Charles and Eric should be working together in the first film. Eric wishes that humanity can change and that Charles will be proven right, but due to witnessing the rise of mutantphobia and the dangerous turn the world is taking due to
REVEREND William Stryker - he realizes Charles is fool hardy and he leaves in the end.
Basically what the MCU did with Baron Mordo. Friends first, enemies later.
I can see the issue with Magneto's holocaust experience and what that could do to his age. A part of me wonders if a gay Magneto could work here. People may second guess that, but my reasoning? Magneto would have experienced the AIDS epidemic - he would have seen a country discriminating against a population, doing tests on them to try to make them straight such as their heads being DRILLED open to try to make them straight, and many people not lifting a finger to stop a widespread epidemic (AIDS) that killed many of the people he loved and cared for - a young boy was even terrorized by his community because they thought he had it (Ryan White).
The above would be furthered if instead of the military, the human extremists returned largely to their roots in the comics - extremist Christianity. In the modern interpretations, William Stryker was a military man - but in the comics he was also a reverend. This would easily eat away at Magneto in this new context because he has seen what men like Stryker were capable of doing in the past and what they are doing again.
As per age, maybe 64? (the same age as lgbtq activist Cleve Jones - young enough to potentially have been sent to a conversion center where LOBOTOMIES were performed on gay people and old enough that he's from an older generation).
It's not the holocaust, but it does tie it to a terrifying time in American history and the frightening horrors performed/allowed by the American government on members of the population.
If a cure is ever touted out, Magneto would also have a strong connection back to this since he knows what kind of "cures" institutional structures try to get people to buy into.
It'd be controversial, but I honestly believe that these films need to be - not only will that give them a lot of engine to run on, but it can explore the politics of the MCU from a more ground-level perspective which has never been seen before. Politics have been flirted with, but not among the people on the ground.
(also, it'd be an interesting nod back to Ian McKellan)
