Lorna Dane: Polaris Appreciation 2018

[Soulsword323]

So I think its safe to say Polaris wasn't in X-Men Black. No one's said anything about her.

NYCC is this weekend, and The Gifted has a panel on Sunday that Emma is attending. Hopefully we'll get some good info form her on the later episodes. She's pretty bad at keeping secrets lol.

[salarta]

So I think its safe to say Polaris wasn't in X-Men Black. No one's said anything about her.

Thankfully. Unless Claremont commits himself to doing better by her and fixing past damage he did, it's better if he doesn't write her.




Polaris Xmen by charmedy



Inktober Polaris by SamYoungIllustration

[Heroine Addict]

So I think its safe to say Polaris wasn't in X-Men Black. No one's said anything about her. ...

That's okay, from what I've seen of the response, doesn't sound like much of a missed opportunity. Anyway, some cosplay:

https://deskgram.net/p/1874123474528753582_8537120051



... and a manip, maybe?

https://www.pikbee.com/media/BoTA_RpBWSk

[salarta]

inktober piece by spidersaiyan


Also, another article that lends further evidence the idea of Lorna's magnetic manipulation powers potentially manifesting as pseudo-psychic abilities (I say "pseudo" because the impression I get from past use in Marvel comics is more spiritual/semi-spiritual than full-blown biological).

https://www.technologyreview.com/s/6...-others-heads/

In recent years, physicists and neuroscientists have developed an armory of tools that can sense certain kinds of thoughts and transmit information about them into other brains. That has made brain-to-brain communication a reality.

These tools include electroencephalograms (EEGs) that record electrical activity in the brain and transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), which can transmit information into the brain.

TMS manipulates brain activity by inducing electrical activity in specific brain areas. For example, a magnetic pulse focused onto the occipital cortex triggers the sensation of seeing a flash of light, known as a phosphene.

Stocco and his colleagues have created a network that allows three individuals to send and receive information directly to their brains. They say the network is easily scalable and limited only by the availability of EEG and TMS devices.

“A cloud-based brain-to-brain interface server could direct information transmission between any set of devices on the brain-to-brain interface network and make it globally operable through the Internet, thereby allowing cloud-based interactions between brains on a global scale,” Stocco and his colleagues say. “The pursuit of such brain-to-brain interfaces has the potential to not only open new frontiers in human communication and collaboration but also provide us with a deeper understanding of the human brain.”

tl;dr Lorna could mentally connect to a world full of people using the internet as her means, maybe not even needing a device like Cerebro to do it.

[salarta]

You know what, I wanna say more to build on my previous post. Stuff I said elsewhere already, but worth saying here too.

Think of the applications of pseudo-psychic powers for Lorna in this case. A psychic villain tries to control people to make them hurt each other or themselves, Lorna can fight for control. Or, in an evil Lorna from an AU or M-Day/Dark Phoenix scenario, a band of heroes would have to find a place without internet access and no view for satellites to be able to plan any kind of move against her. She would be able to use the whole internet as a tool or a weapon in this way.

And the great thing is that with her Master's degree in Geophysics, she should know her powers could be used this way. Whereas Magneto has raw experience to inform him of rough, physical or tactical uses, Lorna has scientific study to inform her of unexpected and unconventional uses. Dr. Lorna Dane would know how to accomplish her goals without needing to reach the heights of raw power. She'd know of alternate solutions that only require a fraction of the power.

[juan678]

Comicon Polaris Question now

[juan678]

[juan678]

[juan678]

[darewithpeace]

lol this is cool

[AbnormallyNormal]

lol this is cool

Yeah I feel like Polaris and X-23 could team up well with her taking Colossus' place as the "Fastball Special" initiator

[Soulsword323]

I wish Polaris was initiating a fastball special in that panel lol. Lorna could have been a big threat to Proteus, but instead was downgraded to catching people. Better than nothing I guess, but really shows how uninterested Claremont was in Polaris imo.

[salarta]

More importantly, on the same page:



Claremont uses "mutant mistress of weather" for Storm. This raises the question for me of which came first, Lorna's Mistress of Magnetism title or this one for Storm. If Storm had it first, then it's simply a case of another character getting a similar codename to one popularly used by another character that was treated better and more heavily promoted. But if Lorna had it first, from a different writer, then it means Claremont deliberately ripped the title from Lorna to apply a slightly tweaked one to Storm, as he then proceeded to screw Lorna over with his future writing. This is X-Men #128, published in December 1979, if anyone doesn't know off-hand and plans on looking around.


Separately, I stumbled upon a USA Today article that was published for ANXF back when it launched: https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/...eries/4368143/ . I think it had been posted in the appreciation thread back when it happened and I forgot. It's nice to see the article lead with Lorna, and a reminder of how good the book looked in the beginning.

[jmc247]

John Byrne co-wrote that baby with the rest of the Proteus Saga. Byrne semi liked the character and she appeared a fair bit in his not in continuity ongoing about two decades ago. With two exceptions the not terrible Claremontian Lorna appearances tended to be co-written by either Roy Thomas or Byrne.

Lorna's biggest issue has long been since the X-Men returned in the middle 70s where does she fit in and there is very little agreement there. The most logical places for Lorna to go and do things at various points in time are often ignored or handed off elsewhere. Certainly it made much more sense for Lorna to be on Utopia then be in space a half decade and then hanging out with Madrox after, but what was logical and fit her story was in effect ignored for what was convenient and who was being pushed. Of her last two runs the corporate team had much more potential then her stint as a teacher and saving her ex, but neither idea without some real revamping was going to set things on fire for her as her early 2000s story line did.

Lorna had alot of other characters come in and fill obvious slots for the character. It does no good playing the game of who took what from who though other then to learn from it and try to find a path forward. The past few years have been demoralizing in many ways, but I have hopes for the next generation of fans and creators.

Anyway, a big Storm fan gives his Polaris rundown on twitter.

Aaroro Iquadi, owner of Stormcaster: 'I wanted to give you all a thread about Polaris because she has the potential to be Magneto’s successor IMO. Well, this has been another “SH:101.” Hope you all enjoyed.'

A long history condensed... anyway.

[Heroine Addict]

Yeah I feel like Polaris and X-23 could team up well with her taking Colossus' place as the "Fastball Special" initiator

Now THAT sounds cool as hell, I'd pay for that!