Lorna Dane: Polaris Appreciation 2021

[salarta]

I think that's definetely Agatha...

Yeah, I can confirm that's supposed to be Agatha based on this post, but I don't blame anyone for thinking it's Lorna given the green hair.

It's not uncommon for people to think other green-haired characters are Lorna, even when context should clear things up, but this is a case where I think it would be easy to not know.

[jmc247]

It´s quite understable and I agree it´s a possibility, I thought Sunfire story needed a little more indepth look, still Lorna won the fan vote so I hope this gives Duggan motivation to write her part with care and considering her whole story on the franchise well.

Duggan's Lorna has some persona and panache.

But, she has been missing a workable motivation for quite a few runs. I do suspect X-Men #5 will at least give us some hint how much edge Duggan is comfortable using with her even if we don't get much in terms of her motivation per say. Hickman gave her some fairly short lived philosophical complexity.

Anyway.



Emma Dumont promoting a Chinese based VR company. She still has millions of Chinese social media followers. Polaris certainly is still very popular in China from what I have seen. Emma's birthday is in two weeks on the 15th of next month. Here is her rundown of the past two years.

[UncannyLZ]

Where else would you like to see Polaris appear other than her current team? Is there any particular corner of the Marvel Universe you’d like to see Lorna get a push toward?

[ermac]

Polaris as an Avenger

[UncannyLZ]

Polaris as an Avenger

That would definitely be fun to see! I like that she’s on the X-Men and her sister is the Avenger though

[jmc247]

The issue of Lorna and motivation is one I dread talking about, but something that does need to be discussed.

Lorna may appear in the MCU and almost certainly will need a motivation event as Wanda had with the death of Vision and her subsequent actions that led to her reality warped children.

I have to think that they have been and will be testing out motivations for Lorna in the comics for possible future adaption. Because right now Lorna doesn't have a workable motivational event. In terms of PAD I like a number of the things he did, but his inadvertently killing mom as a baby story doesn't work as a motivational core for Lorna's character in the comics and it won't on film either.

Fox tried to adapt that into Jean's pathos in their last Dark Phoenix film and it didn't work for her either, because its functionally a bad idea for a motivating trauma that doesn't have any real world resonance or parallel nor does anything other then provide something to rise above or fall to pieces over.

The Island that Shall Not Be Named for Lorna in the comics provided her best trauma story and it allowed for the character to war over who she is and what she believes about mutants and humanity. It also led to some of her best moments in the comics where she was able to question her ideals, Xavier's, and Magneto's and was even adapted into a great animated TV episode The Badlands.

But, Marvel made a hard move against the Island that Shall Not be Named a long time ago even being discussed in relation to Lorna. Their move makes no sense in terms of the comic character who can have multiple trauma's, but I understand that the film character will need her own life motivational trauma and that Genosha is not likely going to be adaptable the same way for her.

The Gifted Lorna's trauma wasn't bad, but it wasn't good either. The prison abuse theme was actually not the first idea of the show. Singer wanted and filmed something closer to a futuristic anti-mutant concentration camp with his first scene with Lorna where mutants are treated like cattle. What they settled for was much weaker and generalized prison abuse and anti-mutant experimentation. As I said it wasn't a bad motivation, but Lorna needed something more.

Which gets to 2020 X-Factor's motivation. The core idea of a mutants death being the driving force isn't a necessarily bad one. But, the set up matters a great deal and the set up in X-Factor #4 was just plain bad for it being the comic characters motivation. Lorna came off like she was 15 and learning about death for the very first time.

My view is that for all mediums Lorna needs a motivation that works for the character either as an X-Man or whatever antagonist team exists. Marvel is probably going to have to come up with a new one for the MCU that is compact and explainable because killing mom as a baby doesn't work and the Island that Shall Not Be Named probably won't fit.

Comic Lorna has a great motivation in her past they won't use for whatever reason and if that continues they will just have to come up with another new one because using dad as a rational for what she does or does not do or baby manifesting her powers is weak sauce. Its not offensive like mind control, but it also doesn't work as a motivational core.

Where else would you like to see Polaris appear other than her current team? Is there any particular corner of the Marvel Universe you’d like to see Lorna get a push toward?

I would like to see a more political Lorna interact with the outside world as an emissary of sorts. Imagine Lorna interacting with Doom or Iron Man and talking about politics or mutant issues.

