Lorna Dane: Polaris Appreciation 2021

[jmc247]

I agree Duggan´s Polaris can be too juvenile sometimes but then also Scott, Rogue and most of the cast with the exception of Jean and Sunfire. I think Duggan should get more into the bones of the characters and what makes them tick by themselves or as a team and the idea of the "monster of the week" is not helping the title to develop as a new incarnation of the X-men because it´s gives the sensation that there´s no progress, I hope now after HE appareance things will get more into the development of the main story but I have the perception that not a lot of things will move along until Inferno is done so in the mean time a better handle of the characters and more interaction inside the team would be great.

Getting down to the character motivations is a very good point. That is the biggest question I have in terms of Lorna's story. Why are you there with the X-Men? What do you really feel about the new mutant homeland given the fate of your last mutant homeland?

On Polaris front I have noticed this juvenile take can become an issue if it´s not addressed Lorna is a veteran X-man with a PHD under her belt so it could come sometiems into the conversation of the characters between missions and I don´t think she understimated Luminous, it was just that she´s too powerful and needs to be taken down by two people at the same time, she can control probabilities like Wanda and is quicker than Quicksilver but most of the team was defeated imo so I think they were just not ready to attack HE. It will be interesting when we see the inevitable showdown when they defeat his team.

Now about Lorna and Magneto family ties, well, she indeed was going to be the daughter of Magneto, in fact, even when Claremont wrote that scene of Magneto denying her being his daughter, he had plans at the end of his run to reveal they were indeed family, of course, I don´t think he had the same thing in mind as the one that ended happening because he had to leave the title and a lot of his subplots were left open for other writers to tackle and Lorna was no longer thought of as Magneto´s child until they played a little with the idea when Lorna accepted going with Magneto to Genosha to train her powers, despite them being not recognized family he tried to get closer to her emotionally speaking than he normally does with other members of his teams and when she opposed him during Dark Seduction and she was send out of Genosha along with Pietro and Wanda, it was clear, at least when it comes to subtext, he considered her his daughter, or at least close enough, bassically him choosing his powers and his control over Genosha even if this put him on bad terms with Pietro, Wanda and Lorna was the choice he made at the time and he later regretted greatly during HoM, in fact we could see his stories with them post HoM as him making up for this decision in particular.

I don't mind she lost to Luminous. But, I would like to know where her head is these days.

In terms of Lorna and Genosha it was interesting because they ran the storyline from the prospective of Bobby and Pietro looking in at Lorna and Magneto wondering what was going on. That misled alot of fans at the time.

Sadly, Lorna was rarely depicted as a character who could think for herself consistently until we got to the fallout of the destruction of the island. That scene really encompasses how the character was often depicted as needing other characters (mainly her boyfriend) to be her guide rather then having her own opinions. After was when she finally started at least for awhile thinking for herself. I don't know if she is thinking for herself of late as I don't know what is the motivational forces behind the character?

Then it came Morrison and Austen take on Lorna post Genosha massacre, I am very critical of their work but they made the right call here, because they rescued this subplot and gave it a deeper meaning having Lorna and Magneto share the experience of seeing Genosha destroyed and use their powers to try to rescue what little was left, it was a nice way of confirming their family ties and then came the DNA test, Bendis including her on HoM and later Peter David with the origin story on X-factor and it all makes sense,imo, this was no retcon, it was more a story that was a subplot for too many years until marvel decided to make it official.

I tend to think of it as a story that was much more convoluted then needed to be told and took awhile to get to where it needed to be yes.