I find the Indiana Jones sequels since The Last Crusade has struggled with this. Since Harrison Ford was aging, they had to age the story. Placing him the 50's and 60's. It just isn't as interesting when he isn't fighting Nazis.
I rank them in the order they came out. Crusade has some truly cheesy lines and weirdness with his father's character. Temple is a wonderful knock-back to a different kind of pulp radio drama and while imperfect lots of fun.
In my opinion, the primary thing holding it back is Willie. I know she was playing a type, but she is insufferable every moment she is on screen. I love most of the rest of the movie.
People complaining about Willie remind me of the people on instagram who will see a video of a lady getting in a car crash and comment about how they need to stay quiet. Tf do they expect a pampered actress to do when they get thrown off an elephant or covered with bugs?
I actually thought it had aged quite well. Well yes and no. Aged well in the sense that everything I loved about it I still love, even if its cheesy.
Less so in the sense that it is a product of its time. Probably would not be made in the same way today at all (in terms of its themes, stereotypes, stuff like Indies womanising behaviour). But you can say that about all of them to some extent.
It was still a great movie. The first is always going to be the first, and Last Crusade was a god damn masterpiece. So its the 3rd best of 3 great movies.
And its not like the nazis at the beginning of the last one made the movie any better.
Making him a Guatemalan or Hatian getting fucked up in an ICE concentration camp would be lit from a story perspective (cue the rageaholic "x-men is woke now" crowd with zero media literacy skills)
You realize Magneto is basically your "everyone I don't like is a Nazi" type who's become an authoritarian fascist himself out of his inability to see the world in anything other than black and white, right?
Besides the nazis, it moves him further and further away from the early days of archaeology. Archaeology stopped smashing and grabbing artifacts. Placing him in the 60’s means he’s no longer a legend but the absolute worst at his job
The pulpy style of Indiana Jones COULD have transitioned nicely into the Cold War, I think, but they just didn't do it well. Same thing with aliens as the supernatural macguffin, fits well into 50s B-movie type things.
While the Nazi’s do make amazing villains, I would say the bigger issue is the setting in general. The 1930’s were still an era of adventure and the world was still pretty wild and ungoverned, perfect for an archeologist hunting mystical relics
Once you get to the 50’s and 60’s, all of that was pretty much gone. We were in the Cold War and the space race and the focus was on science/futurology and not the mysticism of the past
So it's time to pass the baton to a newer generation. Like they did in Crystal Skull, Ian McKellen can pass the helmet on to a new actor.
Shia Labeouf was a bad choice, so they can choose someone of Jewish ancestry if they want to fit Magneto...maybe Ezra Miller? I hear he's not up to anything these days.
They easily could have put him up against a secret cabal of Argentine Nazis, especially since KotCS was set largely in South America. Missed opportunity.
Other missed opportunities include: going up against his own government because the US Paperclip Nazis were planning a coup using an ancient artifact, not adapting The Infernal Machine to a screenplay, where the fuck is Short Round?? replace Mutt Williams with Short Round, weird Ka Li Ma effects resurface, one of those CIA guys from Raiders is a secret villain.
Namor can fly with very small wings, has super-strength, invulnerable skin and is 600 years old, he's also confirmed a mutant. Mutants have different powers, one of Magneto's powers is to age slowly, done.
His powers all make 100% sense in the context of the character, though.
He has claws and a supercharged healing factor. Those are his only 2 powers. The healing factor is what keeps him young because it significantly slows his aging. It's also the only reason he's able to have the metal skeleton, which was forcefully bonded to his actual skeleton as part of the weapon-x program. The metal skeleton isn't one of his powers.
He also has heightened smelling and hearing, and minor super strength depending on the writer. These plus the healing and claws all come in the package of feral/animalistic powers so it works
Or you can just acknowledge that time passes, and that humans have done enough evil shit that you can still make Magneto be Magneto without it being the Holocaust that caused it, and instead have it be one of the other dozen or so ethnic cleansings since then. And then people get to learn more history in the process, similar to people learning about the Tulsa massacre in the Watchmen.
