Despite Fox's The Gifted being a generally faithful nod to Marvel's X-Men comics, Magneto has yet to be mentioned by name. But, according to showrunner Matt Nix, there's a good reason for this.
As one of the most famous X-Men characters of all time, the presence of Magneto is felt weekly on The Gifted thanks to the casting of Emma Dummont as Polaris. Nix and co. carefully established that Polaris is indeed the daughter of Magneto, but did so without so much as a mention of the crimson-helmeted leader of the Brotherhood of Mutants. As the first season wound to a close, Magneto became an even bigger power in the world of The Gifted, despite never being seen or heard.
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Speaking to TV Line, Nix revealed his reasoning behind leaving fans clamoring for more when it came to the Master of Magnetism “Not to be coy, but we don’t want to stumble into movie territory," Nix explained. "That said, canonically, Polaris’ father is Polaris’ father.”
Citing the show as having "a little Voldemort to it," Nix promised his show will continue to utilize the threat of Magneto's presence to fuel the storytelling.
“One thing that we do use from the comics, that is legitimately part of the lore of Polaris, is that she doesn’t always know that Magneto is her father," Nix said. "And she has very mixed feelings about Magneto being her father, so we’ve taken what is kind of a necessity, in terms of us needing to stay out of the way of the movies, and turned it into a virtue in our eyes. It’s now a feature of the characters that they don’t really want to talk about — [that Lorna’s father is] the leader of the mutant group that made mutants look horrible and kind of put them in the position that they’re in now.”
Returning for Season 2 in the fall, Fox’s The Gifted stars Stephen Moyer as Reed Strucker, Amy Acker as Caitlin Strucker, Sean Teale as Eclipse/Marcos Diaz, Jamie Chung as Blink/Clarice Fong, Coby Bell as Jace Turner, Emma Dumont as Polaris/Lorna Dane, Blair Redford as Thunderbird/John Proudstar, Natalie Alyn Lind as Lauren Strucker, and Percy Hynes White as Andy Strucker.