Polaris: The Mistress of Magnetism Appreciation 2022

[MythicalChicken]

I have thoughts on how a Lorna and Havok relationship could theoretically work... but I never share them. Why? Because it's become really, really obvious over the past decade that Marvel cares way more about putting Havok on a pedestal, even if it involves mistreating Lorna to get there.

Perhaps not "even," but especially. We're talking about people blinded by nostalgia. Nostalgia is often cited as some lovely pie in the sky thing, but it has a darker more insidious side people don't talk about enough as a matter of nostalgia. Nostalgia can make sexism, racism, basically any ism seem like a wonderful trip down memory lane instead of a huge mistake of the past that needs to be corrected. Very often, people seduced by their own nostalgia are so beholden to their nostalgia that they absolutely refuse to question it. Refuse to see another, much better way of doing things. Because they don't want to move toward the future, they want to relive the past. Even when they tell themselves it's for the future, it's really just wanting to see more of the old. And they end up thinking that admitting to problems in their nostalgia is saying they, personally, are a terrible person for ever having experienced that nostalgia (when the reality is they're only a terrible person if they try to keep all that bad stuff intact for their nostalgia and ego).

I've been holding out. Because Marvel keeps holding out. If they're not going to do the right thing by Lorna, then I don't want them to be successful with any attempt at Havolaris. If people at Marvel refuse to give Lorna her due respect as her own character with meaningful history, then the Havolaris ship can die as people become more aware of how horribly that nostalgia trip source has actually been for Lorna and female characters in general. It's their choice.



If Brand wasn't there OR Lorna and Brand weren't visually depicted like clones, and I had a sense that the Magneto love of earlier issues would actually work in Lorna's favor instead of undermining her, AND Lorna would still be involved in mutant issues on Earth, then I'd agree. Right now, I don't think she should be on X-Men Red because of those three elements.

I regularly use this cover from X-Men Blue as a visual for Lorna's treatment on the book because while Bunn isn't responsible for the cover (to my knowledge), the cover does manage to get at the underlying themes of how she was treated on that book.



At least within his writing, Bunn was primarily a huge Magneto fan, with Havok the next one down out of the three characters. His run on X-Men Blue had tons of potential for good stories involving Lorna. When they had the Mojo storyline, instead of a flashback to Mutant Massacre, they could've used a flashback to the Genoshan genocide - something Lorna and Magneto BOTH shared as an experience. When Mojo had Lorna wearing the old Malice costume, she could've reacted with the disgust and possibly outrage you would expect from behind put in the skin of an entity that took over your body, instead of having Lorna act like it's just some silly strange clothes she's never seen before. When the base got attacked, Bunn had Lorna act surprised about a surprise attack just so Magneto could mansplain surprise attacks to her... as if someone who experienced and survived the worst surprise attack in mutant history, the Genoshan genocide, wouldn't be very well versed in it by then.

Not to mention how Lorna could have spent time with teen Jean and teen Iceman but didn't. Instead, there was one scene of her training teen Angel and the AU Wolverine character and that was it.

Right now, X-Men Red gives me a mix of the same vibes of what Bunn did on X-Men Blue, and getting sent into space as part of the Starjammers, with a little bit of "other green-haired woman that Marvel clearly respects more than Lorna" added in. And the Starjammers part severed her ties to Genosha and mutant rights. X-Men Red would be great if the writer cares about Lorna as her own character and actually wants to write her meaningfully. But if it would just be a repeat of past mistakes then it's better for her not to be there.

I understand and respect you’re deeply devoted to Lorna - I’ve enjoyed both Havok and Lorna over the years but I wouldn’t say I Stan either - but to say Havok has been elevated ignores how much his characters been put through a meat grinder. He was placed in the “special needs” class while Lorna took a top tier Position.

[salarta]

I wouldn't want Lorna with Exodus because I know it would play out with Lorna being used as a status booster for Exodus, to give him more "legitimacy" in taking Magneto's mantle instead of Lorna doing it, in a typical "marry the princess off and unite the kingdoms, with the man taking over as king" scenario.

It's been very apparent in the Krakoa era that Marvel has a lot more respect for Exodus than for Lorna. That would not be good for Lorna. The only way I'd change my mind is if Marvel started doing a hell of a lot more to promote Lorna and emphasize her own character, history and worth (especially with regard to Genosha) before broaching the concept. Unless that happens, at best Exodus would be a repeat of the toxicity seen in past Havolaris writing. Once again reduced to supporting character for a man, this time with an even bigger Magneto's shadow slant.

