Lorna Dane: Polaris Appreciation 2021

[juan678]

https://www.cbr.com/x-men-giant-mutant-megazord/

[jmc247]

Art

Polaris is back!! Her defender attitude and personality were accurate and she was powerful and skilled! Really hope we keep this energy during this run of X-Men!

Polaris stans, we rise! It is our time!

Her attitude and persona feels like a good continuation of where it was developing after she was in her recovery phase from fallout from Genosha's destruction when she was last on the same team as Rogue. I felt her storyline post Austen lost clear direction after the first few issues of Milligan. Time will tell, but this might be a restoration of a clear direction with the character. I have long believed Lorna needs a good persona yes, but also a motivational core she takes with her from one run or story arc to the next. We will find out in time if she has that.

Loved, Lorna confident, assertive, with a tad bit of I'm better than you! Which she is and did anyone else gasp as she casually mentions destroying the Earth's magnetic field. I hope to see lots of interactions between Lorna, Rogue, Jean, and Wolverine.

The princess vibe was a smart direction.



A great cover. But, I wish they didn’t use the Stormbreakers tag on the cover.

[Stormy]

Could someone explain to me in depth the personality of Polaris? I feel like every year or title looks like another character. Yes, I know she has Bipolarity that maybe should cause this divergence, there are times when she seems like a "girl from home" (As in Wolverine and the X-men) and other times she's rebellious, with a lethal instinct .. (I remember once she killed a mutant by smashing him into the metal walls).eb0008c940a051960695d20e3219996d.jpg

[UncannyLZ]

Could someone explain to me in depth the personality of Polaris? I feel like every year or title looks like another character. Yes, I know she has Bipolarity that maybe should cause this divergence, there are times when she seems like a "girl from home" (As in Wolverine and the X-men) and other times she's rebellious, with a lethal instinct .. (I remember once she killed a mutant by smashing him into the metal walls).eb0008c940a051960695d20e3219996d.jpg

Hmm...I'm not sure what you mean by "bipolarity" since Lorna isn't diagnosed with anything. Her personality is both assertive and the "laid back". Like her powers, her personality is both the "push and pull". Polaris is the "defender" type meaning her goal is to defender her people (mutants) and those she loves. She isn't trying to be the "famous superhero" but is very powerful and will use that to protect. She's also got some daddy issues lol. Honestly, You get a lot of her personality in X-Men #1 which was so refreshing to see after not for so long.

[jmc247]

Could someone explain to me in depth the personality of Polaris? I feel like every year or title looks like another character. Yes, I know she has Bipolarity that maybe should cause this divergence, there are times when she seems like a "girl from home" (As in Wolverine and the X-men) and other times she's rebellious, with a lethal instinct .. (I remember once she killed a mutant by smashing him into the metal walls).

Wolverine and the X-Men is a sheltered teenage Lorna from whole different universe she shouldn't have anything to do with the comic version.

As smashing a mutant into the walls I am not sure what you are referring to. She has used material from walls to put a death grip on a mutant attacking the X-Men if that was what you were referring to?




She has killed many be they humans, mutants, and aliens in the past in defense of others mutant, X-Men, or everyone. Though not any time in recent years. I do feel she lost her edge on runs she could have had it without injuring opinions on mutants. It makes sense for her on the new NY X-Men want to avoid the public relations issues that come from being too hyper aggressive. But, at the same point in time when public relations doesn't matter it makes sense for her prospective to be not exactly be Jean or Scott's.

One can say Duggan's Lorna is a historic adaption of age old Lorna with a nice new costume, coffee cup, and glasses to historic Lorna. The character when she first appeared in the 1960s you had a shy normal girl and you had M2 (Magneto the second) the queen and defender of mutants. Different costume not very good scripting, but the core idea was similar.



Scott all dressed up as Erik the Red.

[salarta]

Could someone explain to me in depth the personality of Polaris? I feel like every year or title looks like another character. Yes, I know she has Bipolarity that maybe should cause this divergence, there are times when she seems like a "girl from home" (As in Wolverine and the X-men) and other times she's rebellious, with a lethal instinct .. (I remember once she killed a mutant by smashing him into the metal walls).

Lorna's depiction in comics ends up all over the place from a mix of writers treating her like a plot device for other characters, and treating her like a blank slate with no history to speak of. Sometimes one, sometimes both. And if they do look at past work, it might be to reinforce plot device use instead of looking at her for herself.

When asked which comics to read, I tend to suggest her first couple issues, then Giant-Size X-Men, then skipping everything til she's involved with Genosha because the stuff in between is mostly loaded with her being written in whichever way most benefits other characters. Not to say there aren't a few good spots, or that things in between can't be used in good ways, but most work in between wasn't really focused on capturing her perspective and potential.

