In Left Unresolved, I spotlight storylines that have been, well, left unresolved.

Reader Julian M. wrote in to suggest a surprising piece of Magneto's back story that apparently was never addressed anywhere else.

Obviously, as I have written extensively about over the years, few characters have had quite as much nuance added to their characterization through retcons as Magneto. Originally introduced as a fairly one-note villain who was more than willing to nuke countries just for the heck of it, Chris Claremont slowly began to reveal different facets of Magneto's back story that allowed readers to feel more sympathy for the devil, as it were.

What initially began as "Hey, this bad guy has a lot more messed up stuff in his background than we initially knew" was slowly changed to "Is this guy really THAT BAD of a guy? Who among us HASN'T sunken a submarine with hundreds of Russian soldiers on it, am I right?" The more we learned about Magneto, the more we felt for him, like when we discovered that his young daughter died in a fire set by some jerks who hated and feared Magneto...

See, in the context of this retroactive reveal in a back-up story in Classic X-Men #12 (by Chris Claremont and John Bolton), while we might not necessarily think that Magneto is some awesome guy, we certainly don't feel the same way about him slaughtering all those people as we would if he was just the old school, "Nyah Ha Ha! I will conquer your entire country and if that doesn't work out, I guess I'll just drop a nuke on you! Hey, Namor, want Scarlet Witch? She's yours if you team up with me!"

Things came to a head with Uncanny X-Men #200, when an injured Professor Charles Xavier (who Claremont had long ago revealed was actually good buddies with Magneto back in the day) decided to leave his school for mutants in the hands of Magneto. Not, you know, Storm or anyone who had been with him for years, no, just a reformed villain. Professor X WAS pretty messed up from his injuries at the time, so I guess we have to cut him some slack.

Anyhow, that fell apart, but Magneto was still being a sort of anti-hero type when he saved Rogue's life in Uncanny X-Men #269 when Rogue was sent through the Siege Perilous. You see, Claremont had been setting up a loooooong running plotline where the Shadow King was slowly building up his power on Muir Isle, leading to the X-Men ultimately having a showdown with him there. Claremont left the book before that could be resolved by a different writer, but on the way, there was a plot where the Ms. Marvel side of Rogue's consciousness cut a deal with Shadow King where she would get to take over Rogue's body permanently in exchange for serving him. You know how he is with getting people to take bad deals - he is very persuasive.

When she is about to take over Rogue's body in Uncanny X-Men #269 (by Claremont, Jim Lee and Scott Williams), Magneto shows up and erases the other side of Rogue's personality, effectively killing her but saving Rogue...

How cool is that last page entrance? That was the subject of an old Comic Book Legends Revealed - Claremont wanted it to be Loki to save Rogue while Jim Lee wanted to draw Magneto. Lee won out (I mean, I think Claremont just conceded the point. It wasn't some big argument).

Okay, so Magneto and Rogue then teamed up and had an adventure in the Savage Land fighting against Zaladane.

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In Uncanny X-Men #275, which wraps up that plotline (with Rogue and Magneto teaming up with Nick Fury and Ka-Zar to take down Zaladane), Magneto is captured and Zaladane's Mutates plumb the recesses of Magneto's mind and we see him revisit his past, including an encounter with the Shadow King!

And that's that. It has never been addressed since and we've never actually seen that encounter. Hey, isn't Chris Claremont writing a Magneto one-shot that's coming out soon? Come on, Chris, here is your chance!!

Thanks to Julian for the suggestion.

If anyone has a suggestion for an unresolved comic book plot, drop me a line at brianc@cbr.com!