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

Our story begins at a strange period in the life of any comic book series, the last few issues of a creator's run when they are not intending on the issues being the last few issues of their run (the most confusing time in any comic book is when a writer is abruptly taken off of a series, as the writer has not had time to draw his/her own plots to a natural conclusion, so the new writer has to do that and very often the new writer will take things in a COMPLETELY different direction than what the original writer had in mind).

Anyhow, during his brief run on X-Men, the great Arnold Drake introduced a new mutant named Lorna Dane, who had magnetic powers. She was captured and taken under the control of a new mutant villain known as Mesmero (who had the ability to, well, you know, mesmerize people. It's right there in the name). Mesmero was working for a mysterious boss.

At the end of X-Men #50 (drawn by the legendary Jim Steranko, with inks by veteran comic book artist John Tartaglione, perhaps best remembered for his romance comic artwork at a few different companies before he became an inker at Marvel in the late 1960s/early 1970s), we see that Mesmero's mysterious boss also claims to be the father of Lorna (now known as Polaris)!!!

Okay, suffice it to say that the whole Magneto/Polaris dad thing has been all over the place in the years since. Even in that original story, before we knew anything more about this Magneto, Iceman supposedly proved to Polaris that she wasn't Magneto's kid, but it's funny, since his proof wasn't really much proof at all. But anyways, maybe I'll address this in the future. Probably not (since I've already done an Abandoned an' Forsaked on it, but maybe I could do another one specifically on the earlier versions of the story? I dunno).

So now Roy Thomas, Neal Adams and Tom Palmer take over the series and they quickly write off the Mesmero/Magneto team-up in X-Men #58 by having it be revealed that Magneto was a robot...

Now, do note that it sure seems to be implied that the bad guy thinks that Magneto left a robot in his place, Doom-bot style, right? Perhaps that is why it was never resolved just WHO built the robot back then, as maybe Thomas and Adams didn't think it WAS a mystery.

However, when the real Magneto encountered Mesmero in X-Men #112 (by Chris Claremont, John Byrne and Terry Austin), he noted that they had never met before...

The answer would not be revealed for over a decade after the discovery that Magneto was a robot!

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Here's an interesting thing about Roger Stern and John Byrne circa 1980. They were both fans with the idea of the subtle acknowledgment. By this, I mean they liked the idea of there being sort of implied secrets that fans could figure out for themselves but would not be said explicitly in the comics. A notable example of this is the revelation that Magneto is the father of the Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver. They initially just did it in a sort of "If you were paying attention and reading both books at the same time, you'd get the answer. If you didn't, oh well." Those things tend not to happen too often, as another writer will often want to make the implicit explicit and that's what happened with Magneto being the father of Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver.

However, Stern and Byrne were allowed to do a more implied revelation in their run on Captain America, where, in Captain America #247 (by Stern, Byrne and Joe Rubinstein), they reveal that the Machinesmith has been making very detailed robots out there and, in the background, is a Magneto robot...

Two issues later, Cap breaks into Machinesmith's headquarters, and once again, we see the Magneto robot...

We also learn that Machinesmith built robots for various purposes...

So this was their implied revelation that it was Machinesmith who built the Magneto robot. It wasn't made outright clear, though.

So in the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe, it was made explicit in Mesmero's entry...

That apparently Machinesmith ran the whole thing as some sort of evil bad guy plot. It's not the most logical plan, but eh, what are you going to do? It's an answer, at least!

That's it for this installment of Provide Some Answers! If anyone else has a suggestion for a plot that was resolved after a number of years, drop me a line at brianc@cbr.com!