Name: Eric Magnus Lehnsherr, also known as Magneto.
Age: 44 years old
What You Do: Maybe not always the proper thing (though it depends on the point of view, doesn't it?), but there is one thing he won't do ever again: To follow human's orders.
Appearance:Character Classification: Mutant. Leader and founder of the Brotherhood of Mutants. He has the ability to manipulate create magnetic fields and control metal telekinetically.
Residence: Somewhere unknown. If a man doesn't want to be found, he won't.
Skills: A genius with competence in various fields of advanced science, particle physics, engineering, and other fields of technology. Fluent in many human languages. Possesses extraordinary skill in "reading" the microexpressions on others' faces, a skill which he refers to as "taking your enemy's measure". A master strategist and tactician with extensive combat experience including some military training in hand-to-hand combat, but he prefers to use his powers when in combat situations.
Weaknesses/bad habits: From other's standpoint it would probably be his radical manner to fight for mutant's rights. From his own point of view it is the fact he hasn't killed Shaw and his men, who once had murdered his mother right in front of him, and so started the open war against humanity earlier. Another vulnerability is his friendship with Charles Xavier, as it often makes him regret the different paths the two of them took, though it never made him regret the path
he took, looking at it as being the only right.
Frequent moods/expressions: Magneto's team's belief and goal isn't to equally live with humans, but to rise above and rule them.
Background/History: In 1930 Erik Lehnsherr was born to a Jewish family in Düsseldorf, Germany.
In 1944, Erik is forcibly separated from his parents by Nazi SS-troops in German-occupied Poland, specifically at the Auschwitz concentration camp. Under this stress, Lehnsherr's powers began to manifest. Even with four guards pulling him away, he managed to bend open a heavy metal gate separating him from his parents before being knocked unconscious by another guard. While at Auschwitz, he first encounters a mutant Nazi collaborator named Sebastian Shaw (under the alias Dr. Klaus Schmidt). At first Shaw treated him in a friendly fashion, offering him chocolate and asking him to simply move a Reichsmark coin. However, when Erik was unable to, Shaw murdered Erik's mother in front of him, in order to "unlock" the boy's powers through his anger; Erik's magnetism subsequently killed two SS troopers and destroyed an entire lab room in a fit of grief and rage. Pleased, Shaw then tortured and experimented on Erik for an undisclosed length of time, attempting to further expand his magnetic powers.
Following the end of World War II in 1945 and his liberation from Auschwitz, Erik attempts to find Shaw and exact vengeance, murdering other surviving Nazis connected to Shaw along the way.
In 1949, Erik emigrates to America where he saw the Statue of Liberty for the first time, thinking it to be the herald of America as the land of tolerance and peace. Erik becomes disillusioned with this fictitious image of America and a few years later returns to Europe to pursue his goal of hunting down Sebastian Shaw.
In 1962, Erik travels to Switzerland, where he interrogates a Swiss banker as to the whereabouts of Sebastian Shaw. He is directed to Villa Gesell, where he finds two Nazi officers having a drink at the bar. After seeing an old photograph of Shaw with the two officers, Erik kills them and proceeds to travel to Miami to face off against Shaw.
Erik eventually tracks him down to a small yacht off the American coast. His attempt at revenge fails when he is defeated by Shaw's Hellfire Club cohorts, being no match for their mutant powers. It was at this point that he meets Charles Xavier, Raven Darkholme and Moira MacTaggert, who were present as part of a botched U.S. Coast Guard attempt to capture Shaw.
Together and with CIA support, Xavier and Lehnsherr gather a team of mutant teenagers to battle the Hellfire Club, who are attempting to ignite a nuclear war between the Soviet Union and the United States as part of a plot to eradicate non-mutant life on the planet and rule over a mutant new world order.
Xavier helps the teens master their powers at his mansion, including Erik. During this time, the two become close friends. However, Erik is still filled with hatred for Shaw and fears a mutant holocaust, despite Xavier's attempts to convince him to let go of his hatred. Erik also motivates Raven to become proud of her natural appearance, believing her desire to get rid of it is wrong. During a CIA mission within the Soviet Union, Erik and Xavier capture Emma Frost of the Hellfire Club, and extract information from her pertaining to Shaw's plans.
Ultimately, the team decides to jump into action to prevent the Cuban Missile Crisis from causing World War III. The Hellfire Club attempts to stop the CIA-sanctioned mutant team but is defeated. During the encounter, Erik confronts Shaw, who attempts to bring him to his side with promises of a new, mutant world order. As Shaw has better control of his power, he is initially able to force Erik into submission, but Erik tricks him into letting his guard down and removes his telepathy-resistant helmet, allowing Charles to take control of his mind and "freeze" him. Erik then dons the helmet to prevent Charles from stopping him. Although he states that he agrees with Shaw's goals, Erik refuses to forgive him for murdering his mother.
Despite Xavier's pleads for him not to, Erik kills Shaw by magnetically pushing the Reichsmark coin from Auschwitz through his brain.
When the United States and the Soviet Union strike up an impromptu alliance to destroy the mutants, Erik magnetically deflects the missiles, then turns them back towards the fleets. Charles asks him to be the better man, but accidentally says that the men on the ships are "just following orders" which reminds Erik of his experiences at the hands of the Nazis, provoking him to launch the missiles. Xavier tackles him and the two engage in a fist fight which distracts Erik long enough to prevent the missiles from killing those at sea. During a subsequent attempt by Moria MacTaggert to shoot Erik, one of the bullets he deflects strikes Xavier in the lower back, permanently crippling him. Horrified at what had transpired, Erik bids farewell to his close friend, departing with Mystique and the remaining Hellfire Club members with the vow of battling humankind in order to save mutants. He later frees the White Queen, declares himself "Magneto", and establishes his first Brotherhood of Mutants.
