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  1. #121

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    A Polaris solo that properly addresses her character history and gets enough promo for people to know it exists would sell a lot more.

    She's never been given real use by Marvel, and her history is a mix of scenes that didn't consider her perspective enough, and huge gaps waiting for stories to fill them. People would want to read the hidden history she lights up along with all the undercurrent topics she offers (multiple forms of trauma, mental health, alternative and creative ways to use her power set, the importance of a mutant identity, development as an independent woman away from X-Men and Magneto and the like, etc).
    I can also be reached on BlueSky and Tumblr. Avatar by kahlart.

    Ghosts of Genosha minicomic focused on Polaris, written by me and drawn by Fin_NoMore.

    Polaris 50th anniversary minicomic written by me and drawn by Mlad!

    Gallery of Polaris commissions (without NSFW or minicomics)

  2. #122
    Braddock Isle JB's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by houndsofluv View Post
    im not so sure. the cast may not have the typical "draws" but the concept is so tied to The Five/resurrection protocols that pretty much everyone keeping up with the books is itching to know more about. I can see this becoming a steady success
    I agree. The mission statement is one that can take them all over the world for a long time, with each search having a lot of story potential.
    "Danielle... I intend to do something rash and violent." - Betsy Braddock
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  3. #123
    Astonishing Member Soulsword323's Avatar
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    X-Factor managed to scrape by in the past. It isn't a huge seller, but it does have a fanbase. I believe its been five years since the last time we saw X-Factor, so perhaps that will factor into it as well.
    Last edited by Soulsword323; 01-19-2020 at 02:31 PM.

  4. #124

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    I am not going to speak to how long its going to last much other then to talk about the market in general. HoX brought back some interest, but its already reverting to the pre-HoX norm. Digital adds some padding as do the trades, but its rough going for the comics these days as they have huge competition from other mediums. Any title that wants to make it two years these days is going to have to really catch the zeitgeist of fans.

    Comic shops have a massive say in this. They bet on comics with casts and creative teams they think will be successful with how many copies they order. If they order 100K copies for the first comic by issue 4 they are usually less then half that though probably can continue without more bleeding. The last version of X-Factor was dead on arrival. Comic shops under ordered and it started around 47K. That combined with a early slow and muddled start meant death.

    Marvel isn’t being subtle that the early 90s is in right now and they are banking on nostalgia. Though they also know the current generation of Polaris fans don’t have the same image as the early 90s super fan so it’s led to interesting summaries that aren’t factually wrong, but also you wouldn’t have seen not long ago as they try to marry fanbases of different eras.



    In terms of lessons learned from previous runs of Lorna on X-Factor those are important for the character as well as the success of the title.

    1. Lorna's first run on X-Factor under PAD the character was dumped on him by editorial when he was planning and ready to write Jean. The character was basically Tabula Rasa when he picked her up from Claremont who took everything from her including her powers and planned to change her code name. This was in hayday of the x-books before the speculative comic book bubble burst. The run was actually very short, Lorna's character was overall quite bland with little depth, but the witty dialogue of the characters was respectably popular at the time. Editorial interfering and forcing PAD to be part of crossovers convinced him to leave.

    2. J. M. Dematteis had the bad luck to step in as the comic book bubble burst. His scripts lacked the panache' of PAD's which also hurt his run. But, his Lorna started to have some actual depth. She made a little movement away from being the mother hen of the title and started to get her own voice on mutant rights issues as the writer at the time started looking to her early days as a character. Her voice and her early propensity to threaten deadly violence on foes returned. His best ideas like her conflict with SHIELD over them trying to brainwash her and turn her into a weapon against Magneto tended to be cut short for love triangle plotlines so there was a commitment to story arcs was a problem in this run.

    3. Howard Mackie- Lorna lost any mutant rights views and became fully a romantic soap centered character and the mother hen to the title with the occasional passing anger management issues. Really she wasn’t much of a character in this era.

    4. PAD's second run- After 20 years he was back writing Lorna and while I think his version of Lorna had more depth then his first run, his scripts weren't as strong. The run also missed one of the core ingredients that made early 00s Lorna run or JM's Lorna and that was mutant rights activism and a desire to build a better world for mutants. She was too much in her own head of her own personal issues and soap that it didn't feel like there was anything deeper to the character. It was still a more interesting Lorna then the mother hen version of days of yore, but she didn’t have the depth of post Genoshan genocide Lorna and generic super hero antics ruled the day and the audience wasn’t as interested in them as a decade or two earlier.