I think X-Men #1 did great in capturing her character within context of the situation. I expect we would see other sides to her in other situations, same as with any other character. You wouldn't expect Peter Parker to treat Aunt May dying in the same way as quipping at villains during a fight, for example.

Regarding bipolar disorder, that's never been confirmed nor denied in the comics. It's true for The Gifted, but comics is still unknown.

[jmc247]

Claremont confused things because it was the first long era where I can't say Lorna herself was big on fighting for anything though Polaris and Malice which were separate personalities fought for various things. Lorna was a very weak needy girlfriend at the time and Polaris and Malice were mind controlled personas she wore. Its confused fans and reviewers to this day like Cronin because Claremont in the text repeatedly said Malice and Lorna were stuck together for years because both had a very dark streak.

He had it said quite a few times in the text by various actors, but his normal Lorna had no personality at all outside of 'girlfriend' so it was hard for people to believe. He told instead of showed his story. Frankly Claremont tried to set Lorna up in a straight up doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde routine that didn't really work for the character and by his actions he admitted as much with his actions to completely re-write Lorna's powers and code name.

I agree with the notion that if you are looking for a core to understand Lorna and have some semblance of a central theme to the character there are about 20 years of comics worth of ignoring in the middle of her story even though those runs are deemed iconic for reasons very much divorced from Lorna.

In 90s X-Factor she started out way too much like Jean which wasn't a surprise as PAD was getting ready to write Jean on his book when editorial handed him Lorna and a new team. By the mid 90s some of her old 60s attitude was returning in fits and starts.



Genosha was her next big step forward where she was able to feel like she was defending a people and at the end of the day their protectors.




After the island was destroyed it led to some serious soul searching by the character and she became less charitable when it came to certain foes. She wasn't in a mood to be forgiving in quite a few cases, especially Purifier types.

I view her Genosha storyline and its fallout between 1999 to 2004 as in many ways a better and more comprehensible version of her original 60s story without robots and a Lorna who is almost two separate characters.

I kind of feel the character lost much of her cohesion after M-Day as her story moved from the protector role and onto love triangles, possessions and what she saw in space or the trauma of the week. She had no driving focus or greater ambition on what she wanted to protect and no her significant other doesn't count. A lot of writers did straight up ignore large parts of the characters history to pretend the only Lorna who existed was in the comics between Claremont to the early 90s. I understand fans that are hyper nostalgic about that era, but Lorna's character suffered when that nostalgia was transposed to her story.

I am hopeful this is the start of a new era with the character.

[jmc247]

One last thing the characters motivational core matters.

Milligan's run is case and point where both used Genosha and the fallout from its destruction to further her story and it worked and also tried to own her pathos by creating replacement traumas like possession and what she saw in space. Once he moved away from her Genosha pathos onto purely his pathos his story with the character entirely fell apart because Lorna's character lost her core motivational driver that actually worked.

What she saw in space, her mother's death, Rockslides death, being possessed for the nth time, and on and on were all stories that on paper could exist alongside Genosha if that part of her history had been respected by those writers, but most of the traumas were created with the clear purpose to be her new and only motivational driver and often they have her massively over react to things that aren't in the league or the same universe to what she experienced on Genosha.

That in turn sets the new trauma up as replacement to it instead of something she builds on as part of her story. Imagine Rockslides death with a few tweaks making it more personal and having Lorna less out of control and breaking down to the degree she did while she has transference from Rockslides death to the the death of the millions of Genoshans so its not so much about this mutant she probably never met personally?

This was what UXM 443 did well with Lorna's very fierce reaction to Synch's death in her debate with Xavier. She was and wasn't responding to his death in that he was having major transference discussing him with the millions of mutants so she was basically treating him as one of the millions who died regardless of the individual circumstances.

Over the the past decade and a half the attempt to festoon new trauma's to Lorna's story over and over again have harmed not enhanced it by how they were handled and what they were meant to do. Austen himself wasn't entirely enthused about what Morrison did with her without telling him, but he realized ways to adapt it to his story while enabling him to go in new directions and tying back into it when he felt it could have been used.

My prospective on Lorna right now in terms of new traumas is no way no how until the one that really should really matter in terms of her views on the idea of a mutant homeland is respected. Marvel can respect Magneto as a Genosha survivor while they can also respect him a survivor of the Holocaust for instance and Magneto unlike Lorna didn't live amongst the bodies for weeks with their memories in her head.

And in happier news art.



realjetcomics

[Stormy]

Hmm...I'm not sure what you mean by "bipolarity" since Lorna isn't diagnosed with anything. Her personality is both assertive and the "laid back". Like her powers, her personality is both the "push and pull". Polaris is the "defender" type meaning her goal is to defender her people (mutants) and those she loves. She isn't trying to be the "famous superhero" but is very powerful and will use that to protect. She's also got some daddy issues lol. Honestly, You get a lot of her personality in X-Men #1 which was so refreshing to see after not for so long.

