Magneto is a fictional character that appears in
American comic books published by Marvel Comics, as well as in a number of
television, movie, and videogame adaptations; most often in fiction related to the X-Men. Created in 1963 by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, Magneto is the X-Men's first and most famous adversary.
Magneto is a member of a fictional subspecies of humanity known as "mutants", who are born with superhuman abilities. Magneto can generate and manipulate magnetic fields, which gives him power over
metal objects. A Jewish Holocaust survivor, Magneto is driven to protect the mutant race from suffering a similar fate. His
role in comics has varied from supervillain to antihero to superhero.
Magneto first appeared in the debut issue of
X-Men in 1963, along with the titular team. Through the decades from the 1960s, Magneto has appeared in several issues of the original X-Men series, generally known as Uncanny X-Men, as well as in such spin-offs as X-Men, Astonishing X-Men, Alpha Flight, Cable, Excalibur, The
New Mutants, many X-Men miniseries, and several other
Marvel titles. His first solo title was a one-shot special, Magneto: The Twisting of a
Soul #0 (September 1993), published when the character returned from a brief absence; it reprinted Magneto-based stories from Classic X-Men #12 &
19 (August 1987 & March 1988), by writer Chris Claremont and
artist John Bolton.
