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Zaladane gained her magnetic powers from Lorna Dane in a story arc that revealed they were sisters. A decade later, Grant Morrison (or his editor) didn’t bother with research and revealed that Lorna was Magento’s daughter. So, with that retcon, he is essentially seen here murdering his offspring.

Uncanny X-Men #275
April 1991
Jim Lee, Scott Williams,
and Chris Claremont

Okay, time for some truth dropping.

Polaris’ introductory storyline was her revealed as Magneto’s daughter. Her very first story was this. X-Men #49-50. The decision to force a retcon on it that suddenly and nonsensically made her not Magneto’s daughter came later.

Later, her rightful place as Magneto’s daughter was restored by people who actually cared enough to look back at her origins.

By contrast, the “Zaladane and Polaris are sisters” storyline was tossed out there by Claremont, who bent over backwards to treat Polaris poorly during his long run. Zaladane stealing Lorna’s powers was itself part of this writer enmity. He used this storyline to rob Polaris of the one thing he hadn’t yet stripped from her, her powers, and gave her new ones. The bulk of these new powers were generic – super strength, invulnerability, stuff countless other characters already had.

The one power this writer put “unique” on Lorna? Involuntary hate powers. Where just by existing, Lorna apparently brought out the worst in people around her, including making random people hate her specifically and try to kill her even if they died in the process. And of course, this writer wrapped it in a bow of having Lorna act like it’s her fault that people were behaving this way around her. Have Zaladane inflict a curse on her, then have the victim blame herself for the abuse she receives from that curse. Classic.

Personally, I have no problem with Zaladane coming up again some day, when Marvel knows how to give a damn about Lorna and use her right when doing such a storyline. There’s potential there.

But I had to respond to this suggestion that people at Marvel “didn’t do their research” when they restored Lorna as Magneto’s daughter. That they fixed what should never have happened in the first place shows they did their research. Restoring Polaris in this manner is far more important than whether or not it means someone can say Magneto killed an alleged daughter that hasn’t been seen or mentioned anywhere official in nearly 30 years.

Yes, her very first story was in X-Men #49-#50, but you seem to be leaving off the rest of that story which took place in #51-#52 where Bobby revealed to her that Magneto being her father was a lie and that she was raised by her aunt and uncle after her real parents died in a plane crash. Then, a few issues later in X-Men #58, it’s revealed that the Magneto whom claimed to be her father was actually a robot.

Nothing else was ever said of the potentiality of Magneto being her father until 33 years later in New X-Men #132.

As to the point about Zaladane being her sister, nothing in canon has ever made a counterpoint to that reveal. Sure, she may have been lying, but to say that would be an assumption one makes based on their own prejudice. Magneto’s parentage was revealed as a lie in the VERY SAME STORY in which the idea was first implemented.

It’s not that I don’t like the idea of Magneto being the father of Polaris. It’s just that it was retconned in a very sloppy way that completely ignored continuity. (another example of poor research was in that very same New X-Men arc when we see Unus, who had been dead for several decades by that point, was unexplainably alive and well)

So, my point still stands.

References: X-Men #50 page 11, X-Men #52 page 13-14, X-Men #58 page 16.

Time for a looooong reply, both to the above and to comment replies.

This first part is to both OP and @dh-gamer whose comment I can’t seem to copy and paste here like I normally do.

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Did #52 make that claim? Yes. Was it part of the same storyline, and did it fit what was happening? Not really. #49-50 was Lorna’s story, #51-52 was Erik the Red’s story. They’re two separate arcs. That Marvel suddenly did an about-face with #52 is more a matter of higher-ups at Marvel deciding they didn’t want the character committed to her founding storyline. That Marvel needed to take 6 MORE issues after this claim to come up with an additional very flimsy excuse of “It was a robot all along” pretty much gives that way. They wouldn’t have needed to take that much time coming up with that kind of excuse if they actually intended to do it all along. They would’ve given it immediately so they could quickly throw away Lorna’s founding storyline and move on.

Beyond that, even if I went along with the claim this was all “as intended,” it still wouldn’t support the claim that the effort to restore her parentage in the 00s was “lack of research,” because it would take research to know Magneto was presented as Polaris’ father in the first place. Real lack of research would be to not restore her parentage at all, but leave things as they were kept for decades far too long.

Unlike with Zaladane, that nothing was said again until 33 years later doesn’t matter. This isn’t Polaris existing for several years before someone decided to change her parentage, as was the case with the Maximoff twins revealed as Magneto’s kids (which they should be and in my mind are, for the record). This isn’t “Their father is Whizzer, wait nevermind it was Magneto all along, wait nevermind it was-.” Lorna had a BIG introduction as this. It was her founding storyline. Its getting cut out was as absurd as if maintaining Dick Grayson’s intro of his parents killed leading him to become Robin, only to then have a Joker-focused arc right after that suddenly and nonsensically reveals his parents are alive but he’s gonna remain Robin anyway.

