When Did Magneto's Helmet First Protect Him From Telepathy?

CBR

By Brian Cronin

Published Jul 4, 2018

In their latest look at how movies and TVs impact comics, CSBG examines how Magneto's helmet gained new powers from the X-Men movies.

In "Follow the Path," I spotlight changes made to comic book characters that are based on outside media, as well as characters who entirely came from outside media. I’m sure you can think of other examples, so feel free to e-mail me at brianc@cbr.com if you want to suggest some other examples for future installments.

Today is a bit of an unusual situation, as reader Cy T. wrote in asking for more of a "When We First Met?" type question, just wondering when Magneto's telepathy-blocking helmet first debuted. However, what I guess Cy didn't realize is that this question therefore fit right into this column, because the origins of that helmet surprisingly are outside the realm of the Marvel comic book universe!

Magneto's famous helmet was designed by Jack Kirby and it was in use right from the first appearance of Magneto in X-Men #1...

One of the panels in the issue was even "adapted" (or whatever you want to call it when he took comic book panels and re-drew them at larger sizes) by Roy Lichtenstein into a famous painting...

(By the way, going off on a quick tangent here. I personally think that Roy Lichtenstein DID produce a legitimate transformative effect when he adapted the comic book panels into paintings. I don't think it is fair that he never credited the original artists and I think it is REALLY messed up when you see people argue that his work is all about turning "low" art into "high" art, but at the same time, I also think that it is unfairly dismissive to say that Lichtenstein "only" copied other people's work)

Anyhow, early issues showed Magneto interacting with Professor X on the astral plane, showing Magneto to have a powerful mental prowess...

The X-Men was a series where Stan Lee seemed to care the least about, in terms of consistent plot points. He seemed to just try all sorts of odd plot ideas that he would then quickly dismiss, like the idea that Magneto could project his mind into the astral plane just like Professor X...

Years later, Chris Claremont showed the first meeting of Magneto and Professor X when they were younger men and Xavier could not read Magneto's mind back then, without a helmet...

Now, Magneto HAD been shown to use a special helmet to produce telepathic powers later on (and in fact, that was the retcon used to explain how he EVER had telepathic powers. In fact, I'll probably do an Abandoned Love on that in the future). See in X-Men vs. Avengers #4...

So that was how it was for years, until X-Men came out in 2000. In that film, Ian McKellen's Magneto does, in fact, wear a special helmet to protect himself from Professor X's telepathy...

(Of course, as I just pointed out in a recent list, why didn't Xavier just track down the other members of the Brotherhood who were always around Magneto and didn't wear special helmets?)

So the idea was now introduced. How did the comics respond to the concept?

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Soon after the movie came out, Marvel did the Ultimate Universe, new comic books based in a brand-new continuity. Mark Millar adopted a number of aspects from the X-Men movie, including Magneto's telepathy-proof helmet...

It took longer to make its way into the regular Marvel Universe, but in Cullen Bunn's 2014 Magneto ongoing series, Magneto's helmet is now also his protection from telepathy....