Polaris/Lorna Dane: Queen of Mutants/Mistress of Magnetism Appreciation 2023

[LoganAlpha30X33]

I know what you mean. I hated, hated, hated Austen's run. And Lorna was so out of character. At the time, it certainly didn't feel as if he was playing off of what happened in Genosha. Alex wasn't written very well either. And that nurse... ugh!

Well Austen did write Alex as a stand in for himself in some ways during his run and Annie 4 his wife hen c e forcing them together via her creepy kid. Most of Austin's run I try to forget ever happened, now most here chide me 4 wanting Lorna and Alex back together in the future while endlessly viewing Lorna as nothing more than being Magnetos daughter and that her views on everything has to be entirely consumed with mutant rights and nothing else or she's written terribly 2 them. Alex has his faults sure but now we're seeing that he and their relationship was never the reason that she wasn't written well. The writers and editors were then and are now and their favoritism towards the likes of Jean and storm and such. Lorna fans here obviously value the genosha storyline more than marvel does but not sure if some would be happy regardless of what marvel does with her history w genosha.

[kcekada]

Perhaps had Austen been a better writer, his depiction of Polaris would have made more sense at the time.

Regarding Lorna's origin -- all four of the issues dealing with her introduction were written by Arnold Drake. It's clear to me that he never intended for her to be Magneto's daughter. Lorna and the real Mags never even appeared on a page together until well past the Dark Phoenix Saga (though I think Drake did intend for Magneto in his story to be the read deal -- Roy Thomas retconned it later). I think that is what some people at Marvel still have trouble with her parentage. At this point, though, it has been over 10 years since that story was written -- so they either need to accept it or change (don't see the latter happening).

Personally, I don't find it very interesting -- because it was already done better with Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver. I actually think her origin did have some holes in it that could have been explored and turned out to be more interesting had they not made her Mags' daughter. But again -- ship has sailed. Give the way she's been written in the past several years -- it would be odd at this point for someone to pick up on the Genosha storyline and try to fit her back into Austen's version (or even close to it). I do think a story exploring her time is a good idea - and maybe a way to move forward with the character -- since she's mostly a background character these days.

Also, I think she is a bit cursed with her power set -- in that she's basically the distaff version of her father. That said, I was introduced to Lorna first (X-Men 100 -kinda) and Magneto in X-Men 104 -- so I've always found it interesting that she had the same powers as the X-Men's arch-enemy.

I'm also a bit of a romantic -- and liked the relationship between Alex and Lorna -- up until the horrible Malice crap went down.

[salarta]

I doubt we'll ever really know what happened behind the scenes in the earliest days, considering the key players are dead or not involved anymore, and treatment of Lorna tanked so hard in the "golden age" that they wouldn't have felt a need to speak up.

What I will say is that it makes zero sense whatsoever to build up Lorna's foundation, then immediately tear it to shreds and have nothing to replace it.

And that's exactly what happened when Lorna being Magneto's daughter was retconned away.

Pointing out it's the same writer only goes so far. What we're left with here is the writer undoing their own work out of nowhere at the last second, a few months later, which is enough time for outside forces to affect the final product back then. Cause unlike today, they weren't trying to plan out big events years in advance. They were just putting out monthly issues that sometimes spanned more than one month.


That aside, the most recent anti-Austen posts appear to me like they can be summed up as "I'm a fan of Lorna as Havok's girlfriend, so I hated how Austen did things with their relationship, which by extension means I hate everything else he did with Lorna."

As for Ewing. I know some people have said they think Ewing would do great with her, based on work he's done with Magneto and Storm. I'd agree with those views if I thought he cared at all about Lorna in a good way. I've learned over time that just because a writer is good for one character doesn't mean they're good for all characters. I've so far seen nothing to suggest he would do right by Lorna, only signs that he most likely wouldn't.

[Krakoa]

I think Ewing would write a great Polaris

[LoganAlpha30X33]

I think that Austen wrote them both horribly during that time and didn't like the whole wedding proposal at all as I didn't think that either character was in their right mind at the time. I knew that it wouldn't enf well and it didn't. Honestly I hated most of Austin's run he was writing Alex and Lorna or other characters. So it's not just about Alex and Lornas relationship. Perhaps all mutants outside of a few being based out of the same place has hurt Lornas chances.

[Gray Lensman]

I doubt we'll ever really know what happened behind the scenes in the earliest days, considering the key players are dead or not involved anymore, and treatment of Lorna tanked so hard in the "golden age" that they wouldn't have felt a need to speak up.

What I will say is that it makes zero sense whatsoever to build up Lorna's foundation, then immediately tear it to shreds and have nothing to replace it.

