Thoughts, with spoilers, here in this post. They’re not extensive. There is, however, one thing in this issue that irks me. I’m leaving lengthy remarks on that for the end.

Here’s the thoughts.

Iceman mocking everyone feeling cold makes me wonder what he feels, if anything, to temperature. Can he feel the cold but has much higher tolerance? Is he a bit like Mr. Freeze except he can handle the heat fine too? Does temperature not affect him at all, hot or cold, aside from whether or not his powers work?

Going from page 4 to 5, with the sheriff popping up: is a page missing here? It’s so abrupt. It feels like I was supposed to have one more page that isn’t there in the digital.

Bunn seems to be getting into the swing of things with the playfulness and jokes. The first few issues were kinda awkward about it, but now Bunn’s finding the right spots. It’s the sort of thing most writers have to struggle with at the start of something.

“When you were off in space with your dad”: Well, now I know Corsair’s back. Last I heard of him was that he appeared to die, which was the reason behind Havok leading the Starjammers, which in turn was used as the reason to keep Polaris stuck in space for a few years.

The last thing has to do with Mach 2/Nomi. This is the thing that irks me.

One thing I also say Marvel should do more of is use and promote characters that don’t get much use. I’ve also always said that two characters with the same or similar powers can be on the same book, or both used at Marvel on different books. I still believe that.

However, I also know how Marvel functions. The company holds this view that there’s only room for one character that fits a certain mold to be active. For many years, the assumption was that if Magneto is around, then Polaris is redundant. After she was confirmed as Magneto’s daughter again, a certain editor seemed to take the attitude that if Polaris is Magneto’s daughter, then it hurts Scarlet Witch as Magneto’s daughter. That Polaris being Magneto’s daughter made Wanda “redundant” in the role.

Those reasons are bull. But they’re also the way some people at Marvel think. Polaris’ options are constrained by whatever those people have as assumptions on how characters can and can’t be used.

Because of this, I’m irked by Mach 2/Nomi because she might be placed in roles that Polaris should be in.

Now, in this specific story, she’s fine. She’s not taking a role that could go to Lorna. She’s playing a part unique to her that fits the story’s needs.

My concern isn’t this story. It’s future stories.

It’s in essence the same root concern I had when Peter David had Lorna said she could go without seeing her father again for the rest of her life. When Peter David wrote that, it gave Marvel an excuse to keep her away from Magneto and the rest of her family, which Marvel jumped on.

It’s also partly informed by Marvel’s trend of trying to “replace” Polaris with other characters. During Axis, they used Enchantress in this manner. Post-Axis, on Uncanny Avengers, they introduced a “sister” for the Maximoff twins called Luminous for the same reason. Abigail Brand is also used much more often than Lorna. What’s to stop Marvel from doing the same with Mach 2/Nomi?

We know Polaris is going to show up for X-Men Blue #9. They made it a meaningful announcement at C2E2, I presume to get ahead of X-Men Blue complaints about Mach 2/Nomi if plans for Polaris weren’t known. I think Bunn did really well with a darker leader Lorna in Deadpool & The Mercs For Money, and I think he gets a better grasp on who she is as a character each time he writes her.

Under other circumstances, I might have dropped X-Men Blue when I heard about Nomi’s appearance and only picked it up again once Polaris appeared. I’m planning to keep reading unless something glaring pops up. Although Marvel has burned me in the past, I’ll lend cautious trust toward Bunn and Paniccia in this case. Especially since Paniccia’s spoken highly of her on Twitter.