I was recently informed that Polaris has received a major overhaul for her pages (now plural instead of singular) on Marvel.com.
For my two cents, the article not talking about Lorna’s post-Genosha trauma, and talking way too much about Havok, are problems.
However, everything else is a big step in the right direction.
Outright acknowledgment of Lorna’s mission to fight for mutant rights and against persecution. This is something Marvel was ignoring, so to see the company make that the opening blurb is a big deal.
I’d say the line about her father is important too, buuuuuuuut
It’s way more important that the connections section is showing her bro and sis as relatives. 🙂 Before people ask about Wiccan, this is only part of the list. On the site, you can scroll over to see Vision and Wiccan. It’s alphabetical order.
On that note?
It’s pretty damning that the Enemies subsection only has these two. It shows that Marvel uses Lorna so little as her own character, she doesn’t have any core enemies to highlight currently in use. Neither of these villains has been involved with her since like the 70s or 80s.
One weird thing though.
(No, not the Havok part. After what happened with X-Men Blue, fuck him)
The Allies section doesn’t really make much sense. She hasn’t really interacted much with Captain America. I don’t think she’s ever been around Falcon. She’s had more interaction with Wolverine, Iceman and Jean Grey than with Cyclops, so why’s he on here when those three aren’t?
If Marvel were doing well by Lorna, I’d like fandom fantasies take me places with ideas of Lorna being on an Avengers team or a core X-Men team with Cyclops or something. With Marvel’s recent track record, I think this is just nonsensical additions.
The curious part though is that X-Men is at the end of the Allies list. Compare that to Scarlet Witch, who has a whole separate Groups tab to show her affiliation with the Avengers. Lorna’s basically seen as outside the X-Men but working with them.
But one of the most important things to say about these new pages is what they say about Lorna’s character history that wasn’t being acknowledged before.
Marvel has finally acknowledged that she was part of Genosha and survived the genocide. It’s not the full story, it’s still missing the subsequent trauma, but Marvel doing this much is a very important first step.
It’s also one of very few times where Marvel admits to Lorna having a history dating back to the original 5 X-Men. This is huge because it opens the doorway to having that history explored some day.
Realistically, all the positive remarks I’ve made here probably have no real bearing on Marvel as a whole. This is probably a job assigned to an intern and they don’t care what the intern puts online as long as it’s not a bunch of hate speech.
But also realistically, even this much matters no matter what the full context is. Every little bit helps.
What I love about the interactions I have for Lorna fandom on Tumblr is how they conjure up so many awesome ideas and thoughts and headcanons. It’s here that posts and discussion brought me to compare her to the green power ranger AND, just now, give her a title of Her Royal Hotness.
Polaris aka Lorna Dane aka Mistress of Magnetism aka Her Royal Hotness.
X-Men Blue #31
Look the mystery I most want to solve in this comic is why Lorna is wearing black leather pants, a button down, gloves, a sweater, a jacket and gloves IN THE MIDDLE OF SUMMER IN SAN FRANCISCO
@cwicseolfor said: Best guess: she was originally drawn sexified but the artist acquired some sense/ had some sense knocked into them and then drew her as covered up as they could get her without a parka, but didn’t want to hide the pants.
I can see this happening, actually. Lorna’s been more sexualized art-wise on the books Bunn’s writing than on previous writers. Whether that’s an effect of what artists Marvel pairs with Bunn or what Bunn writes in his scripts, I don’t know. But I can definitely imagine a more sexualized take planned, only for already existing complaints about Lorna’s treatment on Blue (particularly around Havok) to make them rethink those plans.
I don’t know but she looks hot anyway, she is always hot
brb tricking people to bet against her hotness so I can become rich off them
And now I realize she requires a new title of Her Royal Hotness
Erik, teaching Wanda and Lorna how to stand up to bullies: If a boy calls you ‘princess’ in a condescending manner, assert your newly appointed royal status and have him beheaded.
Thanks! I’m glad my meta posts have helped in seeing more of who Lorna is and what she has to offer! Sometimes I feel like I write way too much in posts, but I tend to start out small and then it just builds up. Suddenly I’m feeling like I need to add pictures, elaborate on points, etc.
Since you mention ANXF, I do feel like I should be up front that I had a lot of complaints about that run too, but most of those complaints were from ANXF #3-6. Peter David seemed to start listening to complaints and try turn things around starting with #7, and he did give her a lot of good and important milestones.
And yeah, unfortunately bad presentation of Lorna by other people can mar perception of the character. I’m glad any time someone can sidestep or get past the bad stuff and see the good in Lorna that exists regardless of what some people say online, how Marvel doesn’t support her or cases where they treat her poorly, etc.
salarta 