What villain actually had a good point?

I’ve been thinking about this, and I keep coming back to the same answer. Magneto.

Don’t get me wrong. The guy went completely off the rails. Every inconvenience didn’t need to end with metal flying through the air and half the planet getting threatened. But if you ignore all the comic book insanity for a minute, the guy understood people. That’s what made him dangerous.

Professor X believed people would eventually do the right thing. I never bought that. Humans have an incredible ability to find someone who’s different and decide they’re the problem. Doesn’t matter if it’s race, religion, politics, or anything else. We keep running the same stupid play over and over, then act surprised when it ends exactly the way it always has.

That’s why Magneto hits differently the older I get. He didn’t wake up one morning and decide to hate everybody. He got there because he’d seen enough to stop believing people would ever change. I don’t agree with what he did. Not even close. But I understand why he stopped trusting humanity. Honestly, history hasn’t exactly proven him wrong.

That’s what makes a great villain. Not the costume or the powers. It’s when they say something that makes you stop for a second and think, “Damn… he’s got a point.” Then, because it’s still a comic book, he throws a bridge across the city and reminds everyone why he’s the villain. Humans have a talent for taking a perfectly good point and driving it straight off a cliff.