And that's exactly what happened when Lorna being Magneto's daughter was retconned away.

Pointing out it's the same writer only goes so far. What we're left with here is the writer undoing their own work out of nowhere at the last second, a few months later, which is enough time for outside forces to affect the final product back then. Cause unlike today, they weren't trying to plan out big events years in advance. They were just putting out monthly issues that sometimes spanned more than one month.


That aside, the most recent anti-Austen posts appear to me like they can be summed up as "I'm a fan of Lorna as Havok's girlfriend, so I hated how Austen did things with their relationship, which by extension means I hate everything else he did with Lorna."

As for Ewing. I know some people have said they think Ewing would do great with her, based on work he's done with Magneto and Storm. I'd agree with those views if I thought he cared at all about Lorna in a good way. I've learned over time that just because a writer is good for one character doesn't mean they're good for all characters. I've so far seen nothing to suggest he would do right by Lorna, only signs that he most likely wouldn't.

Lorna being Magneto's daughter was retconned away as part of her introductory storyline. She had the same (although I prefer it when they have each have a different focus on how the use it) as Magneto but wasn't defined by any relationship to him for a 20-30 years.

Austen did good and bad things for her - her going "Crazy Dumped Woman" was a particular low in my eyes, although not as bad as someone else being in the mental driver's seat for the majority of her panel time under Claremont (How many appearances did she even get post Eric the Red but before Malice?). Although to me Austen's biggest sin is the one thing that has stuck around - Nightcrawler, Son of Satan (er, Azazel). The guy was just supposed to be someone who looked like what popular imagination had for a demon, not someone who had an actual demon in his family tree. I still can't discuss that plotline (and the related one of Warren being an actual angel) without risking blindness from my eyes rolling back in my head.

Lorna has, sadly, been TOO defined by who she is in relation to others. Magneto's daughter/pawn, then Iceman's, then Havok's girlfriend, then....well, mostly that, really. Her year on X-Men, without Alex, without her father, was over far too soon.

[jmc247]

Austen gave her the one thing that could break her out of perpetual C/D list status and put her on par with her contemporaries who long ago left her in the dust due to her being treated like garbage during the Golden Age of the X-Men.

That big thing was her drive to protect mutants after the Genoshan genocide not will she or won't she marry Havok and also not who she is related to.

Season one of The Gifted had Lorna the breakout star of a TV season by having that at the forefront of the character. They screwed the pooch in season two by making her overly focused on her personal relationships and let that eat the character whole as the comics often do.

The audience has long wanted to see Polaris defend mutants her own way. The great failure of Lorna's character post Austen had everything to do with a lack of interest in mutants and their protection. What does Lorna believe in bigger than her own little life (and coffee cup)? With Sentinels hunting down mutants globally this Summer that question has rarely been more relevant.

Comic fans as we saw yesterday are still reading and are interested in her debate with Xavier in UXM #443 because she actually articulates a viewpoint that made her different than several dozen other x-women and it made her distinct. She was given the force of her convictions that the character often tends to sorely lack.

Should mutant activism based on her own life experiences and legacy issues be the core of the character, or should it be a focus on how dad treats her or what she feels about the blond-haired Summers brother?

You know my vote.

[kcekada]

I doubt we'll ever really know what happened behind the scenes in the earliest days, considering the key players are dead or not involved anymore, and treatment of Lorna tanked so hard in the "golden age" that they wouldn't have felt a need to speak up.

What I will say is that it makes zero sense whatsoever to build up Lorna's foundation, then immediately tear it to shreds and have nothing to replace it.

And that's exactly what happened when Lorna being Magneto's daughter was retconned away.

Pointing out it's the same writer only goes so far. What we're left with here is the writer undoing their own work out of nowhere at the last second, a few months later, which is enough time for outside forces to affect the final product back then. Cause unlike today, they weren't trying to plan out big events years in advance. They were just putting out monthly issues that sometimes spanned more than one month.


That aside, the most recent anti-Austen posts appear to me like they can be summed up as "I'm a fan of Lorna as Havok's girlfriend, so I hated how Austen did things with their relationship, which by extension means I hate everything else he did with Lorna."

Regarding her parentage, it's true we don't know the whole story. I supposed it's possible, though unlikely, that Drake changed his mind. But I wouldn't call it a retcon -- because it's clear to me that he had always intended that Lorna was not actually Magneto's daughter. It's weird that someone would hang their hat on that story when it was made clear she wasn't his daughter. The retcon was that she is now his daughter.

