The following contains spoilers for X-Men #72, so if you haven't read it yet and you don't want to be spoiled, go away.

In the aforementioned X-Men #72, we learn that "Erik Lehsnherr" is not Magneto's real name, never has been; it's a pseudonym forged for him by a man named Georg Odekirk. When Gabrielle Haller learns from Sabra that "Erik Lehnsherr" is a forgery, she and Sabra go to question Odekirk on the premise that "he could be our only link to Magneto's true identity-- our last chance to stop him once and for all!" However, Magneto beats them to it, killing Odekirk because the forgery has been uncovered.

Fans were in an uproar over this. Many argued that this retcon was a great thing, that Erik Lehnsherr had always been a lousy name and that this neatly solved the question of Magneto's ethnicity (that is, if Erik Lehnsherr was supposed to be Gypsy, why is it all other evidence we have indicates that Magneto was Jewish?) Others, such as myself, were pissed off, because extensive evidence exists to corroborate the Erik Lehnsherr identity, including deep telepathic probes, and this retcon seemed to imply that Magneto might be a multiple personality, or psychotically fixated on his name, or some other piece of nonsense to explain why he'd managed to think of himself as a name that isn't his in his deepest and most painful memories.

So I thought about it, and created this FAQ. I posted it to rec.arts.comics.marvel.xbooks and the Magneto Mailing List, where the feedback I've gotten has enabled me to answer the last two questions. I've outlined everything we know about Magneto, and his name, below, and when you put it together in order it does seem to produce some answers.

To distinguish between what we know, what I extrapolate from what we know, and what I conclude as answers, there are three types of paragraphs below: ordinary paragraphs, which state known "facts" about Magneto; Extrapolation Points, where I take what is known and extrapolate from that, and Unanswered Questions, which will all be answered, out of order, at the end. We'll call Magneto M. (as opposed to M) to stand in for his real name that we do not know. We will assume that everything we have thus far seen him think is true, or, at least, he truly believes it. We will assume no new retcons will be tacked onto this. We will assume that everything characters say in flashback was actually said (though we'll ignore anything said in narration balloons).

Okay. M. was born and grew to near-adolescence somewhere in Europe, in a country that fell under the power of the Nazis. He was identified by the Nazis as a Jew; his parents and sister were murdered, and he himself was sent to Auschwitz. (NM #49, UXM #274) Since he has said that his family were murdered at Auschwitz (UXM #150), we assume that either his parents and sister were killed there, or that other relatives died there. While in Auschwitz, he was responsible for carrying bodies from the gas chambers to the crematoria (UXM #274), which puts him in the Sonderkommando (a squadron composed entirely of Jews, which clearly identifies him as someone the Nazis thought was Jewish.) Toward the end of the war, he escaped with Magda, an Auschwitz inmate who later became his wife (backstory in Classic X-Men #12). They fled to the Carpathian mountains, where their daughter Anya was born. Later they moved to the city of Vinnitsa in the Ukraine. They had been there a short while (they were still living in an inn, and M. was trying to get work) when M. was arrested (wrongly) for extortion while the inn was burning and his daughter was dying. He was prevented from saving his daughter, and in retaliation he used his newly-discovered people to kill a whole lot of people. Magda fled then. (More backstory in Classic X-Men #12)

M. was pursued by the Soviet authorities. In the Fatal Attractions trade paperback, a flashback sequence in the X-Force issue shows him burying his daughter when soldiers come upon him and try to kill him. He kills them all. Next, according to XM #72, he turned to the forger Georg Odekirk, needing an identity that would not be traced back to "the man who killed a lot of people in Vinnitsa." He was given the identity of Erik Lehnsherr, a Romany of the Sinte clan. It can be assumed that Erik Lehnsherr's papers established that he had been born near Danzig/Gdansk in 1928, since this is what is stated about Erik Lehnsherr in XMU #2. (Note that there is a time reference in XM #72 of "nearly a quarter century ago" for the creation of the Erik Lehnsherr identity. Like all time references, this should be ignored completely. Marvel timelines have never made sense.)

UNANSWERED QUESTION 1: Why was the identity of "the man who killed a lot of people in Vinnitsa" never directly correlated with "Magneto", years later? The physical description would have been the same, the modus operandi would have fit, and obviously a lot of people in the Soviet Union knew about this guy, or he wouldn't actually have had the army after him.