[ermac]

I would like to see a more political Lorna interact with the outside world as an emissary of sorts. Imagine Lorna interacting with Doom or Iron Man and talking about politics or mutant issues.

I think that would suit her very welll. Would love to read that.

[Devaishwarya]

Can't her motivation simply be: In the past, I've been used and manipulated to cause misery and harm. Now, I just want to save lives and ensure that others don't go through what I went through.

At its basic core her story is no different than Jean's.

[jmc247]

Can't her motivation simply be: In the past, I've been used and manipulated to cause misery and harm. Now, I just want to save lives and ensure that others don't go through what I went through.

At its basic core her story is no different than Jean's.

Marvel went through periods of trying that with Lorna. It doesn't work in part, because Lorna is not Jean.

The Dark Phoenix Saga was more then a mind control story too. It was an amazing tale and one of the Marvel's most iconic and well written. Rachel has the used as a slave pathos really down well. Lorna's possession stories are bowel movements in contrast.

You also need a motivation that enables an explanation of the ideological world view difference between Jean and Lorna. It exists in the comics even now on the down low and it certainly will likely exist in other mediums like the films. Best friends turned adversaries or adversaries turned friends are certainly likely permutations in other mediums in the future. It was Jean and Lorna's first 60s relationship after all and it does differentiate Lorna and Jean from Storm and Jean. Over relying on Magneto for that is a mistake.

I am mainly thinking in terms of the MCU and animated here for what is possible because the comic version has every sort of motivation and pathos in her backstory and I have to think that comes down to editorial and writer preference.

[juan678]

https://www.cbr.com/the-gifted-wasted-polaris/

[jmc247]

https://www.cbr.com/the-gifted-wasted-polaris/

Hard disagree. Lorna was enormously benefited by Magneto not being around in both The Gifted and the era after she returned from Genosha. Marvel writers except for really good ones like Hickman feel they have to overly differentiate Lorna and Magneto philosophically when they are both on the x-books to the level that typically renders Lorna too generic. When Magneto is in full multifaceted hero with a touch of gray mode Marvel doesn't have to then make Lorna more Xavierite then him. Only two writers in her history figured that out.

I will say first season of The Gifted was better then any comic run the character ever had. Austen's run which is the only thing that comes close had a better motivational pathos coming from Morrison, but it wasn't as well planned and fine tuned as Lorna's arc in The Gifted season one.

The Gifted writers though completely failed the character in season two. They left her as the season two Inner Circle Catlin Strucker for half the season and the other half a coward slinking about between groups. I have never seen a worse dropping the ball with a character in fiction then I saw with The Gifted season 2 and Lorna. If you are going to create some other antagonist to be the bigger threat and force Lorna and the Underground back together that was fine, but they tore out both Lorna's ovaries and spine in the process and left her character in tatters.

Reeva as the Shaw of the Hellfire Club oh I mean Inner Circle or the Cortez would have worked. What they did failed as they made her the Emma Frost and Magneto all rolled into one. But, Lorna is typically remembered globally much more for the more popular first season then the mess of a second season. It is Lorna's most well know and globally popular depiction by far.

As for Lorna being better with her family. Perhaps in a House of M universe context, but not anything the 616 has figured out how to do.

[Lucyinthesky]

I agree Lorna does well when she gets the space to talk about her personal political ideas but on the MCU this is tricky because she has to be introduced first, before we can look a little into her perception of humans and mutants issues, add to this the fact the MCU itself doesn´t really delve too deeply into this kind of issues, to put an example MCU Pietro and Wanda were originally going to be critics of Tony Stark weapons and use of it on foreing countries but the story went totally out of talking about this and focused on defeating Ultron so I think the MCU will still be about adventure mainly not political discussion, so I expect Lorna to have more the role of adventurer while still being tied to the political issues of traditional X-men stories.