In 1963, Magneto was accused of killing John F. Kennedy and was imprisoned by Trask Industries below the Pentagon's centre court. On Friday, February 4, 1964, a trial was held against Lehnsherr where President Johnson noted in a closed-door meeting with the Warren Commission that their prime suspect - Lehnsherr - was in custody. His private trial began the next week.
Recently declassified court records indicate that Lehnsherr could not refute being at Dealey Plaza's grassy knoll but he insisted that he did not assassinate the President. As the court ordered him to prove his mutant abilities, Lehnsherr bent a metal crowbar. It took the court five minutes to settle down. Lehnsherr told the court that he did know who killed the President and that he knows who she is and she is hiding in plain sight.
The court found Lehnsherr guilty of first-degree murder and conspiring to assassinate Kennedy. He was sentenced to two consecutive life sentences in a federal correctional facility with no possibility of parole. Throughout the 60's Lehnsherr had destroyed three holding cells until 1971 when Trask Industries built an escape proof cell that kept him imprisoned.
Unknown to the authorities, Erik had actually been trying to save Kennedy from the real assassin, as Kennedy was, in fact, secretly a mutant. Erik had been trying to deflect the bullet away, but when the police seized him they broke his concentration, causing the shot to strike Kennedy and kill him. Erik later explained this to Charles, who apologized for doubting him.
In 1973, while Erik was resting in his prison underneath the Pentagon, he received a visit from Quicksilver, who shattered the glass with his palms, showering him with shards. Erik was surprised to learn that Charles with the help of the two strangers had come to free him. Erik also met Wolverine, who informed him that he had been sent by his (Erik's) and Charles' older selves from the future. He soon learned of the apocalyptic future that would befall them if Mystique kills Trask.
When they arrived in France, Erik, Charles, Beast and Wolverine infiltrated the building where the conference was being held.
They successfully interrupted Mystique's assassination of Trask, and Erik incapacitated a young William Stryker. Despite this, Erik felt that it was only necessary to permanently secure their future by killing Mystique, thwarting the development of the Sentinels. Erik ended up in a fight with Beast before he could kill her. Mystique got away and so did Erik. The entire scene horrified the public as well as President Nixon, therefore failing to change the future in the process.
Later Mystique interrogated Erik about why he tried to kill her. Erik replied that he was attempting to safeguard their future, as he knows of Trask desiring her blood. Erik tried to warn her about the future but she refused to listen and disappeared again.
Erik later boarded a train that was transporting Sentinels to Washington. Erik used his powers on the tracks to rip them free and managed to place metal inside the Sentinels, allowing him to control them. In Washington, he successfully infiltrated the Pentagon and retrieved his helmet. On the day the Sentinels were unveiled, Erik went to the RFK Stadium and used his power to lift the entire stadium into the air. At the same time, Erik took control of the Sentinels and commanded them to attack the crowd, forcing the President and his retinue to take cover. In the ensuing chaos, Erik arrived and placed the stadium around the White house, with the falling rubble injuring Charles. Erik ripped the President’s shelter out of the White House and broadcast a speech to everyone around the world, stating that the time of mutants had begun. Erik didn't realize that the President was none other than Mystique, who shot him non-fatally through the neck. Shortly after this, Mystique knocked him unconscious.
After she removed Erik's helmet, Erik came to and realized that he could not continue with his plan with Charles standing nearby. Accepting this, Erik departed with a brief farewell to Charles, who let him go as they both knew that the government would execute him for his actions if he was captured.
Eric decided it was the best to go underground for an indefinite period of time, though still his plan about making the time of mutants happen at the back of his mind. By 1973, he lived in Poland, almost established the start of a new life alias Henryk Gurszky, being a worker at a factory, even allowed himself to rise with feelings for a human woman named Magda. But long before that picture of a new life could have become tangible (even though it maybe wouldn't have become more than a sweet period of time in his life), it slipped away his hands within only one heartbeat.
So one day in 1974, Erik is forced to reveal his magnetic powers when a huge falling crate almost crushes one of his fellow factory workers - Erik stops it in mid-air just in time. Some time later, some of his colleagues that witnessed his powers had the Polish authorities sent to capture Erik, mainly due to the incident one year ago at the White House (after which Magneto had become the most wanted fugitive in the world). It happened during a walk in the woods with Magda and it happened to be the day Eric was going to tell her about his past and above all about who he really was. But that wasn't the way she should learn about it.
They were surprised by some men directly sent from Trask Industries to arrest him. Magda was confused and didn't believe "Henryk" to be Magneto, one of the most dangerous men as she has heard. In the heat of the moment it happened that Eric felt the need to use his powers to protect them, though he wished Magda wouldn't have learned it that way. He never would forget the sudden fear in her eyes, before the arrow from one of the men accidentally hit her instead of Eric, killing her in the process, much to his horror. An incredibly furious and devastated Erik promptly murdered them all by magnetically manipulating the locket he once gave to Magda.
When he tearfully cradled Magda's corpse, there already have been sent out other men to do what the men before couldn't. This time he made no resistance at all, being in a trance-like condition. But even though Trask Industries managed to lock him up to a place he couldn't leave with the help of his powers, he never forgot about the promise he gave to all mutants out in the world.
"You can lock me up, but you can't stop the revolution, which already has begun." That was Eric's last statement, before he didn't come to see the daylight outside the Trask Industries building again for a long time...