Is Magneto mistaken or am I taking this too literally?
Ambassador Magneto has a lot to say in House of X, especially to humans on the subject of violence.
All his dreams are coming true and he's not shy about expressing his feelings on the matter. At the Jerusalem habitat the other ambassadors (who are all intelligence plants) claim to be wary of military advantage Krakoa and the gates provide.
Let's fact check Magneto there. 'There has never been a mutant war.'
What's this then? It doesn't sound very good at first glance but can it be considered a mutant war? It's basically Magneto himself unleashing an EMP and making demands of the UN. A mutant sanctuary - one they gave him too - Genosha. Terrorist act? Yeah defs. War? I'd say no.
What else? Oh yeah, that time Magneto conquered Santo Marco, a fictional South American country. Spoilers for a comic from 1963.
Okay so shelling is bad, definitely a warlike action, though it's later said there were no casualties at all, mainly thanks to Mastermind's illusions. Still, really bad optics there dude. The fake soldiers are straight up goose-stepping. This is drawn by Jack Kirby too, who definitely had strong feelings about that kind of thing - not something he'd portray unintentionally.
You'll note Mags having pseudo telepathy at this point, mainly bc Stan Lee had no idea how magnetism works.
Let's be honest, there's a big Nazi vibe to this occupation. This is in X-Men #4 in 1963, over a decade before Mags was retconned into a Jewish holocaust survivor. I'm honestly not a big fan of the original X-Men run and I can see why it got cancelled. Magneto was their greatest foe, but he was a pretty one dimension Doctor DOOM expy with none of the pathos, willpower or consistent ideology Claremont would reinvigorate him with. Anyway, sensing defeat, Magneto arms a nuke to blow the whole country up. Yikes.
It's actually Quicksilver who solves that problem, deciding he's not okay with nuking a few million people. It's the start of his face turn proper, with only Wanda's 'debt' to Mags keeping her there, and therefore Quicksilver as well.
See? Not cool, Mags. Not cool. When it's all said and done though, his occupation of Santo Marco is very brief and news doesn't get out. I assume Chuck had something to do with that. Though the country refuses to accept Krakoa for 'ideological reasons' nearly 60 years later, so maybe not. I'm going to say it definitely counts as 'conquering their land and making slaves of their people ' though.
Honestly, Magneto has died a lot since then, had amnesia and barely aged in 70 years so maybe he doesn't remember. One could argue that the spirit of what he's saying is correct - Magneto the individual did a lot of supervillain shit but there hasn't been a unification of mutants who then warred upon humans. Indeed, the opposite is true. Most mutant conflicts that could be called a war were defensive after these events.
None of the 'ambassadors' took issue with past events or his record, instead focusing on future hypotheticals. Someone should tell them that if mutants united in world conquest they'd likely be very successful and humans wouldn't know until it was too late. Technically Magneto has been tried for his acts before an international court, and acquitted because he'd been turned into a baby and was considered a different person. Yes, really.
The conversation pivots to the emissaries being there in bad faith, with slick concealing a gun. (Not that it would be very useful.)
Magneto demonstrates why that's the case and doesn't budge on his position. I guess we could say Magneto was (technically) right, in this specific circumstance. A show of force is certainly needed to make them take Krakoa seriously. It's only fitting then that Mags acts as the stick to make the carrot more palatable. I've still got room for one more pic so here's the X-Men enjoying post-training birthday cake, cut by Cyclops and his POWER BEAM. The X-Men's first birthday as a group.
Note the contrast in vibes around the Brotherhood of EEEVIL Mutants' dinner table, with petty bickering, Mastermind being a creep (the X-Men have that too tho NGL,) and a very impressive tower of mashed potato. Good to know Toad has poor table manners and that Pietro is willing to punch on over it. Not to be mean, but Wanda's headgear looks super silly. Oh well, it was the sixties!
