Polaris: Lorna Dane Appreciation 2019

[salarta]

They are trying to sell a new generation of Polaris fan on Havok’s original story and him saving her. Great cover yes, not so great insides.

I would say if they included even one Lorna back issue like X-Men 50 it wouldn’t be a bait and switch situation.

All I can say is




Well, that and I'm open to suggestions for commissions. I have ideas floating in my head, but I think something for Fourth of July would be good if a good angle can be thought of. Leaning toward a Statue of Liberty kind of thing.


Edit:

Yeah, but Havok's characterization pretty much anytime he's used these days is "guy that whines about Cyclops"; ironically, he never did it more than when written by two writers that are big fans (Remender and Rosenberg). In UA, he also gave one of the worst speeches in recent comics history, one so bad Bendis went out of his way to answer. Him being used in UA and now in UXM is actually hurting the character rather than help.

But I agree that Lorna should be used more, and has more potential than Alex right now. Ironically, considering that she has been shown to become more closely aligned with her father and distancing herself from Xavier's ideas, but never going to the extremes Magneto does, in a more moderate position, she should be in theory with some similar ideas as those of Cyclops, who also tried to blend together the two philosophies. Would be interesting if those two ended up working together and get along better with each other than with Alex. Maybe the two of them could convince to stop whining then.

If Marvel gave a damn about quality and treating characters well, there would be options with Cyclops via Alex in roughly ~10 years. But since they don't, sadly that's not happening.

[jmc247]

A new X-Men minimates Lorna figure at the end of the year based on X-Factor. The characters each are seen as a replacement for are paired up in two pack sets. That means green haired Jean and Jean will be paired up.

http://www.toyhypeusa.com/2019/05/24...ron-pennywise/

I have sort of given up on my hopes in terms of Lorna ever mattering in a real way unless the MCU sees fit to make her matter. Too many see her as the green haired Jean and want her to be the green haired Jean in every way sans a bit more temper.

But I agree that Lorna should be used more, and has more potential than Alex right now. Ironically, considering that she has been shown to become more closely aligned with her father and distancing herself from Xavier's ideas, but never going to the extremes Magneto does, in a more moderate position, she should be in theory with some similar ideas as those of Cyclops, who also tried to blend together the two philosophies. Would be interesting if those two ended up working together and get along better with each other than with Alex. Maybe the two of them could convince to stop whining then.

I don’t believe Lorna would have had an issue with revolutionary Scott outside of personal issues with Emma. But, that is the sort of thing that could have moved Lorna forward having issues with Emma over her past conduct with Jean and other matters while agreeing with many of her methods same with Scott. Instead they have no relationship.

Instead Lorna was punted in space and the character kept out of anything x-related that mattered and hasn’t furthered her relationship at all with any character who in the long run matters outside of her ex and father.

They kept her out of storylines with the Red Skull on Genosha which her father, Wanda, Pietro and Alex were in as well as Cassandra Nova’s take over of the island. I will admit I have grown disenchanted with her story, because at the end of the day it hasn’t moved forward.

Her relationships with Emma, Cyclops, all the rest of the X-Men and even Jean are all something that basically don’t exist. At the same point in time I haven’t a clue where she stands on the big events that have been going on with Mutants.

There's no reason to reprint that story except if it's reference din Powers of 10 or HoX. Actually, considering there seems to be Living Monolith on the cover of House of X #3 (next to Apocalypse) seems like a real possibility.

You could be right about that.

[salarta]

I will admit I have grown disenchanted with her story, because at the end of the day it hasn’t moved forward.

At the same point in time I havenÂ’t a clue where she stands on the big events that have been going on with Mutants.

The important thing to keep in mind is that just as fans have ignored Marvel claiming the twins aren't Magneto's kids anymore, fans also should bear in mind that they essentially get to decide who Lorna is while Marvel doesn't do their job of developing her. As far as we're concerned, Lorna is the character we know she is following what she's been through with Genosha, House of M, origin story, etc.

Further, Marvel trying to force certain things on Lorna while ignoring who she actually is and refusing to treat her with respect as her own character means those efforts don't actually represent Lorna at all. They're toxic fanboy fantasies, no different than paid fanfic, to be ignored same as the Axis retcon on the twins should be ignored.

