Lorna Dane: Polaris Appreciation 2020

[houndsofluv]

It could be that Lorna doesn't care about leading this team. We need to find out the circumstances of its formation.

Again for me I want to believe she is a super pro Krakoan fanatic (given her traumatic background on Genosha...) and she's "on the team" basically as a proxy for the Council. Which can create tension or conflict if and when other team members begin to ask "too many questions" regarding resurrection and all that stuff (Prodigy in particular will probably begin to figure things out).

this could be a really interesting angle- given her reservations about Krakoa set up in X-Men I could see her roped into being the councils eyes for Magneto and feeling really torn. Im really itching to see how her worries play out in this seeing as the teams gonna play a huge role in Krakoan culture

[jmc247]

By Lucas Stewart.

It could be that Lorna doesn't care about leading this team. We need to find out the circumstances of its formation.

Again for me I want to believe she is a super pro Krakoan fanatic (given her traumatic background on Genosha...) and she's "on the team" basically as a proxy for the Council. Which can create tension or conflict if and when other team members begin to ask "too many questions" regarding resurrection and all that stuff (Prodigy in particular will probably begin to figure things out).

I want there to be some sorts of intrateam struggles and the contradictions involved with Krakoa to begin laid out in this title. Lorna is a great character to explore this with.

If they write her as basically completely generic and straightforward just a detective, and there is actually nothing more to this series... I'll be honest I'm gonna get bored.

"Feats" are one thing, her being confident and all that is great. I doubt Leah is going to force her with Havok in this. Not concerned about that. But if she doesn't ever find a new relationship Havok will never truly go away from her life.

You have sort of gotten to the root of my issues with the set up. Generic hero Lorna doing detective work would be like watching paint dry for me. I have been looking for rationales that can interest me in the title based on the set up.

Lorna on paper should have a huge amount of interest in the resurrection process. Its after all bringing back slowly millions of the dead from Genosha. I don't think its fully recognized by some she blames herself for their deaths. She helped to build the nation and the people were loyal to her and they were cut down because she failed to stop them. We have seen in more modern times as in the past few years including HoX guilt by Magneto and even Emma, but not Lorna. Her lethal behavior toward Purifier wannabes in the early 2000s was about not letting another murderous threat to mutants lead to another mass grave.

She should have a vested interest in making sure both that this thing isn't dodgy, but more importantly that it continues and mutants are not being butchered. We have seen the Lorna questioning if its dodgy, we haven't seen a lot more of that then the Lorna you are talking about who wants to see this work badly.

The real question in the end for me with this title comes down to will Lorna be a one note competent generic hero with no agenda or philosophy?

I don't have an answer to that question. I only know that I have little interest in generic detective stories. On shipper issues I would rather not talk about them. You are correct unless they find a man or female romantic partner as a popular replacement relationship he will keep coming up. In Marvel's eyes they have never developed a popular third or fourth party as they have with Wolverine/Jean/Scott/Emma. That in large part is due to Bobby Lorna's first boyfriend being removed from the equation by the full gay revelation and them not really being willing to risk developing a new love interest for her. But, like I said romance should be a minor part of Lorna's character after it was a central and all important part for so many decades.

[LoganAlpha30X33]

It could be that Lorna doesn't care about leading this team. We need to find out the circumstances of its formation.

Again for me I want to believe she is a super pro Krakoan fanatic (given her traumatic background on Genosha...) and she's "on the team" basically as a proxy for the Council. Which can create tension or conflict if and when other team members begin to ask "too many questions" regarding resurrection and all that stuff (Prodigy in particular will probably begin to figure things out).

I want there to be some sorts of intrateam struggles and the contradictions involved with Krakoa to begin laid out in this title. Lorna is a great character to explore this with.

If they write her as basically completely generic and straightforward just a detective, and there is actually nothing more to this series... I'll be honest I'm gonna get bored.

"Feats" are one thing, her being confident and all that is great. I doubt Leah is going to force her with Havok in this. Not concerned about that. But if she doesn't ever find a new relationship Havok will never truly go away from her life.

But yeah she needs definition, agenda, philosophy, something to make her interesting. Not just be there to be there as glorified wallpaper.

I doubt that Alex will ever truly go away from her life, much like Scott will never truly go away from Jean or she him...I don't expect the writer to force them together but I doubt that it would have to be forced between them if handled right, and Lorna could be in a relationship with him without it dominating her time in the book...

[salarta]

I think it's time to highlight some "atypical" fandom. By that I mean, fandom expression that doesn't follow what people usually expect.

Firstly, the fact that cosplay and other "wearable" expressions of Lorna fandom aren't limited to women. Men show it too.

