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Jack Kirby’s inclusion of the Silver Surfer, surprising Stan Lee.

The complication, of course, is tying it to WW2 instead of simply saying that an experience of atrocities inside a prison camp *somewhere* formed his views as a very young man.

It appears many fans of the character these days really haven't read those early stories. There is no question at all in his appearances from (Uncanny) "X-Men" #1 up through JB's run (the better part of 20 years of publishing history) that Magneto was despicable, manipulative, and vile. 

I won't suggest or demand that any fan of the villainous character  not say that they prefer the changes made by Chris Claremont beginning in issue #150, but don't try and claim there was prior groundwork laid to suggest Magneto was really a good guy. Outside of the "Days of Future Past", where he logically sides with the mutants against being wiped out by the Sentinels,  there was never a trace he was anything other than a maniacal supremacist. 

Again, I point out that I have reread all his appearances up to 1980 very recently, and noted how truly rotten he was. He literally treated Toad as his slave, and has no internal conflict over murdering and destruction in service of achieving his goal of world domination. He wasn't "punishing" humans for their racism against mutants, he fully believed to be above humanity and sought to subjugate the human race.

Fans can prefer the revisionism of his history in comics, but recognize that Magneto today is really not the character as written in his first two decades of publication.

There is nothing wrong with having a character who is NOT a hero by some other standard. Magneto was a wretched, monstrous criminal and bigot-- he didn't deserve a whitewash then and doesn't now. But some fans will surely feel otherwise because that's the only Magneto they know, and the films have only cemented that history for him.

-Magneto and Xavier will NEVER have been friends or even allies, 

-Magneto will be shown to be viciously intolerant of humans (reasons why being largely irrelevant), and

-he will never become an ally to the X-Men, because their goals are absolutely irreconcilable.

I suspect I am doomed to disappointment.

Of course, I hope the same for Dr. Doom and the revived Fantastic Four. We'll see how it all turns out.