In the 26 years since the X-Men starred in their first big-screen adventure, plenty of ink has been spilled (by yours truly, especially) on their iconic introduction. X-Men began with the origins of its villain, Magneto, who tapped into his inimitable powers on the darkest day of his life. In 1940s Poland, the character — then known just as Erik Lensherr — bent the gates of a concentration camp into the shape of an X. It was the perfect overture not just for mutantkind, whose plight has always run parallel to real-world tragedies, but for Magneto’s relationship to power and pain.
The X-Men saga knew what it had where this character was concerned: it’s why, when Fox rebooted the timeline with a prequel, it once again built its story around Magneto’s tragic origins. More than anything else, Magneto is a survivor of the Holocaust. That primal wound informs his animosity towards humans and their cruelty; he’s far less willing to give them the benefit of the doubt than, say, Charles Xavier, and it’s very easy to understand why. As a foundation for the conflict between humans and mutants, it couldn’t be more perfect. But as Marvel gears up to reboot the X-Men, potentially in the present day, there’s almost no way to retain that piece of his origins. Not without the help of time travel, anyway.
