Ask any Marvel Comics fan this question, “how does Magneto protect himself from his frenemy Charles Xavier’s telepathic interference?” Their answer is likely “Magneto’s fancy helmet protects his mind from psychic invasion.” After all, when the X-Men battle Magneto, Xavier could just mentally order him to just, you know, stop. But that fact, which X-Men fans take for granted these days, was totally a cinematic invention, introduced in 2000’s X-Men for the Ian McKellen version of Magneto. Something that X-Men screenwriter David Hayter just confirmed on social media.
Since then, the comics have run with this as the reason why Xavier can’t reach into Magneto’s mind. After all, when it comes to comic book adaptations, the tail often wags the dog. What becomes popular in movies and TV usually transfers over to the comics at some point. What this also means is that for the better part of forty years, X-Men comics had no real in-canon explanation as to why Magneto could evade Xavier’s telepathy. We just assumed that someone as cunning as the Master of Magnetism would have trained his mind into some kind of method of blocking psychic interference.
It’s wild to think that the comics never had an explanation for this. It’s even more wild to think that most fans just never thought to even ask why. But it sure is a great retcon, a believable enough reason to explain why Mags had that helmet at all. By the way, while Magneto’s civilian name Erik Lensherr was not a movie invention, the films popularized it. For years, Magneto’s birth name was said to be Magnus. Later they revealed he was born Max Eisenhart. In the late ’90s, they revealed that one of his assumed aliases was Erik Lehnsherr. So the movies went with that name. Since then, the comics have used that name most often. Like we said, when it comes to superhero movies and the comics that inspired them, the comics are then inspired by the movies.