In 2019, the X-Men cured death. By combining the abilities of five otherwise forgotten characters, the mutant nation of Krakoa was capable of regrowing dead bodies and implanting them with their lost souls and memories. This was a revelation that was a fundamental building block of Marvel’s five-year Krakoa project, one that is just now coming to an end. The core question of this era has been touched on again and again: what does death mean in a world where it’s not final? It was a clever play on writer Jonathan Hickman’s part, everyone knew that death was written-off in comics and has been for years… why not put that meta into the canon? But now, years later, Al Ewing flips to the other side of the coin. What does it mean to stay dead in a world where it’s not final?
After a stunning Storm-focused debut issue, Resurrection of Magneto turns its attention to the titular deceased. Issue #1 left off on Storm finding Magneto, suffering with his eyes cut out in a city of judgment. He’s surrounded by stone walls with rows and rows of names carved into them, a clear call to the imagery of Holocaust memorials. While this was a lot to take on the issue’s plate, it’s essential for a proper dive into Max’s past, and the story has the tone to justify it. Vecchio’s art is once again firing on all cylinders, with a layer of grime coating his depictions of Magneto and the world around him, and Storm representing a beacon of light into his torment. The visuals vary from tense to comforting, but the whole issue has an edge to it that really brings the tone together.
Importantly, Resurrection’s second issue does what superhero comics excel at: taking personal, human conflicts and blowing them up to superhuman scales. Max’s loathing for his past sins is actualized as an undead city of judgment, with him taking the place of his own jury. His short fight with Storm is depicted as a realistic argument between friends, displayed through the lens of magnetism and lightning, with Max literally throwing his past at Ororo.
Despite the roles they represent in the story, with Storm as the voice of life and Magneto as the counter of the dead, neither of the two are ever caricatured. Storm falters when she realizes the magnitude of her companion’s muddied past, Magneto does the same when he believes that Xavier is in danger. These little moments make the characters feel so much more human than what they’re usually given in the common interheroic conflict and makes the inevitable conclusion that much more impactful.
That conclusion is, much like with the previous issue, built on Magneto’s various relationships that he’s built throughout the years, with his iconic dynamic with Charles Xavier taking a front seat. The issue invokes “to save one life is to save the world”, a saying that has become a mantra of sorts for superheroes as a whole, with it being especially tied to both Ms Marvel and Spider-Man. The saying, usually used as a moral perspective for why people choose to suit up as heroes, instead becomes the central thesis of the issue. The names of the people that Magneto has hurt, helped, or otherwise touched are all present here, and Storm, as a character who gets less focus this issue but is still unquestionably the protagonist, must choose to accept Max’s world, faults and all, if she wishes to save him.
While the first issue kept itself fairly free of other going-ons in the timeline, the second issue allows Ewing to truly flex his continuity muscles with the current events of Krakoa’s fall. Referencing stories ranging from the first run of the X-Men back in the sixties all the way up to the Krakoan era, Ewing takes the disorganized splinters of Magneto’s history and fashions them into a seamless puzzle. The issue takes a vulnerable look at Magneto’s numerous missteps during the Krakoan era, and what seemed at the time like loose characterization is brought together into a cohesive downwards spiral, leading to Max removing himself from Krakoa and joining Storm in the pages of Ewing’s X-Men: Red. Even Giant-Size X-Men: Magneto, a four-year-old issue that seemed surprisingly inconsequential at its release, is made into a core event for Magneto’s progression.
On the flip side of his love for Marvel’s history, Ewing’s work often feels aware that the ongoing nature of comics means that characters are regularly stuck going through the same loop of an arc. Loki: Agent of Asgard is about the box that the character is forced into, constantly bound to betray his brother (an idea that gets proven shortly after Ewing leaves the book), Immortal Hulk is about the ongoing cycle of self-loathing and temporary fixes to the conflict between Bruce and the other parts of his mind. Alternatively, Immortal Thor spends absolutely no time hand-wringing about whether or not its protagonist is worthy of his hammer; we all know he is, we’ve seen it challenged and re-established for decades now. Ewing’s work often seeks to close the book on these years-long conflicts and set the path towards something new, whether subsequent writers choose to take that path or not.
Magneto took his first step towards heroism in 1981, over fourty years ago. Ever since, the comics have struggled to allow that arc to conclude and the character to evolve into something else. Though his development has been wracked with regression, as of Uncanny X-Men issue 516, Magneto has been pretty consistently on the side of good. Or, at least, the side of the X-Men… this issue illustrates that those two aren’t always synonymous.
Despite this 15-year history on the X-Men, Magneto is still more likely to be included in the villain shots than that of the heroes, a sign that the work on the character isn’t yet done. This issue marks a clear path towards getting there. Ewing addresses this goal through the torn-out eyes of Max himself, as he’s forced to finally put to rest the sins that haunt him and allow himself to acknowledge the good that he’s done since he turned to the light. Again, this previously shaky development is turned into an intentional uncertainty on Max’s part, with Storm helping him confront his inability to think of himself in heroic terms, a barrier that pulls him towards his various more recent wrongdoings.
Magneto, both lifted up and weighed down by his status as the X-Men’s most iconic antagonist, has never quite been able to break out of that label. Who knows if four months down the line the regime change sees Max once again battling his fellow mutants. What matters is that, whether or not it’s walked back, this issue is a planted flag for his development in the same way as Uncanny X-Men issues 150, 200, or 516. The fact that this issue only marks the halfway point of the series is exciting, and the final words on Magneto’s crimes, and his relationship to Storm and the rest of the X-Men, is going to be longer and more complex than we could have ever realized going in.