This website has got A LOT of shit to say about so-called “abusive” romantic relationships (which are usually just toxic relationships between 2 AWFUL people) in fiction, but all I hear are CRICKETS when it comes to abusive parents!
Actually, it’s not crickets; It’s all of you acting like it’s cute or some, like “awww they love them” or “awww, they’re a family” or “I LOVE this crazy fam!!1!”
@ the Marvel fandom & the Riverdale fandom – fucking STOP IT!
I see the Magnus family was referenced in the tags, so this is my thoughts and response to that.
First, I should mention my grasp of Magneto’s effect on his kids is limited to around when Polaris was re-confirmed as his daughter and after. Even then, what I know of dynamics with the twins is limited. There might be details I don’t know.
I think most interest in the Magnus family is a mix of its best moments and how good it could be if done well. That doesn’t absolve Magneto of any wrongdoing, but it demonstrates why interest exists where it is.
Here’s my experience with Polaris. There was one person who privately told me they absolutely hated when Magneto was written as siphoning power from Lorna without her permission. I didn’t like it either, but I didn’t say much at the time because I wanted to give the writer a chance. If we took that as Magneto in character, that would be an abusive scene that people had problems with. But, I took it more as something the writer chose to do. NOT because I think Magneto wouldn’t do it, but because I think Lorna wouldn’t have been stupid enough to fall for it again when it’s been done to her before.
Likewise, anyone that followed my comments on X-Men Blue knows that I had a LOT of complaints about Lorna’s treatment. Most of them center on Havok, but there were plenty of times I complained about Lorna reduced to “daughter of Magneto” as well, and how several scenes ignored her character history for Magneto’s benefit.
At least with Polaris, ultimately, what it comes down to is this. Polaris and Magneto haven’t been written enough together to say “their relationship is always X” (abusive, loving, whatever). Of what HAS been written, the spots that could be called abusive are more an issue with writer choices than genuine character problems.
Havok is a different story.
With Havok, we have literal decades of Lorna treated poorly around him. We have toooooons of evidence to this fact. When I wrote a whole post on this topic, I struggled to decide which of the worst moments should have their panels and pages in the post.
Any time I have to decide which material to omit instead of exhaustively scrounging for hours for a handful of examples is a bad sign.
Almost all of the times Lorna is written anywhere near Havok end up with the same result, too. She ends up treated like a lesser supporting character for his stories. Even in X-Men Blue #8-9, which Marvel advertised as Lorna’s big return, most of the story ended up hyping up Havok and establishing a story of “Lorna can be used as a plot device for a Havok redemption story arc.”
The story could have brought up all the times Havok doubted her, held her back, undermined her progress, e.g. having Pietro spy on her, convincing her to leave the X-Men, leaving her at the altar. Instead, it focused all on the idea of Lorna viewing Havok like he’s some perfect godly angel from on high that she must admire in ways Havok constantly never did for her.
Compare that to Magneto, where wiping her memory of the plane crash can be perceived as an attempt to let her live a happy life growing up, or where he joins in the mission to rescue the Starjammers (especially Lorna) from space.
In the very little time Magneto does stuff with Lorna, the treatment has been hit and miss. But in the decades of Lorna around Havok, it’s been almost all bad for her.
And she never gets anything out of it with Havok. Association with Magneto got her the Genoshan princess and genocide survival storylines, the two things I love most of her history. Even though I loathe most of how she was treated on Blue, it could be argued Magneto got her onto a flagship title by association. But when Havok went to Uncanny Avengers, Lorna got nothing out of it. When Marvel did amalgam covers for X-Men’s 50th anniversary in 2013, Havok was put on one of the covers, but not Polaris.
From me, that’s why you see a lot of complaints about the abusive “romantic” (not really) relationship but not an abusive one with her dad. Because there’s a massive history to call upon for the “romantic” one but very little for the parental one.
EDIT: Oh, by the way. There are things I’d like to see for stories with the Magnus family. One of my most common suggestions/requests if Lorna and Wanda dealing with the harm Wanda did to Lorna in stripping away her powers on M-Day. Lorna suffered through a lot of horrors because of M-Day, after having already been through tons of them before M-Day. Another thing to keep in mind.
Oh the Magnus family is DEFINITELY abusive, or at least Erik has a reliable pattern of emotional and sometimes physical abuse towards Wanda and Pietro. Even when written what I consider “in character”, he tends to manipulate them (especially Pietro) to suit his own goals. It’s not always deliberate, and he often thinks it’s justified, but it’s definitely damaging.
