Magneto Got His Powers Back, But at What Cost?

The X-Men are under attack, and Magneto may be their only hope. 3K — a pastiche of ideas from Grant Morrison’s monumental New X-Men run — has fielded the team of mutants they created against the X-Men in the action-packed X-Men #16. However, Cassandra Nova, 3K’s leader, is out to destroy the X-Men completely, bringing in a massive kaiju-sized mutant to destroy the X-Men’s new base. This puts the defense of the facility in the hands of Beast and Magneto… however Magneto’s powers have been on the fritz since the end of the Krakoa Era. This leads Beast to do something that could have major consequences for Magneto — injecting him with a power-enhancing drug called dextroamphetamine-X. This is yet another very familiar plot element to fans of New X-Men, reminiscent of the Kick.

Magneto and Kick have a bit of a history — technically at least, but we’ll get into that. Magneto is in a very different place from where’s he been in recent years. Magneto has been a hero for a while now, although he’s been getting a little angrier lately, and was one of the X-Men’s heavy hitters for years. His powers seeming to burn out has brought a big change to him and his role with the X-Men. Dextroamphetamine-X could have drastic problems for Magneto and the X-Men in the days to come, mirroring the problems with the drug Kick.

Dextroamphetamine-X Seems to be the New Kick

So, to see the parallels between the two drugs, we need to talk about Kick a little bit. Kick was a drug created by John Sublime. Sublime was the leader of the U-Men, a group of humans who would vivisect mutants and implant parts of them to humans to give them superpowers. The drug enhanced the powers of mutants, but also induced a psychosis of the sort. This was all part of Sublime’s plan; John Sublime was a billions of years old sentient bacteria who wanted to inherit the Earth and have the planet to itself all over again. Kick was released to mutants to cause chaos, with mutants high on Kick often doing things that they otherwise wouldn’t do, all to start a war between humans and mutants. Sublime could also take control of users, manipulating them into doing his bidding. The drug was highly addictive and if used too much could damage the X-gene of the user, as well cause death by overdose. Most of these effects are the exact same ones as dextroamphetamine-X, except for the mind control of Sublime. Beast doesn’t really know the full effects of dextroamphetamine-X, but seems to suspect that is could be dangerous.

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There have been a lot of similarities between the current run of X-Men and New X-Men. 3K is based on the U-Men — they’ve mastered a way of giving X-genes to adults, making humans into mutants — and are led not by John Sublime (who showed up in the Krakoa Era), but Cassandra Nova. Dextroamphetamine-X is definitely inspired by Kick, and Magneto using it to enhance his powers could lead down a similar road. Magneto has been pretty crabby since his powers burnt out, and dextroamphetamine-X could become the way he regains his powers of old. Dextroamphetamine-X giving Magneto his powers back could lead him to start wanting to take revenge against humans again, driven mad by his returning powers. Again, this mirrors New X-Men; Magneto (who was eventually retconned to be Xorn, but that didn’t happen until after Morrison’s run ended) was secretly distributing Kick to the X-Mansion in his guise as Xorn and started using it to enhance his powers, becoming more erratic as he kept using it. Current X-Men writer Jed MacKay is taking a lot of ideas from New X-Men and this looks like yet another plot line he’s lifting whole cloth from Morrison’s X-Men opus.

Magneto Is Going to Need Every Bit of His Enhanced Powers

Cassandra Nova has been moving her pieces around the board since this run of X-Men started, and X-Men #16 brings the whole situation to the head. Her X-Men team serve to stalemate Cyclops in battle, their powers and training allowing them to at least match one of the more formidable X-Men teams ever created. Nova’s kaiju attack on the X-Men’s newest outpost is a pretty hardcore swing, and Magneto’s powers are the only thing that can counter it, taking control of a powerful Sentinel that the X-Men left at their former Orchis Initiative base as a reminder to the people of the nearby town of the horrors they were complicit in.

Beast doesn’t know if dextroamphetamine-X is going to mess Magneto up, and having him control the Sentinel will protect his body, which is weaker than ever before. However, this plot line could lead to places beyond a cool Sentinel/kaiju fight in X-Men #17. Dextroamphetamine-X is almost certainly going have an adverse effect on Magneto. “From the Ashes” feels like it’s positioning the X-Men to go in a more classic direction — almost certainly because of the upcoming MCU debut of the team — and dextroamphetamine-X may be the way Magneto goes back to being a villain after over a decade of being a member of the X-Men.

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