Not really in the books anymore since they introduced the concept of omega level mutants. Instead of having to retcon anything they can just increase abilities and say "he's an omega" and no other explanation is needed. Slow aging is part of being an omega.
You think that if Magneto lost his parents during a random mugging in an alley like Batman, it would make him protective of his minority group (mutants) and distrustful of humans?
Do you think your comparison of Bruce’s parents being shot in an alley to the holocaust is engaging with me in good faith? No, you will have to do better.
Kill the character or keep telling stories that are tied to that time frame. Every story has an end and sometimes you just need to start telling it from the start again.
Alternatively, disconnect the origin from the character by making it as vague as possible.
People seem to forget that they have tried making new original super heroes many, many times.
They tend to fail so badly that they end up forgotten, their books dropped and replaced with rebooted versions of characters people actually liked.
At the heart of it, it helps to remember that they have made a shit ton of super heroes over the years, and only a tiny fraction of those have actually succeeded in connecting with people and becoming popular.
The comic book industry was never particularly good with coming up with compelling characters, they were just well positioned to take a shotgun strategy, blasting out a bunch and making more of what worked.
The first 10 years of comics had well over 300 different heroes introduced. How many of those could you name now?
There certainly is a demand for age old super heros but I would argue the rise of Japanese Manga in popularity proves that most people are fed up with characters from before the 1980's.
That's why Ive always been a fan of reboots to the universe in comics that move through time. Take a lot of what worked before and work in new stuff. It allows for a general "baseline" while also giving characters a beginning and end.
I completely agree with that – that way you’d avoid the bloody status quo and allow the characters to grow, mature and develop, rather than being stuck forever as poor twenty-somethings without stable jobs, unable to maintain a lasting romantic relationship simply because they need to be "RelAtablE to YoUng auDiEnCeS" – and yes, I’m looking at you, the writers of the Spider-Man from 616.. <.<
I remember reading that demon slayer made more money than all american comics. Regardless of what you think of the quality or contents it's undeniable in the west that we just don't publish any old random story like they do in japan. It's actually nearly difficult for most people to think of comics and not think marvel or DC.
And I guess, that's also the difference between how characters are written and the types of stories involved. Superman, Spiderman, Batman - their stories are tied to their personal experience and it's somewhat timeless. I could see a Batman story set in Ancient Egypt during some darker times. Or Spiderman in Rome.
I think the bigger issue is how the Holocaust is often talked about like it's the only event like it. You could use other genocides, but basically nobody talks about them like they do the Holocaust.
I've heard someone say that WW2 is the 'creation myth' of much of our society, in the sense that the lessons learned from it are fundamental in a way that nothing else really is. This is bad in terms of recognizing things changing, but it also gives the holocaust a specific dramatic 'weight' wherein taking Magneto out of it loses it's punch, even if you put him in something equally horrific, like Rwanda.
This is fair but they're clearly trying to get away from this whole multiversal timeline shenanigans after Secret Wars so I feel it would be much better going forward to have their new stuff not tied to the multiverse or time travel
I would love to see an MCU that starts in 1963 with the characters and premises from that era of comics. I'm not holding my breath for it to happen, though. Mad Men has come and gone.
Nazi experiment that put him into indefinite stasis until he is randomly freed. But I think that's too similar to Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes so I'm not huge into it
That would be daring, isn't the Jewish-racial element of Nazi hatred kept purposefully vague for Hydra?
The real problem with Magneto's age is that Charles Xavier is also bound to him. They either both need to get frozen or something else worked up. The real solution is to either bound stories in a reasonable time frame after WW2 or just have Magneto and Charles die and tell new stories with them turning into legends
I think this is a good route to go, create an in universe circumstance that’s aligned with the same hardships that he’s have experienced in a concentration camp, but not tied to a real world timeline.
He was tested on by Nazis and they accidentally gave him slowed aging but also didn't realize they did anything soon enough and the allies destroyed their research so that's why nobody else has it. Bonus points if he had friends who were subject to the same test but died because of it
Some comics tweaked it so that Magnetos parents were in concentration camps and he was not to put him at the correct age for the 2000's.
