According to ‘X-Men ’97’s Matthew Waterson and Ross Marquand, the dynamic between Magneto and Professor X is complex just like the one between Joker and Batman.
During a panel at the 2024 Nashville Comiccon, Marquand explained that Magneto may be right in some ways, but it doesn’t mean Professor X is wrong:
“Charles knows that at the heart of all of these humans that are trying to subjugate mutants or even kill them. There is a sense of fear, a sense of ‘I don’t know if I can trust them because they might come back and hurt me someday, so I have to be proactive and take him out now.’
But he knows that there’s goodness behind the fear, and he’s always trying to bring everyone together and say, ‘No, no, no it’s ok. We don’t have to fight all the time.’ You can certainly understand why he believes the things he does. So, was Magneto right? Yes, you can understand why he would say that. But I also think Charles is also right.”
Marquand likened this to the Joker and Batman relationship, as both characters share a goal but use very different methods to achieve it:
“That’s always going to be the beautiful thing about these two characters. It’s like the Joker and Batman but more familiar. They’re friends, literal friends who came up with the same dream of uniting the world. It’s just, they’ve gone about it in these very different ways. And I think that’s what’s always going to make these two characters some of the most interesting in the comic book universe because they genuinely are rooting for each other. They just go about it in vastly different ways.”
There’s a Moral Dilemma
Magneto tries to follow Professor X’s rules but ends up captured and tortured after a genocidal attack on the mutant nation of Genosha. This makes Magneto embrace his anger and leads him to use his magnetic powers to shut down all electronics on Earth. This inevitably causes many deaths.
This storyline is inspired by the 1993 X-Men story ‘Fatal Attractions,’ and it raises the question: Was Magneto right?
Waterson and Marquand discussed this question. Waterson pointed out that Professor X has the ability to see the potential good in people because of his telepathic powers, while Magneto deals with the reality of their actions:
“One of the things that’s so much fun about these particular two characters is Charles literally can see the good in everyone because he can see to their heads. So it doesn’t matter how horrendous a character is being, he can see the good. And so, there’s something there for him whereas Erik, that’s not Erik’s skill. Erik is like, ‘I just have to react to what people actually do, not their potential, their reality.'”
Waterson believes Magneto is more pragmatic as he’s reacting to what people do rather than their potential. Magneto’s main goal is to protect his people, so he’s easy to understand.
Waterson voices Magneto, and Marquand voices Professor X. ‘X-Men ’97’ Season 1 is currently streaming on Disney+, and Season 2 is already in the works.
