McKellen played the older Magneto in X-Men (2000), X2 (2003), and X-Men: The Last Stand (2006), while Michael Fassbender portrayed the younger version starting with X-Men: First Class (2011).
Magneto killed Sebastian Shaw by forcing a coin into his brain, the same object Dr. Schmidt had once tried to make young Erik move.
In 1963, Magneto attempted to save President John F. Kennedy, who was secretly a mutant, but could not fully control the bullet that killed him.
Both McKellen and Fassbender's versions of the character appeared together in X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014), set in different time periods.
McKellen's version of Magneto is scheduled to appear in the Marvel Cinematic Universe film Avengers: Doomsday (2026).