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Codename: Magneto
Real Name: Erik Magnus Lensherr
Age: 56
Height: 6' 2"
Weight: 190 lbs
Eyes: Blue
Hair: White
Distinguishing Features: Despite his age, Erik does not appear more than perhaps
40 years old.
Known Relatives: Pietro Lensherr (son), Wanda Lensherr (daughter)
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Powers: Magneto is a mutant with the superhuman power to control
magnetism. He can shape and manipulate magnetic fields that exist naturally or
artificially. It is unclear, however, whether he must draw magnetic force from
outside himself (if so, then he can do so over vast distances), or whether he
can also generate magnetic force from within himself. Nor is it clear whether
Magneto's power is psionic or purely physiological in nature. Skills/Talents: Magneto is a self-taught expert in the field of engineering, and may be genius level. He has only rudimentary skill in hand-to-hand combat. |
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History: Erik Lensherr spent his early teens imprisoned with his family
at the Nazi death camp in Auschwitz, Poland. The only member of his family to
survive the camp, Erik learned swiftly how brutally human beings could treat
minorities whom they considered different. There, in the camp, Erik met a Roma
(Gypsy) girl, Magda, who he was able to escape with, and the two fled into
Russia. After World War II, Erik married Magda and they began moving back
out of Russia, through the Iron Curtain, with their daughter Anya. When a
mob set Erik's home on fire and prevented him from reaching Anya in time to save
her, he used his powers to destroy them all in revenge.
Terrified by her husband's powers and threats of vengeance against humanity,
Magda fled without revealing that she was pregnant. She made it as far as the
slopes of Wundagore Mountain, in Eastern Europe, before she gave birth to twins,
Wanda and Pietro. There, Bova, a servant of the High Evolutionary came
upon the woman and her newborn children, and nursed them back to health.
Magda, however, refused to stay, explaining her fear of her husband to Bova and
leaving the children with her, before wandering into the wilderness to die.
Bova eventually brought the babies to her master, the High Evolutionary, who
chose to give them to a human couple to foster, rather than see them grow up
among his non-human servants.
Erik, heartbroken by the loss of his child and the desertion of his wife,
wandered Europe searching for Magda for years, without success. Finally losing
all hope, he drifted for a time, before ending up in Israel. There, he
took a job as a volunteer orderly at a
psychiatric hospital and met his co-worker, Charles Xavier. The two developed a
friendship, finding in each other a mutual love of debate, intellectual
pursuits, and philosophy... and a fellow mutant. Charles shared his
idealistic hopes for coexistence between the newly arising mutant race and
humans, while Erik argued that such a thing was impossible, due to flawed human
nature.
Unfortunately, their arguments would soon come to an early and abrupt end.
When a strange boy appeared at the psychiatric hospital, claiming no knowledge
of how he had gotten there or who he was, Erik attempted to help him. The
boy unwittingly caused Erik to relive his traumatic past with a psionic burst
that overwhelmed them both. Erik hurried back to find Charles and tell him
that he thought the boy might be a mutant like them, and when the two men
returned, the boy was projecting images of the future into thin air. The
boy, Legion, regained his memory and recalled his objective--to destroy the
young Erik and eliminate all threat to Charles' progress. Erik and Charles
found Legion assaulting Gabrielle Haller, Charles' girlfriend, at which point he
turned upon Erik, threatening him with death. X-Men from the future Legion
had come from attempted to minimize damages below while Erik fought Legion in
the skies above the city. Legion injured Erik and defeated the X-Men, all
the while ranting about the horrible person Erik would become, while Erik tried
to defend himself. On the ground again, Legion prepared a killing blow of
energy, when Charles leapt in front of Erik to take the blast with his own body.
Erik listened to his friend's last breaths as the strangers and Legion
disappeared, sucked into time, and vowed to bring about Charles' dreams of peace
between mutant and human.
Newly galvanized into action, Erik put aside his sorrow at the death of his
friend to return to Europe and search once more for his long-lost wife.
This time, he stumbled across a citadel on Wundagore Mountain, occupied by the
High Evolutionary and his servants. Bova recognized him as the husband of
the woman who had long ago given birth on the mountain, and finally told him
what had become of his wife, as well as the twin infants. Shocked by the
fact that Magda had been pregnant, Erik scoured the land until he located the
Roma couple who had taken in Pietro and Wanda. Django and Marya Maximoff,
who had raised Wanda and Pietro for the last ten years, were coming upon hard
times with so many mouths to feed, and decided that it would be best for all
involved to allow the children to return to their father's care, despite the
sorrow of parting with them.
Erik returned to the Wundagore citadel with the twins, having been intrigued by
the location and having realized that he was not best equipped to care for two
children by himself, and Bova was more than happy to oblige. The High
Evolutionary eventually decided to abandon the mountain, leaving it in the care
of Erik, and took all his servants with him except for Bova, who stayed behind.
Thinking over Charles' dream, Erik came to the conclusion that the dream must
begin with the education of the next generation, and began plans for a school
for mutants, to be built on Wundagore. Over the next few years, he began putting
together the ground-work for the school, making mutant contacts around the globe
and learning of several likely prospective students, as well as developing a
mutant-detection system with the hope of being able to detect threats quickly
and efficiently. He also began training both Pietro and Wanda personally,
hoping that the two would understand his goals and be willing to serve as
leaders and role models to the initial classes once the school opened.
Somehow, in the process, he found himself beginning to understand his children a
little better, and growing to enjoy their company for its own sake.
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Personality: Nerves of steel and an icy reserve hide much of Erik's true feelings beneath a cool, almost arrogant veneer. Beneath the surface, however, Erik can be quick to rouse to furious anger, slow to forgive perceived injury, and utterly caught up in his own motivations and goals, to the exclusion of the outside world. Never known for empathy, Erik can have a difficult time grasping feelings and moods of those around him, and often ignores them in favor of cold hard facts. Although he has wholeheartedly devoted himself to pursuing Charles Xavier's dream of coexistence and equality between human and mutant, he once believed quite strongly that such a thing would never be possible, and it could be argued that he persists in his current endeavor out of respect and devotion to a dead friend's memory rather than out of any real belief that the dream will ever be achieved. In his heart of hearts, perhaps, he has never quite shaken the conviction that humans are horrible, cruel, spiteful creatures who would rather kill each other than live in peace and abundance. Prejudice of any variety is quick to set him off, sometimes with explosive results, although he remains peculiarly blind to his own attitude towards humankind. While Erik has the charisma and ability to motivate others that a natural leader is gifted with, there remains a certain invisible barrier between himself and those who follow him, in part due to Erik's tendency to assume that no one in his company is quite capable of understanding his full intellect, and in part due to his difficulty with understanding others' emotions. |