Magnus Family Appreciation 2019

[Lucyinthesky]

Hickman did say that Magneto was one of his top fave mutants, but completely forgot Luna existed.

Attachment 85961

This moment was so rare for me I was sure Susan was reminding Crystal of her responsibility as Luna´s mother hence her talk about how being a mother changed her but then they acted as if Luna didn´t even exist. Given this happened shortly after the retcon I am not sure if Hickman left it ambiguous on purpose or if he really forgot about Luna.

I still find it utterly ridiculous that Luna, Crystal, and Pietro weren’t front and center for IvX and the entire terrigen crisis.

Agreed even Magneto hardly made a comment to Crystal and Medusa, instead the focus was about Scott, Emma and BlackBolt it was a complete waste of a stroyline but this was also the time marvel tried hard to break the links between the family with the retcon so I can see why this crossover was done that way even if I don´t agree.

[salarta]

It depends on the writer of course but I think that it´s not so much marvel not knowing how to write them, it´s the fact that Magneto´s family is seen at best as an antagonist family, becassically all their family meetings involved one of the members being unstable or causing trouble, House of M had all of them like this, Pietro was made a villain so the rest of the family could fight him and if isn´t Pietro it´s Magneto vs Pietro, Lorna and Wanda while Lorna and Wanda are despicted as vulnerable or out of control women who can´t control their powers.

Marvel seems to believe they can´t ever be united under one cause for fair reasons or have constructive conversations, there are exceptions of course Cullen Bunn did well enough for Lorna and Magneto´s relationship and Children´s crusade did something similar with Magneto, Wanda and Pietro even if it felt forced at times , but marvel has this idea that their past precludes them of ever being supporting of each other or work on their issues in a healthy way imo if marvel indeed wants to do something new and different with them it would be nice to see them united under one cause for once while dealing with their past in a less self destructive manner, that actually would be a new take on them as a family.

Which all goes back to Marvel not knowing how to write them, and being limited by their internal biases. They mentally locked characters into certain archetypes, so they can't grasp how the characters could be any different or why people would gravitate toward them, even to a point of insisting what they think they saw 20-30 years ago is still true today.


I still have issues with Bunn's writing of Lorna in Blue. Specific only to the writing, I think around Blue #15 he started to get a better grasp of their dynamic. Before that, he was looking at the relationship as Lorna existing to benefit Magneto rather than being her own character that interacts with him, and it reeeeally showed in many places. As I've said before, there's a reason fans keep reusing this specific panel to represent Lorna out of all things done in Blue.



If not for all the junk defining Lorna via Havok and putting him on a pedestal (after having him hijack her return earlier in the run) that persisted post-Blue #15, I think I might've started reading Blue again. I'm also assuming here that the godawful cover for Blue #28 (in content, not technical ability) was the doing of someone other than Bunn.

[Lucyinthesky]

After Crusade and Wanda was whole again, it was set up for them to be united again...of course they made sure Luna and Lorna was still missing but that should of SPUN OFF in either a House of M book or a Wanda series that involved the entire family after the Doom spin to get her off the hook and her not being able to spend time with the Avengers. It was there..for the taking.

Agreed

Hickman is slick though...you can tell he likes writing Magneto..will be get away from that goofy Summers push in the main book and to the more interesting Royal mutant family. I also think its LONG PAST TIME to push Luna hard..they keep pushing Valeria..Kamala and Miles for their book..they gave Hope some shine...the granddaughter of Magneto should not be MIA like this. Its preposterous.

Agreed Luna has so much potential I would say is the one character that gets along with every member of the family I just hope that if that family event is done Luna has a part to play as a point of unity for all of them.

Which all goes back to Marvel not knowing how to write them, and being limited by their internal biases. They mentally locked characters into certain archetypes, so they can't grasp how the characters could be any different or why people would gravitate toward them, even to a point of insisting what they think they saw 20-30 years ago is still true today.

I agree this happens sometimes but is a mixed situation for me because marvel is also the company that has done interesting takes on these same characters that has gotten our attention the problem as you said is that not everywriter or editor sees them the way we fans do, and worse some of them believe that regressing their progress worked better for the company. I don´t expect this to change succedenly but just as there are writers to prefer to work with the usual character tropes there are others who seek to develop the characters.

I still have issues with Bunn's writing of Lorna in Blue. Specific only to the writing, I think around Blue #15 he started to get a better grasp of their dynamic. Before that, he was looking at the relationship as Lorna existing to benefit Magneto rather than being her own character that interacts with him, and it reeeeally showed in many places. As I've said before, there's a reason fans keep reusing this specific panel to represent Lorna out of all things done in Blue.