I understand and respect you’re deeply devoted to Lorna - I’ve enjoyed both Havok and Lorna over the years but I wouldn’t say I Stan either - but to say Havok has been elevated ignores how much his characters been put through a meat grinder. He was placed in the “special needs” class while Lorna took a top tier Position.

I... don't know what that last sentence means. I think I might have an idea of what the "special needs class" part means, and if I'm right then I'd urge never saying it that way again, but I'm giving benefit of doubt that maybe something else is meant there.

I'm very far from a Havok fan. I don't know his history much outside of how it's negatively impacted Lorna (which has been virtually all of his impact on her). But within that scope, he has absolutely benefited greatly from Lorna getting undermined and misrepresented for his benefit. Some stories before the Claremont era had her as a damsel in distress for Havok to save, and instead of rectifying that, Claremont doubled down to make her look even worse. Many subsequent writers repeated that dynamic. When Havok appeared to be dead, writers felt the need to have Lorna talk him up by making everything she did about him. Whether it was locking herself in an apartment cause she couldn't do anything without him, or obsessing over his costume like she's spending her free time humping it, or saying she's doing things because she thought WWHD.

In the more modern era, when he's around, she's often relegated to his supporting character girlfriend and has everything about her thrown away in the process to serve that purpose. She got tortured in space, and the main thrust of that torture was to see Havok's manpain at knowing she was getting tortured. Even when they're not a couple, she's still used to add to his prestige and advance his story, as seen in X-Men Blue when her usage ended up being all about promoting him and Magneto. Marvel's so dead set on Lorna being beneath Havok as the "status quo" that in Prisoner X, they decided to include a flashback image of the two kissing but not one about the Genoshan genocide.

Decades of Lorna mistreated for Havok's benefit has skewed perception of her toward the negative among people at Marvel. When you look at interviews talking about the vote, people at Marvel say Lorna winning was a "revelation" to them. That they thought she wouldn't win. At least two people at Marvel have said this. But then you get to Havok, and they don't even put his joining the new X-Men team to a vote. They just add him. They have so much more respect for and interest in Havok that he automatically gets a spot, no questions asked. While Lorna has to compete with other characters to get half a year on the book after not being on it for two decades.

There's also how Havok got his origin story told decades ago, while Lorna only finally had hers told in 2012. And how Havok got to lead his own team in the 90s and has led teams since then (Starjammers and Uncanny Avengers, probably others I'm missing), but Lorna only finally got to lead a team for herself in 2014. Which is still the only team she's really led (very brief fill-in leadership doesn't count).

In conclusion, is Havok being treated poorly by Marvel? Only a Havok fan can really say. But as a Lorna fan, observing what I have, I can still say he's been treated a hell of a lot better than Lorna and has greatly benefited from Lorna getting mistreated for his sake in the past. Even if Marvel actually kept them apart (which they're not, they keep forcing Havok on Lorna in bits and pieces here and there), Lorna still suffers from that past treatment due to how people at Marvel insist on viewing her through that lens and ignoring everything truly relevant to her.

[PolarIceFire]

MythicalChicken [watta NAME, lol, LUV it!] is... RIGHT! AleX has been treated WAY *worse* than Lorna, over the last 10 yrs. or so.

Thank you, MC, for both your objectivity... and your sincerity = the open-minded fairness of neutrality... is TRULY underrated. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[salarta]

And now that I've learned what I needed to learn, let's get some Polaris fanart in here~



By Peter Tasev



By Jan Bautista



By valentine

[PolarIceFire]

Nice, Sal. The face & hair on the 1st pop pretty good. The 2nd's got that anime/manga energy, that's always welcome. But Valentine's unique, immediately recognizable stylishness, while always technically sound, also *always* has this... deeper, underlying emotive vibe, that I find refreshing, and quite fascinating. It's just so different, and to me... it *speaks*... if that makes sense, and it's sayin' somethin' akin to... serene intensity. Ya gotta love dichotomy.

[jmc247]

Next month is also the 20th anniversary of New X-Men 132 by Grant Morrison. Perhaps the best single-issue story not just any X-Men comic or Marvel comic, but frankly one of the best single-issue stories modern fiction has produced. The comic came out on the first anniversary of 911 and had a great deal of emotional point of connection to the 911 attack as well as to the Holocaust.



But, before the review some background on what led to the issue is important. First for Lorna's story one has to go back to the beginning with Jim Steranko.



