We’ve known that Magneto was going to be the next prequel-bound X-Men character since X3 managed to crush any realistic hopes of The X-Men continuing any sort of linear series. The two most profitable characters were Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine and Ian McKellen’s Magneto, so both of them get their own prequel.

We’re going to see Wolverine’s first, but that doesn’t mean the wheels aren’t turning on Magneto…

Latino Review recently saw some interesting art while touring a creature effects show for Hellboy II press:

I noticed some pictures that were lying around for other movies like Land of the Lost and of course, Hellboy II: The Golden Army.

But I also noticed a photograph of a young looking Beast leaping through the air. Not a drawing, although it could have been computer generated, but an actual photo.

“What’s this?”

“This is young Beast from the prequel they’re gonna be doing. Magneto.”

“Oh, ok.” I replied, trying to act calm before my head exploded from seeing this picture. “So Beast is in Magneto, huh?”

“Ya.”

The picture showed a younger guy in the Beast getup leaping down. He was in the full blue costume with his long tail and you couldn’t mistake him for anything other than Beast. The picture also had ‘Magneto’ written in the upper corner. Like I said, I was only able to see it for a few seconds, but it did not look like a computer rendered picture, it looked like an actor in full makeup. Nevertheless, Beast IS in the movie.

There has been an ongoing discussion about if the picture Latino Review’s George Roush was for a young Nightcrawler because of the tail, but George sticks to his guns: Hank McCoy will be in Magneto.