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On Wednesday, I wrote a long post on my thoughts about the Magneto solo as a whole. Today, I’m writing about Polaris specifically in Magneto #21, and the future from here. Spoilers included.

First and foremost, I want to highlight that Cullen Bunn confirmed Lorna still has her powers. Magneto #20 had me thinking she’d been depowered until Bunn’s confirmation, and I’m very thankful that’s not the case. This post would probably be mostly ranting about her getting depowered if that had happened. Because she hasn’t been, I can focus on other things.

Magneto #21 Thoughts

Giving my honest opinion, I don’t think Lorna had much of a showing during this arc. Magneto #20 gave the appearance of being a big issue for her and her relationship with her father, but it really wasn’t.

BUT, if I’m furthermore being honest, this is Magneto’s solo. This isn’t a team book, or a family book, or a Polaris solo, so it’s natural the emphasis should be on its star character and not a character related to him. It would be wrong for Lorna to hijack the book from its star, no matter how much I love her and everything she has to offer.

With that in mind, there are some parts where Lorna behaves a bit differently than I would have expected, but that I can completely understand when looking at those moments within context. In Magneto #20, for example, Lorna acting shocked and mad at Magneto for breaking up a building – within the context of Lorna frustrated that Magneto’s putting her on the spot, that their lives are on her shoulders and she had no warning, it makes sense to me in that case. Less “how dare you put people at risk” and more “how dare you not give me warning to save them.”

This is the same sort of situation, happening in Magneto #21.

Now, if I’m looking only at this specific panel, it would bother me. It implies Lorna doesn’t care about her father, and only showed up because of the stakes at play.

BUT, then we get to the next panel.

One interpretation of this panel might be “She’s acting too naive and stupidly angry.” I would absolutely understand if someone felt it came off that way.

My interpretation, however, is that this is a perfectly in-character reaction for Lorna, a woman who’s lost her powers before and suffered for it. This is a woman who had such an identity crisis over losing her powers, she nearly got herself killed facing a Sentinel hoping it would reactivate her powers.

Losing those powers was what left her vulnerable to Apocalypse abducting her and restoring them… by turning her into Pestilence.

And HAVING those powers was the only thing that saved her life during the Genoshan genocide.

So here she is, powers siphoned and vulnerable at the end of the world, without her powers at her command to do anything about it. The betrayal Magneto talks about isn’t just trust in her father, but also in how he didn’t acknowledge her need to know what he was about to do given all the suffering she’s endured. It’s sort of like how if you know someone suffers from PTSD related to a hockey mask, you wouldn’t jump in front of them out of nowhere wearing a hockey mask.

I would’ve preferred Bunn give an extra line or two with this background, because without it, it would be easy to interpret Lorna’s response in some bad ways. But I do think Lorna reacted as you’d expect, and the concerning element only lasted for a couple panels instead of a whole issue.

Moving on from that, we have this very interesting scene.

The art here is great, and it’s the main reason I capped these images. However, this does give me a chance to point out: Lorna demonstrates a certain level of insight about her father here that, as I mentioned in my thoughts about the Magneto solo as a whole, makes me think she should’ve expected her father to siphon her powers without asking.

And then we have the ending.

The ending was powerful and poignant for Magneto, I think. Yet, I’m honestly not sure what to make of what Lorna says here. It may just be that the word “hate” is far too strong of a word for what Magneto felt, and it’s also too strong of a word for Lorna to think he felt.

Maybe this is just nitpicking. Regardless, it’s still a very nice thing for Lorna to say, and it shows she does care about him. “No matter how he felt about the world and humans, when the chips were down, at least he tried to save it.”

Polaris’ Future Post-Secret Wars

So the big question: what happens to Lorna after Secret Wars?

Cullen Bunn recently stated in an X-Position that Lorna won’t be joining the Uncanny X-Men team. This was really disappointing news to me at first, because I did actually like her appearances on the Magneto solo as a whole despite how some people might read observations I’ve made.

Still, I can understand it given what Bunn has said his plans are for Uncanny X-Men. He wants the book to explicitly be characters that you’d think don’t deserve to be called X-Men. That rules Lorna out because 1) she was the first female X-Men member after Jean Grey and should be acknowledged as such, and 2) a lot of people perceive her as so heroic that it’s a given she’d fit on an X-Men team even if her long history is ignored. Bunn’s trying to make a book featuring characters who have been open to selfish, evil goals, and committing acts like rape and cold-blooded murder for personal gain.

