Can someone explain them to me?

I'm reading the issues if X-Men in my masterworks where he beats the team in his hollowed out volcano lair... and he seems to be able to do stuff I don't understand being related to magnetism.

For example, Storm says that the last time they thought, he was able to throw her own lightning back at her... how? I thought he controlled metal with magnetic properties? He then beats her with some magnetic force blast.... but I don't even get how that would affect her unless she's wearing a lot of metal (which she isn't).

Then Nightcrawler jumps down from above and Magneto "catches" him in midair and sends him flying upward -- but Nightcrawler isn't wearing any metal at all.

This reminds me of how I've wondered this since a kid and first saw Gambit throw charged cards at Magneto, who turned them around in mid-air and sent them right back at them. I wondered if Gambit's cards were made of metal or something.

It seems like he has straight telekinesis a la Jean Grey... what's the deal, X-Men experts?

Forget it,Jake...it's comic books.

Magnetic lines of force, the magnetic fields surrounding the Earth, etc - he can manipulate them. It's how he flies.

Indeed.

Magneto's powers actually control Electromagnetism which, along Weak and Strong Nuclear Force and Gravity are one of the four fundamental forces of the Universe. Electricity and Magnetism are related (You can easily make a magnet with a battery, remember) and lighting is attracted to metals. Electricity is generated by magnets, too, so Storm attacking Magneto with lighting is about the same as Colossus trying to punch him, it's basically giving him a weapon.

Remember how the protons and electrons in atoms have positive and negative charges respectively? It's the interactions of those forces what holds the atoms and then the molecules together. Magneto's powers obviously interact with Ferrimagnetic materials, but there are also strong Diamagnetic and Paramagnetic elements that interact in offering ways when magnetic fields are applied. It by manipulating these that Magneto can make Nightcrawler (or anyone else) fly, just as this frog: http://www.ru.nl/hfml/research/levitation/diamagnetic/

Going back to the 4 fundamental forces of the universe, you might have heard about the Unified Field Theory that tries to explain how all these forces interact in the same field, since Magneto is sometimes shown doing things even beyond Electromagnetism, some writers have said that Magneto is living proof that the theory is correct.

Basically, since Magneto can control electromagnetism, that makes him the most powerful mutant ever, with the exception of some redhead-empowering cosmic forces.

Ah, of course - I read all about Unified Field Theory in Watchmen.

Interesting.

So the plastic prison in X2 wouldn't even slow Magneto down then?

Also, Byrne's recent complaint that Magneto shouldn't be able to control Wolverine because adamantium is non-magnetic is completely idiotic, especially since he's actually drawn issues of X-Men that feature Magneto affecting non ferrous metals anyway, right?

This reminds me and I'll likely have to Google it later. Remember when Magneto had the ability to astral project and telepathically communicate? I can't remember how that was ever explained or when it stopped.

I'm telling you, the old man is losing it.

Also, btw, his idea of Wolvy's bones being completely adamantium is stupid too (nearly as stupid as bone claws). Glad Jim Shooter fixed that.

No, definitely not.

I seem to recall Magneto mind controlling people, too, in an Avengers issue, around 110 or so.

Good memory. Avengers #111.

Learned how to control minds by the amount of blood flow he allowed to the brain.

http://www.supermegamonkey.net/chronoco ... _111.shtml

Well, the Gil Kane image is burned in my mind. I know my first issue I bought off the stands
was #112. I got that one second hand from an older friend a few months later. Paid him 15¢
for it because it was old.

Wait a second. This is the issue I remember:

But I think it was a two-parter. Took me like four or five years before I found #111.

Depends, Comic Book Magneto, a guy who can pump out Electromagnetic Pulses far stronger than a nuclear detonation or summon a wormhole just to give his crazy daughter a ride, would laugh at it.

Movie Magneto, almost by necessity, is way less powerful, and apparently only able to manipulate ferrous materials. Remember, he never even levitated himself in the movies*

* He might have done so in the third one, but who gives a crap about that one.



Magneto takes the X-Men to his volcano lair by flying them in a wooden wagon.

And it's especially idiotic since in that same issue he has Magneto directly controlling Wolverine's claws, even retracting them when he wanted to.

But let's say that he was only a dutiful art robot following Claemont's 'ignorant' suggestions, or that he later changed his mind; let's even put aside that Magneto is so powerful that it doesn't particularly matter if Adamantium is ferromagnetic or not, the point that Byrne always seems to miss is that fictitious metals are, well, fictitious, and have any properties the artists and writers want them to have. It's pretty well-established lore that Magneto can manipulate Adamantium. I believe that has been the case since the first time Wolverine faced Mags.

I always assumed that Magneto wore a metal harnass under his clothes that he levitated to fly, or that he had some metal weaved into the fabric of his clothes.

A No Prize for Hanzo.



There's the awesome What If? story in which Magneto kills Wolverine by forcing him to pop his claws through his own head. It's indicated clearly that this is because of the metal in Wolverine's skeleton. One of my favourite issues of a comic ever.

I thought it was describe somewhere that Magneto could manipulate the iron in a person's blood.

As for popping his claws through his head, can adamantium pierce adamantium?

Apparently it can!

Coulda been through the temple.