This is, of course, made worse by the fact that Erik first knew Wanda and Pietro as his minions/child soldiers instead of as his children. That’s decades of character history where they didn’t know they were related to eachother.
That aside, Luna and the Minimoffs tend to be treated a lot better the few times we see them in a family context, even if they’re forgotten by writers a lot.
First, thank you to both @salarta & @scarlet-silverweaver for your responses being so well-put & nice, I usually see really rude & angry responses from this fandom, so THANK YOU!
Second, I just REALLY want Erik to stay away from his kids. I know the twins are still his kids in other universes, and those verses (like 1610 & X-Men films, which are very prominent & I love them) are 100% valid, but they’re not his kids in the 616/original universe (& ofc MCU); them being his kids was a retcon, and now it’s been retconned to give them back to their OG parents, Django & Marya.
But I would love for the twins to still have a relationship with Lorna (although we barely ever saw that w/ the girls). Just b/c they’re not related to her doesn’t change the fact that they’d thought they were for many years. I’m not a “DNA IS SO IMPORTANT, STICK WITH THEM” person at all, so I don’t think they have to even if they were related, but I’d just love for them to be siblings, IDK!
And yeah, I don’t think Luna or Wanda’s kids are treated badly, I’d only meant that Erik is abusive to his kids (except for Anya).
I’m glad my post didn’t read as hostile! I sometimes get really wrapped up and passionate when I start typing, and what comes out gets read as hostility.
Personally, I see Wanda and Pietro not being Magneto’s kids as the retcon. If we take an “original parents take priority” approach, then that would fall on Whizzer which is just silly. I know there are some biiiiiig problems created in trying to make earlier works fit with the twins being Magneto’s kids, but I feel like there’s a fair amount of earlier Marvel depictions that need to be binned anyway. There’s comics history of Reed Richards being sexist and abusive toward Sue that would ruin the Fantastic Four if kept intact, for example. Or how silly many stories with Thanos were.
But, as said before, I’m saying this mainly as a Polaris fan with a limited POV. I don’t think my views outweigh dedicated fans of Wanda or Pietro, who know the history much better and have a better understanding of who the twins are.
I think Lorna and the twins interacting is certainly still doable regardless of family status. But, I think the three of them not all being Magneto’s kids seriously damages the weight of their ties and what kind of storylines could be pursued with them.
Or even whether or not any storylines among them happen at all. Immediately after Marvel pushed a retcon on the twins cause they got mad about Fox owning the X-Men film rights, Marvel took Quicksilver off All-New X-Factor and hasn’t allowed Lorna to interact with either of the twins ever since. It would be a lot harder for Marvel to pull that if they were all family.
One of my ideas I once had for how Lorna and Zaladane could be related without Zaladane having to be Magneto’s kid was that they could be related on the mother’s side. If Wanda and Pietro being Magneto’s kids really is a huge problem or can never ever happen, then perhaps being related on the mother’s side is an option. Maybe Susanna had the twins and gave them up before she ever met Arnold or Magneto, or some other option. I personally think it’d be worse than the “Magnus family, House of M legacy” approach, but it’s still an option.
Well actually, Stan Lee never intended for the twins to be Erik’s kids. Later writers kept trying to Americanize them & make them white, it was sort of a racist thing. Which even with Erik as their dad, they’re not FULLY making them white, they’re biracial then (bc Magda is/was Romani), which is fine (I’m biracial), but it’s just uncomfortable how they took them from their Romani parents, tried to give them to The Whizzer & Miss AMERICA (both white) & then gave them to this abusive villain!
One of my friends who REALLY knows the twins’/Marvel history even better than I do made a post about it here: http://chovihanni.tumblr.com/post/144625659198/ok-so-someone-sent-this-ask-to-walkingitcff-and
P.S. I hope this doesn’t seem rude or bitchy, that is 100% not my intention!
Doesn’t seem rude or bitchy! You care about something and you’re posting about it. I’ve been far more abrasive than you with other people about the things I care about in that respect. 🙂
The post by chovihanni is pretty insightful for me given I always thought Whizzer and Miss America were the “first parents” for them. Didn’t know the Maximoffs were fully stated to be their parents, rather than assumed to be.
However, I feel the poster is kinda glossing over things established with “retcon 2.” I haven’t read much in the way of the twins, nor am I a huge fan of them, but I know a lot more was done with them as Magneto’s kids and to set Magneto as their father from 1983 to 2014 than what chovihanni’s saying. It’s not like the twins were treated the way Marvel’s treated Polaris, where it took 40 years to finally have an origin story told. Marvel was actively using and promoting them, like Wanda having her own miniseries in the 90s, and being the focal character of House of M.
salarta 