I want to say that some of the 97 cartoons changed the lines to make it a fictional place and war similar to how the MCU Scarlet Witch is from a made-up Slavic country.
They kept it vague at first to reflect his comic origin then changed it to explicitly the holocaust to reflect his comic retcon. I’m pretty sure the retcon predated season 1 by a lot but they did similar things with other characters like Cable. Started out with a vague and more grounded backstory and then introduced the more fantastical elements a few seasons in
“My mutation makes me age slower, I’ve been in hiding until now, but I can’t stand the state of world anymore,” there it fits without doing Jewish erasure.
There are other ways to do it without using an event nearly 100 years ago and handwaving away the issues that come with it. You can tie it to the 1972 Munich Olympics, for example.
But it’s entirely unnecessary. Presupposing the holocaust is too far back or that it’s somehow obtuse to say he just ages slower in comic book media is fucking absurd. Namor is centuries old and it’s not a problem.
Right, tweaking the origin is absurd but remaking the character isn't.
People like you will never be happy. It doesn't matter how they address the issue, you'll complain about it. It just so happens that they announced this first so this is what you're choosing to complain about but had they said they're going to alter Magneto's powers to account for this then you'd 100% be complaining about that.
Your not “tweaking” the characters origin. You’re removing the most important foundational aspect of the character. That would be like Superman without the Kents, Peter Parker without uncle Ben and Aunt May, Captain America without World war 2, or Batman without Alfred.
Charles and Eric met as adults at a hospital while they were helping people, Magneto can still meet Charles at a hospital and create a strong relationship with Charles that last their entire lives.
Yeah, if Eric looks young because they made him age slowly, frozed him like the Winter Soldier by Hydra or whatever, they can have a brotherhood relationship.
Or, hear me out, you can tell a compelling story about how he has dedicated 90 years of his life to help the people who suffered the same as he did, meets Charles who also does the same but for less time (but Charles doesn't know Eric's tru Age), creating a strong bond and, when the Mutant persecution starts in the MCU, they both get in a dissagreement about how they will act, then you reveal Eric was part of the holocaust, not someone just helping the survivors, and his trauma sents him to that path, making Charles lament their broken relationship because he was oblivious to Eric's trauma.
Orson Welles said: "If you want a happy ending, that depends, of course, on where you stop your story."
You cannot keep writing on these things forever and ever, so you have to finally put the pen down and say: "This is done." Magneto's origin is intrinsically tied to his experience in Nazi Germany and the Holocaust. He is a Jew, and his trauma and experiences during the Holocaust shaped his world view. It molded him just as much as his powers did. You can't just take that away, so the best decision is to simply not make anymore stories about Magneto.
I get that but at the same this dude has restored his body to its prime how many times now? I feel like if it can work with any character it’s magneto.
There is already framework in that time period and around that region to bring him to modern day in the MCU. We still have a character from then in present day.
It’s this simple, during the holocaust Nazi scientists experimented on a young Jewish mutant. The scientists use Hydra technology to put him into suspended animation in between experiments just like the winter soldier program. After the war the secret lab is abandoned, but not discovered and still gets just enough power directed to it to keep Erik asleep. It’s not until decades later that Charles uses Cerebro and discovers a strong mutant signature that leads him to freeing Erik. Mcu Charles' actor is 40 so make Erik's last time frozen at 20yr old and have Charles find him when he is in his early 20s in the 2000s giving them 20+ years of history together before the first movie
Replacing the holocaust with a different tragedy kinda undermines the weight of his motivations. It’s something that’s intrinsically tied to his character and taking that away feels cheap.
I immediately thought of the Punisher. I remember around the time of the Thomas Jane film they made his war background the Gulf War. I guess it's about his family though. They could make Frank an Esports veteran so long as Maria and the kid's deaths fuel his rage.
Erik is different though. Holocaust survival, Nazi persecution of Jews, restarting in USA, human persecution of Mutants. It seems hard to find "the next closest thing" to the holocaust without it being insensitive.
The biggest problem with Erik, and to a lesser extent Charles. Is that no matter what happens to one needs to happen to the other pretty much, since they had known each other since they were young.
