salarta

Hi everyone! Yes, it’s been a long ass time since I wrote a WordPress blog post. I’ve either been tweeting, posting on boards, felt it was better represented in a Tumblr post, or did certain other things of no mention. 🙂

I was also busier (emotionally, mentally) in my offline life than usual. The stuff that made me busy is gone, so I’m freed up for more of this again.

Over a year or two ago, I talked to someone in the comics industry about the idea of a Polaris solo. I’m deliberately not naming them because I don’t want to risk bad comments sent their way, especially as I know they meant well and would’ve said what they said regardless of who they were talking about.

Anyway, this someone said that they thought a solo (or rather, a solo pitch) could only be successful if there was an underlying “core” unique philosophy that would really stand out and carry the book. They felt that one of Lorna being a champion of mutants post-Genosha wasn’t unique enough from other X-Men. I’d obviously say otherwise, but I can understand why they would think that as an outsider to Lorna fandom. How she differs is hard to summarize, best handled in execution of story.

Since then, I’ve occasionally tried to write posts like this but tried to make it fit closer to What was asked of there. I’m able to write this post for one reason: I’m ditching that “prerequisite.”

Lorna’s poor treatment for most of her history is built off following Marvel expectations and code. Playing ball as Marvel would have it played always, ALWAYS holds her back. So I’m not going to do that. I’m throwing out what could be done for a Lorna solo in free form, sharing everything that would make it successful in the right hands.

And I make this post knowing that there’s no way current Marvel would ever give Lorna a solo book. They’re too biased against her. They could have a million guaranteed sales for a Polaris solo and they’d refuse. With no chance they’ll make one, there’s no risk that I might accidentally say things that would keep them from making one.

Characters

I strongly believe the key reason the Scarlet Witch solo had such poor numbers was because it failed to utilize (or rather, Marvel aggressively barred) Wanda’s meaningful connections getting play.

Lorna’s solo success would come in part from stories told with other characters. Mostly ones that are actually relevant to her. Occasionally, ones that she hasn’t interacted with before.

• Jean Grey
• Iceman
• Scarlet Witch
• Quicksilver
• Magneto
• Crystal
• Luna
• Danger
• Black Cat
• Professor X
• Nurse Annie
• Wolfsbane
• Rachel Summers
• Random
• Zaladane
• Malice
• X-23
• Captain America and/or Iron Man
• Red Skull

This is just a list of what I could think of as characters with potential for stories with Lorna. The one thing I’ve learned from writing fics for over 15 years is, when you’re really in the zone, you go places you wouldn’t expect – and one story can suddenly spawn another you weren’t expecting based on where it went. I have some fics that I expected to be self-contained and I ended up writing multiple chapters.

I’ll get into some stories I’ve thought of with some of these characters below – along with ideas for brand new ones not tied to those characters.

You will notice I left Havok (and Cyclops) out completely. A Polaris solo is only going to be good and succeed if Havok is kept the hell away from it. Even though there would be other character interactions, the solo’s primary goal is to make the most of Lorna, what she has to offer, and all those bits about her that have gone unused for too long. Havok has held her back for decades, and interacting with him has been overplayed as hell. His involvement would only hurt the solo.

Cyclops could still be good for interaction. I mainly left him off because I expect any dynamic between Lorna and him would lead some to expect Havok to be at least mentioned. And he shouldn’t be.

Storylines

You do, of course, need storylines. It can’t be a character ambling around in random scenes that go nowhere. So here’s storylines I’ve thought of.

• Retelling of X-Men #49-50 all from Lorna’s POV
• Pre-X-Men high school issue(s), showing why she dyed her hair, seeing her foster parents, etc
  • Good opportunity to introduce a new character that then figures into present day events
  • Sometimes her powers act up in moments of stress, out of her awareness (e.g. “why isn’t the TV working?”)
• Malice possessing Lorna again, BUT with a very heavy empathetic toward Lorna POV
  • Multi-issueSee who Lorna is by how people respond to her acting “OOC,” and how Malice is able to exploit their faith in Lorna
  • Also see INSIDE Lorna’s head, as she fights Malice from within; backdoor way of also seeing old events and how she feels about them
• Anti-Apocalypse cult; Lorna dealing with them
  • I imagine this as a flashback, pre-space story; see her fighting them, saving people from getting killed by their reckless attacks, integrating in the culture to not stand out and learning from it, etc
  • Alternately, modern day setting, could be a chance to do something with Dust
• Zaladane returns, trying to ruin Lorna’s life again
  • Good opportunity to restore the twins as Lorna’s siblings, and end of this storyline could segue into storylines with them
  • IMO Zaladane could be ultimately revealed as Lorna’s sister on her mother’s side
• Lorna and Wanda dealing with consequences of M-Day
  • Lorna got REALLY screwed over by losing her powers on M-Day; IMO they could fight it out, and ultimately come to a point of catharsis that revives and deepens their sister bond for future stories
• Serval Industries: what happened to it?
  • Lorna’s eye cam still exists; could do things with that
• Status update with Nurse Annie and Carter
  • Don’t have a lot of thoughts on what ELSE could be done here; maybe tie in with other comics’ stories.
  • Would also be a good time for Lorna to apologize for blaming Nurse Annie for things that were not her fault during Austen’s run; Havok not named of course
• Red Skull payback
  • Depends on where Red Skull is in things now. I’m mainly thinking about Axis, how he exploited Genosha’s dead, Lorna finally getting a chance to kick his ass over it
• Auntie Lorna helps Luna as she’s growing up!
• Polaris and Black Cat on a heist. That’s it. That’s the idea.
  • You can thank Secret Wars: House of M for this.
• Polaris and X-23 shut down a shitty clandestine government project
  • Built off X-23’s history (of course) and how the government at one point wanted to turn Lorna into a weapon in their arsenal against Magneto
• Lorna and Iceman finally get together about his coming out
  • Insights into their history way back to when she first joined the X-Men
• Revisit Genosha, relive the final moments in detail and see what life was like before the genocide (Lorna picking up residuals)

And that’s all the ideas I can think of right this second. I may edit this post to add others!

When I was trying to think of this in a “core philosophy” way, I was taking it as more of a world tour thing. Lorna going to different countries, exposing herself to different cultures, all to better understand all the walks of life mutants come from and better protect and help them. And maybe thatt could happen here. But there’s a hell of a lot as it is able to be touched on as said even without the “world tour” component.