{"id":12393,"date":"2026-10-01T21:21:55","date_gmt":"2026-10-01T20:21:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=12393"},"modified":"2026-10-01T22:56:17","modified_gmt":"2026-10-01T21:56:17","slug":"x-men-38-annotations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=12393","title":{"rendered":"X-Men #38 annotations"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>X-MEN vol 7 #38<\/strong>
\n“Magneto”<\/strong>
\nWriter: Jed MacKay<\/strong>
\nPenciller: Tony S Daniel<\/strong>
\nInker: Mark Morales<\/strong>
\nColourist: Fer Sifuentes-Sujo<\/strong>
\nLetterer: Clayton Cowles<\/strong>
\nEditor: Tom Brevoort<\/strong><\/p>\n

COVER:<\/strong> A montage of images of Magneto in various costumes from the course of his career. From left to right, the black and red costume is from\u00a0Uncanny X-Men<\/em> vol 4 (the Cullen Bunn run where Sabretooth was on the team); the purple costume is from when he first joined the X-Men; the white costume is from Uncanny X-Men<\/em> vol 3 (the Brian Bendis “Mutant Revolution” run), although it also cropped up a lot in the Krakoa era; and the red and purple one is Silver Age Magneto. The present day Magneto is seated in front of them.<\/p>\n

PAGE 1.\u00a0<\/strong>Magneto remembers being attacked by the Chairman.<\/em><\/p>\n

This is from the end of issue #36. The dialogue in the first two flashback panels is from that issue, but the final line – “There. I understand that I am doing you a terrible indignity, so please let it all out” – is original.<\/p>\n

The other panels show Magneto in a blank landscape which is apparently the interior of his own mind. Note that in his own mind, he still presents in the classic Magneto costume.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

PAGES 2-6.\u00a0<\/strong>Magneto is approached by Professor X.<\/em><\/p>\n

The story deliberately doesn’t clarify whether this is a hallucination, or the real Professor X contacting Magneto. It seems much more likely to be the former, simply on the plot level that it’s unlikely that Professor X would be aware of Magneto’s current condition from across the galaxy.<\/p>\n

Professor X is wearing his Krakoan-era black costume, without the Cerebro helmet. Magneto refers to him being in “Shi’ar space, or wherever it is you’ve been”. Professor X was last seen in the X-books in the “X-Manhunt” crossover, which for this series was issue #13. After that, he appeared in last year’s\u00a0Imperial War: Exiles<\/em> one-shot, which was supposed to lead into an\u00a0Exiles\u00a0<\/em>ongoing about him and Lilandra in exile from the Shi’ar Empire. That book never happened, and so their storyline remains in limbo.<\/p>\n

The flashback on page 3 which shows Magneto crying blood and feeling stone tablets is from\u00a0Resurrection of Magneto<\/em> #2; the tables show the names of people who died as a result of Magneto’s actions in life. As Magneto points out, he’s already come to terms with all this when he returned to life – that was the whole point of Resurrection of Magneto<\/em>. Nonetheless, he jumps straight to talking about this without Professor X even raising the topic, which seems overly defensive if he’s quite as comfortable with it as he says.<\/p>\n

Magneto’s death at the hands of Uranos took place in X-Men: Red<\/em> #5-7, and led to\u00a0 Resurrection<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Magneto feels humiliated by his defeat at the hands of the Chairman – echoing the Chairman’s own dialogue on page 1 – and suggests that his powers are so central to his sense of identity that without them he isn’t really Magneto. This has parallels with the way Joseph is written in elsewhere in the crossover, insisting that because he has the powers, he is the real Magneto. (It seems fairly likely that Joseph is here so that Magneto can defeat him as the climax to his arc, and reassert his identity.)<\/p>\n

Magneto references the line “I am power.” MacKay is probably thinking of this line cropping up at several points in\u00a0Resurrection of Magneto<\/em> #3, which ends with Magneto saying “Who am I? I am power. Men call me Magneto.” That book in turn got it from the end of\u00a0X-Men<\/em> #17 (1966), where Magneto answers the door to Angel’s understandably confused parents.<\/p>\n

