Magneto’s Death Explains the Mystery of Mutantkind’s Darkest Future

Warning! This article contains spoilers for X Deaths of Wolverine #5

The mystery behind Magneto’s death in the X-Men’s darkest alternate future has finally been explained in the mutants’ latest time-travel adventure. From Days of Future Past to Nimrod’s victory to any alternate future where mutants are wiped out by Sentinels, it never really made sense that giant robots, metallic or otherwise, could take out Magneto. Even if he couldn’t control the Sentinels themselves, his mastery of magnetism would allow him to destroy hordes of the murderous robots with little effort. However, when fans learn the specifics of how the Sentinels were successful in assassinating perhaps their greatest mutant threat, all other vague explanations of Magneto’s demise make perfect sense.

In X Deaths of Wolverine #5 by Benjamin Percy and Federico Vicentini, a Wolverine that was sent back in time from a dark future to change the future deaths for those he loves. This Wolverine has been merged with the Phalanx and became known as Omega Wolverine, an upgrade that offers him superior strength but leaves him completely vulnerable to corruption. The Phalanx’s only goal is to grow and assimilate, but Logan’s healing factor keeps the hive-mind force at bay. However, when he is blasted with a ray that rids one of their mutant powers, Omega Wolverine breaks out into a rampage and only the Wolverine of the present time can stop him.

This issue lays out a brutal fight sequence between Omega Wolverine and the original version. In between the gory battle, fans are given a deeper insight into the future Omega Wolverine is from, and the many mutants who were killed as a result of the Sentinel takeover. On the page entitled: “X Deaths (From The Days Of A Past Future)”, the issue reveals the manner of deaths suffered by a number of mutants including Nightcrawler, Jean Grey, and Magneto. The description of Magneto’s demise states that he was successful in doing exactly what fans would think he’d do in an apocalyptic situation. Magneto decimated platoons of Sentinels when they attacked, but he was eventually taken down by a techno-organic force that came to him as a cloud of nanites, seeded into his lungs, and infected the rest of his body.

Since the Sentinels couldn’t kill Magneto with sheer force, they used their own version of chemical warfare, something to which Magneto was completely vulnerable. This explanation seemingly reveals how the Sentinels are able to kill Magneto in every timeline in which they take over as it is the most logical way to dispose of such a powerful enemy.

While every Sentinel-ruled timeline is different, the Sentinels themselves are entities of logic, so it stands to reason that if they killed Magneto a certain way in one timeline, they would do the same in another. Up until this point, Magneto’s death by the hands of the Sentinels remained ambiguous, but now the mystery of the X-Men’s darkest future has finally been revealed.

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