Resurrection of Magneto #1 – Storm Walks the Lightning Path

In September of 2022, Marvel Comics did something that, since Superman first debuted his black suit after being beaten to death just under a year before, felt nearly impossible. Magneto, having defeated the Eternal that called down a genocide on his adopted planet of Arakko, succumbed to his injuries, and man, did it sting. Judgement Day’s rendering of Magneto’s death was already heartbreaking, but the following month, X-Men: Red writer (and Magneto architect for much of the Krakoan age) Al Ewing got to extend the scene and write Max’s true last words, delivered to Storm in private. The scene demonstrated the strength of both Magneto as a character and that of his arc that has played out over the decades. 

Max’s role in his final issues of X-Men: Red and his heroic entrance (and quick exit) in Judgement Day highlighted one of the more interesting aspects of the character: he’s living on borrowed time. This was more literal in those issues; his heart had been ripped out of his body and he was using his powers to keep his blood pumping, but Magneto has, for years, been a ticking clock. As one of Marvel’s few characters with a concrete timeline, Magneto was already an old man over half a century ago, with his age as a Holocaust survivor largely being handwaved or justified through science-fiction-charged plot devices ever since, including a bizarre beat where he was reverted to a baby. His final moments in Judgement Day and X-Men: Red were peaceful ones that could, in theory, have put the character to retirement, but, as Resurrection of Magneto will tell you, that is not what Magneto is for. 

Ewing’s strength as a Marvel writer lies in taking the rich history of their comics, ripe with contradictions, retcons, and, occasionally, things best left forgotten, and weaving them into a cohesive tapestry that somehow ends up feeling like it was part of some greater plan all along. Excitingly, with Resurrection of Magneto, he turns his continuity-focused sights to not just Magneto, nor just Storm, but rather the relationship between the two of them. 

First showing signs of potential when Ororo stood over a sleeping Max and contemplated cutting his throat before he could wake in Uncanny X-Men #150, going into the two of them leading the X-Men together and joining the Hellfire Club as a unit, finally leading to Ewing taking over writing them and proving them to be one of the more effective mutant circuits, both with their powers and their presence on Arakko’s council, Max and Ororo have one of the most potent and, until recently, underutilized dynamics in X-Comics. 

This focus on the relationship between the two puts the almost fairy-tale-like story in perspective. Storm, dreaming of Magneto in danger in the afterlife, decides to find him and offer him the chance to return to the land of the living, a plan that she later struggles with. Along the way, she’s faced with figures from both Magneto’s past and her own and confronts her motivation for undergoing this quest. 

Ororo’s decision to go on this journey feels justified by the end of the first issue, though the stakes are exceedingly high and, like with many fairy tales, the destination is unlikely to be the one that she had her eye on in the plan’s inception. Ewing’s depiction of the Waiting Room, the staging ground for the story and a mutant limbo of sorts (not to be mistaken with the realm called Limbo that is often ruled by a mutant, comics are fun), is one that plays heavily into Marvel’s own brand of higher reality and mysticism, a side of the universe that Ewing himself has been championing in works like Immortal Hulk, Immortal Thor, and his nearly decade-long work with Blue Marvel. 

As we see the close of the Krakoan age, Ewing has taken two of his major players from his time with the property and put them into a world focused on meta rules and archetypes, what some would call his home field. Fans of his Defenders work will be happy to find out that the book seems to share more DNA with those series than it does with something like X-Men: Red, and it’s particularly gratifying to see Ewing’s longtime interest in Jewish mysticism, Kabbalah, put into conversation with a lead Jewish character. 

Similarly, Storm gets a chance to confront her power as both the lead character and a mutant, getting a chance to flex her muscles and demonstrate why she’s consistently been one of the pillars of the franchise. Vecchio’s art for the issue starts fairly simple but gains depth as Storm descends further and further into the afterlife. The art pairs ideally with the writing, with the backgrounds and detailing on the characters gaining complexity in line with the complexity of the lore that Ewing employs. The issue leads to a final image that, while gripping, may prove more loaded than the series is ready to account for, though that remains to be seen.

While it ties into the other threads in the Fall of X event, Resurrection of Magneto is focused in on its own story. It uses the apocalyptic events of the other books to make one essential point: when things get serious for the mutants, they will always need Magneto, a man whose story, much like Marvel itself and even more so for the X-Men since Claremont first took over the book, is inextricably tied to both his Jewishness and the history of the Holocaust. Also proving to be an essential Storm story that begins to tie up all of the strings that Ewing has weaved in his time with Krakoa, Resurrection of Magneto #1 is an excellent launch to what is sure to be a foundational case study for two of the franchise’s most beloved characters.