Lorna Dane: Polaris Appreciation 2020

[salarta]

I'm sure most writers don't even do that. They just form their own opinions by themselves and write it without caring what others think.

And if they're doing or done research and thought the character through, then fair enough. But all we've heard is talking to two people.

It doesn't imo. Even if you passionately hate the ship, you need to understand that some people will like it, and it doesn't mean that they're not ~real fans~. I don't think anyone enjoys seeing Barbara get shot, tortured and paralyzed in the same way that they enjoy a romantic relationship.

I never said they're "not real fans." You're putting words in my mouth.

As for the other part. I mean, I probably could make that argument. The "some people enjoy seeing Barbara tortured" argument. But it's not what I was actually saying.

There are, in fact, fans out there who think Killing Joke was one of the best things to happen to Barbara. If not THE best. They think it added character and gave her development. Likewise, there are people who absolutely love the Killing Joke animated film and think what it did with Barbara (as in, her having sex with Bruce) served as meaningful work. There are people who not only loved the Joker variant cover for Batgirl a few years back, but actively print knockoff issues with that cover (which they sell on ebay and at conventions) and create work inspired by it. I've seen people argue against Barbara being Batgirl again on the grounds that Killing Joke and what followed were too important, and letting her be Batgirl again undoes decades of development.

And like with Havok x Polaris, I could easily paint a picture of how Barbara needs Killing Joke to come up all the time and be all or most of what she's known for. Let's workshop this. "It makes her look tougher, you know. That she's still around despite what Joker did to her. It's like her version of Bruce's parents getting shot. And it's such a famous story, you really need Joker cause he comes off as so much more dangerous for Batgirl than anyone else would. Heroes are only as interesting as their villains after all. Don't you want to read Batgirl facing off against Joker's madness? Wouldn't it be moving to see how brave she is by having her get caught and tortured by Joker but not breaking despite their past, and then how smart she is by getting herself out of it?" And none of that is attempting even squickier angles I could toss in for good measure.

So no, I don't think my comparison is off the mark. I'm comparing two relationships that have been good for the men and toxic for the women, which a big fan could make plenty of arguments in favor of. There's no "fakeness" required. Difference is Havok x Polaris can be salvaged by future writers if Marvel starts giving enough of a damn about Lorna to do the necessary work SHE needs before doing more with the pairing. Whereas Killing Joke is pretty widely known as the event that badly misused Batgirl to benefit Joker, Batman and Commissioner Gordon.

1) The thing about X-Men Blue is that out of Magneto, Alex and Lorna, the main character on that book was Magneto. So it's not surprising that Lorna's appearance was turned into a "Magneto fights over his daughter against the villain(Havok)" plot. It's how X-Men Red had Jean fighting over Rachel against Cassandra Nova. On X-Factor, Lorna is the main character. Things will be seen from her POV over Alex's or Magneto's or whatever.

And that take was wrong. I can't speak to Red cause I didn't read it, but on Blue, it was wrong for Lorna to be used that way. Exacerbated by the fact she's a female character being treated like a trophy or territory for two men to fight over. I don't care who the main character is, you don't treat characters that way. To make an outside note, I quite like how The Magicians had an episode devoted to "side characters" where they explicitly called out the reader/writer problem of treating "side characters" like they're only good for boosting the stories of the "main" characters and don't have values, interests, perspectives, etc of their own.

2) A character being mentioned every once in a while shouldn't get you so upset to the point that you think the whole book is worthless. I'm sure that even if he's mentioned, Lorna will have another sort of character arc that has nothing to do with that. The book is about investigating mutant deaths and resurrections. You really think Lorna will just not have anything to do with that and will just be there talking about Havok? C'mon.

"Every once in a while" is nearly all the time. Which I've gone through in past posts of this thread.

Before X-Men Blue came out, Marvel teased at C2E2 how she was returning in that book. Yet Bunn didn't talk about her at all leading up to her return. What he did do was make an excited post on Twitter showcasing Havok-centric comics he owned as a tease for Havok's return. That was a red flag. This is too.

I really think that Leah will base all or most of how she writes Lorna on her history with Havok. Which doesn't mean what you're saying it means. It means even if Lorna doesn't explicitly say his name, Leah will probably base how she reacts to everything by how she behaved when written as Havok's girlfriend. You don't need to ham-fistedly have Lorna say "I did this cause it's what Havok would've wanted me to do" to imagine Lorna internally thinking of what Havok would want her to do and then writing her behaving that way.

I don't want to hear about how Lorna is Havok's cheerleader. I also don't want to hear about how she's the anti-Havok. I also don't want to hear how she can kick his ass after decades of misuse. I want to hear about her own thoughts, feelings and experiences that have nothing to do with him. And I want it with the time and platform she needs for it to be more than a tiny footnote everyone ignores for the rest of eternity so they can get back to having Lorna cry on Havok's shoulders cause it makes him look like such a big strong man.

3) That's pretty much pick and choosing what you want to fit your narrative. Her mentioning Havok's name as in that *one of her friends she talked with likes it* is enough proof that the book is completely ruined, everything will be about Havok, it's all part of the continuing agenda against Lorna inside Marvel... But when she says that he won't actually be in the book, suddenly it's "Well, actually, this doesn't mean anything, because...".

4) That hypothesis technically exists for every book Marvel ever publishes. You shouldn't judge the initial premise and creative team and everything based on something that doesn't have any hints of it happening yet. Especially cause you're just thinking about it to make a point.

Good point. You're right, the hypothesis does exist for every book Marvel publishes. And people saw this in action quite well until the Fox buyout.

People on CBR seem to have decided not to remember the past 10 years just because Marvel's suddenly focusing on X-Men again. Remember when Marvel completely did away with any X-Men panels at one of the big two conventions, but had an Inhumans panel, and X-Men fans on CBR and elsewhere got so mad that Marvel added X-Men to the Inhumans panel? Remember when the doc leaked where Marvel told card artists not to draw anything with the Fantastic Four? Remember Marvel making excuses for these decisions, or lying about how such things weren't really happening?

Marvel didn't change overnight. Marvel getting the X-Men film rights back and doing a complete 180 about how they treat the franchise as a whole doesn't mean they aren't still pulling these stunts on characters and concepts they don't like or respect. For only one decade, X-Men fans got a taste of this behavior, and it was enough to create a whole thread dedicated to "the CompleX" where fans picked apart everything Marvel said and did concerning the X-Men franchise. You can't be surprised by my reactions when Marvel is still treating Lorna the same way they used to treat X-Men as a whole before the Fox buyout.

You think of this as a grand new era. I just see the same old Marvel up to its same old tricks. If anything, Lorna's even worse off now than before. At least before, Fox took her seriously enough to make her a star on a TV show. Marvel doesn't even think she's worth being treated like her own character whenever she appears somewhere.