M. searched for Magda for many years, using the identity of Erik Lehnsherr the Romany. (extrapolated from XM #72 and various sources where he claims he looked for Magda for many years.) Eventually he gave up the search and moved to Israel. He presented himself as a Jew when he entered Israel (fairly easy to do in that time period, given how many Jews there were around then who had lost everything, including identifying papers-- all he really needed was his Auschwitz tattoo to prove it.)

EXTRAPOLATION POINT 1: Did he enter Israel under the name Erik Lehnsherr? I say no. In XM #72 Sabra says "I'm sure you recall shocking the world when you announced that you had undeniable proof of Magneto's identity as Erik Lehnsherr." In XMU #2, Haller says "We believe that the man who was to become Magneto was born Erik Magnus Lehnsherr..." Magneto's full name is never given by any source taking place within the regular MU (that is, not LegionQuest/AOA) prior to XMU #2 (in flashbacks, he is occasionally called "Erik", but never "Erik Lehnsherr.") All this implies very strongly that "Erik Lehnsherr" was new information as of XMU #2. However, Gabrielle Haller knew M. personally while he was in Israel. If he had entered the country under the name Erik Lehnsherr, she would have known-- and she was a person of power while Magneto was still considered an irredeemable supervillain. Given her willingness to divulge all she knew of Magneto in XMU #2, when he had personally committed no crimes aside from the murder of Zaladane for years (notice that Magneto personally commits no crimes in XM #1-3-- he defends himself from attack, he declares his home a sovereign nation and prevents its "citizens" from being extradited for crimes they committed in Genosha, he fights the X-Men, but he does not commit any crimes that the world knows about), one can only assume she'd have been at least equally open in the days when Magneto was doing things like threatening to nuke New York City and conquering tiny South American nations. So, if Erik Lehnsherr is new information, Haller did not know it when she was his friend in Israel, and if she didn't know it then, he didn't enter Israel under that name.

EXTRAPOLATION POINT 2: So what name did he enter Israel under? Probably somebody Magnus or Magnus somebody. M. is referred to as Magnus in all Israel sources but the last two issues of LegionQuest. (UXM #161, second issue of LegionQuest) We do not know if this was intended to be his last name or his first name, but it's the only name he uses. However, at some point Xavier took up calling him "Erik" (last two issues of LegionQuest), and since then has used both "Magnus" and "Erik." (XM -1 for Erik, UXM #161 for Magnus, UXM #196-200 for Magnus, Fatal Attractions for Erik and Magnus)

NOTE ON LEGIONQUEST: David Haller's appearance changed the timeline from the moment he showed up. However, it is reasonable to assume that he caused no major changes until he manifested his mutant powers. Thus, everything that takes place previous to this manifestation is assumed to have taken place in the MU timeline as well. Note that at the time that David first manifests his powers, M. is called "Magnus" by Xavier, and everyone else in the story; "Erik" turns up in the next issue, after David's powers manifest. However, we do not see David himself use the name "Erik" until he tries to kill M., after Xavier has started using the name Erik. It's impossible to say, given the timing, whether Xavier starts using "Erik" because he learned it from David, or if there was another source. Since, however, Xavier uses "Erik" later in the regular Marvel Universe (XM -1 and Fatal Attractions), we can assume that the use of "Erik" and David's manifestation of power are unrelated.

By the time Xavier and M. work together to save Haller from HYDRA, it's Magnus again. M. steals HYDRA's gold reserves and leaves Xavier, declaring that "mutants will not go peacefully to the gas chambers. We will fight, and we will win!" (UXM #161) After this, M. loses touch with Xavier. However, he still feels warmly toward Xavier, and has not yet decided to try to conquer the world, as of the backstory in Classic X-Men #19. Instead, he is working for Covert Organization (we will call it that because I think the available evidence is unclear as to whether it is the CIA or Mossad), hunting Nazis. The names of the Nazis are fed to him by Control (real name unknown, and probably unknown to M. as well). M. is known to Control as Magneto. It is unknown whether or not M. is known by any other name at this point.

