The <em>X-Men </em>are at a major crossroads, and Magneto's role in mutantkind’s future is still a giant metal question mark hanging over the franchise. Now, though, one candidate for the next Magneto has fully stepped up and made a case that their time is now.
In the MCU, Sir Ian McKellen is set to reprise his role as the Master of Magnetism at least one more time in Avengers: Doomsday, but the announced cast of the MCU X-Men’s reboot is conspicuously missing a new Magneto. While the rumor was that Adam Driver might take the role, he wound up being announced as Mr. Sinister, and it seems Magneto doesn’t fit into Marvel Studios’ initial plans for its mutant era.
In X-Men comics, the character is facing a similar predicament. He has been a supporting player, at best, in X-canon the last few years, and it feels possible he could be phased out, or killed off, for at least a while in the near future.
But the X-franchise always needs a Magneto, or Magneto equivalent, either as a hero or a villain. And one mutant hero in his prime, Quentin Quire, just reminded everyone he’s an A-list Marvel telepath and a perfect ideological successor to Magneto.
Warning! Spoilers ahead for X-Men #37!
Quentin Quire Vs. Cassandra Nova Proves The Young Telepath Is The Next Gen Magneto
X-Men #37 By Jed McKay & Netho Diaz
X-Men #37 was promoted as “the telepathic showdown of the century,” and while individual readers will have to decide if that hype was justified or hyperbole, it is totally fair to call this a solid showcase issue for Quentin Quire. It pits him against Cassandra Nova, Charles Xavier’s evil twin, and hinges on a moment where Quire embraces his potential as the next Magneto.
In his battle with Nova, the younger mutant (who started out as a villain himself) conjures Magneto’s image and evokes his redemption arc, summing up Magneto’s shift from mutant supremacist to mutant protector by saying, “Magneto learned that genes don’t matter. There’s only the oppressed and the oppressor.”
Cassandra Nova sounds exactly like the old Magneto herself when she argues that humanity are mutantkind’s oppressors. But Quentin Quire has become a full-fledged X-Men hero in his own right, and he’s not susceptible to her influence. “Magneto’s not interested in collective punishment,” Quire says, “and neither am I anymore.” That line of dialogue comes right before he takes Nova out in a way that his mutant mentor, Magneto, would be proud of.
X-Men Is Moving On From Xavier & Magneto, And Quentin Quire Has Come To Embody The Best Of Both
The X-Men franchise is currently in a post-Xavier place, at least in its main continuity. Marvel’s X-Office has made a concentrated point of sidelining Xavier as well as Magneto as main characters. Yet their influence will always dominate X-Men lore. The climactic scene of X-Men #37 is a great encapsulation of that. Quentin Quire has been called Xavier’s replacement at times and Magneto’s, and here he lives up to both those daunting legacies in his confrontation with Cassandra Nova.
Quire is coming up on his 25th anniversary as a Marvel mutant in January 2028. That’s often how long it takes for a character to ascend to top-tier protagonist status in the X-Men franchise. Especially when that character started out as an antagonist and has been killed off and put on the shelf more than once during those 2.5 decades. (For context, Magneto’s redemption arc took about as long from the 1990s up to the Krakoan Era.) Unless Marvel does something drastic, it feels like Quentin Quire has fully arrived and is on the A-list to stay.
X-Men #37 will hold up as a milestone issue in Quire’s character trajectory when readers look back on it five or ten years from now. From his start as the villainous Kid Omega in Grant Morrison’s New X-Men to his current status as the QB1 telepath for Cyclops’ X-Men team, Quentin Quire has come to embody the best of both his greatest predecessors, Professor X and <em>Magneto</em>.
X-Men #37 is available now from Marvel Comics.
