The Mistress of Magnetism: LORNA DANE POLARIS Appreciation

[FuzzyBlueElf]

I think of Polaris as a Daddy's Girl.

[jmc247]

These panels are amazing! Magneto Family Ongoing nao please Marvel.

@Salarta I agree I understand that Marvel is just repeating things so that it will sell it's kind of a a REALLY bad mindset given what happened in the 90s there's nothing really to lose from them making use of the Magneto family quite a lot to gain actually.

And OMG Princess Polaris best title ever!

Marvel seemed to be headed in that direction for a few years time after House of M. Then it all stopped about five years back when the focus started getting on Marvel's own film franchise. Hence scenes like X-Men No More Mutants where Lorna is AWOL. But, the potential still exists so fans will continue to keep the dream alive.

[FuzzyBlueElf]

Marvel seemed to be headed in that direction for a few years time after House of M. Then it all stopped about five years back when the focus started getting on Marvel's own film franchise. Hence scenes like X-Men No More Mutants where Lorna is AWOL. But, the potential still exists so fans will continue to keep the dream alive.

Oh yeah Lorna's absence in No More Humans made no sense at all so Quicksilver was in his X-Factor outfit yet they think Hm should we get Lorna? Nahhh. (It's like they know how to annoy us) I do hope at some point the Magnus family will get focus once more and hopefully when they do it isn't because one of them went insane.

Also I don't know if any of you collect Marvel Universe figures but a Polaris Figure is something I really wanted particularly in this outfit.

[juan678]

jean. lorna. wanda.

Kris Anka

[salarta]

jean. lorna. wanda.

Kris Anka

Cool work to see, I honestly didn't expect Anka would draw any Lorna outside of what he draws for issues of ANXF. I got the impression that out of the characters from ANXF, his entire focus was Gambit.

The glasses are a nice touch that evoke the time period Lorna was created (well, probably a time earlier than when she was created, but still). The Jean makes me think of a flapper from the 20s. It's also nice to see Wanda in this, and I partly wonder if that's because she's Lorna's sister, or if I'm giving that association too much credit here and Wanda's included because she's an important character created from the X-Men franchise in her own right. It's no big deal what reason if any Anka had for which characters he drew, just some idle thoughts.

[jmc247]

Cool work to see, I honestly didn't expect Anka would draw any Lorna outside of what he draws for issues of ANXF. I got the impression that out of the characters from ANXF, his entire focus was Gambit.

The glasses are a nice touch that evoke the time period Lorna was created (well, probably a time earlier than when she was created, but still). The Jean makes me think of a flapper from the 20s. It's also nice to see Wanda in this, and I partly wonder if that's because she's Lorna's sister, or if I'm giving that association too much credit here and Wanda's included because she's an important character created from the X-Men franchise in her own right. It's no big deal what reason if any Anka had for which characters he drew, just some idle thoughts.

Or the artist just likes the character and her family connection.

Anyway a bigger, but still incomplete version.

http://community.comicbookresources....by-anka-part-2

[M2.]

Oh yeah Lorna's absence in No More Humans made no sense at all so Quicksilver was in his X-Factor outfit yet they think Hm should we get Lorna? Nahhh. (It's like they know how to annoy us) I do hope at some point the Magnus family will get focus once more and hopefully when they do it isn't because one of them went insane.

An event involving X-Men minus Lorna? Yeah, sounds about right she wasn't included. Like the anniversary covers debacle. And just about every major X-Men event prior. Just appease me with some wallpaper action at least. Whoever made those decisions really knows how to burn Polaris fans. lol and the visual of Quicksilver present and in his X-Factor uniform just makes it worse! I can't wait until the clout of team leadership forces cameo appearances of Polaris everywhere, especially in something like No More Humans.

[jmc247]

An event involving X-Men minus Lorna? Yeah, sounds about right she wasn't included. Like the anniversary covers debacle. And just about every major X-Men event prior. Just appease me with some wallpaper action at least. Whoever made those decisions really knows how to burn Polaris fans. lol and the visual of Quicksilver present and in his X-Factor uniform just makes it worse! I can't wait until the clout of team leadership forces cameo appearances of Polaris everywhere, especially in something like No More Humans.

It says a lot that Gambit was there, Pietro was there in X-Factor uniform and Wanda was there for a family shot with Pietro and Magneto.

