there is so much to address about this panel. mesmero calling wolverine "feisty li'l devil". the stupid gay way he's sitting on that chair. jean grey with a halo of torment absolutely stanced up. nightcrawler looking like a deepfried meme face. and most of all, scott standing like🧍♂️
After Mags is resurrected by Eric the Red (long story,) he is fuming about the X-Men and has plans for them. They're busy being overpowered by Mesmero, however, so he tracks them down.
Swole Magneto
Mags strolls in and defeats Mesmero off panel, because he's a chump and Magneto is not. He wipes the floor with the X-Men, including full power Phoenix, then laughs maniacally. Classic Mags. Notably, he looks far more physically capable and intimidating than he has before. He's ripped, he's confident, and in seconds he solo'd a foe the entire team was struggling with. Silver Age Magneto was cowardly and relied on abused lackeys to carry out his schemes, often fleeing as soon as he was in danger. That guy is gone and in his place is an antagonist who's brave, extremely intelligent, capable, and a almost insurmountable threat. He's still fantastically dramatic, but his histrionics owe more to Shakespeare than Snidely Whiplash.
Turns out he's really not happy about Chuck and Moira's baby tampering, nor his previous defeats at the X-Men's hands (or the Alpha thing backfiring.) He takes them all to one of his volcano bases, restrains and depowers them. He Then Magneto explains the specific revenge he has in mind for the perennial thorn in his side that is the X-Men. It's complicated and cruel but utterly terrifying.
They're to remain without powers, restrained and regressed to the physicality of 6 month olds. He constructed a saccharine-sweet Nanny robot to be their carer and their jailer. 'An eye for an eye' he ominously decrees. I kinda wish he did this to Chuck instead, but he's off banging the bird queen in Greece.
His immediate thirst for vengeance quenched, Mags leaves them to it and flies into space - to the nearly complete base known as Asteroid M. Where old Magneto hung out in a depressing lair with his terrified underlings, this Magneto has the power to reach space without technology, and the skills/resources to establish an asteroid base - a throne above the Earth.
Making the robot look like Moira is so funny
The X-Men are utterly in his power, with a creepy robot assigned to keep them alive and miserable. They fucking hate it, understandably. Unable to move, completely dependent on this awful automaton for their basic needs. Wolverine starts to crack. Cyclops maybe likes it a little - I don't see anyone else getting a bath and massage.
The extent of Wolverine's pain is visceral and existetially horrifying - he gets desperate quite quickly, his usual bravado shattered. Banshee and Nightcrawler seem to be doing a bit better, but Logan is not used to being helpless (plus his years of medical trauma haunt him.)
Days pass, and Ororo has a plan to escape this hell. Drawing on her upbringing as a thief (and the dubious claim of having the physicality of a child at 6 months old,) she finally gets her lockpicks out of her hair and attempts the near impossible.
After a short flashback to Achmed and the Houdini tests he put Ororo through, there's a brief hope spot where it looks like she'll succeed. Unfortunately Nanny returns, notices, and Storm is undone. She does not take it well. Of course, this is particularly sadistic torture, so who would?
Meanwhile, on Asteroid M, Mags thinks about how much of a rich genius he is (and to be fair his accomplishments are impressive, especially for a once-broke self taught evil scientist.) Magneto's interest in learning, especially science, is highlighted. His thoughts also drift to his beloved Magda, his former wife and mother to Pietro, Wanda, and Anya. He's not doing great, and torturing the X-Men isn't making him as happy as he expected. Despite his shitty actions, the seeds of Well-intentioned extremist with pathos Magneto are being sown.
Mags notices some aberrant readings on one of his many machines, and thinks that Nanny should have sorted that out. Better safe than sorry. The escaped X-Men unleash on him but while they're doing better than last time, the best they can achieve is forcing a stalemate of sorts but Magneto takes their best again and does not fall.
Continuing the theme of Phoenix power being a double edged sword, she inadvertently destroys a control panel during the fight. As everyone knows, a destroyed control panel is the Achilles Heel of any evil base and it starts crumbling/blowing up. Magneto manages to escape in the nick of time and learns the value of redundancy in data storage. After a dramatic speech he bounces to do more Magneto shit, figuring on balance he came out ahead. His volcano base and the data/gadgets within are no more, but so are the X-Men. Nobody remains to foil his plans, or do they?
Obviously they survived, but they're split up for nearly a year. Cyclops and Marvel Girl each think the other is dead, a dynamic that powered so much of the drama all the way to the Dark Phoenix saga. Magneto is back, better than ever, and he's here to stay. His actions will change how the entire world behaves while he starts a journey of his own. I believe this is the first time we see him shirtless too, setting up that he's attractive and loves being naked.
