Magneto: Not A Hero #1(of 4):
Summary: This issue begins at an anti-mutant rally in Brooklyn. The idiot bigots are screaming their various lame anti-mutant slogans(“If you see a mutie, spit on it!!”) when Magneto enters the room and kills everybody but the ringleader. The ringleader is naturally shocked and horrified since he thought Mags was a good guy now, but alas, that's the last thought that goes through his little brain before Mags kills him as well. From there, Captain America and Iron Man are being yelled at by the president who thought the Magneto problem had been taken care of. The two Avengers agree to deal with the matter and Lord Summers and Magneto head to Avengers Mansion to speak with Cap and IM. Iron Man shows the footage of Magneto's slaughter at the rally(it was caught on the camcorder of one of the dead bigots), and Lord Summers counters that he had video evidence of his own showing that Mags was nowhere near Brooklyn when the massacre took place. IM accuses Lord Summers of making up the footage, showing Lord Summers and Mags a hair that was found at the scene that matched Magneto's DNA 100%. That makes Mags angry, at which time he begins jawing at IM. Ultimately Cap and Lord Summers calm their two hotheads down and Cap gives Lord Summers a few days to get to the bottom of this before the Avengers did for him. Lord Summers agrees to those terms and promises that if he couldn't find a way to vindicate Mags, he'd hand Mags over to the Avengers personally. From there we head to Crazy Mutie Island(Utopia) where Mags enlists the help of Emma Frost in using a machine based on Cerebro that would allow him to search through the magnetosphere and pinpoint just who was capable of using his powers in such a manner. Mags wanders around in his mind(or the magnetosphere, it's rather confusing) and ultimately comes across the person responsible for the attack, his thought-to-be dead clone, Joseph.
Thoughts: The bottom line? This was a very good story that didn't really have any major flaws to it. Yeah, sure I could point at little things and complain about them such as the Avengers letting Mags leave even though they had DNA evidence linking Mags to the crime scene, or Lord Summers letting Mags investigate the case all by himself, but if you can overlook those little quibbles, this was a very solid first issue. The Joseph reveal WOULD have been a huge surprise had it not been spoiled for me in that preview guide, but even though it was spoiled, it was still an interesting twist. Joseph was always a good guy, so I'm intrigued to find out what caused him to snap and go all old school Magneto on the world. I'm glad I added this mini to my pull list, because if the other three issues are this good, I have a good story to look forward to.
Score: 8 1/2 out of 10.
The way Mags was drawn here, just completely disrespectful of the Avengers was really quite perfect.