[jmc247]

Looking back to the beginning Lorna never had many relationships outside of the 1960s period and that was over fast. But, I honestly think Lorna if she had character centering it would feed into workable relationships and give the character something to do. Without Lorna having a goal and set of views on how to make it a reality she falls into accentuating other characters stories and being written around those other characters. She also falls into nostalgia driven relationships that end up moving in a circle instead of actually developing.

Her first story line could be summed up boyfriend (at this point in time Iceman) vs father. It was progressive by 60s comic standards, but not so much by modern standards. Lorna was shown as willing to kill to protect others which a heroine wasn't supposed to do back then or now (she was more anti-hero or anti-villain then heroine).



The later parts of her first story arc were a mess where the artist ran from the title, seemingly editorial decided retcons were in order for her parentage, and the story fell into a muck. The short run was critically panned, but it had a better depiction of Lorna then the one we will see reprinted from UXM 68 where she was turned into the damsel love interest for Bobby and Havok to fight over.



Lorna did start developing a relationship with Jean in this period, it was pretty similar to what would a decade later be Storm and Jean's now iconic relationship. Many Lorna fans would like a return to those dynamics, but I have said my piece on that regard, it isn't coming back the same way and if you want really Jean and Lorna to have a relationship you need entirely new dynamics.

I would like Lorna to have a relationship with Emma, Jean, and many other characters, but for the fan writers of these others characters the question always comes down to how can it help my favorite character in a way them interacting with another character with a larger fan base or more backstory with my favorite wouldn't? Lorna who doesn't know what she believes and fights for nothing doesn't actually provide an answer to that question.

[jmc247]

The most iconic X-Men run of the most iconic X-Men writer happened to have the worst pathos for Lorna. She was shut off from all relationship development by in large and had her whole universe in that run become a facet of what her significant other wanted her to do other then when she was possessed. However, her possessions were no Dark Phoenix Saga which was a carefully built up corruption story line focused on Jean. Because they were straight up possessions one learned nothing about Lorna in the process.

By the time you got to the X-Factor era Lorna's character had been shattered. She no longer had her powers and her relationship with Havok was long since defunt. The Malice story line gave writers the chance to have her ex sow his oats with Scott's ex along with other women. PAD had planned on writing the 05 and was all set to do so with all his plans and then editorial dropped a new set of characters on him. 1991 fit neatly into PAD's plans it seems for Jean and this was the era that Lorna was by in large the most Jean only with green hair. With the big difference of being much more codependent on her boyfriend to make decisions for her following the Claremont model.



Starting off there and it wasn't a good start Lorna overall had an amazing 13 year run of ideological and personal developments from 1991 to 2004. She started off with no Mutants rights views something she stated clearly in her first issues on X-Factor that she leaves up to her boyfriend to decide for her which did follow what came before. She had no philosophy on violence other then what her boyfriend told her was ok. She was Jean only weaker in every way except intellectually.

There were alot of calls on the letter pages to get the shitty character off the title something not much remembered by nostalgic fanboys of that era and I was around then buying comics too. JM when he took over wrote that he re-read her original stories as in the ones with Magneto and clearly integrated some of that into his version of Lorna. At the end of PAD's run she suddenly became hot headed for the first time something JM continued. But, he gave it a logic and an underlying philosophy to it from Lorna's prospective.



Lorna sort of lost her generic super hero thinking and assumed something close to her 1968 thinking of minimal necessary violence even if it means killing people. The world she wanted was integrationist like Xavier’s intended, but she wanted to force an end to bigotry and intolerance with a big stick. It was something unique compared with what Magneto was doing at the time with Avalon and what Xavier was doing. However, it was very short lived. It died with the Haven Saga where Lorna signs up with a demagogue who is going to be a third way between Magneto and Xavier only for her to not ask her end state or methods to save mutants and to find out she wants to destroy the worlds mutants and humans and have the few surviving members worship her.

It was a shorter version of the even worse Reeva/Lorna season 2 of The Gifted plotline, because they take away Lorna's agency and say her previous views were the manipulation of a new character they just bring on and then try to reboot the character to what she was before. Lorna after that was returned to love triangle plot lines involving Malice and generic super hero stories.