Ten years ago she would have been there with Wanda and Pietro at least at least as wallpaper. In some ways Lorna has developed since HoM, but her status has cratered and fans don't take her seriously as team leader of ANXF. Future issues may start to change that, but right now at least in terms of her status at Marvel.

Magneto Not A Hero and No More Humans shows how far she has declined since I got back into fandom in 2005.

[M2.]

It says a lot that Gambit was there, Pietro was there in X-Factor uniform and Wanda was there for a family shot with Pietro and Magneto.

Ten years ago she would have been there with Wanda and Pietro at least at least as wallpaper. In some ways Lorna has developed since HoM, but her status has cratered and fans don't take her seriously as team leader of ANXF. Future issues may start to change that, but right now at least in terms of her status at Marvel.

Magneto Not A Hero and No More Humans shows how far she has declined since I got back into fandom in 2005.

I had not even thought about any other members of the ANXF cast. I guess "the big three" of ANXF is really "the big two" outside of that ANXF alternate reality as other writers might see it, unfortunately. Her stock as a legitimate X-Men character has fallen considerably. Maybe things will start to change now that she's in a more visible role and being featured regularly. There's a lot to look forward to with PAD's plans going forward.

[salarta]

It says a lot that Gambit was there, Pietro was there in X-Factor uniform and Wanda was there for a family shot with Pietro and Magneto.

Ten years ago she would have been there with Wanda and Pietro at least at least as wallpaper. In some ways Lorna has developed since HoM, but her status has cratered and fans don't take her seriously as team leader of ANXF. Future issues may start to change that, but right now at least in terms of her status at Marvel.

Magneto Not A Hero and No More Humans shows how far she has declined since I got back into fandom in 2005.

It also essentially says that Marvel, or the people involved in No More Humans, considers Lorna to be of much, much lower value than her teammates despite being leader of the team, rather than holding equal value. Somehow, the face of the new X-Factor is nowhere to be seen in any capacity, yet Pietro can show up wearing the Serval uniform. To quote Magneto, "This is UNSEEMLY. And there is WORK to be done."

As I've said before, I don't put any of that on Carey because last time Carey wrote her, he did three things at once for Lorna that we were really wanted to see happen for her. It's undoubtedly an editor or executive that doesn't like Lorna making these calls. I'd say it could be Peter David restricting who can use Lorna just like we learned Brian Wood wanted to use her for X-Men only to find Lorna wasn't available for him, but the concept behind No More Humans is alternate universe, meaning it has no bearing at all on what Peter David plans to do on ANXF.

The only potential reason I can imagine for why Peter David, rather than a certain editor or executive at Marvel, might have kept Lorna from getting use in No More Humans would be the criticism previously leveled at ANXF for how we were getting to see Lorna act like a leader in All-New X-Force when she wasn't getting any such scenes on ANXF. I can imagine some kind of fear that if Lorna gets to interact with Magneto on a different book, even if it's an alternate universe, that might result in criticism of ANXF for Magneto and Lorna not interacting there. If that was the case, I would have to say that's an understandable but mistaken thought. Lorna acting like a leader on All-New X-Force before she did on ANXF was fair criticism because we expect her to act like a leader on a book where she's been billed as one. ANXF said we'd see leader Lorna, an entirely different book was delivering on that promise, it's only natural to criticize ANXF for that. Without that criticism, as far as we as readers know, Lorna wouldn't have ever looked as amazing as she does in ANXF #7 and what we've seen so far of ANXF #8. The ultimate goal of such criticism is to push the object of criticism toward the best it can be. By contrast, ANXF never promised Lorna and Magneto would interact, which means we don't expect it to happen on ANXF. In turn, Lorna interacting with Magneto on other books would reflect well on Peter David and ANXF, because it shows willingness to work with others, and it provides more exposure for ANXF at a time when its sales are slipping.

I had not even thought about any other members of the ANXF cast. I guess "the big three" of ANXF is really "the big two" outside of that ANXF alternate reality as other writers might see it, unfortunately. Her stock as a legitimate X-Men character has fallen considerably. Maybe things will start to change now that she's in a more visible role and being featured regularly. There's a lot to look forward to with PAD's plans going forward.

