Welcome, X-Fans, to another uncanny edition of X-Men Monday at AIPT!
If you’re a regular reader of X-Men Monday or AIPT, you already know how magical comics can be. For instance, Magneto, beloved to comic book fans around the world — and X-Men Monday readers’ favorite X-character of 2022 — is currently dead in Marvel’s ongoing X-Men continuity. But next month (August 2, 2023, to be precise), you can read an all-new story about the master of magnetism’s past in Magneto #1! Magical! That’s some true Magneto magic!
What can you expect from this new mini-series, courtesy of legendary writer J.M. DeMatteis and artist Todd Nauck? Fortunately for you, J.M. is here to answer that question and others, so let’s get started.
Courtesy of jmdematteis.com
AIPT: Welcome to X-Men Monday, J.M.! I’d love to start at the very beginning. In a recent Newsarama interview, you mentioned you loved the early X-Men tales when you were younger. What made those early adventures special to you as a reader?
J.M.: That’s a great question… and I don’t know if I have an answer. The book certainly wasn’t one of Marvel’s best or most famous — it was always over in its own little oddball corner. And maybe that was the key. There was something oddball about the X-Men. A telepath in a wheelchair, a bunch of unruly teenagers with odd powers, Magneto, and an array of equally oddball villains showing up regularly. They seemed to inhabit their own strange, little universe — almost separate from the Marvel Universe.
Courtesy of Marvel Comics
Looked at now, those early stories seem rough around the edges, some of them don’t quite make sense, but even then they were infused with the Kirby-Lee magic. I would have loved to have seen Jack and Stan tackle the X-Men in the mid-sixties when they were reaching their peak as a creative team.
AIPT: A ‘what if’ I’d also love to see! Now, how did the opportunity to write this Magneto mini-series come about?
J.M.: Editor Mark Basso called me up and asked me if I was interested. I said yes. It was as easy as that! When Todd Nauck was added to the equation, I knew I’d made the right decision. Todd’s work on this series has been amazing. Every page is better than the one before. Just spectacular stuff.
Courtesy of Marvel Comics
AIPT: Todd’s great! (And a friend of X-Men Monday!) For readers who are only now hearing about this mini-series, what’s your elevator pitch?
J.M.: I don’t know if I can boil it down to an elevator pitch!
What fascinates me about Magneto is that he’s a mass of contradictions. If you look at those early stories, he’s as one-dimensional a villain as you could possibly find. An arrogant, megalomaniacal, mustache-twirling bad guy with zero redeeming qualities. But as the years progressed, writers — especially Chris Claremont — gave us a much more nuanced, multi-layered portrayal of the character. A man filled with seemingly infinite contradictions. He may be the single most conflicted, multi-layered character in the entire Marvel Universe. As a writer who’s always specialized in getting deep inside characters’ heads, those conflicts and layers fascinate me.
And, since I’m such a fan of those early stories, I’m equally fascinated by the disconnect between the (apparently) one-dimensional “evil mutant” introduced in X-Men #1 and the man he evolved into. Was that truly who Magneto was back then… or was his “villain” persona part of some larger plan? Our story will allow us to go back and look at some of the events from the Jack Kirby/Stan Lee-Roy Thomas/Werner Roth eras and view them through a very different lens.
And, of course, we pick up our story at a time when Magneto has just taken over as headmaster of Xavier’s school, charged with guiding the New Mutants. The “evil mutant” has now taken on the vision, and the burden, of the man who was once his fiercest enemy. Talk about duality and conflict! The story potential is endless.
Courtesy of Marvel Comics
AIPT: You just managed to cover X-Fans Cole and Jonathan Loviscek’s question about writing a character as complex as Magneto, so I’ll move on to X-Fan JGB’s question: Did you go back and read any of the classic comics from Magneto’s New Mutants headmaster days when writing this mini-series?
J.M.: Yes, I went back and read lots of stories from that era and also revisited those early ’60s X-stories, as well. That’s one of the fun things about what I do: I have to read comics. It’s part of the job!
AIPT: Living the dream! X-Fans Archit and Melanie both were wondering if this mini-series at all explores Magneto’s relationship with his wife Magda and daughter Anya.
J.M.: Magda and Anya are part of this story… but not in the way you might expect. And that’s all I can say.
AIPT: When Marvel announced this mini-series, you said the story’s villain Irae is “born in the cauldron of Magneto’s dark past.” What went into co-creating a good villain for Magneto?
J.M.: You want a villain who is psychologically and emotionally interesting in their own right and, ideally, one that has a direct emotional connection to your protagonist. Without giving anything away, Irae fits the bill perfectly. Her origins tie directly to Magneto, even though he was never aware of it, and her appearance is like his tortured past as an “evil mutant” coming back to upend his present life as headmaster of the school.
Courtesy of Marvel Comics
AIPT: X-Fan Booper was wondering if you have an all-time favorite Magneto story.
J.M.: There’s a story from the Thomas-Roth era (with layouts by Kirby, which means he was also engineering the story) where Magneto infiltrates the school and takes on the X-Men from within. I loved that as a 12-year-old and it’s stayed with me all these years.
The last page of X-Men #17, where Angel’s parents arrive at the school and a sneering, arrogant Magneto greets them at the door is a classic.
Courtesy of Marvel Comics
AIPT: Of course, this isn’t your first time exploring the X-Men universe. You’ve written an Iceman mini-series, former X-Men in The New Defenders, and issues of X-Factor. Does any of your previous work with Marvel’s mutants hold a special place in your heart?
J.M.: I enjoyed them all, but my run on Defenders — which was one of my first gigs at Marvel — remains near and dear to my heart. It was my passion project. Whatever its flaws — I was still young and had a lot to learn — I poured heart and soul into that book.
Courtesy of Marvel Comics
AIPT: Finally, beyond Magneto, what else are you currently working on that fans of your work should look out for?
J.M.: I’ve got another (top secret for now) Marvel mini-series in the works. Writing the next chapters of my four creator-owned DeMultiverse titles for Spellbound Comics. I have a new novella, The Witness (with illustrations by the great J.H. Williams III) coming out later in the year from NeoText. And I’m about to get started on another NeoText novella, my third one, which should be out in 2024.
Some other very exciting things in the works that I can’t talk about yet. So life is busy and creative, which makes me happy.
AIPT: Love hearing all that! And on that note, thanks for stopping by X-Men Monday, J.M.! Remember to pick up a copy of Magneto #1 when it goes on sale August 2, 2023, X-Fans. Here’s an eXclusive sneak peek at a few of the first issues pages by Todd Nauck, courtesy of our friends at Marvel.
Courtesy of Marvel Comics
Courtesy of Marvel Comics
Courtesy of Marvel Comics
Courtesy of Marvel Comics
Until next time, X-Fans, stay exceptional!
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