In my last installment of Mutant Generations, I explored how the children of two human parents don’t necessarily guarantee human offspring. This time I’m going in the other direction. This time I’ll be showing how powered and powerful parents don’t really guarantee that you’ll get a super powered child as I explore the family line of one the greatest mutant terrorists/saviors of all time: Magneto.
Anya (last name unconfirmed, maybe Eisenhardt) – After escaping from the Auschwitz, Max Eisenhardt and his wife, Magda, made their way to a city called Vinnytsia. They had a daughter named Anya and it came to no surprise to anyone (since her father’s mutant powers of magnetism had not yet surfaced) that she was completely human. It was Anya’s death in a burning building (having no special powers to protect herself with) that catalyzed Max Eisenhardt’s powers, which he used to raze the entire village.
Horrified by her husband’s actions, Magda ran from her husband and they never saw each other again. What Magneto didn’t know was the Magda was pregnant with twins. Each of these twins grew to be great heroes and villains in their own right.
Pietro Maximoff (Quicksilver) – Pietro and his sister were raised by gypsy couple Django and Marya Maximoff. He used his super speed powers to protect his helpless and unpredictable sister as they traveled around Europe. The twins were later recruited into their father’s Brotherhood of Evil Mutants (with all parties aware of their relationship) but eventually escaped his indentured servitude. As Quicksilver he became a valued member of both the Avengers and the government sponsored X-Factor. He eventually fell from grace during the House of M where he manipulated his sister into altering reality then followed by his subsequent theft and abuse of the Inhumans’ Terrigen Crystals. He has since redeemed himself and is now a teacher for the Avengers Academy.
Luna Maximoff – Pietro eventually married Inhuman and fellow Avengers Crystal. These two had a daughter and named her Luna, after the moon that the Inhumans lived on. As Luna grew older, her parents decided not to expose her to the terrigen mist, as was the Inhumans custom, and despite her Inhuman and mutant parentage, and after being tested it was determined that the Inhuman and mutant genetic markers cancelled each other out and left her as a baseline human. Eventually, during a bout of madness, her father exposed her to the mists giving her an unstable and addictive mutation that gave her empathic abilities which she has learned to utilize in many different ways
Wanda Maximoff – The other child of Max and Magda Eisenhardt grew into an equally powerful and tragic figure. After running from her husband and his new powers, Magda made her way to Wundagore Mountain. Upon reaching it, she met the bovine midwife Bova, who helped deliver the twins. At the exact moment that the twins were born, the Elder God Chthon was being banished from the Earth and, as he left, he left a touch of his magic on the baby Wanda. As Wanda grew, she developed not only her unpredictable hex power, but also she developed a skill at magic, tutored by her mentor Agatha Harkness. After her and Quicksilver left Magneto’s Brotherhood, she became a long-time and valued member of the Avengers and the Avengers West, and also married her android teammate, the Vision, and the two miraculous had twins boys. These babies turned out to be only manifestations of Mephisto’s soul and eventually disappeared into the ether. Eventually the combination of her hex ability and her magic developed into a mastery (or lack thereof) in Chaos magic which proved to be her undoing as, upon revelation of the truth of her own children she had a nervous breakdown and, through the manipulation of her brother, altered reality and caused the depowering of 98% of the mutant race. Recently she has resurfaced, sans her memory, during the Children’s Crusade, where the reincarnations of her lost children have been searching for her.
William Kaplan (Wiccan) – Billy Kaplan had all the regular troubles of a gay teenager, along with a fixation for his favorite Avenger, the Scarlet Witch. He even got the chance to meet his idol outside of Avengers Mansion after being bullied by a boy at school and she assured him that everyone had a gift. During his next confrontation with the bully his electrical powers activated and he almost killed the boy. He joined the Young Avengers, first going by the name Asgardian (and later Wiccan), it was later revealed that, in addition to lightning, he could also cast spells and fly. He later met Tommy Shepard, another super powered youth who was his exact double (except for Tommy had white hair as opposed to Billy’s black hair). During a confrontation with the Super Skrull, it was noted that Billy had very similar powers to the missing Scarlet Witch. It has since been confirmed that Billy and Tommy ARE in fact somehow reincarnations of Wanda’s dead/missing children. There are major concerns that Billy Kaplan may become another Scarlet Witch.
Thomas Shepard (Speed) – When the Young Avengers were looking for new members, they discovered speedster Tommy Shepard. Upon rescuing him from captivity in a high powered juvenile detention center (where he was because he accidentally destroyed his school), it was immediately noted that he had a striking resemblance to Billy Kaplan (teammate Wiccan). The two boys, who grew up separately, consider themselves to be brothers, and the children of the Scarlet Witch. While Billy appears to have inherited Wanda’s reality warping powers, Tommy has developed super speed like Wanda’s twin brother Pietro (he also has Quicksilver’s trademark white hair, just like he father before him)
Lastly, we have a relatively recent addition to Magneto’s family.
Lorna Dane (Polaris) – Originally Lorna Dane was a latent mutant with no powers and only green hair to show that she was any different from the general populous. After being kidnapped by Mesmero and subjected to the psyche-generator which activated her latent powers of magnetism, and she was hailed as M-2, the daughter of Magneto. At first this was shown to be false, and Lorna (first adopting the codename Magnetrix, and then later Polaris) joined the X-men and fought mutant villains by their side. She eventually left the X-men but kept being dragged back in by various enemies (like being mind controlled by Erik the Red and much later, possessed by the Marauder Malice). She joined the government sponsored X-Factor team and later rejoined the X-men again. Following a battle with Apocalypse, Lorna journeyed to Genosha with Magneto to learn how to better use her own magnetic powers, and it was during her stay here that she learned that she WAS in fact magneto’s daughter from an affair he had had many years ago. Since then, since being cast out and disowned by the twins, he has come to think of her as his own child and legacy, even hailing her as his one true heir.
So this just goes to show you that having a powerful mutant father or grandfather does not necessarily guarantee that a child will also be a powerful mutant. In the case of Anya, it is possible that she would have later developed powers but she was already old enough to where that would have happened. With Luna, we have a case where having so many powered family members actually cancelled out her chances of getting powers of her own and left her baseline human, until of course she was exposed to the mists. And with Polaris, it has been stated that she was a latent mutant and wouldn’t have ever manifested her powers without outside help, although her children would like have the potential to gain these powers.