EXTRAPOLATION POINT 3: Does Covert Organization know M. as Erik Lehnsherr? My answer is "no." Either they do not know his real name at all, and he originally presented himself to them as "Magneto" (unlikely, but would you turn down an agent who wants to hunt Nazis, doesn't need you to pay him for it because he's independently wealthy, and has enormous inexplicable superpowers that you may be able to get him to use for other purposes, or study and duplicate, just because he won't tell you his real name?), or he presented himself as someone else (possibly the name he entered Israel under.) The reason I say "no" is that Control (who is dead) is not the only person who knew of the existence of Magneto. There were "the boys in the lab", and Control's higher-ups who authorized him to kill M. for taking out one of "their" Nazis. "Magneto" was therefore linked to whatever name M. used while working for Covert Organization, if such a name existed, and Covert Organization would have been able to produce that information shortly after Magneto first appeared on the world scene. (It has been pointed out by Arthur-Trevor D. M. Lasher that Covert Organization would have had good reason to keep the fact that M. worked for them secret. Very true, but they would not have had to reveal how they knew what Magneto's real name is. They are, after all, a covert organization. Gathering intelligence and not revealing where they got it from is what they do.) Therefore, they did not have a link between "Magneto" and "Erik Lehnsherr."

When he is betrayed by Covert Organization, M. goes insane and decides to conquer the world. (backstory in Classic X-Men #19) Under the name Magneto, he runs into Sean Cassidy and warns him of an upcoming war between human and mutant. (An issue of GenX, I don't know which.) Next, he meets with Charles Xavier at Auschwitz, where Xavier calls him "Erik" and the two declare war (XM -1). He next appears attacking a US military base (UXM #1), and thereafter commits various acts of terrorism, including conquering the nation of Santo Marco (and then attempting to nuke it (UXM #4)), attempting to nuke New York City (Journey into Mystery #109), and holding the UN hostage (Defenders #16). He is de-aged by Mutant Alpha (Defenders #16), re-aged by Davan Shakari (Classic X-Men #12), and attempts to hold the world hostage with an earthquake-producing device, which results in him destroying the submarine Leningrad and destroying the city of Varykino in the Soviet Union (but allowing the people to be evacuated first.) (UXM #150) During all this, he goes by Magneto only.

At some point between UXM #150 and UXM #196, people start calling him Magnus ("people" being defined as Xavier, Aleytys Forrester, and eventually the X-Men. To the public he remains Magneto.) There are no references to Erik during this time. Throughout this time period, Xavier and Magneto are in the process of reconciling and rekindling their friendship. M. is also about as open as he gets about being Jewish, speaking of his family being destroyed in Auschwitz (UXM #150), taking Kitty to the Holocaust memorial (UXM #199), and saying things like "The nightmare of my childhood again, only this time it is mutants instead of Jews." (UXM #211.) However, he shows no sign of identifying with Judaism aside from having been a Jew during the Holocaust (that is, when he speaks of "his people" being destroyed in the Holocaust, it is the Jews he is speaking of, but when he speaks of "his people" today, it is always mutants; he never flat out says "I am Jewish"; he admits to having been a religious child, but now being an atheist (UXM #150); he participates in no Jewish religious or cultural activities that don't relate to the Holocaust.) M. denies any ethnic or national identity at his trial in UXM #200.

All references to M.'s name and ethnic identity between this and XMU #2 give his name as Magnus or Magneto and imply that he was Jewish. In XMU #2, Haller reveals that his name "is" Erik Magnus Lehnsherr, and that he is a Romany of Sinte descent. M. himself never says anything to imply a Romany identity at this point or any other. He accepts being referred to as Erik, and Erik Lehnsherr, without attempting to refute the name. Magnus and Erik are both used between this point and the end of Fatal Attractions.

During Fatal Attractions, Xavier and Jean Grey bombard M. with his worst memories.

EXTRAPOLATION POINT 4: Would doing this give them access to information about M.'s real name? I say yes. Both are full-fledged telepaths, not specialists like Dani Moonstar. They cannot just think "give me a really horrible memory" and one is summoned. While they were not, by any means, experiencing these memories, they were reading them like one reads a book, flipping through M.'s autobiography to find the really bad parts. Since inmates in Auschwitz referred to one another by name, it is really very unlikely that they would not have encountered M.'s real name (they may not have encountered his full name, however.)

Between the end of Fatal Attractions and XM #72, the name Erik is used by many people, including Charles Xavier in the privacy of his own mind (UXM #309).

In XM #72, M. kills the forger Georg Odekirk to prevent his real name from being learned by Sabra and Gabrielle Haller.