I don´t see how the relationship with Lorna was done to benefit Magneto when they hardly had much interaction at all, there were some nice moments between them but that was it, my issue with Bunn would be this that his story promised to develop their relationship and them as characters but in the end there was no so much space for them given X-men Blue was mainly an O5 X-men book imo.

[salarta]

I don´t see how the relationship with Lorna was done to benefit Magneto when they hardly had much interaction at all, there were some nice moments between them but that was it, my issue with Bunn would be this that his story promised to develop their relationship and them as characters but in the end there was no so much space for them given X-men Blue was mainly an O5 X-men book imo.

In her introductory panel, she was introduced only as "Daughter of Magneto," when other characters had unique titles (e.g. Mistress of Magnetism could've been used for Lorna) or their power set as the focus. When the HQ was attacked, Lorna was written as shocked by the attack so Magneto could "correct" her about attacks coming from anywhere - something Lorna would never need a lesson on given she survived the Genoshan genocide. The holographic situation Mojo used was Mutant Massacre, something specific only to Magneto, when he could've used Genosha which both Magneto and Lorna have major history with. In the same scenario, Lorna ending up in the Malice costume was treated like a quirky unknown getup she's amused by, missing any sense of how you'd expect Lorna to react (e.g. disgust) from suddenly finding herself in a costume representative of when she wasn't in control of herself.

Most people probably didn't think much of these moments. But they stood out to me as not considering Lorna's history and POV at all, only Magneto's.

[Lucyinthesky]

In her introductory panel, she was introduced only as "Daughter of Magneto," when other characters had unique titles (e.g. Mistress of Magnetism could've been used for Lorna) or their power set as the focus. When the HQ was attacked, Lorna was written as shocked by the attack so Magneto could "correct" her about attacks coming from anywhere - something Lorna would never need a lesson on given she survived the Genoshan genocide. The holographic situation Mojo used was Mutant Massacre, something specific only to Magneto, when he could've used Genosha which both Magneto and Lorna have major history with. In the same scenario, Lorna ending up in the Malice costume was treated like a quirky unknown getup she's amused by, missing any sense of how you'd expect Lorna to react (e.g. disgust) from suddenly finding herself in a costume representative of when she wasn't in control of herself.

I agree that in those moments the focus of the story wasn´t on Lorna but at the same time Lorna had a nice moment defeating ultimate malice very easily, her fight with inverted havok was done very well as well as her leadership to defeat mothervine. I agree that it can be annoying but most characters have those moments too, specially in team books because writers tend to divide their story to give each character their moment to shine.

But I will agree with you that maybe it would have been nice to see more character moments specific to Lorna´s pov because most of what we saw her do we already knew about her, it would be interesting to know what did she think about "adolescent Jean grey" her friend, her pov about mutant politics or even what her ideals, why she still wants to be part of the X-men, what makes her different to other X-women in her way of approaching a problem, etc. In short to know new things about her character but that have a context with her past story.

[jmc247]

Hickman did say that Magneto was one of his top fave mutants, but completely forgot Luna existed.

Attachment 85961

I still find it utterly ridiculous that Luna, Crystal, and Pietro weren’t front and center for IvX and the entire terrigen crisis.

Yes, and look at it this way Lorna sat out a crisis that put the whole mutant race in danger in IvX and had no reason to not be involved.

Agreed the reason I saw for this is that Bunn wanted to keep Lorna as a combative(independent) character who doesn’t fully trust Magneto and it´s there because she has to keep an eye on him, similar to how Wanda didn’t want to see Pietro in her solo series, imo this is hardly the basis for a deeper relationship between them be it as father and daughter or otherwise, while Briar and Xorn were presented as actual partners who can discuss with Magneto or even criticize his choices without the problem of their relationship being in danger, so the character allowed himself to be more vulnerable around them and talk about Genosha with them. This is what I mean about the need for this family to have more lest say "mature and emotionally healthy" conversations to advance as individual characters and no more of this "I don’t trust you daddy you are evil" type of relationship Pietro, Lorna and Wanda often fall into when they interact with Magneto.

Wasn’t a real partnership was a good way to put it. I agree a big part of it was faux female empowerment. But, also I think psychologically Lorna was often in green haired replacement Jean with her own Summers brother iteration from the 90s. That isn’t conducive to Lorna and Magneto having anything beyond a superficial relationship nor a real partnership between them.

