Toy Review: ‘Avengers: Doomsday’ Magneto Pays An Excellent Homage

Marvel Studios’ Avengers: Doomsday is acting as the culmination of over 20 years of Marvel movie history, and as such, it’s bringing back actors from those movies. Naturally, that leads to Hasbro making Marvel Legends figures of some of those legendary actors, including Magneto.

Magneto made his debut in 1963’s X-Men #1, alongside his most famous nemeses. The character started as a pretty standard supervillain. However, he was transformed into a sympathetic villain with the reveal of his history as a survivor of the Holocaust. Then, he was presented with a chance at redemption. After another heel- then face-turn or two, Magneto transformed fully into an anti-hero; a role he continues to play today.

The character has appeared in every adaptation of X-Men, with Sir Ian McKellen playing him first in live action in 2000’s X-Men. McKellen’s Magneto appeared in the original X-Men trilogy, X-Men: Days of Future Past and now for the final time in the upcoming Avengers: Doomsday.

Magneto is without a doubt one of the greatest characters in comics. Someone once said that Venom became more heroic because he became popular; Magneto became more heroic because it’s harder to disagree with him by the day. He’s not just a remarkably complex and tragic character, but he’s an absolute badass. Hasbro has given him many great figures. This is just the latest in that line.

Out of the way first — he didn’t even need a full alternate head, but a hairpiece that could have been swapped with his helmet and long hair is needed. This figure is basically a tribute to what McKellen contributed to Magneto, and it would be great to fully see Sir Ian’s face. Additionally another set of hands and some power effects both would have been welcome.

As far as design, Magneto always had one of the better adaptations of his comics costumes in the movies. I know this is his Doomsday design, but it’s also not that far off from his looks in from the X-Men films, outside of the more violet highlights on his magenta helmet. The likeness is perfect, though it looks a bit more like McKellen from about a decade ago than the actor in 2026.

The only problem with the posing is Magneto’s long tunic. It’s not cast in as flexible plastic as it could be. That said, McKellen’s Magneto is less action-oriented and more majestic, so you’re not going to pose him in more dynamic ways. For the powerful floating statesman of this version of Magneto, he’s damn near perfect. He can even picture him floating through the battle field crushing Sentinels.

And best of all, he has a cloth cape. Why Magneto got one while Thor did not is beyond me. A wired cloth cape would be nice, but this is leagues ahead of where we were with Thor.

I have more Magneto figures than I do any other X-Man outside of Cyclops, but this figure was more than welcome to join them. This is a great figure and a wonderful tribute to the actor who brought him to life for the first time.