Haven’t seen any new pages/panels of X-Men Blue #27.
What I’ve read online about what other people think is mixed. The big takeaway I pick up on is that the best moments for Lorna were in the preview. Everything else is depending on who you ask.
The areas being cited as problems sound like they involve Havok. Sounds like the rest of the issue involves Lorna trying to “get through” to Havok and losing because of it. If true, that just further proves everything I’ve ever said about the need to keep the two apart and why they now need another 10 years away from each other when this is over.
Also, saw someone said Bunn had no choice but to use the relationship history between Lorna and Havok when it’s presented, and… no.
This isn’t a situation like the need to confirm Magneto being Lorna’s father, or confirm Lorna is a mutant, or to see what relationship she has with Wanda and Pietro. Those situations are ones that are absolutely essential to understanding who Lorna is, where she’s from, what storylines and events she can and should be involved in, etc. They’re important lingering questions, and in the examples of family, it needed to be pursued because they never had interactions under the new understanding of their relationships together.
That’s not needed with Havok. We know their history. It’s impossible not to know it because he’s the only character she’s been allowed to date in 50 years, and her identity as “Havok’s girlfriend” was made to so thoroughly consume all else about her that for a time it was literally the only thing anyone said she was allowed to be.
We know what kind of relationship they have. It’s bad. We don’t need this book to remind us how shitty the relationship is and how much it drags Lorna down every time it’s brought up.
Here’s a very, very, very, very simple way Bunn could have used both characters that would have been better: Lorna interacts with Emma, Magneto interacts with Havok. Lorna and Havok never meet, think or talk about each other. That’s it. That’s everything. No BS talk about Lorna “needing to redeem” Havok. No forcing relationship history into the narrative just because it exists. Put them in entirely different areas where neither of them talk about the other.
In fiction, there are things that might be so bad in past use that you’re tempted to address them in the narrative. The difference is knowing when not to give in to that temptation. The Black Panther movie didn’t try to “redeem” the Man-Ape codename of M’Baku, for example. If it had, there’s a damn good chance much of its release would’ve been plagued with complaints, and it would’ve had much less in box office numbers.
Lorna’s relationship history with Havok is presently in the same boat. It’s something that absolutely should not be addressed.
To put it another way. If you’re working with your best friend, is it essential that every single working interaction with them emphasizes that you’re friends? Do you need to tell everyone you’re best friends to explain why you worked on a project together? What about conflicts? If you disagree on what should be done to solve a work problem, is it fair to both of you for someone to go to a higher-up and say “the only reason they’re able to resolve the conflict is cause they’re friends?”
In the professional world, that’s effectively saying you may not be able to be a professional and do your job if you have to work with someone else. It’s saying you aren’t capable of being anything more than the parameters of your relationship. Put someone else on the project instead of your best friend and it’s gonna suck and fail.
That’s what Blue is saying about Lorna by forcing their interaction and forcing talk of their relationship history. It’s saying Lorna only has value as a part of Havok’s story. It’s saying that if he’s around, he needs to consume her identity again.
Having Lorna say it’s fucked up for her to be treated that way means nothing if the book then proceeds to treat her that way.
There is no such thing as an actual “need” for them to interact if an opening exists, just as I don’t need to kick someone in the nuts if I see an opening. I’m not going to be lauded for kicking a random person in the nuts because I saw a chance to do it and went for it, after all.
Wait 10 more years with Havok not coming up in any way whatsoever around Lorna. See where things are. Maybe then they can be around each other without a writer screwing Lorna over and tearing her down for Havok’s benefit for the billionth time.