Song: “Whut Part of the Game”
Artist: Ras Kass (featured on Killah Priest’s song)
Album: View from Masada (2000)
Lyric: “I’m live evil, I know live people/Anxious to bang ya with heavy metal like Magneto”
Character Reference/Meaning:
You would think that Magneto would be a reference that you’d see a lot more of in Hip-Hop. After all, in the grand scheme of the Mutant Civil Rights debate, Magneto is often referred to as the X-Men version of Malcolm X. Both believed that their people should not be bowing down to the populous and assimilate, but rather that their people should be proud of their differences. However, the militant mindset of both leaders led them to conflict with their peaceful counterparts who would rather integrate themselves into the current way of life (Malcolm X with MLK Jr. and Magneto with Professor X). Magneto even calls his band of outcasts the Brotherhood, a reflection of Malcolm X’s famous quote, “I believe in the brotherhood of man, all men, but I don’t believe in brotherhood with anybody who doesn’t want brotherhood with me.” Throughout the years, Magneto ended up fighting against his good friend, Charles Xavier – something that both hate doing and ultimately made them ineffective against the ill will and violence created. Unfortunately, because these were the 60’s and every story needed a clear-cut protagonist and antagonist, the Brotherhood were always painted as the bad guys. It took until the late 1980s to early 1990’s for Magneto to really develop as a complex character.
He stopped mutant experimentations, destroyed Sentinel research (find more on their Hip-Hop relevance here) and even tried segregating them from humans on Utopia. Erik Lehnsherr, as he’s often referred to, isn’t even his real name; it’s one he adopted after escaping a concentration camp. Where Professor X grew up in a loving environment, whereas Max Eisenhardt (read X-Men: The Magneto Testament for that crazy story) grew up in Nazi Germany, where he was forced into a concentration camp and his family was murdered. It’s no wonder why he is willing to win the war for mutants’ rights, “by any means necessary.” The community can go back and forth on this debate, but there’s no nobody that can debate just how monstrously powerful Magneto is.
Word to Ras Kass for recognizing one of the most powerful beings in the Marvel U. His ability to control metal has been crafted to brutal perfection. Along with using metal objects small and large to murder his enemies, he has accomplished far beyond that. To date, Magneto has: turned invisible by wrapping light around his body (Vision and the Scarlet Witch #4), teleported himself through a wormhole he created (Excalibur #8), telepathically resisted Professor X and Emma Frost (Uncanny X-Men #521), and even stopped time itself when he froze the X-Men in place by controlling the body’s electrochemistry (Uncanny X-Men #304). Most devastatingly, Magneto got so pissed off at Wolverine that he ripped the adamantium straight off his skeleton. You do not want to piss this guy off.
You may have seen X-Men and you may have seen X-Men: First Class, but you don’t know Magneto. Forget Michael Fassbender. Forget Ian McKellen. Magneto is the baddest, most powerful mutant of all time. 20th Century Fox may have spent millions to show his prowess, but nothing is doing a better job of that then the new series, written by Cullen Bunn and drawn by Gabriel Hernandez Walta. Currently on issue #5, Magneto has been a non-stop rampage to emancipate his people from being experimented on. Wiping out hordes of humans with everyday, household items on the regular, you shouldn’t get in Magneto’s way.
Hush Comics 