You do the best you can. You either create a way to keep that historical event relevant, like Captain America going in the ice, or you update it.
For me, I think I would have preferred them keeping it as part of his identity and finding a way to make it work. I think it's such a crucial part of what makes him Magneto that not keeping it feels wrong. I know it's difficult to find a way to do so without making it seem lazy / contrived, but that's the name of the game and that's why writers get paid what they get paid.
I mean Punisher's origin got changed from Vietnam to Afghanistan. In essence all you need from Magneto is a concentration camp for his story to largely play out the same
I mean in the MCU the answer is obvious, just make the character a variant from a world that had their Historical Event TM later in their timeline. Then have them cross over and learn that not only did our world also have the event, but it happened generations ago and is still causing tension.
In comics others have said the usual answers. Freeze them, time travel them, make them age slower either by science, magic, or mutation. The usual comic hand waving
Retire the character. Magnetos ties to the holocaust is so much more than just an interesting backstory. Its what motivates his actions regarding protecting the mutants. Could you use other events to push tte same message? Probably, but nothing will ever come close to the power of the holocaust.
I mean… Iron Man’s comic book origin tied him to the Vietnam War, not Afghanistan. They were breaking the formula all the way back at the first inception of the MCU.
Give him a secondary mutation that makes him age slower, give him a minor healing factor, have his slow aging be the result of horrific experiments, and so on and so forth.
Hence why the McAvoy universe’s take on the X-men worked to a degree, keeping them relevant to a particular time in history. There were issues ofc, but this was not it.
Well, we already have a precedent for that with Captain America. Just freeze him, or otherwise put him in stasis for as many decades as necessary. Now, the better question is, what happens when the historical event the character is tied to no longer has the same universal impact due to generational changes or some later/recent events overshadowing it?
I mean, of course not. Chronologically, the MCU is nearly in the 2030s at this point. If they tied Magneto's origin to the Holocaust, then he'd be in his 80s at the youngest.
Exactly. Chronologically, the MCU is approaching the 2030s at this point. If they tied Magneto's origin to the Holocaust, then he'd be in his 80s at the youngest.
Other comments mentioned there are mutants who can potentially de-age/heal others. While this is possible, de-aging Magneto wouldn't make sense without de-aging Xavier, as well. It's been established that mutants tend to have longer lives than humans (some more-so than others, like Wolverine Mystique, Namor, et. al.) but just making all (important) MCU mutants virtually immortal immediately cheapens the foundation of characters whose extremely long lives play a huge role in who they are, like Wolverine.
Unless the sacred/new timeline post-Secret Wars is magically reset to the 1990s or 2000s, there's no realistic or sensible way to maintain Magneto's origin without him being a member of AARP.
Its kind of a shame that "retire the character" simply isn't an option. Why does he HAVE to be "modernized"? Things exist in their own time, either make it a period piece or make something new.
If Wolverine can be over a hundred years old, why the fuck can’t Magneto? Why is this such a complicated dilemma? “Magneto is old af because he’s a mutant.” Easy fix.
And Namor can love underwater while still having feathered wings on his ankles. Why can’t magneto have that? What’s the connection here? This is the exact reason why the genre was so derided for many years. Stop taking it back to those days. We are in the right balance now. Magneto’s trauma is not to do with being a Jew. It’s that he’s faced systemic persecution by governments. And we’re all delusional if we think the Holocaust was the last such persecution ever to have happened.
And Namor can live underwater while still having feathered wings on his ankles. Why can’t magneto have that? What’s the connection you’re drawing here?
“Don’t overthink it”? This is the exact reason why the genre was so derided for many years. Stop taking it back to those days. We are in the right balance now. Magneto’s trauma is not to do with being a Jew. It’s that he’s faced systemic persecution by governments. And we’re all delusional if we think the Holocaust was the last such persecution ever to have happened.
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u/hodorelgordor 8h ago edited 4h ago
I predicted this years ago. When the historical event your character is tied to no longer works timeframe-wise, wtf do you do?
Edit: saying I predicted something does not mean I think it isnt predictable, [predictable slur].