If I'm not mistaken in the comics, Polaris has Bipolar because all Magneto's children (before Recton) have something. Wanda has Depression, Mercury has Bordeline and Lorna has Bipolarity (in The Gifted they cover that a little), who has it Bipolarity usually chage into two states (euphoria and depression), they are usually impulsive people, sometimes they have delusions.. These two states can vary, time, generally the euphoric state can be worse than the depressed state, or vice versa. I recommend that you search deeper.

[Raz]

If I'm not mistaken in the comics, Polaris has Bipolar because all Magneto's children (before Recton) have something. Wanda has Depression, Mercury has Bordeline and Lorna has Bipolarity (in The Gifted they cover that a little), who has it Bipolarity usually chage into two states (euphoria and depression), they are usually impulsive people, sometimes they have delusions.. These two states can vary, time, generally the euphoric state can be worse than the depressed state, or vice versa. I recommend that you search deeper.

Has that ever actually been stated anywhere? I know it's been said that Magneto's electromagnetic powers have screwed with his brain on occasion so I could conceivably imagine the same being said for Lorna, but I don't remember it outright being said anywhere that it's definitely the case.

Wanda and Pietro are less complicated...Wanda's psychological problems stem purely from trauma, she never had any underlying mental health issues before Bendis screwed her up. Bendis presented her marriage to the Vision as proof there was something wrong with her but that's HIS lack of imagination coming through, for decades they were treated like an unconventional but normal relationship with the same ridiculous soap opera ups and downs that all comic book characters go through. She's been possessed by an Elder God, bigots burned her house down, she consistently put up with her father and brother both cycling through periods of villainy and then John Byrne systematically dismantled her entire life and left other writers with the mess to clean up...Wanda doesn't have depression, she just broke under ridiculous amounts of pressure in WCA one time, and Bendis used that to justify making her the crazy woman who can't handle power.

Pietro is a similar case, Steve Englehart for some reason had a mad-on for him and kept making him evil, but for decades before that he had been a pain in the ass but a heroic pain in the ass. It was retconned that Maximus was behind Pietro's constant heel turns and it should have been left at that, but Pietro breaking bad seems like too much fun for some writers so they keep going back to it. I feel like PAD fleshed him out the best as a flawed but ultimately well-meaning person who gets tunnel vision about his goals too much when he doesn't have a stabilising influence. Again though, the times Pietro has really gone off the rails have been due to outside influences/events, I don't know if I'd say he has innate underlying mental health issues to the point it needs categorisation.

[Stormy]

Practically Erik is a man full of problems, this is reflected in "his children", most people do not know they have a disorder, specifically bipolarity, without being consulted as such, but this disorder is usually transmitted from the family, the symptoms are different for people. Furthermore, Maligna in Lorna's life for me portrays a “double personality”, Polaris and a layered character that needs to be explored further.

[Stormy]

[QUOTE=jmc247;5627541]Wolverine and the X-Men is a sheltered teenage Lorna from whole different universe she shouldn't have anything to do with the comic version.

As smashing a mutant into the walls I am not sure what you are referring to. She has used material from walls to put a death grip on a mutant attacking the X-Men if that was what you were referring to?




Yes, it was in the arc of golgotha, at that moment I saw a character with the other eyes, more sadistic and lethal ..

RCO012_1469534503.jpg

[Stormy]

Shit, I'm sorry I don't know how to use this site right, especially on my cell phone, which makes it even more difficult ..

[jmc247]

Yes, it was in the arc of golgotha, at that moment I saw a character with the other eyes, more sadistic and lethal ..

A well written Lorna will use deadly force when she believes it to be required, but isn’t going to throw a parade about it. There is a world of difference between being a warrior and being sadistic.

As for her having bipolar no it’s not confirmed in the comics.

Has that ever actually been stated anywhere? I know it's been said that Magneto's electromagnetic powers have screwed with his brain on occasion so I could conceivably imagine the same being said for Lorna, but I don't remember it outright being said anywhere that it's definitely the case.

You mean their nervous system? They can overwork it and overload it, but that is not genetic bipolar.

[UncannyLZ]

A well written Lorna will use deadly force when she believes it to be required, but isn’t going to throw a parade about it. There is a world of difference between being a warrior and being sadistic.

As for her having bipolar no it’s not confirmed in the comics.

Exactly this! Polaris will kill but won’t throw a parade about (wouldn’t cry about it either of it was a choice she had to make). Definitely doesn’t make her “sadistic”. And like JMC said, Lorna has not been confirmed to be bipolar. I think they would’ve had her therapist, Doc Samson, say something.