    5. PAD's third run- ANXF was a great idea on paper. But, a lot of the philosophical conflict was kept from the characters and left to the boss in favor again of generic super hero antics and Lorna suddenly being unstable when its convenient to create tension. Mutant rights issues again didn't matter and weren't used to create tension. In terms of the soap its better to run it quick and hard rather then have a slow burn that maybe in year three that Gambit and Lorna would have hit it off the way a book 20-30 years ago might do. Other then smash hits books don’t get year threes and often not year twos these days.

    Human/mutant issues and conflict and dealing with issues of retribution vs forgiveness for mutant killers seems like the possible bread and butter of the next run. The real question comes down for Lorna is what role she ends up in. Will she be in the mother hen role in this title? I never took to first run X-Factor Lorna even though I read X-Factor when it was airing because the character had no depth. Alot of x-fans are in love with the era, many who read the era were in love with Lorna's start of 90s one liners. But, I don’t let nostalgia goggles blind me to the limitations of how the character was written then.

    Leah admits she really didn't understand or connect with Lorna and is getting help learning about her (well she said learning about a ship in her life). Its good she is looking for voices to help her understand Lorna. My warning would be a common place for writers to fall into who are just learning about Lorna is the generic voice of reason. We saw this with Bunn. We saw it with Brubaker. Lorna works as a highly competent character who can get things done, but not the voice one goes too if they want to know what Xavier or Jean would do.
    Last edited by jmc247; 01-19-2020 at 11:26 AM.

  5. #125
    Spectacular Member Magnetic's Avatar
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    I feel bad for Polaris to be on X-Factor again. She's doomed to be grouped with the x-tras forever.

  6. #126
    Astonishing Member Soulsword323's Avatar
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    X-trash? That's way too harsh. I think its an eclectic group of characters, and I'm intrigued as to how they'll be interacting with one another. I'd say Polaris, Rachel, and Daken, are all on the same level of interest to readers IMO.

    Its unpopular in here, but I find the title irrelevant. Yes, its true its not going to be a guaranteed seller like titles with X-Men in it, but I care more about what the writer does with the character. It all comes down to the creatives behind the title, and what they do with the cast. It sounds like Leah has things planned for Polaris, and hopefully its something that can finally push her own story forward.

  7. #127
    Spectacular Member Magnetic's Avatar
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    I meant extras - but x-trash is even better. Face it - X-Factor was and will always be the x-trash title. Her peers graduate and feature outside while Polaris remains trapped in X-Factor decades later.

  8. #128

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    A realization for me hit in November that the Dawn of X titles weren’t really sharing story cameos that could either go to Magneto or Lorna. They were all going to Mags.

    At least with Laura and Logan they manage to balance things between them in terms of who gets what role. The question for the Spring will be how compartmentalized will Lorna be going forward and what they do with her development.

    But, no Lorna to date hasn’t been allowed to graduate like her peers. They haven’t have a role for her among her peers they cannot give to Jean, Storm or her father and haven’t other then the years when Morrison killed Magneto.
    Last edited by jmc247; 01-19-2020 at 11:59 AM.

  9. #129
    Spectacular Member Magnetic's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by jmc247 View Post
    A realization for me hit in November that the Dawn of X titles weren’t really sharing story cameos that could either go to Magneto or Lorna. They were all going to Mags.

    At least with Laura and Logan they manage to balance things between them in terms of who gets what role. The question for the Spring will be how compartmentalized will Lorna be going forward and what they do with her development.

    But, no Lorna is really not allowed to graduate like her peers as they have no role for her that Marvel accepts.
    Lorna will not appear outside the alternate X-Factor universe. X-Factor is specially designed to keep unimportant characters out of the greater x-world happenings.

  10. #130

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    Quote Originally Posted by Magnetic View Post
    Lorna will not appear outside the alternate X-Factor universe. X-Factor is specially designed to keep unimportant characters out of the greater x-world happenings.
    The real problem as I said comes down to role. Being the replacement Jean of X-Factor is a role she fell into in 1991 and 29 years later is still the only obvious role as far as Marvel sees her. For those that want her to have a life outside being the Jean of X-Factor as I do the central question comes down what role can she take that would allow her to build dynamic relationships outside of X-Factor once it’s done?
    Last edited by jmc247; 01-19-2020 at 12:24 PM.