That said, I also agree she needs a motivation of her own outside her relationship with her family, we don´t know if she will be MCU Wanda and Pietro sibling yet but we know she may have a role to play with Magneto, still, I think as background context it helps to tell her story. I don´t think Genosha itself will be tackled yet because it involves too much work to introduce on the MCU, it would need a movie to be introduced unless they show off it was always there like they did with Madripoor and even if it´s introduced we don´t know if it will be ruled by the magistrates of by Magneto. So imo, I think the most easier way to introduce Lorna´s motivations, is on a story personal to her, that also involves her family but she´s the active protagonist of the story, so I would like to see an adaptation of that time the goverment tried to use Lorna as a weapon to fight off Magneto, this idea plays into the "mind crontol" pathos but allows Lorna to make her own decisions and respond to her context as well as it allows her to think about why and how this is happening and if she already meet the X-men and lived for a while or knows her father, it would be an opportunity for her to decide for herself if she wants to be an X-man, be part of Magneto´s team or going solo.

[jmc247]

That said, I also agree she needs a motivation of her own outside her relationship with her family, we don´t know if she will be MCU Wanda and Pietro sibling yet but we know she may have a role to play with Magneto, still, I think as background context it helps to tell her story. I don´t think Genosha itself will be tackled yet because it involves too much work to introduce on the MCU, it would need a movie to be introduced unless they show off it was always there like they did with Madripoor and even if it´s introduced we don´t know if it will be ruled by the magistrates of by Magneto. So imo, I think the most easier way to introduce Lorna´s motivations, is on a story personal to her, that also involves her family but she´s the active protagonist of the story, so I would like to see an adaptation of that time the goverment tried to use Lorna as a weapon to fight off Magneto, this idea plays into the "mind crontol" pathos but allows Lorna to make her own decisions and respond to her context as well as it allows her to think about why and how this is happening and if she already meet the X-men and lived for a while or knows her father, it would be an opportunity for her to decide for herself if she wants to be an X-man, be part of Magneto´s team or going solo.

Its not a horrible idea, though I can't say I am in favor of it.

I do think Rachel is going to be included in some way to the MCU and she has the used as a weapon against mutant trauma down pat and actually well written stories with it. The using Lorna as a mind controlled weapon against Magneto was probably her best 616 storyline of the 90s which says more about the 90s as an era for her then anything else, but it was hobbled by the fact they pulled their punches, they weren't related at that point, and the story was cut short so Marvel could embark on what they really about Havolaris and Malice nonsense.

The best option after thinking about it for a half hour today is to boil down and distill the Genosha story to its essence on a smaller scale for Lorna in the MCU. To do that a gang or club of mutants that Lorna is apart of would be wiped out either by Sentinels or something else like a mutant programmed to hunt mutants. Lorna ends up feeling personally responsible for failing them.

Marvel games has already done that on some level. The Days of Future Past game in 2014 had Lorna the sole survivor of Asteroid M's take down by Sentinels.

I think in vague terms this was what X-Factor #4 was going for, but it didn't work because the particularities of how it went down meant it was more battlefield tragedy (losing the 17 year old red shirted Ensign on an away mission) then shocking mutant massacre, comic Lorna is not supposed to be a 15 year old who never experienced death, etc.

[Lucyinthesky]

I didn´t mean the goverment had to be succesful in mind controlling her, just that they attacked her and she defended herself but I agree a situation in which she felt guilt for failing to protect her group would work very well and has Genosha connotations. Or maybe a combintation of the two, the goverment searches for her, she doens´t know why, defends herself and is already a part of a group of mutants who decide to help her, some a killed in the persecution and she feels guilty and responsible so she decides to stop this from happening again.

[jmc247]

I didn´t mean the goverment had to be succesful in mind controlling her, just that they attacked her and she defended herself but I agree a situation in which she felt guilt for failing to protect her group would work very well and has Genosha connotations. Or maybe a combintation of the two, the goverment searches for her, she doens´t know why, defends herself and is already a part of a group of mutants who decide to help her, some a killed in the persecution and she feels guilty and responsible so she decides to stop this from happening again.

It isn't a bad idea. Singer in The Gifted was going for a darker trauma then we ended up with.



Disney won't want to show the kind of ugliness Singer was ok with, even Fox turned it down though I suspect mainly because they felt it too darkened one of their protagonists, but you really don't have to fully show a mutant massacre situation. Its the short of ugliness one can allude to and let the audiences mind come up with the rest.

Ultimately the comic character has good motivation and pathos. Marvel just has ignored it and no X-Factor's story about killing her mom as a baby isn't particularly good for being a motivational core to the character. It was a good way to tie up the loose threads of her backstory, terrible as a central motivational force.