Then just as problematic after his run was Lorna’s return reaction to brainwashed Magneto. A cheap excuse for an ‘empowerment moment’ without showing any recognition that Lorna gives one simple damn what happens to him. Shift one word and the discussion could have been replaced with Storm or Jean or any x-woman. Some might have been fine with that because Lorna was the ‘primary’ and Magneto was being used as a plot device to build her up, but I was not as I care about both characters.

Prisoner of X probably had the best and most well rounded depiction of Lona this decade so far as the writer zeroed in on trying to understand the character even in an AU environment rather then focus on the question if she ‘looks empowered’ or not. Real empowerment come from being true to a character something I felt the writing of Lorna in the previous several years was weak on.

One of the mostly unique and quite interesting quirks of Lorna as a character is she can act brutally in the defense of self and others in a way your blog standard X-Men will not and she doesn’t come with the same thinking as Jean on such issues and didn’t since ‘68. Forget that and one isn’t really writing Lorna in my mind.

BTW you are right on target in terms of why there couldn’t be a real partnership between Bunn’s Lorna and Magneto and said it better then I ever had.

[Lucyinthesky]

WasnÂ’t a real partnership was a good way to put it. I agree a big part of it was faux female empowerment. But, also I think psychologically Lorna was often in green haired replacement Jean with her own Summers brother iteration from the 90s. That isnÂ’t conducive to Lorna and Magneto having anything beyond a superficial relationship nor a real partnership between them.

Agreed and it personally bothers me a lot how this faux female empowerment is done, you don´t empower a female character by divorcing her of her male relationships, you just need to let her interact with them while keeping their own pov it can even be a good character study to know the differences between what each character thinks and why, she doesn´t need to be right or perfect all the time in what she says, she just needs to have her reasons for thinking that way. One of the reasons why Moira became a beloved X-men character despite not having any superpowers(for most of her story) is because she was capable of doing this in spades with whoever was in front of her at the moment, super powers will never replace a good characterization:

Then just as problematic after his run was LornaÂ’s return reaction to brainwashed Magneto. A cheap excuse for an ‘empowerment moment’ without showing any recognition that Lorna gives one simple damn what happens to him. Shift one word and the discussion could have been replaced with Storm or Jean or any x-woman. Some might have been fine with that because Lorna was the ‘primaryÂ’ and Magneto was being used as a plot device to build her up, but I was not as I care about both characters.

I agree completely and the sad part is that Storm and Jean both had a deeper interaction with Magneto in their comic story than Lorna, his own daughter and even in this story Storm seemed more worried about Magneto than her.

Prisoner of X probably had the best and most well rounded depiction of Lona this decade so far as the writer zeroed in on trying to understand the character even in an AU environment rather then focus on the question if she ‘looks empowered’ or not. Real empowerment come from being true to a character something I felt the writing of Lorna in the previous several years was weak on.

I agree completely, I don´t care if Lorna is empowered or not I want to know more about Lorna´s pov, that´s all. I actually loved how Prisoner X played with the perception of her being a "just a crazy woman" and then subverted it by letting the rest of the characters know that actually Lorna was the closests to getting free of their mental prison and that was why Legion´s powers were focused in letting them think she was just crazy, very "Cassandra of Troya" type of story, I want more of this please.

One of the mostly unique and quite interesting quirks of Lorna as a character is she can act brutally in the defense of self and others in a way your blog standard X-Men will not and she doesn’t come with the same thinking as Jean on such issues and didn’t since ‘68. Forget that and one isn’t really writing Lorna in my mind.

Agreed in a way that´s why her joining Magneto after the Twelve crossover made sense even before she knew he was her father.

BTW you are right on target in terms of why there couldnÂ’t be a real partnership between BunnÂ’s Lorna and Magneto and said it better then I ever had.

Thanks I liked Bunn´s X-men Blue run but I felt he could have done better developing Lorna and Magneto relationship beyond the superficial and given more time he probably would have done it but as you said, he needed to stop trying to make her into a green haired Jean Grey and just let her be Lorna.

[jmc247]

Agreed and it personally bothers me a lot how this faux female empowerment is done, you don´t empower a female character by divorcing her of her male relationships, you just need to let her interact with them while keeping their own pov

A lot of writers don't take the time to know or understand Lorna's POV.

Agreed in a way that´s why her joining Magneto after the Twelve crossover made sense even before she knew he was her father.

Yes.

