MAGNETO

Magneto's Brotherhood kept quitting, getting captured, or defecting — so in X-Men #62 (November 1969) he tried a new recruitment strategy: build the recruits himself. Hiding in the Savage Land, the prehistoric jungle preserved inside Antarctica, and calling himself only "the Creator," Magneto built a machine powered by the land's untapped radiation and used it to genetically transform ordinary local tribesmen into super-powered loyal troops — the Savage Land Mutates.

These weren't born mutants at all. Amphibius was remade as a frog-man, Barbarus got four arms and super-strength, Brainchild got an enormous cranium and genius intellect, Gaza was left blind but gained radar sense, Equilibrius could induce vertigo, Lupo became wolf-like, and Piper could control animals with his flute. Magneto sold the captured Angel a cover story — that they were outcast mutants he had rescued — while quietly planning to mass-produce enough manufactured mutants to take over the world.

His final model rolled out in X-Men #63 (December 1969): Lorelei, whose song could paralyze every man in earshot. It nearly worked — except Marvel Girl wasn't a man. Jean Grey fought Magneto off, telekinetically opened Cyclops's visor, and blasted the mutator machine apart. The Mutates reverted to normal humans, Magneto was buried under his own wrecked invention and left for dead, and the Master of Magnetism learned the hard way that even custom-built followers come with an expiration date.