Fox's X-Men Universe

X-Men

First Class

Film · 2011 · 132 minutes · First Class Era

In 1944, young Erik Lehnsherr's magnetic powers first manifest in a Nazi concentration camp when he is separated from his mother; Klaus Schmidt (later Sebastian Shaw) recognizes his potential and kills Erik's mother to trigger his power through rage. Years later in 1962, telepath Charles Xavier and a vengeful Erik meet and are recruited by CIA agent Moira MacTaggert to help stop Shaw, who now leads the mutant Hellfire Club and is engineering nuclear conflict between the US and USSR for his own ends. Xavier and Erik assemble and train a group of young mutants, including Raven/Mystique and Hank McCoy/Beast, forming the first class of what will become the X-Men. During the climactic confrontation at sea during the Cuban Missile Crisis, Erik kills Shaw and takes his helmet, and a bullet Erik redirects toward fleeing human soldiers is deflected by Xavier's own attempt to stop it, striking Xavier in the spine and permanently paralyzing him. The mission fractures the group along ideological lines: Xavier founds his school to pursue peaceful coexistence with humanity, while Erik, now calling himself Magneto, leaves with Raven and others to fight for mutant supremacy by force. Before parting ways, Xavier erases Moira's memory of the mutants and the mission to protect their secret.