Comic Book Questions Answered – where I answer whatever questions you folks might have about comic books (feel free to e-mail questions to me at brianc@cbr.com).

Reader Angel wanted to know whether it was true that Magneto is no longer considered a mutant (he was also confused over what, exactly, Magneto's real name is nowadays - I'll tackle that one later on, Angel!) because he got his powers from the High Evolutionary.

Interesting question, Angel, let's take a look!

Okay, everything started in the crossover event House of M (by Brian Michael Bendis, Olivier Coipel and Mark Morales...plus a bunch of other inkers by the time the series was done), when the Avengers and the X-Men got together to decide what to do with the Scarlet Witch, who had gone insane and almost destroyed the Avengers. When she was finally corralled by the combined might of the Avengers and Doctor Strange, her father, Magneto, showed up to take her into his custody/protection at his new home in the ravaged Genosha (which had been nearly destroyed by an army of Sentinels). So now the X-Men and Avengers planned to head to Genosha to take care of the Scarlet Witch situation once and for all, with some of the heroes wondering whether it would be best to just kill her (Wolverine seems to think that 90% of all problems would be best resolved by stabbing someone). Her brother, Quicksilver, runs to warn her. Then, suddenly, the world is reshaped. Scarlet Witch has used her reality-altering powers to remake the world as a world where mutants are the dominant race on the planet and Magneto and his "House of M" are the most powerful royal family in the world.

Slowly but surely, the Avengers and the X-Men have their memories jostled (led by Wolverine. You see, part of Scarlet Witch's plan involved giving the heroes their fondest wish so that they would more easily accept this new reality. The problem for her was that Wolverine's fondest wish was to remember everything in his life, so when everything was altered, he still remembered how things were before the change). They then decide to attack the House of M to stop them.

In the middle of it all, they discover that Magneto had no idea what had happened. This whole thing had been Quicksilver's idea, not Magneto's. When he found out what his kids had done, he was not happy at all, either.

In the middle of all of this chaos, Scarlet Witch decided that she couldn't take any more of this, so she suddenly decided that mutants were the problem, so she used her powers to make "no more mutants"...

Luckily, Doctor Strange was there when this happened, so he was able to save a thousand or so mutants from Scarlet Witch's spell.

One of the mutants who was not one of that lucky thousand was Scarlet Witch's dad, Magneto, who was no longer a mutant (Wolverine made sure to rub it in when they tracked him down to see if he knew where Scarlet Witch was)...

So, Wolverine makes it clear that Magneto is no longer a mutant, right?

What happens next?

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In Uncanny X-Men #500 (by Ed Brubaker, Matt Fraction, Greg Land and Terry Dodson), Magneto attacks the X-Men, seemingly with his powers returned...

As it turns out, though, it was just via special suit created by the High Evolutionary, the mysterious geneticist who is always on the fringes of the Marvel Universe....

We learn, however, that the whole attack was just to distract them from the High Evolutionary stealing something from the Dreaming Celestial that hangs out in San Francisco (where the X-Men had recently set up shop)...

Seven issues later, the High Evolutionary successfully returns Magneto's powers...

However, does that make him a MUTANT again? Is it just having powers again that makes you a mutant?

In Uncanny X-Men #516 (by Fraction and Land), Magneto even said that the device (which was meant to reverse the effects of M-Day) didn't actually work, it just revived his powers and made him feel younger...

So it leaves the question unclear.

However, just like I learned when I debated whether Polaris was still a mutant or not a few months back, the answer was in X-Men: Legacy #259, which revealed that the X-Gene WAS, in fact, present in Magneto, as he was one of a group of mutants on a mission where an extra X-Gene was found IN ADDITION to them...

So the celestial technology must have revived his X-Gene, so he is a mutant again.

Thanks for the question, Angel!

If anyone else has a comic question for me, drop me a line at brianc@cbr.com!