So, I think Lorna not getting to join the team is more about making sure the controversy is in the right place: on whether or not these character deserve to be called X-Men, not on whether this one X-Men character has any business on a team composed of murderers and rapists. I’m disappointed she’s not on the team, yeah, but I understand why she wouldn’t be.

I hope at the very least, she gets to appear on Uncanny X-Men at some point. She has some business with Sabretooth, that’s for sure.

So with Uncanny X-Men out of the picture, we’re still left with asking where Lorna can go.

All-New X-Men seems unlikely given the team is largely the young X-Men, and the tone appears to be more young and playful. Lorna’s in her 30s, the only role I can see her taking on such a book would be as a mentor… and frankly, given Marvel’s history, I think they’d let tons of other women take such a role before her. If it exists.

Extraordinary X-Men seems unlikely because the team makeup itself seems like a bit too much of a hodgepodge for her to fit. I don’t see how they’d make her feel like she isn’t shoehorned in, and if she was going to be in it, I’d expect her to be on the very first cover next to Storm.

Claremont seemed to perceive Lorna and Ororo as too similar back when he was writing X-Men books, so I expect if a writer wants the two on the same team, they’d give both of them prominent spots to note they’ll be emphasizing how they’re both great in their own rights. Since Lorna’s not there on the first cover, I doubt she’s on the team.

So… what then? At this point, I think her only real option would be a book that hasn’t been announced yet.

One idea is a Genosha book. If the Uncanny X-Men team is starring 616 Magneto, that means he’s not running Genosha anymore. If 616 Magneto is dead, that also means he’s not running Genosha anymore. Genosha needs someone to run it, and that someone would be Lorna.

She has the leadership experience, after all; she just ran X-Factor, and has stood in for Havok, Madrox and to an extent her father. Magneto also always intended for her to be his heir, now would be the time for such a duty to pass on to Lorna.

Not to mention, Lorna has the kind of good will and legitimacy in the world Magneto didn’t have. Magneto was a ruler mainly because while mutants were inspired, humans were afraid. Lorna, on the other hand, can inspire everyone, and has stronger connections with the good side of the Marvel universe. A mutant nation under her command wouldn’t be one of mutants away from humans, but of mutants finding a place to coexist on a world shared with humans.

She’d also, of course, try to avoid mistakes that led to the Genoshan genocide. She knows the stakes. And a book about a whole nation, rather than a team or a character, has its own unique potential.

The downside, of course, is that it’s no House of M. It would suffer from not having all the awesome family dynamics the House of M has to offer.

A second idea is a new team book. If she won’t fit in existing teams, it makes sense to create a new one that would accommodate her. There’s a hell of a lot of X-Men characters out there we haven’t seen part of the upcoming books, after all.

And then, there’s Lorna appearing occasionally on these existing books. I don’t like that avenue. I expect it would mean very few appearances for her per year. But, it’s better than nothing.

Lastly, I need to talk about the obvious idea: a Polaris solo. As much as I’d love one, I don’t think it’s viable right now.

First, Marvel doesn’t appear to be ready for her true potential. She’s had a lot of great character development in the past 6 years, and she had a much better showing during Secret Wars, but I don’t think Marvel’s quite reached the point of seeing how meaningful a Polaris solo would be.

Second… Marvel has avoided or dismantled most of what would allow a Polaris solo to succeed. The optimistic dreamer part of me wants to think that no matter what’s available, a Polaris solo would come out on top. The realistic part of me reminds that with all her character ties in tatters, and Marvel avoiding key aspects of her character history like the Genoshan genocide and her time as Pestilence, it would likely fail… and result in Marvel falsely claiming it failed because of Lorna and not how they handled it.

As always, I would love to be wrong. I’m just saying how it looks to me.

So, this wraps up my thoughts on Magneto #21 and Lorna’s future. The Magneto solo, House of M and all the Secret Wars cameos have been great and show a lot of promise for Lorna’s future, hopefully we have much more goodness to come.