The Judgment Of Magneto
Somewhere beyond death, in a realm of judgment and pain, a concrete labyrinth filled by countless names, a man walks. He is Jewish, and has been made hard and cruel by his experiences in the Nazi death camps. He's also a mutant, gifted with the power to manipulate metal and the electromagnetic spectrum. Since his first appearance in the inaugural X-Men comic, he spent six decades of Marvel publication history oscillating between supervillainous heel, messianic terrorist, swaggering nationalist, and increasingly heroic anti-fascist. He stood trial for crimes against humanity and tried his hand at state building; he’s variously fought against, allied with, and led the X-Men. He’s taken and abandoned many names: Max, Erik, Magnus. Only one ever stuck: Magneto.
This is the setup for Resurrection of Magneto, an ongoing miniseries by Al Ewing and Luciano Vecchio. In it, Marvel’s master of magnetism, who is also the company’s most famous Jewish character, counts his many sins, tortured by the fear that he’s wasted his life on a poisoned dream. The comic arrives at a fraught time. When it debuted earlier this year, Israeli bombs had been falling on Gaza for three months; 25,000 people were dead. That number has now topped 34,000, and the bombs are still falling.
