Coolest X-Men ‘97 Moment Inspired By A Joke T-Shirt

For this to make sense (as much sense as anything involving the mutants ever makes), we need to review the full X-Men ‘97 context in which the words “Magneto was right” appear. Giving a showstopping monologue, Valerie Cooper tells Bastion that “no one seemed shocked or surprised” at the horrific attack on Genosha and that “Magneto knows us better than Charles ever did.” Furthermore, the fact that the mutant master of magnetism was right all along is “the only sane thought you can have when being chased by giant robots that were built to crush you.”

Even by the insanely high standards of X-Men ‘97, a prominent character declaring “Magneto was right” was a moment that sent chills up our spines. However, it was also a moment that sent me running my hand up the spines of some beloved trade paperbacks. You see, the now-ubiquitous phrase only became popularized by Grant Morrison’s run on New X-Men in 2003.

At one point in those comics, Magneto is thought to be dead after an attack on Genosha (he’s later revealed quite alive in what might be the stupidest plot twist in comics history). Life goes on at the Xavier Institute, but one young mutant named Quentin Quire takes immediate issue with Xavier and his pacifist preachings. In order to shock the teachers and rile up his fellow students, Quire takes to wearing a shirt that says “Magneto was right,” complete with artwork that makes the mutant villain look like Che Guevara.

Even before X-Men ‘97 gave us a very different character uttering “Magneto was right,” the phrase had gained some serious pop culture momentum. In a hilariously meta-twist, this is mostly because comics fans often debate each other about whether the pacifist Xavier or the militant Magneto had the right idea about how to deal with humanity. The more humanity’s actions in both the comics and real life took a turn for the worse, and the more readers had to reluctantly agree that someone originally identified as an “evil” mutant was actually right all along.

What should be interesting to see in the final two episodes of X-Men ‘97’s first season is whether anyone is still saying “Magneto was right” by the end. This episode ended with Magneto launching an EMP across the world, prompting Wolverine to say the other mutant had “declared war.” In the comics, a similar large-scale EMP burst in X-Men #25 resulted in a major human death toll due to hospital equipment getting deactivated and (most ominously) numerous planes falling from the sky, so this may very well be Magneto’s ultimate heel turn.

I’m confident that X-Men ‘97 will end as strong as it began, and I’m equally confident that more and more fans will start rocking their own “Magneto was right” t-shirts. What began as a Marvel comics joke shirt to underscore teenage rebellion has become an insanely popular meme and, arguably, the dark thesis of X-Men ‘97. Considering the upcoming presidential election is likely to bring out the very worst in humanity, many more people are likely to agree with Magneto about the evils of humanity before the year is out.