With how the death of Scarlet Witch Wanda Maximoff was handled at the end of the Hellfire Gala I did not intend to pick up The Trial Of Magneto. But after talking to my some of the people who run my LCS I decided to pick up the first issue to give The Trial Of Magneto a fair shot. There are a lot of implications that come with this X-Men event as it could impact how all the different X-Men team are positioned within the Marvel Universe moving forward. Especially considering the new X-Men team are trying to be seen as superheroes once again The Trial Of Magneto can derail everything out of the gate. Let’s find out how things go with X-Men: Trial Of Magneto #1.
Writer: Leah Williams
Artist: Lucas Wereck
Colorist: EdgarDelgado
Story Rating: 9 Night Girls out of 10
Art Rating: 7 Night Girls out of 10
Overall Rating: 8 Night Girls out of 10
Synopsis: X-Factor’s Northstar, Daken, and Prestige (Rachel Grey) investigate the area that they’ve tracked down as where Wanda Maximoff’s murder happened. Northstar gets bothered that Logan, Laura Kinney, Domino, and Synch are monitoring the investigation but Prestige tells him to focus. Prestige and Daken eventually find the exact location where Wanda was murdered.
In Krakoa’s Healing Garden Prodigy, Beast, and Dr. Celina Reyes perform an autopsy on Wanda’s body as the rest of the X-Men watch. At the same time Daken and Eye-Boy are able to find that Wanda was killed by being dragged backwards by the neck and chocked out by her attacker who had her arms restrained behind her.
Polaris realizes that what Wanda’s attacker used was some form of metal. Both X-Factor teams draw the same conclusion from their respective investigations. Polaris then asks the X-Men to give her a head start.
Over in Krakoa’s The Grove, the Quiet Council hold a meeting to talk about Magneto’s request to resurrect Wanda using the data stored in Cerebro before she and Quicksilver were discovered to not be Magneto’s children or mutants. Things get tense as Magneto gets pissed off at the Quiet Council’s vote to not resurrect Wanda.
Charles Xavier attempts to calm Magneto down about the results of the vote. Magneto does not accept it and starts crushing Xavier’s head using the Cerebro helmet he is wearing. Nightcrawler and Kate Pryde quickly step in to stop Magneto from killing Xavier.
Storm and Xavier call Magneto out on his poor behavior. Magneto still isn’t having any of it and storms out of The Grove.
As Magneto walks around Krakoa he is confronted by the X-Men, X-Factor, and X-Force teams. Northstar asks Magneto to come with them to talk. Magneto quickly turns them down by showing off his power
Kyle Jinadu finds Tommy Shepherd in the Boneyard where Wanda’s body was found. Still in a state of shock Tommy tells Kyle he tried to contact his brother William Kaplan but couldn’t get through to him so he likely doesn’t know their mom is dead.
Near the Krakoan Gate in Manhattan Captain America, Wasp, and Iron Man answer Vision’s call. Vision reveals that Wanda never returned after going to the Hellfire Gala.
Charles Xavier suddenly appears through the gate and tells the gathered Avengers that Wanda is dead.
Back at Krakoa’s The Grove, Magneto easily keeps both Wolverines (Laura and Logan) at bay. This turns out to be a distraction as Synch masks Daken’s presence so he can stab Magneto from behind. Magneto quickly gets Daken off him by hitting Daken with several pieces of shrapnel.
Magneto then launches a massive attack on the X-Men, X-Factor, and X-Force teams. Polaris tries to take on Magneto alone. As Polaris is being overpowered during their struggle Magneto finally admits that he always saw his daughter was unstable and inconsistent at best.
Recovering from the struggle Polaris reminds Magneto of all the women that he has left broken and dead throughout his life. Polaris says all of Magneto’s efforts to break her failed and only made her stronger.
Polaris then leads the X-Men in overwhelming Magneto with various attacks. Magneto then suddenly disappears.
Nearby Magneto appears to be beaten up by rapid strikes. As Magneto loses consciousness from all the attacks Northstar stops Quicksilver from killing Magneto.
As the X-Men tend to Magneto so they can get him to talk Northstar does his best to be there for Quicksilver.
Later, at The Healing Gardens Hospital, while Magneto is in a comatose state Jean Grey reveals to Scott Summers and Logan that Magneto’s mind is in a chaotic state due to his grief so she can’t get a clear read if he was behind Wanda’s death.
Over at The Green Lagoon bar Quicksilver meets up with Toad, Blob, and Mastermind to have a drink together. Toad suddenly lashes in anger over Wanda’s death and walks out crying. Quicksilver takes another drink and hopes his sister’s soul can finally rest in peace.
In some unknown realm Scarlet Witch awakens to relive the feeling of her death. As she thinks of all the grief of the people she has hurt and of her own death Wanda realizes that while she died she is not dead. End of issue.
