Polaris: Queen of Mutants/Mistress of Magnetism Appreciation 2024

[jmc247]

If Lorna end up on X-factor - rename thread title

Polaris: Den Mother of X-Factor/Mother Hen of Dlist Mutants

I may have to ask the mods to retitle it that if it happens, but yes it would be back to being the mother hen of the D list for Lorna if she is dumped on the title again for nostalgia reasons.

[kcekada]

I'm a little more optimistic that a new X-Factor won't rely on nostalgia, except maybe for the characters. X-Factor only had limited success the first time around and then with the detective agency run by Madrox (but even then it was more of a niche success). So, I'm expecting something a little more bold than what has gone down before. And I'm hoping it's B-list, not D-list members.

[Will Evans]

I'm a little more optimistic that a new X-Factor won't rely on nostalgia, except maybe for the characters. X-Factor only had limited success the first time around and then with the detective agency run by Madrox (but even then it was more of a niche success). So, I'm expecting something a little more bold than what has gone down before. And I'm hoping it's B-list, not D-list members.

We know where Forge is.
Madrox was on Genosha.
It seems X-Factor broke up already. Otherwise Val Cooper would have had them at the United Nations building to guard instead of the X-Men.

[Hakka84]

I think now is an appropriate time for me to repost the Ghosts of Genosha minicomic I wrote, and commissioned Fin_NoMore to draw, last year.

Wonderful. I'm not knowledgeable enough on Lorna's lore, but the three pages make for an interesting and tempting preview of a good story.
And the art is amazing, if you're still in touch with the artist please relay my compliments: I love the shine and metal effect on Lorna's costume.

[Cubbyboo]

We will see. There is still a small level of hope, but not much.

My thoughts in terms of the end of the season/next season actually looks to Wanda. The showrunner there brought up Wanda a few times in a HoM interested way. No good for Lorna can come with going the House of M route without having introduced her go Genosha or fixed her parentage.

Dear lord for the sake of Lorna and Wanda - No More HoM!!! Will they stop flogging and dead and buried story that now is just acknowledged by so many to be misogynistic crap??!!

[jmc247]

Mother Hen of Dlist Mutants

The Mother Hen issue is I think a greatly under-appreciated one for Lorna.

The character doesn’t function well as the mother hen at all. The most successful ongoing runs she ever had were Austen and Duggan which had her as some composite of the Wolverine crossed with Magneto with a dark sarcastic humor.

Season one and two of The Gifted were kind of case and point of the success and failure of the character in roles. The first season she was Wolverine crossed with Magneto of the Mutant Underground and the break out character of the 2017-2018 TV season.

In the second season she was placed firmly in the team mom role and it was a disaster for the character and the show. Marvel slotted her in 1991 as the replacement Jean of X-Factor and the character does not work as the replacement Jean.

[GoingGreen]

Starting to catch a vibe that X-Factor might actually be a book for Apocalypse / Revelation. That's where he really got his start, and they've got this Heir of Apocalypse thing happening. I don't know if it would be about Apocalypse himself, and his family, or what.

But I could be cool if, as I've been dreaming about, they do something with some of the horsemen of the past, which could include Polaris, Sunfire, Wolverine, Archangel... and even his descendants and wards like Blink and Chamber, and Rictor... Not that I'm betting on a roster like this, but it could be a cool concept.

[kcekada]

That's a definite possibility. Never been a fan of Acopalypse, but it's an interesting premise.

[jmc247]

The big picture matters more than the small stuff. Here is the big picture for Lorna. Her 1960s role in her first storyline was a good one.



It gave her the chance to be a synthesis to Xavier and Magneto as a role when the two were miles apart along with being an X-Man in good standing. Had they held to that Lorna would have bounced around as sometimes X-Men and sometimes foil to them, but would be A list today.

They didn't hold to that and X-Men 97 takes up in an era when Lorna was a mother hen character of an irrelevant side team. There is no way to make X-Factor in that universe relevant all things being equal to the X-Men and their story without effectively making them foils to the X-Men. That is an issue in the comics too... even X-Force manages to be a little bit relevant as the x-team who does the things the X-Men won't do. That has meant they have sold in a way X-Factor books haven't in a very long time.

Lorna's greatest story arc was Genosha because it effectively reset the character from what she was after three decades post her first storyline of a victim who ascribes to her boyfriend's ideology whatever that is at a given time into that a survivor who by the end of Austen's run managed to fill in an ideological third way. The parentage issue was almost separate from that, but obviously it reconnected their parentage as well.

Take away that and you have a frankly uninteresting character either following daddy or boyfriend or reacting hostile to daddy or boyfriend. But, ultimately a character who you have to rely on the writer having a witty pen to make her seem interesting (and that is a disaster, because good characters like Magneto are interesting if they have a good/great writer or not as ultimately their motivation is relatable to the audience).

A writer has to work to make Magneto uninteresting whereas good writers often have to work to make Lorna seem interesting at all and yet writers considered by fans to be dodgy or bad like Austen or Duggan really didn't have to work all that hard to win writing Lorna. Why is that? They weren't trying to write her in a role that didn't fit her.

I haven't at all liked or enjoyed Lorna and Magneto's relationship for years. Duggan without actually writing them together was the first writer not to completely fail there post House of M simply by virtue of her honoring his death in a way that actually felt like Lorna not her best friend Jean. It still took over a year for her to have any response at all.

Lorna being written around other characters in the role of the mother hen is her biggest problem. X-Factor is very much connected to this, but Lorna can very well be written as replacement for Jean team mom of the X-Men and it runs into the same problem for her. We were lucky that Jean and Lorna were on the same team together under Duggan as he had to think about her role and not just slot her in as the replacement Jean as other writers have done.

[Magnetic]

Who will get to say, "To me, my X-Factor!"?

[salarta]

Who will get to say, "To me, my X-Factor!"?

Let Havok do it without Lorna there. If they think the 90s were so great, surely they'd want him there while Lorna does stuff more meaningful for her that isn't X-Factor.

[jmc247]

Who will get to say, "To me, my X-Factor!"?

LOL.

I thought the to me my X jokes were pretty good for Lorna, but slightly overused. Not toxically overused the way the coffee gag became.

I have been watching social media and X-Men 97 has reminded a lot of fans unconnected to CBR about a certain something and Lorna.

[Magnetic]

Let Havok do it without Lorna there. If they think the 90s were so great, surely they'd want him there while Lorna does stuff more meaningful for her that isn't X-Factor.

If Havok is the one - I have another fear:

"To me, my Lorna!"

[salarta]

If Havok is the one - I have another fear:

"To me, my Lorna!"

Easy solution, he says it and a blow-up doll of Lorna flies over to him with a note that says "(Not) sorry, too busy being awesome elsewhere."

[jmc247]

If Havok is the one - I have another fear:

"To me, my Lorna!"

One thing that needs to be said is that before Claremont developed the Holocaust back story for Magneto the character was weak. He was at best a poor man’s Doom. At very best.

That is true for a lot of characters who have no good motivation.