WHO: Magneto WHAT: Magneto's TV show, Magneto's brief background, the rise of Avalon WHERE: The entire city WHEN: Wednesday, noon. RATED: PG-13 TAG: Sabretooth? Anyone else wanting to join the Magneto cause?
Suddenly, all the televisions and radios throughout Los Angeles displayed the same identical image. The image of Magneto stood eerily before them in a recorded broadcast.
"Greetings, proud children of Los Angeles. My name is Magneto. I’m sure many of you know who I am, and most of you had undoubtedly heard of me in the last few days. In the last week you have spoke out and called for a new leader in this time of chaos. Your new leader is here before you today. The Mayor and his associates have stepped down from their office and claimed me as your new champion to herald a new dawn for the homo-superiors emerging today. However, I must apologize now, my children. I am afraid I cannot save you all. In my youth I believed I could rescue each of you from the arrogance, the ignorance and the sheer cruelty that the others call "humanity"... I was convinced that the physical strength and moral courage would be enough. I was wrong. I realize now that earth, for the moment is doomed... and that if Superiors are to survive-- as they must-- then our future lies before us today. This is a test now, my friends, to see who is worthy enough and who is strong enough survive…."
There was a time when this man would have scoffed at the thought of broadcasting such an elaborate message to all beings of the city… but that has changed, like so many other things have changed about the man once known as Erik Lehsherr. It may have changed on the night he died on a flaming asteroid as it plunged into the earths atmosphere, but far more likely, it changed on the night decades earlier when he lost the one great love of his life. The only thing in life he has ever truly created in his life since has been about nothing more than death and destruction, the way a brushstroke of paint scars a blank canvas... but it is destruction nonetheless.
--(Flashback, for those of you who don’t know Comic!Magneto)--
"There was so much I had to show you, Anya." He whispered to the body he clutched to this chest, as if trying to breathe life into her again through the sheer force of his indomitable will. Long before he'd become Magneto, Master of Magnetism... even before he chose the name Magnus... he was Erik Lehsherr. He was a man not unlike any other of his time: a young victim of the concentration camp that claimed his family and kept him alive. A bout of hepatitis delayed the manifestation of his mutant powers until well into adulthood. His powers would spring savagely from his chest in the night a crowd prevented him from rescuing his first-born daughter.
"As I return you to the earth" he whispered in a voice ravaged by loss, "so do I bury my hope... my heart. My future. For how can I-- how can anyone, find a place in a world where not even innocents are safe?" His daughter was dead, his wife abandoned him out of fear; he had no reason to go on. Until man, once again, provided him with one.
The soldiers had been searching for him since the previous dawn... shortly after they had come across the remains of a small village, some sixty kilometers to the east, they came across a town reduced a mass grave by the single mournful cry of a man who was once a father. A man who was once a man. They were convinced they could ambush him. Bring him down. Bring him to justice. Their justice. Human justice. They were fools.
"How dare you."
“By the power invested in us by the authority of god and man, “ said the soldier. “We’re arresting you for the atrocities against humanity."
"Do not speak to me of authority" he choked, "For I have been the victim of the whims, the cruelties, and the atrocities of man since the moment of my birth. I have been reborn." He rumbled from a body that was now nothing but power. “I am serving notice of your precious humanity that I will never yield. Never. Again.”
The first time he used his powers it was unimaginable. It was as much of a shock to him as the victims of his initial manifestation. In his primal cry of frustration of misdirected aggression, against the people who allowed his daughter to die, he spoke again: "I spent my childhood under the suppression of others" he raged, his voice nearly drowned in the wails by the plaintive wail of the earth molested by his intimate manipulations. " As an adult I will not stand by and let others those you have arbitrarily decided are somehow unworthy, somehow undeserving, to suffer as I have suffered before them"
In that moment, the moment he used his power to force one solider to slay his comrades, the world lost one of its most valuable resources. It lost the heart and soul of Erik Lehsherr and found in its place an entity known as Magneto.
In the silence that followed, all that was left had gone before was the blood of strangers...
The remains of a little girl...
…And the shadow of a man.
--(Back to the Broadcast)--
"….Allow me to share what I have learned. Trust one who has died and risen again: death has a way of putting everything into perspective. For choosing sides, for debating the alleged morality of our actions, for questioning my ultimate authority HAS PASSED. From this day forward, all those who do not stand with me, whether mutant or not, can be counted among my enemies. Those who are not willing, who cannot find the steel in their souls to join me in the sanctuary I have constructed within this city, sentences themselves to wallow in the mass grave that is the destiny of this planet. Behold your salvation.”
All screens blinked to black. Television were dead throughout the entire city, as if the satellite had been knocked out of orbit by some mysterious unknown cause…. Of course those familiar with Magneto would know exactly what happened.
On Catalina Island, the entire city of Avalon was deserted. Here, Magneto has created his new home, palace and safe refuge for mutants, vampires, and werewolves.
Avalon became the new Genosha, the lavish home for the superior citizens of Los Angeles to live peacefully with their new leader.