Thanks I liked Bunn´s X-men Blue run but I felt he could have done better developing Lorna and Magneto relationship beyond the superficial and given more time he probably would have done it but as you said, he needed to stop trying to make her into a green haired Jean Grey and just let her be Lorna.

It hurt all of Lorna's relationships on Blue on how she was written not just Magneto. Her relationship with a certain Summers brother was undermined because she had none of her edge. She didn't have any real interaction with Jean because at the end of the day Lorna when written as green haired Jean she offers nothing to interacting with the actual Jean (the teenage or adult version).

Her interaction with Emma as well was certain to fall into the same tropes and redundancy hole as Jean/Scott/Emma rather then become its own unique thing which I believe it can be if a writer is true to the things that made Lorna unique as a character.

[Witchfan]

Celestials & Avengers Endgame Equal X-Men in Phase 5 - Scarlet Witch A Mutant in WandaVision?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PXojdAKJWWQ

[Lucyinthesky]

A lot of writers don't take the time to know or understand Lorna's POV.

Agreed and it is a shame imo just one issue told from her pov would do her character good and a way for casual X-men fans to understand her better.

It hurt all of Lorna's relationships on Blue on how she was written not just Magneto. Her relationship with a certain Summers brother was undermined because she had none of her edge. She didn't have any real interaction with Jean because at the end of the day Lorna when written as green haired Jean she offers nothing to interacting with the actual Jean (the teenage or adult version). Her interaction with Emma as well was certain to fall into the same tropes and redundancy hole as Jean/Scott/Emma rather then become its own unique thing which I believe it can be if a writer is true to the things that made Lorna unique as a character.

Agreed and you know it´s so rare to see teenage Jean Grey being closer and more understanding of Magneto in X-men Blue instead of Lorna and despite Lorna interacting with Emma we still don´t know much about what they think about each other, Lorna´s pov is left to interpretation by the reader but so many things happen at once that it gets lost in translation and this needs to change imo.

Thanks Witchfan



I love the explanation that the X-gene is dormant and that it gets awakened by Endgame and the use of the infinity stones, it doesn´t contradict the MCU continuity, adds a level of mystery to the origin of mutants and allows Pietro and Wanda keep their origin while also being mutants. In fact in the movies it could be revealed that the reason the Strak bomb didn´t work on the Maximoffs house was because Magneto used his powers without knowing it and later seeks his children in Hydra and later could have a confrontation with the Avengers over this.

[salarta]

Agreed and it is a shame imo just one issue told from her pov would do her character good and a way for casual X-men fans to understand her better.

This is why I've increasingly viewed a solo, mini or oneshot to be necessary. And the more Marvel spurns her, tries to define or exploit her to benefit other characters, etc, the more necessary I feel it is. Because I think that may be the only way people at Marvel can ever begin to actually understand who she is and what she has to offer.

[Lucyinthesky]

This is why I've increasingly viewed a solo, mini or oneshot to be necessary. And the more Marvel spurns her, tries to define or exploit her to benefit other characters, etc, the more necessary I feel it is. Because I think that may be the only way people at Marvel can ever begin to actually understand who she is and what she has to offer.

Agreed one way I guess someone could do this is by making an analysis of Lorna´s whole life to get her perspective, what got my attention about her is that she never was much into the X-men because of Xavier like Jean, Storm or Kitty, she lived a normal life but also knew she was different for her hair color, got a degree, thought she was Magneto´s daughter and that made her feel responsible for the well being of mutants, helped the X-men with Krakoa because they needed help not because she wanted to join Xavier´s dream, tried to approach the mutant-human problem by being part of the goverment sanctioned X-factor, joined Magneto on Genosha, believed in it becoming a good place for mutants,leave when she thought Magneto was going too far, was there during the Genoshan massacre, post HoM rejoined X-factor because they keep contact and interacted in a friendly way with the rest of humanity, was their leader for a while and then went back to X-men.

The main theme I see here is that while she definitely sees the need for the X-men and Magneto positions, she still wants to make changes alongside humankind not by hiding like Xavier was at first or by confrontation like Magneto thought and she developed this pov from her own experiences, not because she was following Magneto or Xavier despite their pov being important parts of her story. imo a good writer could take this a run with it to make a one-shot or a mini about her that goes beyond the question of her issues with malice, magneto and havok and once this is done she can tackle those relationships again just from her own pov.

