There's no such thing as a bad idea, in my opinion, or even an overdone idea. What there is, is ideas that have been done badly so often, or in the same way so often, that one needs to be very, very careful in using them. Good writing can save anything. So here I am, cheerfully resurrecting at least one major Marvel cliche (and you know what? I betcha I'm gonna do more, too), in hopes that when you take the basic concept of certain way overdone ideas, you write it well, and you don't have the idea apply to any Summers or Greys, people will actually be willing to read it. :-)

Waaay back when, right around the time Joseph started becoming a major wuss as a matter of fact, the netizens of the Magneto Mailing List kicked around the idea that became the seed of this story. That's when I came up with the idea for Twin Poles, but as usual, I had too much to write, so I didn't get around to it.

Since I began this story, Joseph was revealed not to be the original Magneto (in fact, his origin turned out to be uncannily similar to this one, with the exception that in canon, he was created to destroy Magneto and in this he was created to save him, and while both Margaret and Astra are bitches, Margaret is a smart bitch and Astra is a stupid bitch), and then died, pointlessly, because Marvel doesn't know how to handle a clone properly. Well, I do. Also, canon Magneto remains a psycho loon. I just want everyone to know that the story you are reading predates the canon version of Joseph's origin by about two years.

Twin Poles features characters that are copyright to Marvel Comics. It has a few original characters, such as Margaret Santoro, and if you want to use them in anything but a Subreality Cafe, ask first. No copyright infringement is intended, nor is any profit being made on this story. This story may be archived, linked to, publicly reviewed, MSTed or used for kitty litter. Alara Rogers is copyright Alara Rogers and not to be used in a Subreality Cafe or any other story without permission.

The first story in the series, and so far the only one, is "Journeyman of Magnetism." I do hope to finish writing this one of these days and get on to the next stories in the series. Because JOM has multiple chapters, I've chosen to post the individual stories of this series separately, but chapter each story appropriately.

Continuity hounds alert: I began this story before the XM #72 Lehnsherr retcon, and have no intention of rewriting to incorporate it. Nothing that takes place in canonical X-Books post UXM #340, including retcons, takes place in this story unless I specifically write it in. The Magneto LS did take place, but the Shi'ar adventure has not, and will not. Also, the events of "Onslaught: Epilogue" have not and will not take place, as I have different plans for Xavier.

Oh, one more thing-- I'm trying an experiment in this story. The phonetics to indicate an accent aren't there. Rogue and Gambit and Sam all have the same speech patterns they ever did, but I'm not trying to phonetically spell their accents (if I don't phonetically spell Joseph's accent, and how I would do that is beyond me, why should I spell out Rogue and Gambit?) Let me know what you think of it.