The Good: X-Men: The Trial Of Magneto #1 was an unexpected read. With low expectations I was pleasantly surprised with how strong of a reading experience the first issue of this X-Men event was. Leah Williams gets a second shot to get over the impact of Scarlet Witch Wanda Maximoff’s death has on the Marvel Universe. In the process we get a lot of strong character exploration for the title character and many other X-Men.
Williams does not hold back when it comes to exploring all the layers of Magneto’s character. At various points throughout The Trial Of Magneto #1 we see how the current version of Erik Lensherr is a combination of all the versions we’ve seen of him. We go from political leader of Krakoa to selfish and egotistical villain to emotionally abusive to caring father. Everything works to explain how Magneto’s current state of mind is so chaotic, as Jean Grey explains at he end of this issue.
At the same time, Williams does a great job with Magneto as the current main antagonist of this series to explore his impact on others. In particular, Polaris leading the X-Men, X-Factor, and X-Force in confronting Magneto was fantastic. Polaris holds nothing back when calling out Magneto on how he has been such an emotionally and physically abusive person.
Setting up exploring this part of Magneto’s character by first showing us Erik returning to full villain Magneto form was great set-up. Williams does a great job in having Magneto’s fight with the X-Men, X-Factor, and X-Force teams to remind everyone of the villain they fought for years before Krakoa’s founding. This fight acting as a catalyst for both Polaris and Magneto unleashing all their thoughts and emotions on one another made both the action and dialogue even more impactful. It all came across as a necessary release for both characters in their father-daughter relationship.
Through all of this it really helped to further elevate Polaris’ character. It is important that she was able to respond in a way that showed her father that she wasn’t just going to be manipulated by Magneto. She has grown as a hero and a person over the years. The other X-Men teams having Polaris take the lead also spoke to how respected she is and she is seen as a leader in their eyes.
The Trial Of Magneto #1 was also a much better showcase for the X-Factor as the detective agency of Krakoa. Northstar, Prestige, Daken, Prodigy, and Eye-Boy were able to show how efficiently they work as a team to figure out what happened to Wanda. Even if they aren’t able to get to 100% certainty of who it was they do get enough details on Wanda’s death to show that Magneto did play a role if not was the person who killed her. The efficiency they worked with made how Northstar as the leader of X-Factor told the X-Men and X-Force to not get in the way even more effective.
Quicksilver getting involved right out of the gate was another great move to get The Trial Of Magneto off to the biggest start possible. Out of everyone, even more so than Polaris, Pietro Maximoff was the one we needed to see confront Magneto over Wanda’s death. Seeing Pietro demolish Magneto to the point of almost killing him if he wasn’t stopped by Northstar was well handled. Going from there to Pietro getting drinks with his former Brotherhood teammates was a good to further reference Quicksilver’s history with the X-Men. This opens things up for The Trial Of Magneto to be something that explores Magneto, Scarlet Witch, Quicksilver, and Polaris.
All of this goes to build on the greater mystery of what is exactly going on with Wanda’s death. Given that we didn’t actually see who killed her there is something bigger going on. Which we get to see with the final few pages of The Trial Of Magneto #1 as we see Wanda in some unknown realm. Everything Wanda said in her internal monologue seems to point more towards her connection to the magic realm. Which is interesting since we are also given hints that we could see her mutant connections be brought back into play. What direction all of this goes has me invested.
The other big thing that stood out in The Trial Of Magneto #1 is how we once again get another example of dissension within the Quiet Council. There were already questionable decisions being made by the Quiet Council. But now we’ve seen Jean Grey and Cyclops going against the Quiet Council’s political wishes, then they lost Apocalypse and Jean Grey as members, and now Magneto has turned on them. The fact that Magneto almost killed Charles Xavier should be enough to change things with the Quiet Council. Which will be interesting to see play out with the Avengers about to get involved in the story.
Lucas Wereck was solid throughout The Trial Of Magneto #1. Wereck’s artwork was at its best whenever Magneto was in action. Whether it was going all out with his emotions or fighting off the X-Men, X-Factor, and X-Force, this was a showcase for who Magneto is. Wereck also did a good job giving weight to Wanda Maximoff’s death and how there is a bigger mystery behind it that will unfold over the course of The Trial Of Magneto.
The Bad: Nothing.
Overall: The Trial Of Magneto #1 was a fantastic start to what is already shaping up to be one of the best stories in the Krakoa Era for the X-Men. Leah Williams and Lucas Wereck treated the death of Wanda Maximoff and what it means for the Marvel Universe with the care it deserves. How they use this story to delve deeper into where Magneto, Polaris, and other characters are at was all expertly done.
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