Or to explain it just a bit more, in case I’m not clear enough in my Dick Grayson hypothetical example: a retcon makes no sense if it so blatantly goes against everything about a character’s introductory foundation. Doesn’t matter if it’s the next arc or decades later, when a character’s introduction is so heavy on something, ripping it out reaches a point of absurdity and nonsense that there’s no way it was always meant to not be the real deal.

That’s not all. On top of this, Lorna was given nothing to “replace” her foundation of Magneto as her father. “Your father’s Magneto, whoops nevermind your foster parents say he’s not, whoops and also this Magneto was a robot you somehow didn’t detect being a robot because reasons. Oh, you wanna know who your real parents are? Haha screw you for 40 more years, your origins don’t matter anymore.”

No counterpoint to the Zaladane “reveal” is one of countless cases of Marvel dropping random storylines and moving forward as if they never happened. This isn’t a special case. It happens all the time.

However, fortunately for your argument, I personally think that some day AFTER Marvel learns how to do right by Lorna, they should revisit Zaladane. Claremont’s reasons behind the claim were to further kill off Lorna’s opportunities as a character, but like most of what Claremont did, a good writer can take it and create something good from the mess he tried to make. This is why I’m not immediately condemning the Malice portion of the coming Blue arc like others have done. My concern is Havok’s involvement. I see potential in revisiting Malice. As I would with Zaladane. It’s all about having a writer that actually cares about Lorna and the Magnus family enough to do right by them in the process.

So to reiterate: Magneto being Polaris’ father was not a “retcon,” as keeps being claimed. It was undoing a retcon to restore something that never should’ve been lost in the first place, and which was taken away in a truly sloppy manner clearly dictated by higher-ups who got cold feet about the origins and nature of this character they just introduced.

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And now for my reply to @blackphoenix1977 who I’m trying to mention but it’s not working.

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I’ve seen two ideas for how Zaladane could be related to Lorna WITHOUT her also being a daughter of Magneto.

Idea #1: your idea, that she’s a sister on the mother side but not by Magneto. Perhaps even by Lorna’s stepfather. It’d work pretty well, Lorna growing up with her foster parents while Zaladane got a raw deal.

Idea #2: Zaladane is actually Lorna’s mother. This idea was proposed BEFORE X-Factor #243. I don’t think it’s as reasonable to pursue today, but it’s possible if someone wanted to do it. Angle to Zaladane claiming Lorna was her sister is that Zaladane lost her own identity or something of that nature.

Personally, I think the best approach would be the most obvious and straightforward: Zaladane isn’t related to Lorna but has a hate-on toward her for reasons yet to be disclosed that led her to want to enact this overly complicated scheme to further screw with her.

Zaladane is a woman who stole Lorna’s powers, and made a big show of flaunting dominance over Lorna and publicly humiliating her. In my mind, the best way to handle the “powers” Lorna suddenly had when her real ones were ripped away is to say Zaladane forced those powers on Lorna to add yet more humiliation and pain to her life. Lorna was later established in X-Factor as having body image issues. Not much of a leap to say Zaladane forcing Lorna to be tall, buff and masculine was intended to wound her emotionally. Any moments she acts proud of it, as they would conflict, just say she was trying to convince herself to like the sudden radical change that was forced on her by someone who hates her with a passion.

All of that goes same for claiming to be Lorna’s sister. All of the stuff Zaladane did to her was painful enough already from her POV. Imagine how much more painful it would be to think a long-lost sister, who “knew” you were her sister while you didn’t, hated you so much that she wanted to do all these awful things to you.

Claremont tried to set up excuses for why Zaladane “must” be at least a blood relation for Lorna, but there are many ways to write those off, and it’s not like that’s stopped Marvel before (e.g. the forced retcon on the Maximoff twins during Axis).

You’re clearly making assumptions about the intentions of writers and editor behind the scenes on a story arc published over 40 years ago. And it was ONE arc. The Eric the Red/Polaris/Mesmero arc was all one large story with, I might add, the same writer. What is published is what is canon. We can’t cherry pick what we like and ignore the things we don’t. I wasn’t a fan of what John Byrne did to The Vision during his West Coast Avengers run, but it happened. Sure, years later another writer/editor/illustrator changed it, but they did so within the confines of continuity that included an explanation of sorts. Sometimes these retcons are clumsy, but the attempt must be made to change the status quo. If not then it’s just all up for grabs and nothing has consequence.

I said in a comment reply rather than reblog that I would re-read the issues before commenting any further! And… I have! Which means I have a response!

To just get this out of the way from the get-go, re-reading made me aware of just how badly I should done so before starting this entire discussion. There were important vital details that I forgot, and stupidly went about saying the wrong info. Worst of it being that I claimed #49-50 was Lorna’s story and #51-52 was Erik the Red’s, when #51 is clearly Lorna-focused and Erik doesn’t really factor in at all until #52.

So, thank you for pushing me to do something I should’ve done in the first place. 

Now for the response, response. I re-read from Uncanny X-Men #49 to #52. Nothing before or after. I’m starting with the more easily dismissed stuff.

