Lorna Dane: Polaris Appreciation 2021

[salarta]

oh you came back!

I've been dealing with personal things (I still am), so I haven't been as active online as I used to be. But I'm still a Lorna fan and will continue to be into good things for her for as long as I can.

spoilers:

I love how the mutants of Krakoa voted for Lorna when all she said was three words. Iconic.

end of spoilers

spoilers:

I think it also introduces a golden in-roads to Genosha, since those votes had to come from somewhere.

end of spoilers

https://www.cbr.com/one-x-man-may-be...more-powerful/

I won't write a long spiel on it, but yeah, I've always felt current definitions of Omega combined with past use mean Lorna should really be considered Omega. I wouldn't mind her being a "secret" Omega - someone who fits the bill but it's not widely known. In-universe I could see a lot of characters actually being Omega but kept off the list for a number of reasons.

[Stormy]

I've been dealing with personal things (I still am), so I haven't been as active online as I used to be. But I'm still a Lorna fan and will continue to be into good things for her for as long as I can.

Like Polaris fans, you miss it, it's great to read your opinions about Polaris and I hope everything works out for you.

I won't write a long spiel on it, but yeah, I've always felt current definitions of Omega combined with past use mean Lorna should really be considered Omega. I wouldn't mind her being a "secret" Omega - someone who fits the bill but it's not widely known. In-universe I could see a lot of characters actually being Omega but kept off the list for a number of reasons.

I think it's amazing that there's still a small portion that doesn't like Polaris, as some would not like / don't see her as an omega, if this is true, there will be a lot of crying. Can I see her taking Magneto's place, or perhaps the two acting as opposite poles in magnetism in the omega classification? lolol

[juan678]

https://www.cbr.com/xmen-jean-grey-f...consent-again/

[MechaJeanix]

I really enjoyed the last X-men issue. Duggan is doing so well with Polaris. I like that she's returning to an exciting and dynamic character again. I also love that Leah and Duggan have recognized Lorna's education - though I always assumed she had been a masters student that hadn't reached her PhD yet but now we know she did (thanks to Leah who wrote about it first).

[Magnetic]

Loved that Doctor Polaris line! Still not digging Lorna character most of the time - comes off really immature - bordering trying to be hard/cool. Ready for next character spotlight.

[jmc247]

Loved that Doctor Polaris line! Still not digging Lorna character most of the time - comes off really immature - bordering trying to be hard/cool. Ready for next character spotlight.

In terms of Lorna’s character, I agree with you on the immaturity. It starting growing in issue two. It’s tolerable in small doses, but not big ones. The urban princess routine works far better when she feels like she is in her mid to late 20s at least.

There were things to like in this issue including the battle. There were things to not like such as no speech or clear motivational connection to her history. As we both know Lorna is a great public speaker and is never better when she is fired up about a cause which she has really not had in a very long time. Without the background better explained it feels like she is on X-Men because she feels she should and historical connections to Jean and the team.

[Stormy]

https://www.cbr.com/xmen-jean-grey-f...consent-again/

lol, it reminded me of the day Duggan asked them to vote for Tempo.

[Magnetic]

In terms of Lorna’s character, I agree with you on the immaturity. It starting growing in issue two. It’s tolerable in small doses, but not big ones. The urban princess routine works far better when she feels like she is in her mid to late 20s at least.

There were things to like in this issue including the battle. There were things to not like such as no speech or clear motivational connection to her history. As we both know Lorna is a great public speaker and is never better when she is fired up about a cause which she has really not had in a very long time. Without the background better explained it feels like she is on X-Men because she feels she should and historical connections to Jean and the team.

Right, agree on that and others bring up same point. She seem younger like junior member.

Positives -
I like Polaris in main X-Men team.
-build connections to other big characters
-build on old/forgotten connections
-visibility outside of X-Factor
-power feats in stacked team
-academic accomplishment/acknowledgement
-art/costume looks good/better than the usual look

[Gray Lensman]

https://www.cbr.com/xmen-jean-grey-f...consent-again/

As a Cyclops fan, I am well aware of the fact that CBR articles can all be summed up as "Character you love is trash because of this thing we are taking out of context."

When Jean crosses those lines she is basically refusing to let someone she cares about give in to guilt or self-doubt. It isn't for her own personal advantage.

[jmc247]

Right, agree on that and others bring up same point. She seem younger like junior member.

Positives -
I like Polaris in main X-Men team.
-build connections to other big characters
-build on old/forgotten connections
-visibility outside of X-Factor
-power feats in stacked team
-academic accomplishment/acknowledgement
-art/costume looks good/better than the usual look

I agree with all those things, I personally thought she should have been returned to a core book and had her relationships reupped with the X-Men 5 or 10 years ago. This is not where I think her story should be at this given moment, but beggars can’t exactly be choosers. If Lorna has 'differences' with the X-Men in the next few years she will at least have relationships to give some semblance of a meaning to any conflict.

