COMIC DETAILS
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Comic Description:
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X-Men Classic 54 Signature
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Grade:
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9.8
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Page Quality:
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WHITE
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Certification #:
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4655068004
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Owner:
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The Captain
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SET DETAILS
Owner's Description
December, 1990
"I, Magneto..."
Chris Claremont - Writer
Dave Cockrum - Penciler
Josef Rubinstein & Bob Wiacek - Inkers
Andy Kubert - Cover Artist
Glynis Wein - Colorist
Tom Orzechowski & Jean Simek - Letterers
Louise Jones - Editor
Synopsis:
Magneto gives the world’s governments an ultimatum. They are to relinquish all governing power to him, or he will destroy the world. When a Russian submarine attacks his island, he destroys it and uses his new machine to create a volcano under a Russian town. His prisoners, Cyclops, who is powerless thanks to another device of Magneto’s, and Lee Forrester, decide they must stop him, though they don’t yet know how. In the meantime, the X-Men have been searching the area in their plane, looking for the missing Scott. When they fly over the island, the forcefield causes the plane’s controls to go haywire, and they crash into the ocean. Without Magneto noticing, they join up with Cyclops and Lee. While their powers are gone, Cyclops reminds them that they still have skills and that they have to stop Magneto. The men try to destroy the device Magneto uses to move the Earth's crust, while the women go looking for his computers. They soon find them, but Kitty finds she cannot make heads or tails of his notes, as they are written in a foreign language. Storm scouts the rooms and finds Magneto asleep. She debates whether to kill him, but hesitates too long. As he awakens and finds her with a knife, he magnetically tosses her outside the room, which is a quarter mile above the ground. Professor Xavier is on a yacht not too far away. He mentally attacks Magneto, but the villain simply uses his powers to bring Xavier’s wheelchair – and Xavier as well – to him. He then takes Kitty and Lee prisoner and confronts the rest of the X-Men, who were just successful in destroying the machine, for all the good it does them, as Magneto easily reassembles it with his powers. Storm has survived, though, managing to hold onto a projection outside Magneto’s room. She returns to the lab and destroys several computer controls. As the X-Men’s powers return, Cyclops hits Magneto with an optic blast, and the team fights him, soon joined by an angry Storm. While the others battle, Cyclops asks Kitty to find Magneto’s data banks and destroy them. Kitty finds them and phases through the system, destroying the data. Magneto notices that and joins her in the lab. He is so furious that he doesn’t know what he’s doing. Trying to get away from him, Kitty phases. As she phases through his electrical field, it causes him pain, and he responds with a nearly lethal dose of electricity. Seeing Kitty’s limp form, he comes to his senses and realizes what he’s done. Scared by his past in the Nazi death camp, Auschwitz, he had vowed to create a safe future for mutants, and now he has killed a child of his own species. Storm joins them, intent on killing him, but faced with his genuine grief and remorse, she refrains from doing so, suggesting that it is not yet too late for him to change. Magneto leaves, and Kitty survives, thanks to her phasing power. In fact, she’s recovered enough to play a joke on the others. Xavier isn’t too bothered about Magneto’s escape. He believes that this time they were able to challenge Magneto’s dream, and there is a chance that he might come out of the experience a changed and better man.
Notes:
- Signed by: Chris Claremont on 10/11/2025
- Signed by: Andy Kubert on 09/27/2025
- Reprints X-Men 150.
- This is the first mention of Magneto’s origin as a holocaust victim and the beginning of a development that, for some time, led him away from being a villain and closer to the X-Men’s ideals.
Quotes: "As a boy, I believed. As a boy, I turned my back on God forever. Kill me if you wish, wind-rider. I will not stop you." —Magneto
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