During Grant Morrison's run of New X-Men, the omega mutant Quentin Quire began a new movement at the Xavier Institute, wearing shirts with the provocative slogan "Magneto was right." Taking inspiration from the former supervillain, he and several other students formed a group called the Omega Gang.

Quentin's gang promoted mutant supremacy and committed numerous violent crimes. Ironically, he could not have been further from the truth in his misunderstanding of Magneto.

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Quentin Quire

Created by Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely, Quentin debuted in New X-Men #134. Before his rebellion, several major events shook the mutant community, the most serious of which was a mutant genocide that occurred during "E Is For Extinction," in which Sentinels attacked the mutant nation of Genosha. They killed 16 million mutants in a single day. In the aftermath of this genocide, Professor Xavier outed himself as a mutant on national TV, prompting a human backlash of angry protestors surrounding the school. Hate crimes against mutants rose, and a mutant fashion icon, Jumbo Carnation, was attacked by a human mob. Additionally, a group known as the U-Men attacked the school to harvest the students' organs -- part of their global organ-processing movement.

Beyond these massive events which impacted all mutantkind, Quentin Quire personally suffered a crisis of identity upon learning he was adopted. He transformed himself from a repressed nerd to an assertive charismatic bully. Some of his self-transformation also seems to have been prompted by the development of a secondary mutation, but another factor was his use of the drug "Kick." This new designer drug amplified mutant powers but induced an aggressively manic mental state.

Whatever the main reasons, Quentin changed his appearance as much as his personality, and wearing things like his "Magneto was right" T-shirt (when not dressed in the Omega Gang's striped uniform). The group rejected Xavier's nonviolent liberalism and instead embraced mutant supremacy, advocating for the deaths of 16 million humans in retaliation for the Genoshan Genocide. They killed the humans who attacked Jumbo Carnation. Soon after, they attacked Xavier and seized control of the school. Of course, Quentin and his gang were eventually defeated, and they were informed that the Jumbo Carnation's death was not caused by the human assailants, but an overdose of Kick -- the very same drug the Omega Gang was using.

The tragic irony is that by this point, Magneto had long since abandoned his supervillainy, and even when he had espoused anti-human rhetoric early in his career, it was out of self-preservation. Magneto is a Holocaust survivor. Having witnessed the horrors of state-ordered genocide against both Jews and mutants, he responded to the rising anti-mutant sentiment with hostility toward humans. But in the decades since, he abandoned this trauma-induced reactionary attitude, pursuing the rights and safety of mutantkind through other means. He served as the Headmaster of the Xavier Institute in the '80s and he became the leader of Genosha, formerly an anti-mutant apartheid state, to provide mutants with a safe homeland.

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In the comics, X-Men have served as a metaphor for various oppressed groups. During the course of Morrison's New X-Men, different stories likened their struggles to the persecution of Jewish, Black, and LGBTQ+ people, as well as oppressed Chinese minorities. There is a complex relationship between the trauma of oppressed groups and their potential to redirect that trauma against their oppressors.  The complex cycles of violence and trauma cannot be properly explored here, but it is not unheard of for survivors of genocide to redirect their anger against the groups that oppressed them.  But Magneto outgrew the hate that stemmed from his trauma. During the famous "Trial of Magneto" story, he even argued that he was quite literally a different person from the one who had attacked humans (something demonstrably true due to a supernatural de-aging process). He dedicated himself to helping mutants in need, both as an educator and government leader.

In advocating for genocide, Quentin Quire is not proving "Magneto was right," but rather demonstrating he does not understand his hero at all. Magneto cared about ensuring the well-being of his people at any cost, while Quentin is just an edgelord lashing out at humans as an expression of his unchecked rage.

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