X-Men Dad Drama: Why Magneto Both Is And Isn’t A Father

December 28, 2016

If you saw X-Men Apocalypse, you may have caught the subplot of Magneto being Quicksilver’s father. However, if you’ve been reading X-Men comics lately, you might be a bit confused.

Magneto, historically in the comics, has been the father of both Quicksilver and his twin sister the Scarlet Witch. That is, until now.

In a recent issue of Uncanny Avengers, Scarlet Witch cast a spell to affect her blood relatives. While Quicksilver was immediately affected, nothing happened to Magneto. Thus proving that he is not their father. How’s that for a paternity test?

Magneto Comics

The reason behind this Daddy Issue is pure spite. Marvel owns the rights to the Avengers films, while 20^th Century Fox owns the rights to the X-Men films.

Oddly enough, both studios have the rights to use the characters of Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver in film. This is why there were two different Quicksilvers; one in X-Men: Days of Future’s Past (the good one) and the other in the Avengers 2: Age of Ultron (the one that got shot).

However, only Fox can use Magneto in film and only Marvel can print comics. So in an act of pure pettiness, Marvel changed Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch’s father to be NOT Magneto, just to stick it to 20^th Century Fox and to make their films inaccurate to the comic book cannon.

Now as we’ve seen from X-Men: Apocalypse, and this is also true in the comics as well, Magneto does have offspring opportunities outside of Scar Dub and Q-Silvie, but those also turn out horribly. In the movie, his daughter is killed by law enforcement, in pursuit of Magneto. Then in the pages of Marvel, Magneto may or may not be the father of Polaris. Which, at this point, who knows? With all these possible children, Magneto is beginning to sound like the Mutant version of Thomas Jefferson.

In the end, this is a salute to you Magneto, the Once and Future Un-Dad of Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver. At first you didn’t know they existed. Then you recruited them and made them super villains. After that, they turned good and you fought against them. Ya know, maybe it’s for the best that they aren’t your kids anymore.