Shifting over to an alternate universe where M.'s name status should be identical, M. in the AOA is addressed as Erik Magnus Lehnsherr. He is called Erik by friends and lovers, Magnus by enemies and some subordinates. His children have taken the name "Lehnsherr." (Any issue of the AOA with Magneto in it, but all of this turns up in X-Men: Twilight of the Age of Apocalypse)

Okay, now that this is all laid out, I'm going to attempt to answer the unanswered questions. These are not necessarily in order.

ALARA SAYS: He is protecting the name and reputation of his family (suggested by Rivka Jacobs.) Though everyone who bears his last name is dead (UXM #150), his was a large family (UXM #150) and it is very possible that as the last survivor, he does not want them to be remembered as "the family that produced Magneto." Also, because of his sentimental nature and the fact that he's been ambushed at places that were important to his past before (XMU #2, where he is ambushed by an assassin at Magda's grave), it's possible that M. fears that if his enemies knew his real name, they could find places of significance to him and ambush him there, or desecrate the bodies of his dead family members (imagine Sinister getting his hands on Anya's DNA...)

Another suggestion was provided by Jenn the Ice Raptoress: Magneto says in UXM #150, "Search throughout my homeland, you will find no one who bears my name." This is our evidence for the death of M.'s entire family, but actually this leaves a loophole. A female relative who has married and changed her name, or any relative who emigrated to another country, might conceivably be alive. If M. has living human family, he would probably do his best to keep himself from being connected to them in any way, as even when he was at his most insane they could probably be used as hostages against him (recall that Magneto has never espoused the extermination of humans, only mutant domination and rule over them, and that it was Exodus, not Magneto, who wanted to kill Luna for being human.)

UNANSWERED QUESTION 1: Why was the identity of "the man who killed a lot of people in Vinnitsa" never directly correlated with "Magneto", years later? The physical description would have been the same, the modus operandi would have fit, and obviously a lot of people in the Soviet Union knew about this guy, or he wouldn't actually have had the army after him.

ALARA SAYS: They did not, in fact, have the name of "the man who killed a lot of people in Vinnitsa." They may have had a surname, or more likely just a physical description, given by one of the few survivors to actually see him do it. Though paperwork was very important in the Soviet Union in those days, everyone who actually interacted with M. and would have known his name was dead (except for Magda, who was missing); the charred corpses would not necessarily have had readable papers on them (paper has a tendency to burn, and many of the bodies would have been unidentifiable.) However, M. had a distinctive appearance (white hair at that age would have been noticeable), may have been recognizably foreign (an accent), may have been recognizably Jewish (an accent, or perhaps a surname), and so any survivors are a lot more likely to have provided recognizable distinguishing characteristics than a name.

M. did not know this, of course, and more importantly, even if he had, running around using the same papers he'd used in Vinnitsa would have been a bad idea, given that they might have been identifiable as papers of someone who'd been in Vinnitsa (a stamp or something.) However, it wasn't simply his name M. was changing. In fact, his name was the least important of the characteristics he was changing, given that the authorities didn't actually know it. He was disguising his Jewish identity, and possibly his foreign identity (or specific foreign identity), in order to pose as a Romany in order to get information about Magda, who most likely would have taken refuge with her people (you know, I don't have a reference for this, but I'm pretty sure Magda was supposed to be Romany.)

It is likely that M. dyed his hair (his most distinguishing trait), and began to dress and talk like a gypsy (having had a gypsy for a wife, and perhaps having encountered gypsies either in the camps or through Magda, he would have a base to pull this off-- he might even have known some of the language). This was a much better method of concealment than simply changing his name would have been.

ALARA SAYS: Given my answer to question 1, this is a non-trivial question. "Erik Lehnsherr" only existed for a brief time, the years that M. was searching for Magda. He had ditched it when he went to Israel (though he still was not using his real name there.) Why isn't Magnus Somebody or Somebody Magnus identified as M.'s real name?

After M. turned on Covert Organization, they probably looked for him. If they had a "real name" for him, they traced it. However, it wasn't an excellent forgery, and it was identified as a fake. The trail dead-ended. If Haller had a different name for him (that is, Magnus Somebody or Somebody Magnus was not the name Covert Organization had for him), she gave the name to Mossad (which might or might not have been Covert Organization), and they determined that that name didn't exist, either. These were not very good forgeries-- they didn't need to be when he created them-- but they dead-ended. (Hell, he might have forged them himself by that time, not wanting to be reliant on criminals such as Odekirk.)