[salarta]

Agreed one way I guess someone could do this is by making an analysis of Lorna´s whole life to get her perspective, what got my attention about her is that she never was much into the X-men because of Xavier like Jean, Storm or Kitty, she lived a normal life but also knew she was different for her hair color, got a degree, thought she was Magneto´s daughter and that made her feel responsible for the well being of mutants, helped the X-men with Krakoa because they needed help not because she wanted to join Xavier´s dream, tried to approach the mutant-human problem by being part of the goverment sanctioned X-factor, joined Magneto on Genosha, believed in it becoming a good place for mutants,leave when she thought Magneto was going too far, was there during the Genoshan massacre, post HoM rejoined X-factor because they keep contact and interacted in a friendly way with the rest of humanity, was their leader for a while and then went back to X-men.

The main theme I see here is that while she definitely sees the need for the X-men and Magneto positions, she still wants to make changes alongside humakind and she developed this pov from her own experiences not because she was following Magneto or Xavier despite their pov being important parts of her story. imo a good writer could take this a run with it to make a one-shot or a mini about her that goes beyond the question of her issues with malice, magneto and havok and once this is done she can tackle those relationships again just from her own pov.

A full-fledged solo book for Lorna could very easily happen that does all you just said, plus a lot more. There are many storylines throughout her existence that people have not seen in 20, 30, 40 years that could be retold. Especially when given new perspective through her. Lots of things not in the text that could be turned into additional story. There are also things in her own history we have never seen. We don't know what her life was like growing up. We don't even have a clue what her foster parents looked like, let alone their personalities. A lot of other characters may rehash old stuff endlessly, but Lorna's would be fresh to a vast majority of readers, and it's much needed in order for Marvel to use and treat her better in future stories and events.

[Lucyinthesky]

A full-fledged solo book for Lorna could very easily happen that does all you just said, plus a lot more. There are many storylines throughout her existence that people have not seen in 20, 30, 40 years that could be retold. Especially when given new perspective through her. Lots of things not in the text that could be turned into additional story. There are also things in her own history we have never seen. We don't know what her life was like growing up. We don't even have a clue what her foster parents looked like, let alone their personalities. A lot of other characters may rehash old stuff endlessly, but Lorna's would be fresh to a vast majority of readers, and it's much needed in order for Marvel to use and treat her better in future stories and events.

Agreed, they could begin by showing the moment Magneto send her back to her family, once Peter David revealed the story about her parents I was hoping for him to delve a little more into her family story I even have a little headcanon that Magneto got news about her sometimes, maybe he told her foster parents that she needed to hide her hair color to not call unwanted attention, he after all knew who where her foster parents, and maybe wanted her to study a degree, it was important for him when he was young but never got the opportunity to get it for himself and I can see him being quietly proud of her for this.

Of course there is also the mystery of mesmero knowing about her being Magneto´s daughter how did he know? Mastermind told him? or maybe Mr Sinister found about this and got curious because despite the summers family being his main interest I can see him trying to know about Magneto´s secret daughter. So many stories that could be told from a fresh pov.

[MaximoffTrash]

Celestials & Avengers Endgame Equal X-Men in Phase 5 - Scarlet Witch A Mutant in WandaVision?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PXojdAKJWWQ

I like Kinda Culty but to be real, making Wanda a mutant won't fit in either WandaVision or DS2, it's not like it will serve any narrative.
On the other hand, they can use Nights of Wundagore and other stuff with ease with this heavily mystical enviroment, like simply explain Chthon marked her at birth and gave her subconsicous probability manipulation which is why she survived the Stark Bomb, Hydra Experiment, and why Pietro died when he is far away and Wanda herself got saved the last minute.
Let's be real, if they are gonna do her backstory in MCU, it's gonna be in WV, and I highly doubt it will involve Magneto saving them out of nowhere.(And their parents, at least the ones they are living with, are MCU's version of the Maximoffs, there is no reason why Magneto would be randomly there. AND the key point, Magneto shouldn't raise them.)
I see people being upset with Lorna overshadowed by Magneto but yet wanting to shove Magneto/Mutants in stuff that doesn't really fit them. And give Magneto that daddy savior and daughter seeker story that MCU Wanda doesn't need anyway.

As for MCU mutants, make the X-Gene a widely spreaded gene in human population by Celestials but at different developing stage with a few that can manifest as powers.
X-Gene's evolving will take either time(each generations with X-Genes that are more likely to manifest) or catalysts(Nuclear Experiment/Radiation, Infinity Stones Snap).
They can also add someting like Selene's ancestors are survivors of old Atlantis after the Great Catalysm(they are affected by the Celestial weapon or something.) which is why this line produced the first mutant on Earth.