‘X-Men: Dark Phoenix’: Michael Fassbender Reveals Magneto’s New Role in Genosha

Marvel’s mutant master of magnetism, Magneto, has a new role to play in the next X-Men movie, Dark Phoenix.

Dark Phoenix will introduce the island nation of Genosha. Speaking during a panel at Ace Comic Con Phoenix, Dark Phoenix star Michael Fassbender, who plays Magneto, explained what that means for the mutant terrorist.

“Well I think, you know, Genosha’s a pretty cool idea and always it’s that thing with Magneto, you can’t really argue with his philosophies in some ways, but his methods, of course, are very extreme,” Fassbender says. “But what he’s done in Genosha is kind of cool because he’s sort of stepped out of the conflict, if you will, and said, ‘Okay, you know, just give us this place that’s our own and just leave us be and we’ll be self-sufficient and anybody who’s willing to sort of not bring violence to the area and sort of pitch in and do their part, then they have a home there and they’re welcome there.’ And I think, you know, it’s a pretty cool philosophy. And there’s only something that happens outside of Genosha that sort of drags him away from this place that he’s set up. But it was cool when [director] Simon Kinberg was developing Genosha and we were walking around it and it’s like, it’s sort of off-the-grid, self-sustained community. It’s pretty beautiful. But then of course, then you see the other side of him once he makes the decision to do something it’s go big or go home.”

For those unfamiliar with Genosha, it was introduced as an apartheid metaphor during Chris Claremont’s long, franchise redefining run writing Uncanny X-Men for Marvel Comics. Genosha was a prosperous nation off the coast of Africa that was built on the slave labor of mutates, people whose mutants abilities were activated by technology and who then had their minds and personalities wiped so that they could serve Genoshan humans. The X-Men intervened and helped spark a civil war on the island, but ultimately it was Magneto who overthrew the Genoshan government and claimed the nation as a sanctuary for mutants.

While Magneto may have stepped away from the conflict in Dark Phoenix, his philosophies haven’t changed much.

“I think the ends justify the means, you know?” Fassbender said of Magneto’s outlook. “He’s quite Machiavellian in that, and, like you said, because of his history, because he’s endured so much sort of suffering in terms of the personal relationships he’s developed and what humans have done and taken that away from him you understand his extremism and sort of his motivation.”

Are you excited about seeing Genosha in Dark Phoenix? Let us know in the comments!

Dark Phoenix opens June 7th.

Upcoming X-Men movies include The New Mutants on August 2, 2019, and Gambit on March 13, 2020.