Photographs were taken of M. when he was being Erik Lehnsherr and spending time with the gypsies. This was likely without his knowledge, possibly by anthropologists studying the gypsies or something like that. Someone got access to these photographs after Magneto's facial features became publicly known. Now, M. had dyed his hair when he was with the gypsies, but the photos are in black-and-white, and if he used a sensible color for his coloration (blond or light brown instead of the more Romany-typical dark brown or black that would have looked totally fake with his skin), that and the fact that people are expected to acquire white hair when they get older would have led whoever saw these photos to recognize a young Magneto in them. These ended up in the hands of some organization, Mossad most likely, who investigated. Elderly gypsies were questioned, and bribes changed hands, and sure, I remember, that was Erik Lehnsherr. Records turned up for Lehnsherr. (It is possible, in fact, that the reason they have information on Lehnsherr's birthplace and birth year is that there really was an Erik Lehnsherr, and that M. provided that name to Odekirk-- perhaps a relative of Magda's who died in Auschwitz. The Nazis were meticulous about record-keeping, and there may have been a record of an Erik Lehnsherr being incarcerated in the Gypsy Family Camp at Auschwitz.)

We see the photographs in XMU #2, which is also where Haller reveals everything that is "known" about Lehnsherr's background. We do not know if there really was an Erik Lehnsherr who was born near Danzig in 1928, or if this information turned up on records which were fed from Odekirk's forgery, or if this is true information about M. which he gave to Haller freely. We also do not know how Sabra's sources eventually figured out that this was a forgery.

ALARA SAYS: We can answer all of these at once. Xavier starts calling M. Erik either because M. tells him that is his "real" name, or because the name M. used to enter Israel is Erik Magnus (M. only used Magnus in UXM #161, but one presumes he had a first and last name when he entered Israel. He was either Magnus Somebody or Somebody Magnus.) If he is Somebody Magnus, it is likely that Somebody is Erik; if he is Magnus Somebody, he tells Xavier (and possibly Haller) that his name is Erik, and Magnus is his middle name.

For a while, Xavier uses Erik in an attempt to convey camaraderie and closeness. During LegionQuest, Xavier and M. are very close, so M. tolerates Erik from him. However, at some point this gets on M.'s nerves. He does not like the name Erik. He chose the name Magnus to represent his new self and his new life. It's a name that's powerful, imposing, strong, everything he wants to be. He may have gotten it by going through "magnet", but it means "great", something he was in the process of convincing himself he was by virtue of his power. Though in AOA Xavier dies before it gets to this point, in the MU M. eventually tells Xavier to quit it and use Magnus. Xavier does so. However, Xavier knows that the name "Erik" irritates M. and reminds him of his weakness and his humanity, things M. periodically tries to pretend he doesn't have. When Xavier is angry at M. and getting in his face, trying to remind him of his humanity (and not in front of his X-Men before they knew that Xavier and M. had a history), he uses Erik (FA, XM #-1). When he feels genuine warmth and friendship toward M., he uses Magnus (UXM #196, 200.)

and

ALARA SAYS: Here's where I get controversial:

Erik is his name. Erik Lehnsherr isn't.

When he was in Auschwitz, he was a child. Children usually think of themselves by their first names; that's what everyone calls them. Your last name is what they call your dad. The Nazis would have called him by number, I believe, but his friends and fellow inmates would have called him by whatever he asked them to call him. That is most likely his first name, given his age at the time. Also, Magda, as his wife who shared his name, would also have called him by his first name. His surname would appear rarely in his most traumatic memories, but his first name would appear all the time.

"Lehnsherr" would appear frequently in his recent, more surface memories when he was in Israel, as that was what he'd been going by for some time. That is not his name, it isn't the name he's using now, it's not the name he thinks of as his own because it belongs to a Gypsy identity, but in those memories, he was totally immersed in the part. He had to be, because the Romany are quick to suspicion and quick to scorn anyone who is gajo, or not Romany. If they thought he was lying to them, he'd have gotten a knife in his back, and Magneto's not a great actor. During that time period, he had to halfway convince himself it was his name. So any probe when he was in Israel would hit recent memories where he was called Erik Lehnsherr. Deeper memories would then have him as Erik. Not Erik Lehnsherr, but not anything that contradicts that, either. His friends and fellow inmates in Auschwitz, and his wife, didn't use his last name much. A quick scan of his worst memories wouldn't necessarily turn up his last name, although it's impossible to imagine it wouldn't turn up his first.