As for Austen, I didn't like how Polaris was acting like like a psychotic b-word . Didn't find it very empowering. I didn't actively read all of those issues -- but they seemed very soapy and overwrought. How Austen got the job as writer of X-Men or Avengers back then is beyond me.

[jmc247]

As for Austen, I didn't like how Polaris was acting like like a psychotic b-word . Didn't find it very empowering. I didn't actively read all of those issues -- but they seemed very soapy and overwrought. How Austen got the job as writer of X-Men or Avengers back then is beyond me.

Lorna before her psychic therapy with Xavier was not supposed to be the hero of the story. Much the opposite. However, after the therapy that was her reform and anti hero phase where she was supposed to be empowering in an atypical sense of recovering from horror and working to overcome it and rebuild relationships including with nurse Annie and Havok. This storyline was homaged in Wolverine and the X-Men the animated series. Lorna survives Magneto's death and Genosha. Is an enemy of Xavier and the X-Men. Fights them. Then deals with her trauma and helps the X-Men defeat Master Mold.

It's not an empowering story in the traditional sense of the heroine always being on the side of just and virtue, but it works for Lorna to separate her from the tons of other female x-characters who did have great old time women's empowerment stories decades ago and took off.

Old time Wanda fans on CBR want her to be a pure and divine heroine and viewed as always such while I understand that they aren't going to accept the reality that Wanda didn't take off as a A list global star which they long wanted as a generic heroine. She was stuck as a B list Avenger who newer creators didn't care about by 2004.

Instead, she took off as a super star as a flawed character who harmed others while having a good heart and then going through a reform period to make up for it in the comics and soon to be MCU. Wanda today gets to be a heroine in good standing with her own ongoing and Avengers run right now due to her current phase in the MCU loosely based on her anti villain phase in the comics making her popular.

Wanting your character to work like Jean, Kitty, etc. is understandable, but that ship sailed for Lorna. One can debate until one is blue in the face if only Claremont cared about her it would be different, and she could be in Kitty Pryde's position right now or Storm's or insert character. All of that is true, but the character is where she is now.

If Lorna is going to one day get her own ongoing series where she gets to be a full-time virtuous hero or anti-hero she has to go through a very different phase to get there then the legion of X-Men handed it because writers in the classic era cared about her. Lorna could be a very successful character following the Eurydice example in Greco-Roman mythology of one season as the dark queen (in this case of mutants not hell) and another as the reform heroine standing in sunshine. Though they have to go through the transition much smarter than The Gifted did.

[salarta]

Fans of other characters, or of X-Men or Marvel as a whole, often seem to think that Lorna fans should just be satisfied (if not uncontrollably ecstatic) to see Lorna used in any capacity at all, especially in more than one comic at a time. This is especially true for the hardcore, uncritical fans.

I think it may be valuable to give some perspective on why that is not sufficient for many Lorna fans, or at least for me.

Lorna fans and people who aren't Lorna fans have different experiences of the comics and character treatment. The usual roadmap for a character is "If they get a lot of use, they'll eventually be treated well even if not right away." The thinking is that problems and poor treatment are temporary, all that exposure will eventually lead to better treatment in the future, it's no big deal if something isn't recognized now because it will be later.

That's not how these things have gone with Lorna's history. The retcon on her parentage led directly to making "she's Havok's girlfriend" her core identity, which in turn led to reducing her personality to whatever would best serve him. Then, the next few decades involved more and more of her character getting stripped away.

These are aspects of Lorna that have been lost as a result of this treatment, and still have not been restored or acknowledged in any truly meaningful way.

• Second woman to join the X-Men.
• Close friend to Jean Grey and Iceman.
• Launched Krakoa into space in Giant-Size X-Men.
• Considered opposite pole to Magneto, perceived as potentially rivaling or surpassing him one day.
• Survivor of the Genoshan genocide.
• Perception of her as mutant royalty.
• Strong interest in mutant rights and protecting mutants (especially after the Genoshan genocide).

The only thing that's been restored for her is being Magneto's daughter. And even that's at risk again. What else would you call it when there's no acknowledgment for her that her father died, while Storm is getting to heavily address it? And it's not like the concern for that is unfounded. Brevoort spent the early to mid 2010s trying to deny Lorna as Magneto's daughter in everything he had editorial control over.

What we've learned from Lorna's 54 years of history is that exposure alone is not enough. If all you ask for is exposure, then eventually, what you get is things like Lorna crying behind a rock for Havok to save her from Sabretooth. Or Lorna being surprised by a surprise attack just so her father can mansplain what surprise attacks are, as if she doesn't have first-hand experience with the worst surprise attack in mutant history. Or Lorna being called stupid while another character mind controls her because the script was written to make her act stupid. What you get is any gains she manages to make ending up wiped out by future editors and writers so they can do some other completely random thing with her.