Mackie’s run was Lorna’s power girl phase where ideologically she lost any kind of coherence and as before was subsumed by love triangle issues. Any ideological edge she had was gone, though she would fly into the occasional uncontrolled murderous rage. Outside that she was pretty much a late 90s generic female heroine at this point with green hair.

Alan Davis was next and it started with a throwback to Claremontian Lorna with Havok in the Mutant X universe of one who can’t think for herself or make decisions without her boyfriend.



When Havok disappeared she emotionally crumbled.

[jmc247]

It felt as though Alan Davis was basing his writing of Lorna off two very different era of Lorna. She starts out in Claremontian era form entirely with the X-Men and then runs into Magneto and is back to 1968 form.



Not long after its off to war to build a mutant homeland. Did Lorna at this point and time have a dream or ideology of her own? Not really. She was in essence trying out someone else's which wouldn't be the first time.



But, it was very different from the Heaven Saga or "Reeva Saga on The Gifted" in that Magneto was very upfront with her about his goals, plans and intentions. They did end up having conflict, though the writer decided to turn it into a what Magneto would want vs what Havok would want which mirrored her 1968/69 story, but not in a good way. The same can be said for The Gifted season 2 where defenders can say what they want they turned the fight into one of Eclipse's ideology vs Reeva's ideology and Lorna having no views other then which side to choose and not long after she started getting hots again for Eclipse (they share a kiss) she has an epiphany based on the weakest of rationals (Reeva hires a terrorist merc) that all her previous views were wrong and runs into his arms crying and apologizing for everything she believed in and continues crying and apologizing for the next half a season.

I bring this up because it gets back to a central problem with Lorna... not hammering out what she believes and instead making other characters have core views. The Gifted writers in season two actually managed to do worse then Lorna's 2000 comic writers which was saying something. The comic writers didn't pretend they weren't dumbing it down to one characters views vs her boyfriends views which will she choose... they flat out said it which I respect more even if its back assed.



But, it still left Lorna with a problem as Havok isn't around to follow. So she stays around in Genosha a few more years (our time) helping refugees of the Genoshan/Wakandan war and does a DnA test which reverses the 1969 retcon of her parentage.

[jmc247]

The Genoshan genocide or why it matters a great deal.

Morrison blows up Genosha as seen on the last page and Lorna is still there on ground zero. That upends Austen's plans to as he said write Lorna as she was in X-Factor, marry her off to Havok and dump them in limbo. Austen gets widely panned for many good reasons, it doesn't change the fact he remains Lorna's best comic writer in my view because he figured out Lorna needed a fundamental basis for her decision making and world view hammered out. Genosha and its extermination gave her that centering in the same way the Holocaust gave Magneto centering as a character.



It matters deeply because otherwise Lorna lunges from storyline to storyline without a center of what she believes the audience and writers can look back to for a cheat sheet for understanding her pathos. The problem Marvel runs into with both X-23 and Lorna is they work for many of the same reasons their better known male counterpart power wise works. With X-23 they put the time and love into developing small areas of difference in persona, fighting style, etc. so they weren't making a teenage copy of Wolverine only uninteresting.

They never did that with Lorna and different writers come and go with entirely different views on the character and her worldview. Austen's Lorna did use lethal force on adversaries, though one had a pretty good idea the underlying basis for it and spelled it out to Wolverine. She would generally give Purifier like threats a chance to give up before bringing out a proverbial sword to deal with the problem.

After Milligan took over Lorna started becoming unhinged mentally. He had her lose her base mutant rights views and started treating her willingness to use violence as a lack of emotional and mental control. Because of this her interactions with other characters were greatly reduced and she returned to being which boyfriend she wanted to choose Bobby or Havok.

After HoM Brubaker took over and was a return to Claremont era Lorna of basically doing whatever her boyfriend told her was right or wrong. She had to give over power and decision making with tears in her eyes to her boyfriend (as happened in season two of The Gifted) in order to achieve 'redemption' and become a hero again. If that is what it means to be a hero I would rather she not be one. She is willing to almost die to avoid hurting people trying to kill her then at the end when Havok tells her they have to kill she changes her views because Havok told her to have a different view.