PAGE 7.<\/strong> Magneto views an alternative Iron<\/em> Night.<\/em><\/p>\n

Welcome to the\u00a0It’s a Wonderful Life<\/em> section of the issue, where Professor X makes the case that the events of this series would have played out differently in Magneto’s absence, despite his lack of powers.<\/p>\n

This, specifically, is the “Iron Night” seen in flashback in issue #7, where Cyclops and Magneto save Merle from a Sentinel. In that issue, Magneto shows up with his powers fully functioning, and tries to persuade Cyclops to re-form the X-Men. After the Sentinel is defeated, Magneto loses control of his powers. We were told (but didn’t see) that Cyclops had to knock Magneto out in order to get him under control; in this version of events, Magneto dies as a result. Magneto doesn’t see this as a particularly bad outcome, since Cyclops goes on to re-form the X-Men anyway.<\/p>\n

PAGE 8.<\/strong> A montage of how the series would have played out without Magneto.<\/em><\/p>\n

In Magneto’s version of events – and we have to assume that this is him talking to himself – most people are largely unaffected by his absence, or even better off. He envisages the Beast being able to spend his time on something more productive, instead of researching Magneto’s condition. Interestingly, Magneto sees himself as one of the reasons why Temper hasn’t been able to move on from her feelings of bitterness at being imprisoned in the Pit on Krakoa, presumably because he was one of the Quiet Council and directly implicated in the decision.<\/p>\n

It’s only with Ben Liu that Magneto struggles to rationalise how his absence wouldn’t make a difference, given the way Ben has clearly viewed him as a mentor.<\/p>\n

PAGES 9-12.<\/strong>\u00a0An alternate version of the second Iron Night.<\/em><\/p>\n

This is the mutant now known as Myriad attacking Merle in issues #14-18, where Magneto piloted a Sentinel to fight her. Magneto clearly does take an active line in this story, but ultimately rationalises that if he hadn’t been taking up Beast’s time, somebody else would have dealt with the problem. None of this really addresses the point that Magneto was still making a contribution, of course.<\/p>\n

Note also that Magneto’s concerns about Myriad’s rampage are framed less in terms of how many humans she might have killed in his absence, and more in terms of how much guilt she would have carried for killing them.<\/p>\n

PAGES 13-15. <\/strong>An alternate version of Danger Room.<\/em><\/p>\n

This is a version of the “Danger Room” storyline from issues #26-30 in which Kid Omega and Temper take the bait after Glob Herman is shot, and go on a rampage against the entire population of Merle. In issue #30, Magneto manages to talk them down at the very last minute; in his absence, they undoubtedly would have crossed the line.<\/p>\n

PAGES 16-20.\u00a0<\/strong>Magneto and Professor X discuss why he was the target of the DNA message.<\/em><\/p>\n

Again, faced with a clear example of him contributing to the plot, Magneto ducks the question on the next page, and instead starts complaining about being lectured to by Professor X, who he sees as a moral scold (although in this context he probably represents that side of Magneto’s mind).<\/p>\n

Magneto confirms that their understanding of the plot is that the message written onto his DNA, which caused him to lose his powers, was the one sent back by the Age of Revelation Beast in the closing moments of\u00a0X-Men: Age of Revelation Finale<\/em>. Ultimately, while none of the examples of him contributing to the plot of the series seems to have changed his mind much, Magneto is swayed by the argument that he was only chosen for this affliction because of his ability to endure it. This seems to recast the situation in his mind as one of dignity.<\/p>\n

Professor X directly refuses to confirm whether he’s real or not, the suggestion perhaps being that if this\u00a0is<\/em> the real Professor X, he thinks the message will have more weight if Magneto believes he came up with it himself.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

X-MEN vol 7 #38 “Magneto” Writer: Jed MacKay Penciller: Tony S Daniel Inker: Mark Morales Colourist: Fer Sifuentes-Sujo Letterer: Clayton Cowles Editor: Tom Brevoort COVER: A montage of images of Magneto in various costumes from the course of his career. From left to right, the black and red costume is from\u00a0Uncanny X-Men vol 4 (the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12393","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-annotations"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12393","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12393"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12393\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12399,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12393\/revisions\/12399"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12393"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12393"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12393"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}