Demanding more than "Oh wow she's on several books at once" isn't petty. It's essential for the character's development and survival. She doesn't need showing up in a billion places at once. She needs her core identity and history acknowledged, respected and used. Without that, her appearances mean nothing.

Lorna is in a fundamentally different situation from the typical undervalued character. It's not ungrateful to want what the character actually needs instead of flash in the pan stuff that doesn't address what needs addressing.

[jmc247]

Emma Dumont to join already announced MCU and TAS actors for mutant characters at MutantCon in May.



Also, Gerry Duggan panel on Fall of X tomorrow.

On the issue of Lorna her story is in crisis yes. She is cameo queen right now. Not as much as she was cameo queen in 1993, but she is appearing many places. But, do we know who she is right now? I don't.

[jwatson]

Emma Dumont to join already announced MCU and TAS actors for mutant characters at MutantCon in May.



Also, Gerry Duggan panel on Fall of X tomorrow.

On the issue of Lorna her story is in crisis yes. She is cameo queen right now. Not as much as she was cameo queen in 1993, but she is appearing many places. But, do we know who she is right now? I don't.

The one fox actress i want in the mcu. lol. though i'd take the blink and thunderbird actors too. lol

[jmc247]

The one fox actress i want in the mcu. lol. though i'd take the blink and thunderbird actors too. lol

Yes, its highly rare to have an actress that is an actual fan of a comic character like Emma Dumont who promotes her comic character various ways on her own time.

Anyway, I finally finished the second half of the recient Chuck Austen interview.

1. He had planned another storyline where Nurse Annie gets overs her anti-mutant bigotry and joins up with Lorna who bonds with her and helps her through the next phase of her life.

2. He said that he originally wanted Nurse Annie's kid to have been from Magneto from a one-night stand in her time as a nurse. But, was shut down by editorial at the very start of his run so reimagined his father as a generic abusive mutant husband to Annie.

Final thoughts on the interview. Its a very good one that is worth listening to at Cerebro podcast for those who have the time. The thing that worked with Lorna ultimately was her taking a position very different then some of the core X-Men, because for a huge chunk of the X-Men's golden years Lorna was a non-character. Making her Magneto's daughter doesn't buy her anything that hasn't been told already. But, the middle ground philosophy put her in a different category from the X-Men who were allowed to make it when the x-books were hot.

Kitty for instance was just announced for the next team of X-Men. Kitty functions great as an x-woman of Jewish heritage who was burned many times including by losing her father on Genosha, but ultimately is a Xavierite who believes humans and mutants can and should work together peacefully. Then what does Lorna function best as? Should she be Kitty lite? Or perhaps Jean lite as she was often depicted decades ago?

What was ultimately lacking in PAD's second run and Bunn's 616 run too with Lorna was any sense of politics or interest in mutants different than that of a blog standard x-woman. In normal times the character should be in a middle ground position which frankly the comic version hasn't been allowed to be in for over a decade. She shouldn't be 'the crazy' either.

[ARkadelphia]

Yes. We need Ewing to take on Polaris in an extended run. Eve Ewing, that is.

[jmc247]

Yes. We need Ewing to take on Polaris in an extended run. Eve Ewing, that is.

It could certainly work if he wanted to do it.

The path of least resistance for editorial would be to have Lorna do something crazy in Fall of X and then dump her on Dark X-Men to play the role of love interest yet again. I am not averse to an honorable antagonist arc with Lorna, but something akin to her Acolyte/mutant queen storyline on Genosha only a story she fully owns in a way she didn't that story. If they go that route, they should actually commit to it for a while.

Duggan in his first 6 months writing Lorna was on a good trajectory outside of not explaining her motivations [outside of coffee and shopping] then she disappeared. It was a clear step above what all her major previous writers the past decade had done with her which amounted to recycled 80s/90s nostalgia. But, Duggan's Lorna needed a fair bit more development to reach the promise land as the best and most well rounded depiction of the character. The coffee cup idea which was Pepe's was good, but started to be overused about a year ago for lack of any other forward character progression.

Magneto's death in an event that looked to many readers and reviewers similar to a certain other past mutant genocide compounded all the pre-existing problems many fold. Suddenly there was an event that for Lorna was far too big to ignore, but was being ignored. That very understandably brought up very bad feelings of how Marvel once Lorna returned from space avoided dealing with her pathos from Genosha and then tried to write over it instead of writing alongside it.