X-Men: Magneto's Utopia
Matt Fraction chats about the return of Magneto, the trials of running a mutant sanctuary and teases something huge on the horizon.
Today we bring you the third and final portion. It's been a while since we discussedUncanny X-Men with Fraction. Since last time,Magneto has resurfaced and life has become even more dangerous and interesting for the merry mutants. Fraction talked at length about Magneto's return, his motives, and other recent happenings.
IGN Comics: How would you say the X-Men are taking Magneto's reappearance so far?
Matt Fraction: I think it's complicated. It's something that we build to. As much as Nation X is about all of the X-Men on Utopia, it's really magnified as a story about Scott and Magneto and what their relationship is and where it's going. Magneto is a complicated figure. He has been for a while. Different people are going to feel differently about him. We hadn't really seen him before in this story, and when he came and theatrically kneeled before Scott, it was a humble and humiliating gesture designed to show that he wanted to be as earnest and sincere as he could, [laughs] albeit a little Shakespearean.
It's tricky and complicated, and by the end of Nation X Magneto's motives will be very clear. Why he's back will be apparent. There's no more mystery left to be had. He does something at the end of the arc so spectacular that it'll be impossible to ignore him and impossible to ignore what his return means. And there will be big ramifications for the book and several characters in it.
IGN Comics: Why do you think it is thatCyclops seems so much more willing to take Magneto at his word than the rest of the team?
Fraction: I think he's willing to not beat him up right away, but as time goes on we're going to see there's still hostility. Especially, like I said, as the arc develops. It's complicated. I don't think he trusts the guy, but at the same time he realizes what their predicament is and how desperate and vital it is. He wants to give everyone the benefit of the doubt. And having Magneto on his side would not necessarily be a bad thing. He understands that there's strategic value there. It's only once Magneto starts to stray from the reservation, as it were, that things start to get tense.
IGN Comics: Magneto also happens to show up just as Utopia is starting to sink back into the ocean. That timing seems a little convenient. Are you trying to ensure that readers are at least a little bit skeptical of Magneto's arrival and what he's up to?
Fraction: Nobody knew the sinking was going to happen. He came because he saw that Scott had really untied everybody. That Utopia happens to be sinking is an unforeseen complication, but one that he may or may not be particularly empowered to help.
IGN Comics: A couple issues back we got Magneto's account of what he's been up to and how he regained his powers. One disparity I'm wondering about is how he claimed to be reborn and called himself "a man of 20 again", but when they battled the Predator X clones he exhausted himself pretty quickly, even admitting that he felt like an old man.
Fraction: Right.
IGN Comics: Is there a reason for the disparity in his story there?
Fraction: Have you ever gotten over the flu and felt great, and then you go out and overdo it and feel exhausted? He went from having no powers and being sick and weak and human to being powered again and feeling revitalized. He's overconfident. He has the body of an old man but his power levels are restored, so there's a disconnect there. He's not the unstoppable, ultimate power that he once was. He might have his powers back and might feel like he's young and in his prime, but he absolutely is not. There was the Magneto from the end of Morrison's run who was crazy on Kick and destroying the Brooklyn Bridge. This is a Magneto who, yes, has his powers back and is back on the stage, but isn't a 20-year-old, even though he might feel like it. I thought it would be interesting to see Magneto overdo it. Like I said, you have the flu and suddenly you feel better and you go out and overdo it.
IGN Comics: I've seen some people online question why the High Evolutionary couldn't rebuild his machine and continue the process he used on Magneto.
Fraction: Well, he could, but that's not what's stated in the book. What's stated in the book is that it almost killed Magneto to do, so it wasn't practical. They could rebuild the machine, but unless you have guys who are as strong and as powerful as Magneto, it would be sort of useless. Like spending a billion dollars to make a machine that can make a million dollars. It's not that the machine wasn't replaceable, it's that the process was unfeasible. They got Magneto's power back but realized it wasn't feasible. It's all pretty well stated in the book. It just wasn't a feasible process to reconstitute the mutant race.
IGN Comics: Just looking at the general reaction of the team so far, it seems like no one is more upset by Magneto's presence than Xavier. What's going through his mind right now? Do you think he's at all justified in his reaction?
Fraction: Yeah, I think insulting him is a little above and beyond, but I don't think anyone's had a wrong reaction. Magneto is a complicated figure, and he's going to inspire complicated reactions. Ultimately, these people are only human and are scared for each other. They're going to have good moments and bad. I wanted to see how weird it was to have Magneto bowing before Scott and then Professor X being the hot-headed one. There's a lot of character stuff to be had in seeing how strange and dire it is for them right now. It's got everybody on edge, and sometimes it gets the better of them. I don't think his paranoia is anymore wrong or misplaced than Scott's open-mindedness. Which sours very quickly, as we'll be seeing in the next couple issues. Magneto has taken that inch of rope Scott gave him and found a way to hang himself with it.
