Superhero comics periodically try to incorporate real history, but they rarely bother themselves with things like facts. Magneto Testament is something completely different. Magneto's history as a holocaust survivor has been mentioned in numerous X-men comics, but here Pak and Di Giandomenico attempt to tell the whole story, and to do it in a historically accurate and respectful matter. Where comic lore and history conflict, history wins. The creators' efforts pay off. This is an impressive comic.
The story starts in Germany and follows a Jewish nine-year-old named Max, who will eventually become Magneto, and his family as they flee to Poland, only to end up in the Warsaw ghetto, and finally the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp. It covers many lesser known aspects of the Holocaust, including the internment of Gypsies and the Sonderkommando.
The covers included in the book are particularly haunting. Black and white with a single touch of red: a shirt, a child's eyes, the posts at the entrance to Auschwitz.
Magneto's status as Marvel's most notorious villain gives this plenty of appeal to superhero fans, but there are only hints of Max's superpowers. Give this to historical fiction fans, the teen who thinks history is boring, and history teachers.
There is a teachers' guide and end notes included at the end of the book, as well as a short comic biography about Dina Babbit. She was a holocaust survivor who was forced by the Nazis to paint portraits of Gypsies in Auschwitz.
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