Real Name: Erik Lehnsherr
Affiliation: None
Origin: Poland
Powers: Able to control and create magnetic fields, minor telepathic ablities
Background: Erik Lehnsherr was exposed to the bitter sting of discrimination long before he discovered his mutant gifts. He spent many of his formative years in the Auschwitz prison camp in Poland, under the harsh and tyrranical rule of the Nazis, and was the only survivor in his family. One night, completely by surprise, the super soldier known as Captain America, accompanied by a Canadian Special Forces agent known as Logan, broke into the prison camp and liberated the boy and the other survivors. While attempting the escape, Eric was able to save the survivors by using his powers to deflect grenades thrown by the guards. After his liberation, he vowed to himself and the world that he would never allow himself or his kind to be persecuted again.

Years later, he met a young mutant telepath by the name of Charles Xavier. The two were instant friends, both realizing that humanity's mutation was the wave of the future, and that they needed to nurture it. However, the two friends differed greatly in their methods, though, with Xavier believing that human-mutant peace was possible, and Erik believing that mutants must rule the planet in order to prevent being persecuted. For a while they managed to ignore their differences, and worked together to develop the Cerebro system.

When Xavier first recruited Storm, and sent her to find the wild man named Logan, Erik had enough, and donned his new persona as Magneto. With his own recruit Mystique, he attempted to convert Logan to his cause, but failed. Magneto split from Xavier and went to build his own team, using Mystique as Principal of Bayville High, to recruit young mutants for his Brotherhood of Mutants, as well as the services of Logan's hated nemesis, Sabretooth.

Magneto stayed out of the way of most of Mystique's recruits, except for Quicksilver, whom he personally released from prison, as Quicksilver is his son. Magneto also has a daughter, Pietro's twin sister named Wanda Maximoff, aka the Scarlet Witch. When the two were very young, Magneto placed Wanda into a mental institution due to her inability to control her burgeoning powers, leaving Pietro with resentment towards his father, and Wanda herself with a desire for revenge against the man she views as her former father.

While all of this was going on, Magneto created his haven for mutants, Asteroid M. In the cataclysmic Cauldron event, Magneto sent his Brotherhood to fight Xavier's X-Men, with the winners brought to Asteroid M in metallic spheres. He also recruited Cyclops's newly-discovered brother Alex to his cause, and Scott followed along. Magneto's master plan revolved around a machine that harnessed the mystical power of Cytorrak to advance mutations to their fullest potential. He used in on both Sabretooth and Mystique, and then on the Summers brothers, over Xavier's objections.

The machine appeared to brainwash Cyclops and "Havok," but they eventually came to their senses and destroyed Asteroid M. Magneto was thought to have perished, but has since resurfaced in a failed attempt to recruit the mutant Angel.

During the so-called "Day of Reckoning," Magneto revealed his new recruits, Pyro, Colossus and Gambit, whom along with Sabretooth made up Magneto's force against the Sentinels. It is unclear whether Magneto knew of Trask's Sentinel Program beforehand. During the battle, Magneto appeared to be destroyed by the giant robot, but in truth, he was snatched away at the last instant by Quicksilver. Since then Magneto has laid low, even somehow blocking detection by such mutant-sensors as Caliban and Cerebro, though he recently sent Quicksilver back to the Brotherhood to serve as leader. He also recruited Mastermind to alter the memories of the Scarlet Witch so she wouldn't hate him anymore and interfere with his plans. What plans those are remain to be seen.

On the "Day of Reckoning," the Brotherhood and X-Men joined forces to attack Magneto and his new mutant group, which included Sabretooth, Pyro, Gambit, and Colossus. After leading the team into a trap, Quicksilver showed his true allegiance and ran to his father's side. When the X-Men/Brotherhood seemingly defeated Magneto's team, Magneto whisked the team away in his steel escape pods. When they were safely clear, Magneto used his abilities to cause the iron-rich ground to cave in, delivering the X-Men/Brotherhood directly into the lair of Bolivar Trask and his Sentinels. After Magneto had caused the ground to cave in, they heard loud footsteps, and Quicksilver commented that "he" was using the Sentinel, indicating that the entire incident had been arranged by Magneto and Trask as a test for the Sentinels, as well as an excuse to announce to the world that mutants existed. When the Sentinel was poised on the ground to fight the team, Magneto brought the fight to the surface, directly in view of tv copters. Scarlet Witch, unable to control her anger towards her father and brother, confronted the pair. Scarlet Witch used her hex-blast to weaken Quicksilver, and attempted to do the same to Magneto when she was interrupted by a Sentinel robot. While Scarlet Witch was interrupted by Professor Xavier and the Velocity, Magneto diverted two missiles aimed for her, hitting the Sentinel directly in the chest. The Sentinel exploded, crashing into Magneto and knocking Wanda off the building. Scarlet Witch was saved at the last moment by Nightcrawler. At least, that's what was believed to have happened. Toad and Scarlet Witch reviewed the news reels, and saw that Quicksilver had run in at the final second, and saved Magneto. Next, Magneto abducted the Scarlet Witch and had her memories altered by Mastermind, in order to make her loyal to him and not to Pietro. Toad, however, assisted by Nightcrawler, came to the rescue of the girl he seems to have a deep crush on.

When Mesmero resurfaced, activating the spider-stone, which was the second key to the tomb of Apocalypse, Magneto was able to bring down the huge, green spider, and was immediately informed by Xavier that he played right into Mesmero's hands. The spider was a guardian to prevent Apocalypse from returning, and Magneto was the only one who could stop it.

Later, during Scott and Jean's graduation ceremony, Magneto and his team arrived, ruining the ceremony, and allowing Magneto to tell them what Rogue had done when she had absorbed all their powers, which was to find the third key to Apocalypse's tomb. The two teams combined, and Xavier realized that he might know where Apocalypse's tomb was. With the help of Cerebro, Charles unlocked the memories he gained from Mesmero, and believed to have found that Apocalypse was entombed underneath Giza. However, when the combined Brotherhood/X-Men team arrived, they found out it was a trap, and fought there way through to an ancient room, where Beast translated the markings on the wall and found out that En Sabah Nur (Apocalypse) was the first mutant, and that an ancient pharoh had found a ship believed to be not of this Earth, though it had really been created in the future, and that Apocalypse had seized control of it in order to turn all the world's people into mutants. Using his own mind to control the ship, Xavier teleported them all to Apocalypse's real tomb in Tibet, where Gambit, Sabretooth, and Wolverine had tracked Mesmero, Rogue, and Mystique to already. However, the team arrived too late to stop Apocalypse from drawing all of their powers from Rogue, and becoming powerful enough to live up to his name. As Xavier so eloquently put it, their greatest challenge now lies in front of them.

Soon after Apocalypse's resurrection, Apocalypse's vessel rematerialized atop a pyramid in Mexico. Apocalypse used his considerable power to create an impenatrable force-field around the pyramid, prevent anyone from accessing the pyramid, or even seeing inside. The Mexican authorities set up around the pyramid, and reluctantly called the X-Men in for support. The tried without success to passively penetrate the field, until Magneto arrived. He used all of his power to slam the military vehicles into the field, all of which bounced off not even scratching the field. Apocalypse emerged, using Magneto's own powers against him, and then somehow apparently destroyed Magneto with his own power. Xavier watched as his old friend was snuffed out of existence, and saw the pure raw power contained within En Saba Nur.

Magneto was not dead, though, but had instead been teleported away by Apocalypse and converted into one of his Horsemen.

Magneto as Horseman