Lorna's original classic storyline had her divided between old school Magneto and the X-Men, before retcons some coming months after the storyline undermined the theme. Her classic storyline was eventually recast and reinterpreted in Marvel comics through a Claremontian filter that she was controlled by Mesermo throughout the story which was nonsense. By the time Lorna got to the mid-1990s she wasn't working as a character so well and writers started looking to her pre-Claremont past for answers. Lorna started becoming more radical into mutant issues in the mid to late 1990s X-Factor which provided the early foundation for such a story arc.

Lorna's Genosha storyline was very much a replay of her classic storyline all the way down to an Iceman/Lorna/Magneto struggle. It was a collaborative story written in part by a bunch of writers in parts including Roy Thomas, Claremont, and others. Different writers had different takes on why she was there with a few preferring the idea of her as manipulated and focused on finding Havok. But, most including Alan Davis very much treating her as devoted to Genosha and making the dream of a mutant homeland work.



Fast forward to the Morrison era. Morrison made the decision to wipe out Genosha in the E is for Extinction storyline, but Lorna who was last seen on Genosha was nowhere to be found. In the meantime, 911 happened and the idea formed for a return to Genosha coda story. Marvel had back then recently released a trade with Jim Steranko's X-Men stuff including Lorna's classic storyline which Morrison really liked and took into account when writing his story.

[jmc247]

New X-Men 132 brought in many characters connected to Magneto from the 1960s Brotherhood including Toad, Quicksilver, and others. Even with all the death the issue takes time to recollect the Xavier-Magneto feud.



The issue also brought in many of the more iconic X-Men such as Storm and Jean.



Sabra a representative of Israel to critique Magneto and she provide a connection to a previous genocide for readers.



Magnetic ghosts spread across the landscape of Genosha and the story becomes a journey of discovery for what are those ghosts as well as a mission to find Lorna.

[jmc247]

The X-Men discover the magnetic ghosts are in fact the memories of the Genoshan population playing on for the end of time. Lorna has been stuck on Genosha for many weeks or months with those memories playing in an endless loop in her head.



Jean fears her nervous system is being burned out by all the energy she is channeling. They stage an exorcism of sorts and free Lorna from the recordings.

Once they are released, we hear the voice of Magneto who argues this is not the end, but just the beginning of their journey. The scenes throughout the issue are haunting and majestic and the influence on Lorna's character and her story was profound. Austen had plans to write Lorna in his words as she was in 90s X-Factor, marry her to Havok, and dump her into limbo. New X-Men 132 came out before any of his plans were finalized so he went back and re-wrote them in his words to try to take into account how these events my impact her.



Ultimately, New X-Men 132 led to Austen writing Uncanny X-Men #443 which stands as Lorna's finest issue with her debating Xavier in the ruins of Genosha. I can't call New X-Men 132 Lorna's greatest issue as she was only fully conscious of what was going on towards the end, but the issue was certainly one of her two most powerful. In normal instances flying around almost completely unhinged and naked would be a horribly embarrassing spectacle for any character. But, the events were so extreme that one didn't feel embarrassed for the character. It felt as though it came to represent her being stripped of everything she had known and reborn.

The story convinced future writers to go with and further develop the parentage angle that the issue resurrected. Most of all the story gave Lorna a direction and sense of purpose for a number of years that she was a character who believed in mutants and would ultimately do what she felt was needed to protect them damn the consequences.

Never was Lorna closer to the potential that her classic story provided of a character torn between the legacy of Magneto and that of the X-Men then that era. The Gifted was heavily influenced by this era in the comics according to Matt Nix.

[AZPolaris]

One of my first SDCC trips was right before this issue. Phil Jimenez was a guest and had a black and white preview copy. No text and Lorna was much more naked but I instantly knew it was her. Phil confirmed my suspicions and the next day I got to sit with him as he drew my first Polaris con sketch. Completely free! This was Lorna's transition into to new era of X-Men and lead to cementing her connection to Magneto.

[PolarIceFire]

That was a very thoughtful and insightful write-up, JMC, detailing what was without a doubt Polaris' most significant and impactful storyline... ever! Here's hoping that once again, it will be at the forefront of shaping Lorna's character moving forward. With Dauterman's new design for her clearly recognizing that, by predominantly paying tribute to that specific period of her history, i.e. Genosha... I think there's a really a good chance we may all finally get to see that come to pass.

