Many bizarre romantic trysts have happened in comics, and one that’s hardly ever mentioned is the time X-Men antagonist Magneto decided to hook up with founding Avenger the Wasp. While the pairing has mostly been forgotten, the story it comes from isn’t obscure. It takes place in the third and fourth issues of one of Marvel’s first major crossover events, Marvel Superheroes Secret Wars (1985), by Jim Shooter, Mike Zeck, and Bob Layton.
The classic saga features many Marvel heroes and villains being abducted and forced to fight each other by an ancient otherworldly being called the Beyonder. It was basically a commercial for Mattel’s upcoming Marvel toyline, but it had a major impact on Marvel and its fictional universe. One early surprise in the plot is that Magneto, when abducted, is placed among the heroes, not the villains. When everyone is surprised by this, he defends himself and says that unlike the other criminals, his motives are righteous, making him (in his mind) a good guy. While others try to make use of Magneto as an ally-of-convenience, the Wasp (the leader of the Avengers) objects, seeming furious at him for his crimes.
After some shenanigans and battles between the heroes and villains, the Avenger and Magneto have a proper fight, ending with Magneto trapping the shrunken-down Wasp in a big ball of metal. He takes her to a fortress on the Beyonder’s Battleworld as his prisoner. However, once he releases her, his demeanor changes and he immediately starts flirting with her. Janet van Dyne resists his charms, but not for very long, because in the next scene in which they appear, he successfully woos her into making out with him.
It’s hard to describe the subplot in more detail, because that really is all that happens. He literally starts the flirtation by saying that she’s beautiful and that he’s not that bad a guy (which is a little ironic, given his history of misogyny), and after that she drops her guard. She even says that she misses him when he leaves the room. She does put up some resistance when he first kisses her, but ultimately relents to her passions, literally saying “Oh, why not?” It isn’t even apparent what she suddenly finds appealing about him other than that she finds him physically attractive.
Unsurprisingly, this fling falls apart one issue later. In an effort to make an alliance with the X-Men, Magneto says that he will slay all their opponents, including other heroes. Hearing this, Wasp turns on him and escapes, destroying any chance of them winning any best X-Men couple competitions. She says that she would have never gone along with his plans and that she was “playing along” to find out more about him, but it’s never stated whether she formed this plan before or after getting with him.
If Wasp did all of this to trick Magneto, it would explain why she changed her mind about him so easily, but it’s ambiguous if there was ever a point he actually won her over. It’s not out of the question – he’s had romantic relationships with heroes before, like X-Men mainstay, Rogue. The Avengers leader’s infatuation may have been real, and she may have considered making a compromise with him. Still, whether or not Magneto can be changed for the better by the power of love, his relationship with Wasp is undeniably random and beyond strange.