Yost was by in large a continuation of that though without some of the offensive edge of Brubaker’s run. DnA the creators of Guardians of the Galaxy actually in War of Kings managed a Lorna who very much thought for herself on the Genosha/HoM model of a political character. Mike Carey later wrote a blog standard hero Lorna with a generalized high opinion of her father, but not much more to the character.

PAD's Lorna had a very low opinion of Magneto even before the origins story was told straight up calling him a super villain and generally we saw alot of breaking the 5th wall where we had PAD's view of Magneto coming through her mouth. Lorna no real mutant rights views in this era, but she had a willingness to use deadly force again. When it was presented well I felt was when it was presented as a straight up needs of the many vs the few decision. When not so well was when it was presented as her just being so emotional and unhinged she couldn't control her decision making.

In her origins story her violence was calculated, in other stories it was uncontrolled rage.



In terms of her origins story it was a great way to tie up her history and explain her background, but kind of unclear what it means for the character as it really doesn't work well as a centering trauma giving the character a clear motivation and way to understand her the way Genosha did. That isn't a crib on the origins story, its just the reality that its hard to integrate into her day to day pathos (the same for her possessions) in a way that furthers her interaction with other characters and allows them to understand her.

Bunn took over after PAD and there was a fair bit of breaking the 5th wall with his view on Lorna as well. She was in alot of ways the authors way to speak about Magneto through the vantage point of a mainline hero as he wrote her as whereas Briar was his way to speak about him through an out and out sadist. Lorna's political philosophy and that on violence was very obscure in this period. When discussions of killing or taking out the Future Brotherhood came into play Lorna would be notably absent. Based on her behavior I felt she knew what was going on, but wasn't interested.

Not too much else to say about that version of Lorna other then it was a chance for her to interact with Jean from the past or Emma today, but nothing really done there to move her into a position that future writers or fans would like to see them interact which is a typical issue for Lorna.

Which brings us to today. Lorna on Uncanny X-Men I didn't have a problem with most of it, but it didn't move the ball forward for her. No writer will look back and be interested in writing her or any of her relationships because of what happened there. That is fine, not all comics have to move her relationships forward even if it was a unique chance to do so that probably won't come again for quite awhile. Her relationship with Magneto was the one area I had an issue... there is a fine line between shutting down and balling ones eyes out like Lorna has done at times when Havok was possessed and not giving a damn about someone you should give a damn about is possessed... here is something positive I have to say about Bunn... X-Men Blue #9 found the right balance there of beating up her ex, but also showing she cared and knew he was screwed up. I was annoyed with Havok's entrance into the story, but Bunn got the balance right at least in that issue.

At the end of the day I expect Lorna to be shipped off to a low selling book again separate from the big events that will be impacting the line. But, until Lorna rebuilds her underlying basis in why she exists her character will continue to not really matter to the x-books. My general thoughts on what Lorna needs is another run at again being a honorable antagonist, but one with her own opinions which allows her the ability interact with Emma and others on one side of the line and the X-Men on the other. She can lobby that to having real relationships with the X-Men that she has to work though once that phase is over, but right now she is stuck in a hole she isn't coming out of.



It gets back to Jean and Lorna... best friends who agree on almost everything isn't interesting and its redundant with a relationship Jean already has well established. Best friends who have a philosophical divergence isn't redundant with a relationship Jean already has even if it would be unarguably a different second generation version of an established popular relationship.

My original point was Genosha and more specifically the genocide matters because it was a fulcrum point that provided a clear distinction between Lorna's worldview and that of Jean while giving themselves something they could have talked about long term and without dumbing it down to what my father vs Xavier wanted.

Lorna should be a character who is fun to read as well and not simply depressive and should be able to utterly mock the absurdity of it all. That is how Lorna should be a contrarian not her taking an adversarial position to any team she is on which makes her look and feel more like a flake then anything else.

All the high hopes of a year ago were dashed because at the end of the day The Gifted could have had Lorna as the middle ground between an outright anti-human terrorist Reeva and Eclipse. But, they didn’t give Lorna a leadership position in her own revolution and warped Lorna’s own character completely from her season one views to fit a binary choice of ideology for two characters neither of which were named Lorna. Disaster doesn’t even begin to describe it.

