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The Geek Beat: Solo Supervillains

by Elisabeth Rappe Jul 8th 2008 // 1:02PM

Filed under: Scripts, Comic/Superhero/Geek, Remakes and Sequels, The Geek Beat




Happy day! Today, we get to talk about the Master of Magnetism and his origin movie! Or, at least, we get to discuss it via the script reviews, as two have popped up online, courtesy of Sal's Scripts and the Coventry Telegraph. A special thanks goes out to io9 for alerting me, and for their ever interesting commenters who spurred me into writing.

You see, without getting into the spoilery aspects of the script reviews, a few people took issue with X-Men's archvillain being made sympathetic. To make a long review short and spoiler-free, Magneto's origin story will center on his time in Auschwitz. Once free, he spends his adulthood hunting down the Nazis who tortured and experimented on him. The movie will be less about Magneto's issues with homo sapiens, and more about his quest for justice. Professor Xavier pops up in it as a friend, but it doesn't look like this film will delve into their break or diverging philosophies.



The thing is, David S. Goyer's script doesn't stray too far from Magneto's comic book origins. (Though hopefully smarter heads will prevail and the origin of his powers is tossed into the trash can. Honestly – it takes away the whole point of his character if they're bestowed rather than genetic.) As a Holocaust survivor, he experienced firsthand the worst man can inflict on man – and it made him who he was. He suffered for being a Jew, and he'll be damned if he's going to suffer again for being a mutant. It's what makes him frustrating and maddeningly sympathetic within the X-Men storylines. This isn't a villain like the Joker or Lex Luthor – you can see Magneto's point of view. It's difficult to root against him sometimes, especially in his movie incarnation. I think we all feel a slight contempt for Professor X and his superhero team for constantly going back for more abuse at the hands of humanity.

Ultimately, it's Magneto's embrace of violence that makes him a villain. He's willing to embrace nothing less than human genocide, but there's even tragedy in that. Having experienced the horror of the Holocaust, he should be sensitive to embracing that level of evil. He should be able to rise above it, and prove that he won't stoop to the level humanity has. But he can't, or won't – which amounts to about the same thing, really. In the comics, his violence against ordinary humans can verge on the physically revolting. (Grant Morrison's New X-Men is probably the ultimate example of that in the comics; X2 toyed with it when he re-routed Stryker's Cerebro knock-off.) In that sense, Goyer's script does look to be sidestepping the ugliest side of Magneto. No one is easier to root for than a Nazi killer! But this is also his early days, a story that reportedly ends with Senator Kelly making his proclamation against "the mutant threat." Giving him a sympathetic bent in his origins isn't rewriting comic book history; it's following a mythic storyline – monsters are often made, not born.

But, Magneto's origin story could make for an interesting franchise, should a director have the guts to do it. I think it would be downright remarkable to see a movie entirely from Erik Lensherr's unvarnished point of view. But that leads to a pretty big question: is there room out there for a supervillain movie? One where the bad guy is front and center, unapologetically beating up the good guys? Could X-Men Origins: Magneto spawn a sequel in which he splits with Professor X, forms the Brotherhood of Mutants, and wages war on humans? I actually think there could be. It would depend on the script, Ian McKellen's participation, and the level of nastiness – Grant Morrison's New X-Men may be too repulsive to play on the big screen, but Fatal Attractions might, just for sheer "Holy crap!" factor. (How wrong is it that I want to see Wolverine get his admantium ripped out? Wait, don't answer that.)

The way I see it, a movie with a supervillain at the center is only one step away from the numerous movies, including those from the comic pages, that embrace the anti-hero. What we like most about the Punisher, Elektra, and Wolverine is that they are half-bad, and it takes only one nudge to make them shoot or slash up perfectly nice people. I'm on Elektra's side even when she's gutting agents of SHIELD, just because it's cool. My morals (such as they are, heh) go out the window. I know what she's doing isn't good, but I'll be damned if I care. And we all do it. We all wait for that moment when they go bad, and we relish it. And I don't think it's because deep down, I know Wolverine has a heart of gold. It's the element of surprise, the line being crossed into total immorality. Maybe it's even simpler than that -- perhaps we just become endeared to who's in the front and center, the guy or girl with the really great lines. Reservoir Dogs is a perfect example – are you really rooting for Mr. Orange to survive, or do you want to see Mr. Pink and Mr. White make off with the diamonds?

That's the element that, I think, could make a supervillain movie work. No apologies, no gray area. Just the bad guy doing whatever it takes to achieve his or her own ends. Magneto has the edge of slight sympathy which lends him complexity – but with the right villain, would you need even that much? I'd watch two hours of Catwoman robbing from whoever she damn well pleased, Batman be damned. It would be fun, and an interesting change of pace to see Superman or the X-Men scrambling in the backseat. Maybe it would work only because you know the good guys will win one way or another – but isn't half the fun when the bad guy escapes to fight another day? Give the supervillains their franchised due. The moral absolutists may see it as the death of good old-fashioned values and a glorification of wickedness -- but you can't glorify those unless someone is getting their adamantium skeleton ripped out.

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Tags: cinematical, featured, magneto, magneto script review, MagnetoScriptReview, the x-men, TheX-men, wolverine, x-men origins magneto, X-menOriginsMagneto

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