First of all, that it was all by one writer doesn’t really mean much. They may be the writer, but writers have editors above them who can force changes in creative direction. Going into this will require delving into assumptions about intentions of writers and editors behind the scenes, but I feel pretty comfortable doing that until someone presents me with concrete proof that runs counter to what I’m about to say. Not saying it doesn’t exist. It might. But I’d need to see it.

Arnold Drake was the writer of X-Men #47-54. His published history with Marvel ran for two years. After 1969, from what I can see, he did very little with Marvel. By contrast, he wrote a lot for DC Comics, starting in 1963 and at least up to 1981. In addition to non-DC work, of course. Why only write for Marvel for two years and never again – stopping mere months after he created and introduced Polaris?

Here’s the speculation: editorial at Marvel may have interfered with his creative work enough that he decided to leave, and that could have very well included what he wanted to do with Polaris.

He wouldn’t be the only person treated in such a manner. A decade later, a semi-famous case involved a resignation and Iron Man #128. The resignation was Dave Cockrum’s, famed for his art on X-Men (among other places). In his resignation letter, he complained about vindictiveness and higher-ups at Marvel seeming to do things to “put talent in their place.”

Now, a decade is a long time. Without having looked, perhaps the guilty parties for Cockrum’s case weren’t even around when Drake wrote and left. But even if they weren’t? It’s still possible that the office culture Cockrum and others like him entered into existed during Drake’s time, and it simply persisted until then. If true, Arnold Drake putting tons of effort into his grand story of unveiling Lorna Dane as Magneto’s daughter only for editorial to force him to undo it at the last second would immediately kill his desire to do future work with Marvel. Why bother writing there if his creativity is going to get stifled?

Okay, I got that done. Going into actual issue content instead of meta and speculation.

Here’s the entire page in X-Men #52 where the whole “not really Magneto’s daughter” thing is “revealed.”

Let’s consider the context.

X-Men #49 was simple intro of Lorna. #50 and #51 are where the actual “Lorna is Magneto’s daughter” story elements come into play. The issues make a huge deal about this. It’s such a big deal that we get this title page to commemorate the storyline for #51.

So we have two issues deeply devoted to Lorna’s status as Magneto’s daughter, her filial duty to him, and the power it contains. Her struggle in grappling with that lineage is presented as a big deal. We get all of that, and then to put a cap on it to end the whole story we get…. a few panels on one page?

We don’t see any of the supposed newspaper files Iceman reads. We don’t see Lorna’s foster parents (and on that note: we STILL haven’t seen them, in what’s going to be 50 years next year). All we get is Iceman’s fleeting words.

That’s sloppy. After spending whole issues on building Lorna up as Magneto’s daughter, the story kills it with a few brief panels. As I said before: it’s on par with introducing Robin with his parents murdered storyline, only to suddenly find out issues later that they never died at all. Only in this case, it would be like having Alfred tell Robin this information followed by never seeing his parents on panel and Robin never talking about them again. Which leads me to one of two conclusions: either it’s very poor writing, or editorial meddling. Considering how good Drake does with Lorna everywhere else, I’m banking on editorial meddling.

That’s not all though.

In Uncanny X-Men #58, the Magneto from Lorna’s introduction is “revealed” to have been a robot all along. Let’s set aside things like how absurd it is that Lorna somehow couldn’t detect this despite her powers. Here’s what this “robot” was able to do in X-Men #51.

In his fight with the X-Men, the “robot” is able to fling metal around just like Magneto himself. This raises an absolutely essential question: what’s the point of treating Magneto and Polaris in these issues like special grandiose threats if someone can just build a robot that does the exact same thing they can do?

Furthermore, in writing, it’s good practice to give hints to the truth of things so readers/watchers/players don’t feel like they were cheated and the writer pulled a story turn out of nowhere. There is no indication of Magneto’s “true nature” being a robot in X-Men #49-52. This brings us right back to one of two conclusions: either this Magneto was never meant to be a robot, or he was and the writing is so bad that it failed to give adequate notice of what to expect.

This is where an important note must be made: Uncanny X-Men #48 was a different writer. After Arnold Drake left, Roy Thomas took over as writer. That grants a little deniability… until we start wondering why Roy Thomas had to return to Mesmero and the Magneto “robot” at all. Arnold Drake left on an entirely different story about the Living Pharaoh, which Roy Thomas then picked up. He didn’t need to continue from #52. He could have just ignored all of that and started from scratch, either using Mesmero or Magneto without bringing up their work together. So why do it?

My conclusion: editorial also wasn’t satisfied with the (probably intentional) hack job of “Iceman found the truth” and wanted something more to double down on it while ensuring Magneto would have no real history with it. So, editorial forced the “Magneto was a robot all along” element to tie up loose ends left by Drake and what he actually wanted to do before he quit Marvel.

So. Wrapping up my post. The writer/editor talk here remains speculation, but I think it’s well-grounded speculation given the history and timing of everything. At minimum, if the speculation is false, it would mean Arnold Drake had a sudden bout of sloppy nonsensical writing toward the end of his intro to Polaris, and Roy Thomas later had a similar yet coincidental sudden bout of sloppy nonsensical writing to reinforce it.