Firstly, there's this bit of cosplay that seems Gifted-inspired.



Second, one of my mutual's friends (I haven't interacted with him) has dyed green hair and regularly tags with Lorna on posts that show it.



These aren't the only male Polaris cosplayers out there. I've posted at least one in the old threads. But they're two I found today when I decided to look at instagram again (something I rarely do).



Lastly, a fan wrote/drew on a pair of shoes to have Lorna on them.

[salarta]

Saw some fandom discussion elsewhere about eye colors for Namor and Scarlet Witch. Because of that, I decided to look at Lorna, and found that every single picture I can find of her (other than fanart) has her with green eyes. I haven't found anything with a different eye color. That's how much she so thoroughly embodies the color green.

Separately, I decided to make a long series of Twitter polls a few days ago. Obviously it's not an accurate picture of current affairs; 13 votes for the first question and 3-4 for all the others. But I think I learned a fair amount from the results I did get.

One actually voted that Lorna is Z-list - something they notably didn't do to Havok. And that could be shrugged off as trolling, but in all honesty even an "I'm gonna troll about Lorna but not Havok" decision says something all its own. Kind of a punching down philosophy. Broadly, results suggested basically a view that amazing things could be done with Lorna, and there's a desire to see it, but Marvel's incapable of doing it.

[spirit2011]

I think x-men #1 and hoxPox aint Lorna somehow skeptical of Krakoa. That must be the reason she isn't the leader

[salarta]

Ultimately, the real reason she isn't the leader is because Leah wants to write Northstar leading a team, and people working at Marvel don't have enough respect for Lorna or fans of her to do something more with her than throw her onto the same book title she was on 30 years ago. Otherwise they'd be doing more than just that.

I don't think they've put any thought into how she would see Krakoa, either. They would've talked about her relevant history over the past half year if they had put any thought into her.

[jmc247]

Her comments take into account that she would be involved in the resurrection of mutants and have some quandaries about the process that the author of the title she would be on would be dealing with. HoX wasn't there to fill in those questions outside of her being the voice of the questioner regarding the procedure.

We have seen her prospective on humanity in general. Points should be given when due. I haven't seen from her anything that approaches a discernable point of view about Krakoa as a new Genosha like (in some ways) homeland. If Leah has put in thought about it or not we can not know.

[ermac]

Second, one of my mutual's friends (I haven't interacted with him) has dyed green hair and regularly tags with Lorna on posts that show it.

that male Polaris is so hottt

[spirit2011]

that male Polaris is so hottt

I really agree on that

Ultimately, the real reason she isn't the leader is because Leah wants to write Northstar leading a team, and people working at Marvel don't have enough respect for Lorna or fans of her to do something more with her than throw her onto the same book title she was on 30 years ago. Otherwise they'd be doing more than just that.

I don't think they've put any thought into how she would see Krakoa, either. They would've talked about her relevant history over the past half year if they had put any thought into her.

Yeah I don't think they put any thought on Polaris thoughts on Krakoa. She is a after thought.

But if they go she is suspicious about Krakoa and doesn't want to be on her father's shadow, that would be a good story

[jmc247]

When you have the character take a big position on a new popular status quo it should be align with the characters history and her established personality not be based on setting up her point of view based on what another character thinks.

First its important to understand Lorna's history. She helped to build a mutant homeland and was on the forefront of fighting for it against the slave masters who ruled it. She was the real power behind the throne. Second that homeland was turned to ash in a cataclysmic attack by Sentinels. She had the memories of millions of dead stuck in her head repeating for weeks and blamed herself deeply for the failure to protect the inhabitents of the island.

Genosha bet the farm on a relationship with the rest of the world based on 19th century imperialist concepts. Now you have a new mutant homeland whose relationship with the rest of the world is based on more modern economic Imperialism. Its trying to act like a mini China. Its also importantly for Lorna bringing back dead mutants killed reciently and killed on Genosha. What we have seen in terms of Lorna's opinion is limited, but she is still hostile to humanity over the Genoshan genocide and she questioned if the resurrection process isn't simply making soulless pod people.

There are avanues to be had for interesting character development there based on her actual history.

1. Is Krakoa just another mass grave in waiting for the mutant race? Much like Emma I can't see her not worried about the possibility, but I don't think this will be at the forefront of her worries otherwise she would have taken a military or political role on the island.

2. Is the resurrection process legitimite, is it real and just? We have already seen her bring up some of these questions. Though I will admit I don't see the most dramatic potental here. Lorna's survivors guilt is too strong that it would take serious proof the process is not what it seems to want to shut it down given its bringing back people whose deaths she believes she caused.

