The Mystery of Magneto's Weird Island...Sort of Solved?

CBR

By Brian Cronin

Published Aug 13, 2018

In their latest look at long-resolved comic book plots, CSBG shows what the deal is with Magneto's mysterious island from Uncanny X-Men #150!

This is "Provide Some Answers," which is a feature where long unresolved plot points are eventually resolved.

A while back, I wrote about a column about how the mystery of Magneto's island from Uncanny X-Men #150 would never be resolved because it was tied into a character who was never introduced. However, reader Karl G. wrote in to say that another writer actually DID resolve it many years later!

First off, I'll be frank, I'm just going to mostly regurgitate the earlier article, as we set up the mystery...

Okay, to set the scene, Scott Summers (while on a break from the X-Men following the death of Phoenix) had been working on a bought owned and captained by Lee Forrester. In "Uncanny X-Men" #145 (by Chris Claremont, Dave Cockrum and Joe Rubinstein), that boat was shipwrecked...

In #146, they are trapped in a horrible storm. In #147, the storm abated and they discovered a mysterious island right by their island!

The next issue, they explore the city and boy, is it WEIRD!

Things get weirder when they discover someone else on the island - MAGNETO!

Magneto totally trolls Cyclops by pretending he doesn't know who Cyclops is, and gives Scott and Lee new clothes that only add to the mystery of the island, but then he's like, "Psych! I know who you are!"

The next issue is the classic "Uncanny X-Men" #150, where Magneto revealed that he was in a concentration camp during World War II. The X-Men defeat Magneto, but that issue began the long road to Magneto becoming less of a villain. However, once the X-Men defeat Magneto, the island is still there. It's just never spoken off again.

You might consider that a case of "Left Unresolved," but the issue is that the story never WILL be resolved. You see, as I pointed out in an old Comic Book Legends Revealed, Dave Cockrum was planning on using this story to introduce a new member of the X-Men, the mysterious amphibious Silkie.

However, he wanted a deal where he would maintain some creator rights to her and Marvel couldn't work out such a deal, so Cockrum pulled the character. He continued working on the book, but his thoughts kept turning to the idea of owning his OWN characters. So in 1983, he left X-Men a second time to work on his own characters, including Silkie, who he introduced as part of his new group, the Futurians...

You can see her more clearly on this cover (she's green)...

The city was introduced, then, as part of her origin and with her off the table, the island became off the table, as well.

That is, it WAS off the table!

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In 2009's continuity-insert series, Wolverine: First Class #12, Fred Van Lente, Scott Koblish and Ulises Arreola show what happened to the X-Men later on that island after defeating Magneto in Uncanny X-Men #150, as Kitty Pryde and Cyclops go exploring and discover that the island was actually intended as a prison for Quoggoth, a disciple of Shuma-Gorath who threatened Shuma-Gorath and so was imprisoned on this underwater sepulchre until Magneto lifted it from the ocean, figuring it was a nice new base of operations....