[jmc247]

Leah Williams told Connor in a Podcast that she thinks Lorna has bipolar and wrote her having real bipolar not how it had been done before in the comics meaning the power in-balance concept. Connor said Duggan plans on continuing that concept with the character.

Leah said she wrote her as having real bipolar not power influenced mood swings as some other writers have done.

Oh and a fan asked Leah if she had multiple personality disorder because that fan does. How about giving her a motivation as a character and respecting her history instead of trying to focus on representation?

Link at time 3:32

Lorna was highly successful in season one of The Gifted because her motivation was clear and it was incidental to any mental health issues in the background of the story. It didn't define the character like it did with some runs.

[salarta]

Representation works best when it's part of a full picture, not the sole or most defining thing about a character's identity.

I'll give examples involving video games. Notable female protagonists in video games are in short supply. The industry has a long history of thinking games are mainly for men and focusing on male characters as protagonists, and at times taking their few most iconic female protagonists and turning them into supporting characters for men or reducing them to sex objects. Despite those problems, the most memorable and iconic female protagonists in video games are ones where the game and promotion don't make "she's a woman" the sole or primary defining element. Bayonetta is a female character known for a dom style sex appeal angle, but identity-wise beyond that she's known as a witch with fun Devil May Cry style combat and that makes plenty of playful jokes and puns. Samus Aran is known for being an awesome bounty hunter who explores planets (and has blown some up), gets upgrades to her armor and weaponry, and repeatedly takes down the worst Space Pirates in the galaxy. Jill Valentine's known for being a cop, getting through the Spencer Mansion, repeatedly resisting Nemesis' attempts to kill her, and ultimately escaping Raccoon City.

That's well-known iconic female characters, but let's look at the other end of the spectrum. If you go looking at some of the lower end, bargain bin games - especially the shovelware - you'll notice that a lot of their covers feature female characters. If you look even deeper into the games, you'll also notice many of those games don't actually have female characters (or sometimes even characters at all, e.g. puzzle games) in them. Why do they feature female characters on their covers, then? Because they think it can trick people into buying the game. Usually, the female character on the cover is presented as a sex object. But sometimes that's not the case. The underlying idea in both cases is one of "Look, we have a woman on our cover, clearly this game will appeal to you if you like women so you should buy it."

In reality, most people won't buy those games, because representation has to mean more than just having a specific trait. There needs to be something deeper than "look at this woman." Unfortunately, the glut of bad games that put women on their covers negatively impacts the prospect of actual good games featuring female protagonists. On the consumer end, some players might mistakenly associate "cover has a woman on it" with "this must be a bad game like all the shovelware that puts women on covers." On the company end, CEOs and directors and the like might point to all the shovelware as a poor excuse for why games "must" focus on men.

Lorna providing representation for various things is good. But it needs to be accompanied by depth and nuance to who she is, where she's been, and where she could go. If those things aren't kept into consideration, if what she serves as representation for is all she has, then it's actually a massive disservice to what she's meant to represent. Because it then sends a message that what she represents holds her back. Keeps her from having her full potential explored.

[jmc247]

An inclusive package comes with various layers, motivations, and history yes.

Alan Davis who wrote Lorna from 1999-2000 early on had some of the worst depictions of Lorna out there. But, he also wrote some of the best. His early start with Lorna as completely mentally broken speaking to her dead boyfriend's costume was hard to take. But, he wrote the best issues of her Genosha years (at least when the island existed) when she was on the island fighting for a better future.

In Austen's run there was rarely a time that he didn't have multiple plots going with her at once. One can like or dislike any one of his plot threads with her. But, he developed alot of her past threads as a character and didn't define her completely by any one of them.

Milligan's run was case and point of over defining the character by one thing and that thing was loony. One issue followed on in a good way with Austen's general model. The rest was bad and simplified the character into 'the crazy'.

Bru's run then way over defined her as a generic hero and love interest of Havok. There really wasn't anything to the character beyond that there.

DnA in War of Kings were the first post Austen writers that actually tried to combine the more political and edgy aspects of the character while having more to her then the sum of anyone thing.

Anyway. Emma Dumont and Gerry Duggan spoke to convention goers this weekend at CCE.



https://twitter.com/xreadspodcast/st...77725506863106

[Thirteen]

LOL at the fact that her second thought after regaining consciousness was "where's her coffee" not Jean...and her utter dismay that it's all gone. Forget putting down the X-Men...Lorna is going to slay them all for dumping her coffee.

Though I guess age and generation gaps have less meaning in the era of Krakoan resurrections, the characterization and the costume seem a bit...young...I guess for Lorna, who is from one of the earliest generations of X-Men.
Dead on for what they should have been trying for with Rachel Grey during her stint as Marvel Girl however. Costume and all.

[Soulsword323]

Now that its been a bit, I wanted to post on of my favorite pages from X-Men:




Loved seeing Polaris doing something like this again. A nice throwback to something Lorna has pulled off a couple of times in the past. Really excited to see what else Duggan has in store for Lorna.