If Lorna gets in the MCU it will be because the creators realize her character can further other characters stories such as Jean, Storm, Rogue, Wanda, Magneto, Xavier... while being interesting in its own right... and I want Lorna to make it into the MCU. I do see a narrow path for Lorna to get there, but I don't see how Lorna gets there in the role she had in 1969 as Jean's best friend and the energy manipulator of the X-Men.

The Gifted season two was a lesson for Lorna in the MCU that if they go the route of antagonist she has to own the ideology she is fighting for. That can’t happen without her own event that shapes her views on mutant/human relations.

[salarta]

New tweets to highlight.




People who know me, know that I hate the whole score-giving thing. HOWEVER, this is special because the card was fan made. I don't normally think of things like cards as something fans might make of their favorite characters, yet here it is. An actual, physical card. Designed and printed out.



In addition to the number of likes retweets, the reply is what really caught my eye. More to demonstrate a broad view of frustration fans have over Marvel not doing enough with and for her. And, again, this was not sent directly to anyone at Marvel. Showing that an editor or writer saying "I don't get lots of requests/questions about her" isn't sufficient to back a claim any of them might make that there's not enough fan interest in her.



This tweet comes from a "this thing as fictional characters" thread. I like it, and I'm posting it here, because I think the quote they used gets at the heart of how people see Lorna today. She's gone through horrible things, but she always gets back up.

[Havok83]

Surprised this wasnt posted

It’s anyone’s guess as to where the new mutants’ respective allegiances lie. However, it’s worth mentioning that all three of them look like amalgamations of existing characters. As Newsarama notes, the character on the far rights looks like a hybrid between Nightcrawler and his father, Azazel; the middle figure is dressed like Magneto, but with a color scheme reminiscent of his daughter, Polaris; and the last character appears to be a mash-up of Colossus and Magik.
Read more at https://www.superherohype.com/comics...8ihr5uCbe63.99

[salarta]

It was, but in the Magnus family thread instead of here.

Now that I think of it, I'm surprised nobody's talked about the picture's background.

[jmc247]

Not enough to go on for at this point. I can think of a half dozen possibilities at this point such as time displaced children, time displaced amalgams, and several other possibilities.

Emma’s comments.



And some memories of her acting.

[juan678]

https://www.cbr.com/x-men-polaris-ma...ster-sinister/

[Soulsword323]

I honestly don't know how to feel about that cover. I've seen some people think its Lorna's kid taking on the mantle or something and I'm just like..........................

Mind you I haven't been paying too much attention to interviews, so I'm not too up to date with all the info outside of the covers.

[salarta]

Fanart by crow-sizna. Personally, I think this is the best art I've seen of her in her iconic costume to date.



Cosplay of Gifted version Lorna from trip-and-stumble. This was for a convention called Supanova.



Sean Anderson giving what appears to be a tarot inspired piece.


I have another post to make.

[salarta]

One more thing. While that BS "Magnus family" box set that excludes Lorna is coming out, there's apparently a rumor that Marvel's going to put out a box set of Polaris stuck with Havok.

This wouldn't really be a surprise. Marvel's been telegraphing for a while that they wanna force her back into a relationship with Havok again. They've also made their lack of respect for Lorna, their view of her as "beneath" Havok and only existing to support him and make him look good, very clear with things like the coming Marvel Tales book.

This isn't new. Marvel has been moving toward this since Fall 2017, when they announced at C2E2 that X-Men Blue would be Lorna's big return after a 2 year forced limbo, only to make the actual issues all about promoting Havok and Magneto and Lorna's expense. Same play as Marvel Tales.



Things like Lorna in Uncanny X-Men, or the good writing in Prisoner X (overlooking the issue of it being clearly Gifted-inspired for setting but handed off to Bishop), are distractions and crumbs meant to smooth people over as they attempt to steer Lorna toward a lower point where they tear her apart and reduce her to Havok's supporting character girlfriend.

I could go into the myriad reasons for this. But their reasons don't really matter. Ultimately, they're signaling that they don't respect Lorna or fans of her. Otherwise they'd be doing things that are focused on her. Not things focused on painting her as someone's lower status girlfriend.