  11. #131
    Astonishing Member Soulsword323's Avatar
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    Lorna showed up in House of X and X-Men 1. Saying she can't exist outside of X-Factor has already been proven false. Also, the book is dealing with resurrections. That's one of the big things to come out of HoX/PoX. It's not unimportant.

    I understand wanting to see a character graduate to another title, but I think its more important what work the writer does with the character.
    Last edited by Soulsword323; 01-19-2020 at 12:29 PM.

  12. #132

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    Its better for a character to have a title then not have a title. In the old days I think PAD in particular had a real habit of trying to isolate his three runs with Lorna from the rest of what was going on amongst the core X-Men and Marvel. I understand his negativity towards crossovers and see both sides to the issue as they are good for character profile, but bad for story cohesion.

    She introduced as the 'queen of mutants' and then after the storyline settled in as the second x-woman and energy manipulator. Her original role Marvel prefers Emma and other characters in. Her old position on the X-Men was handed to other characters and we all know who. She needs a new one in the future.

    In terms of this iteration of X-Factor it feels on the surface already less compartmentalized then some previous ones, but what does it mean for Lorna's character and can she find a characterization that isn't the Jean of the C listers and actually might take off? When splits start among Krakoa mutants can she lobby them to growth? She will need a nitch in relation to the X-Men if she is going to return as a mainstay character in the future be it protagonist or antagonist otherwise she will be pigeonholed.

    For all the talk about character growth she isn't going to actually grow without a nitch in relation to the X-Men that services her after this run.
    Last edited by jmc247; 01-19-2020 at 02:01 PM.

  13. #133
    Astonishing Member Soulsword323's Avatar
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    What Leah does with Lorna could end up being not very good. I don't know. Who knows what she has planned. But regardless of what she does, I'm not going to blame the title for what's what done within its pages. It largely falls on the writer, much like how PAD didn't want too much overlap with the other titles, or how he wrote her in the 90s. That's on him, not so much the title. If she was in Marauders, or X-Force, I would say the same things. Just because the Marauders might have longer legs in terms of sells, it doesn't mean that Polaris would necessarily be put in a better position. But I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree.

  14. #134

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    Quote Originally Posted by Soulsword323 View Post
    What Leah does with Lorna could end up being not very good. I don't know. Who knows what she has planned. But regardless of what she does, I'm not going to blame the title for what's what done within its pages. It largely falls on the writer, much like how PAD didn't want too much overlap with the other titles, or how he wrote her in the 90s. That's on him, not so much the title. If she was in Marauders, or X-Force, I would say the same things. Just because the Marauders might have longer legs in terms of sells, it doesn't mean that Polaris would necessarily be put in a better position. But I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree.
    Agree to disagree about what? You didn't quote my post so I really can't tell. My comment was its better to have an ongoing then to not have an ongoing.

    I also understand those who worry about her being pigeonholed. Being pigeonholed is bad as an actor because when roles come up that would fit you as an actor... directors pass on you because they too much see you in one of your previous roles and really can't see you outside of it. Ask the Star Trek TOS actors how much it can be annoying wanting new roles, but directors just can't imagine you outside your Trek role.

    Something similar can also happen to fictional characters where a character gets too much seen through one lens, era, role or romantic relationship that creators have trouble seeing options outside it. That doesn't have anything to do if this series will be amazing or awful towards Lorna.
    Last edited by jmc247; 01-19-2020 at 02:12 PM.

  15. #135
    Astonishing Member Soulsword323's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by jmc247 View Post
    Agree to disagree about what? You didn't quote my post so I really can't tell. My comment was its better to have an ongoing then to not have an ongoing.

    I also understand those who worry about her being pigeonholed. Being pigeonholed is bad as an actor because when roles come up that would fit you as an actor... directors pass on you because they too much see you in one of your previous roles and really can't see you outside of it. Ask the Star Trek TOS actors how much it can be annoying wanting new roles, but directors just can't imagine you outside your Trek role. Something similar can also happen to fictional characters where a character gets too much seen through one lens, era, role or romantic relationship. That doesn't have anything to do if this series will be amazing or awful towards Lorna.
    Oh, my bad. I misunderstood what you were saying about the title. I do agree that it's better to have one.

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