A lot of the activity with Marvel and with ANXF itself is changing my perception of matters. When Lorna got announced for ANXF and we learned all the details of the book, I thought that would be a sign that Marvel was ready to make major advancements on multiple fronts: treatment of female characters (unlike characters like Captain Marvel and She-Hulk, treating Lorna better isn't "required" for the business-minded purpose of looking female-friendly), willingness to set aside nostalgia in favor of really using what the WHOLE Marvel universe has to offer, a little originality by launching a fresh new ongoing comic idea (corporate-owned mutant superhero team, trying out the major themes of the modern tech era instead of rehashing old ideas) and new team makeups (mix well-known characters with ones hardly anyone knows) that typically never happen with Marvel. Since ANXF #7 treated Lorna great (as compared to the poor treatment in ANXF #4 and #6) and the preview for ANXF #8 looks like it's heading in the right direction, I'm not prepared to give up on ANXF or Marvel just yet, but I will say I'm starting to think Marvel really isn't prepared to make real, positive change, and their true objective is providing just enough superficial appeasement to avoid bad press.

And that's a little depressing to me, too. Marvel can be a great force of positive change if it wants to be, but it seems like they're struggling with whether or not they want to be, and this coming from a company that used to be highly praised for things like how the X-Men comics were inspired by the civil rights movement at a time when that was one of the country's biggest social and cultural topics.

[jmc247]

I have been playing X-Men Battle of the Atom online card game and finally managed to get Polaris.

[jmc247]

As part of the game teams are fighting the future Brotherhood at the moment. It has some original art of Lorna unlike the previous pics.

[salarta]

As part of the game teams are fighting the future Brotherhood at the moment. It has some original art of Lorna unlike the previous pics.

Holy crap, this stuff is AMAZING. If we had a chance to see this Lorna involved in Battle of the Atom the event, I would've bought and read it. The pictures I'm quoting above alone are an excellent demonstration of what could have been when approaching an alternate universe scenario for Lorna. And, notably, she looks cool, smart and tough, and I'm quickly realizing we only get to see that Lorna when she's actively tied to and involved with Magneto. It's otherwise extremely rare, if not nearly impossible, to see Lorna coming off this awesome. Without that connection, depictions of Lorna start to slip into her acting and looking stupid and weak, largely to make a man look better, as is the obsession of old Marvel.

I know I've basically seen all the game has to offer Lorna-wise with your posting of these pictures, but they're so good that I'm going to download the app and give the game a try. Even if I don't get Lorna before I lose interest, this stuff has me excited to see what the game's like.


EDIT: ... Then I noticed something VERY wrong with one of the cards. Her "first appearance" is X-Men #97? Really? REALLY? It's a documented fact that her first appearance was X-Men #49. It's not like this is some obscure and unreasonable piece of information people would be hard-pressed to find, like "What issue was it where Lorna genuinely had it confirmed that Magneto is her father." If it was something like that, I'd perfectly understand something like this as being a simple oversight. But this is one of the first things you discover about Lorna if you do a basic search. While the rest of the card looks great, that one part is bad and looks suspiciously like someone is desperately trying to rewrite history. Is Havok's card giving the wrong first appearance too? Or is it stating he was created in X-Men #54?

EDIT #2: I looked up Havok. http://xmen-battle-of-the-atom-mobil...com/wiki/Havok He's listed with his proper appearance. That means there isn't some policy in place to disregard original X-Men run issues past a certain point and pick up later. Instead, someone decided Lorna's real first appearance and ACTUAL defining storyline magically never happened. They're using the issue Lorna first appeared with the codename "Polaris" as the "first appearance" issue for her, but when it comes to Havok, whose first issue using his code name was #58, they decided to disregard that and go with his first appearance.

[FuzzyBlueElf]

As part of the game teams are fighting the future Brotherhood at the moment. It has some original art of Lorna unlike the previous pics.

Well I've found my new Avatar!

I think a future version of Lorna leading a group of new Acolytes would have been awesome to see and the Green Magneto Helmet looks great!

[salarta]

Well I've found my new Avatar!

I think a future version of Lorna leading a group of new Acolytes would have been awesome to see and the Green Magneto Helmet looks great!

It's a very good piece of work, really brings out some of the most awe-inspiring of Lorna in terms of power and strength. Hopefully they do something with it in the future, and if they do, they remember when Lorna was actually created and what her original storylines entailed. I have full faith that Lorna's actual origins will be acknowledged and used in a couple decades, the internet is a wonderful tool that ensures the truth isn't buried so easily.