See Jason Isaacs As Marvel’s Best Villain
Jason Isaacs is Magneto in this fan art.
Jason Isaacs is Magneto, Marvel’s greatest villain, in this new piece of fan art. As depicted by digital artist Subi Özil, the Harry Potter actor portrays the X-Men’s primary villain/ally/sometime member in one of his more modern, stripped-down costume variants. While Jason Isaacs is not wearing Magneto’s iconic helmet in this particular image, he is surrounded by various gear of heroes from the Marvel Cinematic Universe (including Ant-Man’s helmet and a glimpse of Captain America’s shield), implying this version is in that continuity.
In this image, Jason Isaacs seems to be playing a different version of Magneto than we have seen in previous X-Men movies. Ian McKellan began playing Magneto in 2000’s X-Men and Michael Fassbender joined in on the fun with 2011’s X-Men: First Class; McKellan played the mutant as an elderly, radicalized leader and Fassbender as a younger, still unsure version of the character. In essence, the more ripped but aged Jason Isaacs version of Magento seems to be a combination of the two.
Ever since the Walt Disney Company acquired 20th Century Fox in 2019 and, along with it, film rights to the X-Men franchise (as well as the Fantastic Four), Marvel fans have been foaming at the mouth to know how Kevin Feige is going to introduce mutant-kind to the MCU. Plans are clearly afoot behind the scenes, given the hint dropped in Ms. Marvel and the less subtle question in She-Hulk: Attorney at Law, but the only familiar face we’ve seen so far was Patrick Stewart briefly showing up in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. If recasting is on the table, Marvel could do far worse than Jason Isaacs as Magneto.
We have previously reported that Marvel Studios is bringing back Ian McKellan for the upcoming mega-event film Avengers: Secret Wars, along with everyone from Nicolas Cage’s Ghost Rider to Wesley Snipes’ Blade to Chris Evans’ Steve Rogers. However, that does not mean that there is no room for a Jason Isaacs version of Magneto in the Marvel Cinematic Universe; to the contrary, Spider-Man: No Way Home demonstrated that the MCU is very comfortable having multiple versions of a character on screen at once.
How exactly the X-Men and associated characters like Ryan Reynolds’ Deadpool will be folded into the Marvel Cinematic Universe is still a closely guarded secret, so really, anything could happen. There have already been several iterations of most of the main mutant characters within 20th Century Fox’s run at the franchise, so audiences are prepped to see new actors play most roles. Given that Jason Isaacs is already well-known for playing imperious villains, he could be a pretty good fit for the role of the Master of Magnetism.
To most audiences, Jason Isaacs will always be Lucius Malfoy, the father who Harry Potter’s nemesis Draco (Tom Felton) was always referencing. Much like Magneto, Lucius Malfoy had stunning almost-silver hair and a belief in the superiority of his own kind over all others, so is it really all that much of a stretch to see him in the role?
