The Only Magneto Recap You Need Before Avengers: Doomsday

Few comic book movie villains have the aura or resume of Magneto — a character so compelling, so fun to watch, that he's stuck around in one form or another, technically in a single continuity, for over a quarter century. Obviously, getting back-to-back star turns from Ian McKellen and Michael Fassbender gives you a leg up. The 87-year-old McKellen is returning to the role once again for "Avengers: Doomsday" later this year, adding another loop to a character arc that's already come full-circle on several occasions. For a full catch-up on the Magneto story on film to this point, check out the video above.

As you can imagine, stories get rather long when you update them regularly for 26 years. Magneto's backstory on the big screen includes timeline resets, numerous jumps back and forth between the sides of hero and villain, the loss of superpowers, the return of superpowers, and also that time he levitated the Golden Gate Bridge. Remember that?

The soft-reboot series of X-Men films that began with 2011's "X-Men: First Class" goes back in time to fill in some gaps, showing how Magneto, when he was still known only as Erik Lehnsherr, helped Charles Xavier create the X-Men. Soon enough, though, his disdain for humanity — fueled by his childhood experiences in a German concentration camp and the unending persecution of mutants worldwide — led him down a more militant path. Despite being a villain in many of the early X-Men movies, Magneto has been increasingly portrayed as an antihero fighting a righteous fight through aggressive means. With "Doomsday," that trend seems to be continuing.

Seeing Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen in the trailers for "Avengers: Doomsday" is clearly meant as a piece of nostalgia — a strategy Marvel Studios has leaned on heavily in recent years with cameos from the likes of Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield as Spider-Man and Chris Evans as Johnny Storm. It makes sense, given how beloved the two veteran actors are, both for their X-Men roles and their larger careers, and it suggests that once again, we'll be rooting for Magneto in "Doomsday."

That's generally been the case since the end of the first X-Men movie trilogy, with Erik being an outright hero in many ways in films like "First Class," "Dark Phoenix," and "X-Men: Days of Future Past" (at least, his future self). His comic book history could also play a role in the new film, however, as "Doomsday" looks to pull from some interesting corners of the larger Marvel mythos. For a full breakdown on Magneto's past and what his role could be in the next "Avengers" blockbuster, check out the full video above.