IGN Comics: Earlier you brought up the end of Morrison's run. Back then it was really Xavier that was trying to convince Magneto that they needed to get off the stage and let the younger generation take charge. Now it seems like the roles have switched and that's the message Magneto is trying to give to Xavier.
Fraction: That's interesting. I hadn't really thought about it like that.
IGN Comics: Well, it's just something that occurred to me over the past couple issues. Magneto seems very willing to let Cyclops take over and remain in the background.
Fraction: I don't know that it's even in the background, but at the side of. Magneto is ready to step off the front of the stage a little bit. This storyline is about everyone's roles being complicated – things changing and shifting and twisting around and people having unexpected reactions and rising and sinking as events warrant.
IGN Comics: You've mentioned a couple times now how Magneto has something big planned for the near future, and that certainly seems to be corroborated by the newest solicitation for the series. Is Nation X really going to come down to this big confrontation with Magneto?
Fraction: Yes. Unequivocally. Issue #522 is huge. The end of #521 and then all of #522 are giant, and it's really Nation X in a microcosm. The whole arc is about unification. And if I say anything more I'll get in trouble.
IGN Comics: [laughs]
Fraction: It's big. In a year full of big things, this has been the biggest. And then we launch right into Second Coming. It's just a crazy time to be reading this book. Lots of payoff coming down the pipe.
IGN Comics: Have we seen the last of Lobe and his group for now?
Fraction: We have not. That's an ongoing thing. If you go back and look at those Predator X's that attacked the island, there was one missing. If you go back to the start of the arc where we saw Scalphunter at Lobe's hideout, there was an empty cage. And now we open the issue that came out today and there's a Predator X under the sewers of New York eating any stray mutants it can find. The mystery of what they were doing is explored. Lobe and his crew come back again. They are dealt with throughout the arc. Their somewhat intriguing mission statement is impossible to ignore by the end of Nation X. So we have not seen the last of them.
IGN Comics: We've seen Emma grow a lot more cold and sarcastic over the past few issues while she's been stuck in her diamond form, and a lot of that has been directed at Cyclops. Do you see this reflecting her actual thoughts on their relationship, or is this all just an unfortunate side effect of the state she's in?
Fraction: A little bit of column A and a little bit of column B. They might have gotten through their rough patch, but that doesn't mean they're not all a little hurt. These next two Terry Dodson issues with the psychic rescue are really about Scott and Emma and what they each do for one another when they're in danger.
IGN Comics: In this issue The Void switched over from Emma's mind to Scott's. Would you say it has a specific purpose in what it's doing, or is it more about trying to find a host that can't block it out?
Fraction: Oh, most definitely. Who wouldn't want to control the leader of mutantkind and one of the most gifted strategic thinkers of the age? Scott is a tremendously powerful dude. If The Void is a dark Sentry, imagine what a dark Cyclops would be like. What he would and could be capable of and the damage he could inflict.
IGN Comics: Beast seems to have reached his breaking point when it comes to Cyclops in this issue.
Fraction: Yes.
IGN Comics: Where is his real anger coming from? Is it with how Cyclops has been running the team, or does it boil down to the fact that Cyclops left him to be tortured by Osborn's people? Was that the straw that broke the camel's back?
Fraction: I don't think there's any one straw. It's pretty complicated. Magneto is back and they haven't put him in shackles. Beast was tortured. People don't react well to change. Whether it's good or bad is beyond the point. Beast is reacting to things being different. There are undeniably good things that have happened and undeniably bad things that have happened. He is, more than anything, vocalizing his displeasure in that. They've gone to some dark places, and he's not sure if it's the kind of club he wants to be a part of.
IGN Comics: The cover to issue #519 is pretty suggestive as far as this goes. Whether or not he actually stays with the team, do you plan on following his story over the coming issues?
Fraction: I can't really answer that without getting too explicit. The cover says a million things.
IGN Comics: And finally I just wanted to talk about the team dynamic as a whole. Issue #517 really showed them working together as a functioning unit and showed how effective the X-Men can be in the right circumstances. Were you excited to have that chance to show them working together and kicking butt?
Fraction: Yeah, and it's fun to write team book fight scenes and a fight scene where the team has 35 members. It was fun just to open up and see what happened.