In fact, an opportunity has just presented itself via AIPT, wherein we could maybe get some clues-cum-confirmation:
X-Men Monday Call for Questions: X Me Anything With Jordan D. White

... for all those times you’ve got burning questions about all things X that don’t always fit neatly into the week’s X-Men Monday theme. Answering these questions? None other than X-Men Senior Editor Jordan D. White!...

Deadline: Thursday, August 4, 2022 at Noon EST...

Also, here's something I came across recently, that I found interesting: Polaris Biography, @uncannyXmen.net
Of note, it only goes as far as ANXF...

Although Polaris has gone through many many transitions and tragedies over the years, one thing has remained consistent throughout all her states: you don't want to get on the wrong side of her.

[jmc247]

Thoughts on the legacy of Lorna's Genosha arc.

It was Lorna's greatest storyline without a doubt. It was the only thing approaching the iconic storylines handed to her contemporaries like Jean with her Phoenix Saga or her family like Magneto. It was combined with Uncanny X-Men 443 and made into an animated series episode The Badlands.



Austen after he took over writing Lorna from Morrison said he felt bad he didn't come up with such an amazing storyline from Morrison, but he adapted it within his story and used it as a background issue for Lorna's character. Being dumped on her wedding was entirely Austen's idea, but he used the genocide to explain why she tried to force a wedding that wasn't ready to happen.



Other runs in the more modern era (we all know who they are) have attempted to write over Genosha instead of writing alongside it. Their view which ultimately failed and has hurt the character and made her story a mess was any particular trauma doesn't matter what matters is the idea that she gets a trauma and then is a bad ass kick ass and take names x-woman. No. That is not ultimately what matters. What matters is the character has at least a semi consistent theme for what motivates her and what influences her thinking on mutant issues so that writers as well as fans can understand her.



We have not had such a character since 2005 and frankly most of the blame for that rests on runs wanting their own pathos that doesn't exist alongside Genosha, but instead replaces it entirely. Austen wanted his own trauma for Lorna and gave her it, but he certainly did not use it as a replacement for what Morrison did.

My thoughts are that Lorna has great potential as a character though to date has not lived up to it in large part because of the major inconsistency that has come from wanting to completely recast her core motivation and worldview each new run rather than work within the confines of what existed before and build on it while doing ones own thing. With Lorna there has been no agreement on her history, views or core themes leading to a free for all and a very inconsistent character.

One can dislike Emma's character, but when she appears you know where she stands and what motivates her. Same for Jean. Same for Magneto. You don't know that with Lorna and its been the largest failure of the modern era with the character.

One of my first SDCC trips was right before this issue. Phil Jimenez was a guest and had a black and white preview copy. No text and Lorna was much more naked but I instantly knew it was her. Phil confirmed my suspicions and the next day I got to sit with him as he drew my first Polaris con sketch. Completely free! This was Lorna's transition into to new era of X-Men and lead to cementing her connection to Magneto.

Jimenez did a variant in the past few years of his run. The Lorna in the original verson wasn't wearing green though it did get recolored.

[juan678]

https://twitter.com/petervnguyen/sta...99859444801536

[PolarIceFire]

The responses to this were...

https://twitter.com/stealthisplanet/...43637210128391

Steal This Planet
@stealthisplanet

Struggling to caption this scene there’s just too much going on.

both interesting...

https://twitter.com/starwolf_oakley/...05610459680768

Starwolf Oakley
@starwolf_oakley

Replying to @stealthisplanet

I never knew Lorna and Bobby were a thing until it was mentioned in a reprint of GIANT SIZED X-MEN #1 I read. It was also briefly mentioned in “The Muir Isle Saga” X-FACTOR #69

and OUTRAGEOUSLY 🤣

https://twitter.com/WarriorBread_/st...79457216495622

TeenBimboWarGoreShocker
@WarriorBread_

lorna is serving so much cunt here (as she often does)

[Mercury]

Looks like Mark Eastwood may be starting his run-through of Lorna's uniforms...

https://www.instagram.com/mrkstwd/

[Gray Lensman]

Looks like Mark Eastwood may be starting his run-through of Lorna's uniforms...

https://www.instagram.com/mrkstwd/

That purple and black costume still makes me think her powers should be turning into mist, a hypnotic gaze, and an aversion to sunlight. I showed the picture to my wife and she asked who the vampire was - she has seen comic book movies and animation, but has only read a few non-superhero books. Leage of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Saga, and Lore Olympus, mostly.