Children of M
small pieces of my
uglyart-sketches inspired by HoM(I adore original book very-very-very much)Full arts: Princess Wanda Magnus (+some Vision~~) | Princess Lorna & Prince Pietro Magnus
ok but I think you meant to say awesome art-sketches here. ❤
The only reason I’m making this a link post and not a text post is to give more visibility to the thing I’m writing about.
This post is not in support of the article. It’s calling attention to what’s wrong with it. Simply put, this article is bad. I originally wasn’t going to say anything at all, so it wouldn’t get any more clicks, but I resolved to say something for two reasons.
I’ll be fair as I get started here: it’s kind of a given that a vast majority of people at the present time would have said Magneto was cooler than Polaris. A majority of people know who Magneto is, know his history, everything else, while they don’t know Lorna and Marvel hasn’t made any real attempts to make the most of her potential.
However, that doesn’t really matter. What matters is how this person wrote Lorna up.
In this writer’s incredibly brief summary, he deliberately ignores all the developments and complexity Lorna has gone through. He ignores how Lorna survived the Genoshan massacre. He ignores the trauma she lived with afterward. He ignores the major identity crisis she had when her powers were taken from her. He ignores the horror of her origin story plane crash when her powers manifested.
Instead, this writer relegates her exclusively to “she’s been possessed or mind-controlled a lot therefore she sucks.” He rushes right past her time as a leader and fighting alongside the X-Men to focus squarely on that terrible aspect of her history.
This writer failed to properly explain who Lorna is and what she’s been through. Maybe because the writer is woefully ignorant about Lorna’s history (though I doubt it). Maybe because they disregard her history in favor of seeing her as poorly as certain people out there always want to diminish her as supposedly being.
Regardless, the writer pulls this in an article where he hypes up Magneto and then proceeds to try to make Polaris look and sound bad compared to him. As such, this writer is proving for me that it’s dangerous to put too much emphasis on how Lorna is Magneto’s daughter.
Yes, as I’ve said many times, explore their relationship. Make use of it. Lots to work from. But if you emphasize it too much, then guys like this writer decide to act like Polaris is a worthless character with no value compared to her dad. Guys like this writer will insist that everything Lorna has to offer is bad if it’s not about making her exclusively a supporting character for Magneto’s stories, never her own.
A balance needs to be found. This article is a warning sign of what attitudes can take hold if that balance is not found.
Frankly, the best bet would be restoring Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver as Magneto’s kids so Lorna can interact with them too. More family equals more consideration for the collective rather than just Magneto. But barring that, Lorna does have other things to her outside Magneto that need to be explored too.
8 X-Men Kids Cooler Than Their Parents (And 7 Who Are Way Worse)
Happy National Sibling Day from the Marvel Universe!
Thanks to @vickiannecrane for posing them all!
I heartily approve of the Polaris and Scarlet Witch one.
The “on-off” relationships are terrible for the characters and the readers
Fictional toxic relationship is fine if it was handled properly for dramas or character developments, but… the “on-off” situation was overused for some couples and I couldn’t care anymore.(same for Polaris and Havok, and I really wish Marvel don’t whip Wolverine/Jean
dead horse)
The saddest part about toxic relationships at Marvel is kinda twofold.
That’s why with Polaris, I’m so insistent about keeping Lorna and Havok apart for a long time. When they broke up, I set an informal clock of 10 years apart before trying to bring them back together. In theory, 10 years apart would have (note past tense) allowed Lorna to pursue romances that aren’t Havok for the first time in her entire 50 years of existence, establish relationships outside Havok, and pursue a wide range of things that she had been kept from her for so long (e.g. her origin story).
Instead, we have Marvel sabotaging her. They’ve undermined her developments (e.g. not promoting X-Factor #243). They keep finding a way to shoehorn Havok into all her big moments, sometimes letting him steal her spotlight or making her moments into mere subplots of big stories for Havok. They’ve written her dynamics with Gambit and Magneto in the same ways they write her treatment around Havok. And lastly, if they aren’t doing one of those things, they have her tossed in limbo for 2 years straight where nothing can change or improve for her.
With all of Marvel’s shenanigans in this respect since 2012 (when they broke up), I think the clock needs to be reset to 10 years again starting now.
I’m also thinking the original 10 years out from 2012 was too generous and ambitious of a goal in the first place. It assumed Marvel would care enough to put some real effort into doing right by Polaris. I hadn’t considered that it might take 10 years just for Marvel to get off its obsession with forcing Havok on Lorna and tearing her down with or without him. Which is the most important prerequisite to any possible relationship between the characters not sucking.
X-Men Vs Sentinels, Magneto, Juggernaut & Sauron commission by John Byrne. 2016.
What I like about this is, as far as I can tell, Havok is nowhere near Lorna.
Hi again.
What you’re really saying is that you were unable to see her value. You have options of trying to figure out her value, or accepting that some people see things you don’t. Instead, you’re opting to pretend your not managing to see a thing means that thing isn’t there.
This is an attitude I’ve seen before for other characters, including Polaris. It’s not any different from the guy online who, when I said Marvel needed to bring Polaris back from space, responded by saying she should be left in space and forgotten to “keep her away from characters that matter” (that’s not an exact quote, can’t remember exact, but it’s a general paraphrase).
You didn’t like her, you didn’t see the good in her, and that’s fine. You’re not required to like her or see her value. But I saw those things. I want them back, and if they were going to be taken away forever, then I wanted them to be put to bed in a respectful way that honored what was and could have been. That’s something I won’t budge on.
So me.
I like that Polaris has a live action version on Gifted. I like that, when I left off, she was being written very well on it. I had some things I didn’t like (pregnancy on first ep, prison happening too soon and missing full potential, etc), but I was able to set my dislikes aside for a variety of reasons. I like that the live action version of her is popular, as it shows her value.
But none of that changes how big of a problem the show’s handling of Dreamer’s death is for me.
I’m not someone that can turn a blind eye to things like that just cause my favorite character, in anything, is being treated great. It’s even worse cause I grew to really like Dreamer. But whether or not I have a deep personal interest in a character only means I’m more vocal.
I’ve never been a big fan of Edward in Final Fantasy IV and I still defend the character when people badmouth him as a worthless coward. In all honesty, Quicksilver is bottom of the “main four” of the Magnus family of my personal interest, but that didn’t stop me from calling out that he was depicted poorly in Secret Wars: House of M. That Lorna benefited from such a poor depiction didn’t change that it was wrong.
I can’t let something that’s wrong have a pass just cause something I like has it made in that situation. I’m not one of those people. I’ve seen a lot of people let such things slide because they see good treatment as a competition where all other characters have to suffer for their favorite to stand on top, but I’m not one of those people.
If the shoe was on the other foot, Dreamer was the most popular character and Polaris got killed off the way Dreamer was, I would want to see fans of Dreamer do for Polaris what I’m doing now.
Not that I expect anyone else to think or feel or do things like me. I just wanted to lay out what my POV is. Why things are the way they are with me.
Well, guys, it’s official: New Sketchbook Time!
Thank you to everyone who’s helped me along the way, both with your encouragement and with your passion and creativity!
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Special thank you’s to: @subsilvernight, @ssminos, @esteicy-blog, @felypsa, @thenerdyjew, @freakingquicksilver, and @allwillbeone
Congrats on the sketchbook! I don’t know why, but it seems rare to me to see people using actual physical media for their art these days.
salarta 