Magneto is awake and seeking redemption!
Originally Published December 1995
We begin down Latin America way in some unspecified Spanish-speaking country with some adorable orphans poking at a comatose man they find lying around.
Children, if I only impart one life lesson to you -- and that may very well be the case -- let it be that you should never, ever poke a random stranger you find lying comatose on the ground, no matter how powerful the urge may be. Please find an adult, and have them poke him.
Luckily, in this case, the kidlets are being protected by their local shotgun-toting hot nun, Sister Maria.
The silver-topped stranger responds to the threat by instinctively using his mastery of magnetism to hurl the woman against a tree, whilst warning her in German. The doe-eyed tykes beg their new friend not to hurt her, and he acquiesces by falling back unconscious.
When he awakes, he has been tied to a bed James Caan style, but Sister Maria actually does want to nurse him back to health. Given one doesn't speak Spanish and the other doesn't speak German, they converse in English, conveniently for us. As they bond, the visitor reveals he doesn't remember much of anything, least of all who he is.
Later, undoubtedly tired of the itchiness of being bearded so near the equator, he shaves his face and discovers to his own surprise that he is not a craggy septuagenarian as his silvery locks would have you believe...
 |
| Doesn't anyone around here know how to draw kids who don't look like Harry Belafonte? |
One of the orphans, Migdalia, names him Joseph, no doubt due to his resemblance to Def Leppard lead vocalist Joe Elliott. When Joseph overheard gunfire nearby, he immediately and instinctively curses the Nazis, but Migdalia explains it's just an ongoing local dispute.
Weeks pass, and Joseph grows close to Sister Maria, who begins to suspect that he is one of those Mutant people they have in the Estados Unidos. He privately confesses, under the serious moonlight, that he may have some darkness in his past that haunts him, which he can't quite put his finger on. She offers forgiveness, even though he's too amnesiac to confess anything and doesn't even say a Hail Mary.
Eventually, Joseph's presence attracts the attention of a corrupt Government official named Colonel Ramos, who wants to conscript the mystery mutant to assist in his unspecified gang activity, and announces his intentions by setting the orphanage barn on fire and kidnapping all of the kids and Sister Maria. Surprisingly, the bold stratagem of threatening a mutant of unknown power and origins does not pay off for the Colonel.
Joseph races to the rescue on horseback, dressed in a purple cloak -- it really does seem to be his colour -- but when Maria and the orphans step outside, they see the full extent of the carnage Joseph is capable of.
Seeing the kids utterly horrified by is actions, Joseph takes his leave before dawn the next day. Sister Maria is there to see him off, advising him to find the X-Men, whom she knows about from an old TIME magazine cover story.
Privately, Sister Maria suspects this an is not just a mutant, but Magneto, the famous terrorist. But Magneto's way older, and way less hot, so I think we can rule that out. She gets some reassurances from her local pastor that believing in peoples' better nature is in fact a good thing.
And so, Joseph, that man of mystery, heads off into the sunrise in search of redemption.
Further Thoughts:
One weird thing about this issue is that it's implied that one of the orphans has the power to see the future, drawing a picture of Magneto Joseph as he will eventually appear, riding to the rescue. This is never elaborated upon or brought up again.
This whole treacly premise, where the mysterious stranger with the dark past befriends some orphans and then must use his darkness to protect them is about as cliche and basic as it gets but somehow I accept it as the right story for this moment, to introduce this new incarnation of Magneto, the mysteriously de-aged and amnesiac Joseph on the path to righteousness.
Really, there's nothing special to it, there's no spin, it's just a completely earnest story setting up the next phase of Magneto's career -- if in fact Joseph is Magneto. It does recall certain previously-established bits of Magneto backstory, his wife Magda and lost daughter Anya, his weak spot for children and other innocents. A bit obvious and over the top? Absolutely, but I don't really expect comics to exhibit much subtlety and nuance. Just give me this big blunt story and we'll run with it.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDelete