Magneto has been captured by the Red Skull. He is tied up while the Skull mocks how bittersweet it is to see him like this. So weak and powerless. Without his helmet, he is vulnerable to mental intrusions. What’s this he hears about an attempted assassination? He must have realized to kill him would also mean to kill the last remnants of his friend Charles Xavier. Is that why he failed so completely? Did a kinship to the grey matter fused to his own brain stay Magneto’s hand? He feels for his loneliness. That’s why he dredged through that brain of his and conjured up an old acquaintance to keep him company.
From the shadows steps Hitzig, who mocks that he barely recognizes Max, but he loves the hairstyle.
If he thinks an old ghost will torment him, Magneto addresses the Skull, his vile talents are even more squandered than he thought.
Vile, the Skull mocks. He’s scanned Magneto’s head. He could return his full powers as easily as switching on a light. Would he think him so vile then? He’ll leave him in the care of Mzee and his old colleague, Hitzig. He give him less than fifteen minutes before he breaks. Perhaps he’ll return to savor that delicious little trickle of Xavier’s pity as Magneto begs for mercy.
Magneto mentally steels himself, deciding not to break. It’s a simple matter of redirection…
Flashback:
He recalls how, years ago on the Moon, he revealed to the Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver he was their father as he embraced his newborn granddaughter Luna. Angrily, his children asked him why he never said anything. They could have been a real family! Glumly, Magneto admitted he only just found out himself.
Suddenly, the ground shakes. It isn’t safe, he realizes, holding Luna. Not even here. But Wanda could save her, save them all with a thought! he urges the Scarlet Witch. She dares not, Wanda replies. She cursed mutantkind, Magneto reminds her. Damned them to near extinction. And now she does nothing? This is how she atones?
This didn’t happen, he realizes. Suddenly, his arms are empty. Hitzig and two monstrous Nazi guards stand in front of him, having just killed his children. Clever, Hitzig remarks, to flee into his memories from the pain of the here and now. Hitzig’s face morphs into the Red Skull’s as he promises there is no escape. He’s been running since Auschwitz and he’s yet to give Hitzig the slip. All that power wasted, he mocks. Wasted on his futile attempt to save this family, the mutants, the Jews to save himself from— He and the soldiers seem to explode.
Magneto finds himself as Max Eisenhardt in his burning house with his wife Magda. Their daughter Anya is trapped upstairs, Magda shouts. When the ceiling collapses, he protects them with a magnetic forcefield and gets them out. He figures he can use his powers to save Anya but, outside, he is caught and beaten up by the local police.
Hitzig grins that Max had insulted a wealthy citizen. It makes him wonder: of all the memories he could have conjured, why this one? Is he such a self-loathing creature?
Helplessly, Max looks up when he hears Anya’ screams. He’s coming! he shouts.
Hitzig grins and tells him not to lie. He shouts at the girl to jump. Her father will catch her with his gifts. Certainly, he can use his mutant powers to save his own flesh and blood.
Anya jumps and falls to her death.
Why close his eyes now? Hitzig asks Magneto. He’s sure he’s replayed that event in his life again and again. Did he choose to lose himself in this memory because he thought Hitzig would never look here?
He chose it because it reminds him why he fights! Magneto snarls and lashes out. A shocked Magda accuses him of having murdered them. Turning into Magneto, Max replies he hasn’t yet. He couldn’t save their daughter but he can avenge her. Magda calls him a monster. The ground trembles as if something approaches.
Suddenly, he is somewhere else, dressed only in a loincloth and with an also skimpily dressed Rogue at his side. She asks what is happening. It’s as if the citadel is coming down around them.
He tells her not to worry. This is not how the past was shaped. In just a short time, Zaladane will steal his powers, leaving him helpless until Rogue saves him, but for now they have this moment. The memory is corrupted, but if he could twist it further, he’d waste no time, not when it comes to—
He’s coming! he shouts as the ground rumbles. Rogue asks what he is afraid of. Afraid, he repeats as he finds himself dressed in his concentration camp prisoner uniform. Soon, he is only a boy younger than Rogue. He is afraid, he admits, but if he changes his memories, wouldn’t that be the same as changing the past? Couldn’t the two of them hide here? Here in the Savage Land where no one can—
The citadel begins to crack. The boy hides behind her. He’s found them! He can’t get away. It’s like he’s herding him toward—
Rogue screams as incredibly a stampede of dinosaurs adorned with swastika attacks and tears her apart. Magneto is horrified. The dinosaur tells him they are going to rip him up unless he just wants to give himself up. Stop running and it will be so much easier for him.
But Max runs, while the dinosaur mocks, asking what does he hope to find? In his memories, nothing will help him. He is part of his every memory. He stands above a fallen Max.
Someone grabs him away and announces they have to bring him to safety. It’s a few Genoshan citizens as the Sentinels attack Genosha. Against his protests, they take the injured Magneto and get him to safety in a bunker, urging him to avenge them.
The face of the Sentinel grins at him. Everywhere he goes, those he tries to save burn. When he was a child. When he was a husband and father. When he was a king. He’s never had enough power to save them.
Magneto realizes he can’t beat him, can’t escape and returns to reality, where he is tortured by Mzee.
Mzee claims that his family was murdered by Magneto’s minions. He’ll make his misery last as long.
Suddenly, the wall caves in and, in disbelief, Magneto sees his saviors: the Scarlet Witch, Rogue and Havok…