When Xavier does the deep probe in Fatal Attractions, he doesn't get Erik Lehnsherr, because he doesn't encounter many of the searching-for-Magda memories (those aren't recent anymore). He gets Erik, too. But he knows about Lehnsherr, because he heard it from Haller, and in those terrible memories he gets nothing to contradict Lehnsherr. The first names are the same; he assumes the rest.

This raises the question: why was M. such a dumbass as to use his real first name in his carefully forged new identity? Well, remember that Erik is not an uncommon name, and that it was far more important that he play a convincing Gypsy than that he hide his real name, because the authorities didn't know his real name, but they would have known he wasn't a Gypsy. And gypsies, M. would have known from Magda, are not stupid people, and are quick to detect trickery. Better to use his real first name, which is not something he'd forget, and then conceal every other part of his identity. The real first name is not that dangerous to him, and it makes one less thing he needs to keep track of. Also, he's young. M. was not experienced at covert ops at this point, and needed all the help he could get.

So why, if his real first name is known to the world, is M. still willing to kill to protect his identity? Well, because no one but Xavier knows that's his real first name, and Xavier's not talking right now. And it's his last name M. truly wants to protect. Erik is not an uncommon name, but his real surname is quite uncommon, due to the fact that everyone else who has it is dead. He is protecting his family, not all people named Erik. So it doesn't matter that they have his real first name; they'll never identify his birthplace or his family's name from that.

ALARA SAYS: We don't know. However, Haller knows that M. feels a sentimental connection to the places of his past. I do not believe she knows that the agent that was sent to capture Magneto ambushed him at his wife's grave (nor that the man intended to kill Magneto-- it's pretty clear he was supposed to take Magneto alive-- XMU #2), but she may know that Magneto visits his wife's grave, and it's certainly conceivable that he visits other graves as well. Anya's grave may be traceable through M.'s real name. Or the places where he grew up. Or old friends who don't know he's Magneto and might have ways to contact him, to lure him into a trap without knowing that that's what they're doing. Haller may be guessing that any of these things might be possible (and in fact they were probably all tried with Erik Lehnsherr, but since that wasn't his real name after all it came up bupkiss), and given that M. did, in fact, kill to protect his name, Haller was probably right.

ALARA SAYS: There's two possible explanations for this. One is that he has human family to protect. Human relatives of M. might be living in safety in the areas of the world still controlled by humanity (Europe, basically.) Apocalypse could, however, send agents in there to assassinate or kidnap specific individuals. Recall the effort that went into kidnapping Charles Xavier Lehnsherr, and he was under Magneto's full protection. This explanation does not even need to apply to the regular MU-- that is, just because M. had living human relatives in AOA doesn't mean he does, or that he knows about it, in the MU, given that he obviously successfully tracked down his children much earlier in AOA than in the MU.

The other explanation is that he kept his name secret out of fear of being tracked down by the Soviets for long enough that by the time this became an irrelevant fear, all his friends and associates knew him as Erik Lehnsherr, and changing his name at that point would just have been way too much of an effort. We do know that in the AOA, M. makes no effort whatsoever to pretend he is a Gypsy-- he has clearly referred to "millions" of his people being murdered in the Holocaust, not "thousands", which of necessity refers to the Jews (no other ethnic group lost millions of people, though the Gypsies lost thousands.) So even though he is using the Erik Lehnsherr identity, he seems to have more or less reclaimed his ethnic heritage, to the extent he ever does in any universe.

This FAQ was made possible by Rivka Jacobs, whose FAQs on Magneto's ethnic identity provided me a jumping-off point for a lot of this and who managed to devise credible answers for Unanswered Questions 8 and 9; Jenn the Ice Raptoress, for her theories on Unanswered Question 8 that I extrapolated to 10 as well; Michael "Greenstool" Lavin for his catalog of all Magneto appearances, "The Hunt for Magneto", where I got the references I do not own; Arthur-Trevor D. M. Lasher, who disagrees with at least some of this but whose arguments on racmx and the Magneto Mailing List helped me devise some of mine; and the denizens of racmx and the Magneto Mailing List in general, for putting up with my hysterical rants until I figured out a relatively sane way to resolve the issues involved.