3. Lorna is cataloguing the murders of mutants and simply reporting them up the chain of command. Here is where some real juicy meat lay as the character since her very inception hasn't ascribed to generic super hero morality about using force to punish dangerous and murderous threats to mutants.

Leah has alot to work with given Lorna's history. There are reasons to be unhappy. I do feel like the current crop of staff has pigenholed her as a C list character on a title they remember her on from their youth. I won't get into shipper issues. I will just say it feels like Marvel is shoveling nostalgia for an era they love, but an era whose depiction of Lorna was completely uninteresting to me. Leah talked a bit about her not being team leader to make room for character growth. That is fine, but she hasn't given any guidance on how she regards Lorna as it stands so I am not sure what she actually means by that. I get they are going for building mystery, but it also means we are flying blind into the new title more then usual.

[salarta]

Yeah I don't think they put any thought on Polaris thoughts on Krakoa. She is a after thought.

But if they go she is suspicious about Krakoa and doesn't want to be on her father's shadow, that would be a good story

There are a lot of ways that Lorna could go with grief - and these are only examples, not statements of if they're appropriate for her.

She could be a key figure who fully believes in this plan, involved to ensure mistakes of the past are not repeated and the dead (especially Genoshan dead) are respected and handled right. Her use could in-universe match how Marvel's treated her for the past few years, wherein she's been completely excluded and treated like she has nothing to contribute despite all her experience, and therefore Lorna is on the outside trying to do the right thing in conflict with a system that doesn't want her digging too deep. She could decide the whole concept is terrible, and seek to stay away from any version of it. She could decide the base concept is great but the current approach to it is terrible, and launch her own entirely separate effort at a mutant nation or group (probably sans resurrection).

I think any approach to her views would need to consider the weight of what she's been through very carefully. This is something nobody at Marvel has done in over 15 years, not even when it should have been required (e.g. during Axis). When you have a company that's ignored the most important events in her life for that long, and a writer who also doesn't acknowledge them, there's an extremely low chance that those events are suddenly going to be considered in constructing Lorna's views. And if those events aren't considered, then whatever viewpoint she's written as having isn't legitimate.

It's like ignoring how Bruce Wayne's parents were killed by a gun when constructing his viewpoint on guns.

You could argue Batman thinking guns are wrong and refusing to use guns because they took his parents from him. You could argue Batman thinking guns are the only answer (which I think is wrong, but you could argue it) because his parents' death made him realize how powerful they are, and he wants to use that power against criminals. But you can't simply ignore what happened to Bruce's parents when writing Batman during an all-comics multi-month or multi-year storyline that's all about the heroes deciding guns are the answer to stopping crime. Doing that isn't really writing him, it's writing a plot device called Batman that's only there to benefit other characters. In such a scenario, it might actually be better if Batman isn't used at all, as that would be more respectful to the character's history and what fans take from it vs "lol his parents' death doesn't matter let's just show him getting shot and taken out by a gun to show how cool guns are."

[jmc247]

Well she was there, a few weeks later, but she was not uninvolved. I will only say that is the second time in five years that Storm had a talk of sorts with someone about the Genoshan genocide. For Lorna it’s no longer treated part of her history.

[salarta]

I'm going to be blunter than I've been before.

Marvel doesn't give a damn about their fans in any real way. They don't care about diversity. They don't care about how anything they do affects the way people think or feel.

They don't really care if they get trans allegory wrong, otherwise they'd get people involved that can catch problematic implications. These are called diversity readers; they exist, and they can be consulted if a company truly cares.

They don't really care if they provide enough representation for diverse characters, or they wouldn't have so much of this "new era" focused on the men. Even a major fan of this event recently questioned why the hell the Giant Size books are so loaded with male characters; and frankly, you do have to wonder why the Jean/Emma book focuses on two female characters at once while the others focus on only one male character.

They don't care if a character's trauma history means something to someone, or the impact of treating that history like it's worthless and never happened.

This is the Marvel I see. They just get away with it in the eyes of most because of hype and things that look superficially like change.

[jmc247]

Most comic creative staff and more then a few fans are highly resistant to actual change. Nostalgia is the fuel that drives the comics at least with minor changes within perceived highly popular story themes from bygone days of reading comics.

When characters are allowed to break out, it’s typically a mix of factors and luck that comes into play. In terms of fans good thoughtful writing deserves to be rewarded and when its not a character suffers. But, fans also get into their iconic image of characters which is problematic. Though when there isn't a good beat on a characters core motivational life events there is a real problem.