Polaris Appreciation III

[jmc247]

Same here, I'm sure that the day Polaris is playable in a video game we will start seeing some results for the character.

Yes, Lorna having a decient role in a video game would be a game changer for her. She has the history and the background so that new fans can look back and get even more interested in her. But, they need to really notice her first.

By the way on the X-Men don't kill thread I posted pics of Lorna's wiping out bad guys during the Austen, Milligan and Yost and fans loved it.

http://forums.comicbookresources.com...n-t-Kill/page3

This is the type of Lorna fans want to see. Someone who cares about something greater then herself and is willing to use deadly force if neccessary against foes trying to kill her.

[The_Greatest_Username]

The Polaris of this past decade was very well received by fans which is really no suprise. She really came into her own after ALL those years.

[jmc247]

The Polaris of this past decade was very well received by fans which is really no suprise. She really came into her own after ALL those years.

She certainly was very well recieved last decade and it was the era where she finally came into her own as a character after decades. It made it all the worse when Brubaker decided to regress her for no reason at all back to her Claremont era depiction. Luckly Yost and DnA decided differently. Its the hardest thing with Lorna in breaking some old time fans image of her as a character as what she was in the 70s-90s instead of focusing on the aspects of the character built on last decade which finally allowed the character to come into her own as more then a B/C list Jean Gray lite character. But, not just that the depiction was quite popular and well liked by fans. Its sad how many fans today haven't read her depictions back then.

We need to do more to promote Lorna of the 2000s and why she mattered, was different and kick ass to fans and perhaps we can respark the dying interest in the character.

[PwrdOff]

She certainly was very well recieved last decade and it was the era where she finally came into her own as a character after decades. It made it all the worse when Brubaker decided to regress her for no reason at all back to her Claremont era depiction. Luckly Yost and DnA decided differently. Its the hardest thing with Lorna in breaking some old time fans image of her as a character as what she was in the 70s-90s instead of focusing on the aspects of the character built on last decade which finally allowed the character to come into her own as more then a B/C list Jean Gray lite character. But, not just that the depiction was quite popular and well liked by fans. Its sad how many fans today haven't read her depictions back then.

We need to do more to promote Lorna of the 2000s and why she mattered, was different and kick ass to fans and perhaps we can respark the dying interest in the character.

Listen here, it's Jean GREY, like goose, or fifty shades of, not Davis or anatomy.

[salarta]

Not necessarily. For instance, the LEGO games have no real story that develops the characters like Assassin's Creed or Mass Effect. Her (playable) appearance in the game would lead to her being exposed to more people knowing about the character. She's just a few Wikipedia pages away from getting more fans. What she needs is exposure.

My experience has been that even in games where story is considered practically pointless, how they're used in the story still matters greatly. There are a lot of characters in games from the NES and SNES days that I've seen bashed as being "bad characters" over their depictions in the story despite how it's nearly unanimous that the story in games from back then was weak to non-existent. Whole lengthy commentaries about Samus as a character in Metroid have been made based near exclusively on discovering she was a woman at the end of Metroid. Sure, bad depiction of Lorna in a LEGO game wouldn't be nearly as bad of a blow as a bad depiction in something taken more seriously, but it would still do a lot more damage than I think you are giving it credit.

Yes, Lorna having a decient role in a video game would be a game changer for her. She has the history and the background so that new fans can look back and get even more interested in her. But, they need to really notice her first.

By the way on the X-Men don't kill thread I posted pics of Lorna's wiping out bad guys during the Austen, Milligan and Yost and fans loved it.

http://forums.comicbookresources.com...n-t-Kill/page3

This is the type of Lorna fans want to see. Someone who cares about something greater then herself and is willing to use deadly force if neccessary against foes trying to kill her.

I can understand why some hardcore Marvel fans would be so opposed to Lorna being depicted differently from the Claremont era, but I think all of them are so obsessively focused on being "traditional" that they mistakenly think any change whatsoever is an affront. In Lorna's case, her changes came from actual, honest to goodness character development. Gradually, things happened to her that shifted her from the way they kept seeing her used, to the way she is at her best, which also happens to be the way people that aren't hardcore old time fans actually want to see Lorna treated.

Basically, any demand that Lorna must revert back to the way she was during the Claremont era, or even before the early 00s, seems to me like it's on par to demanding that Psylocke go back to being British and completely lose everything that's happened with her in her Asian body, or that Beast should go back to simply being a very strong mutant with none of the fur and other animal characteristics he's developed and his time that way should never be referenced. When it goes that far, demanding that meaningful character developments be undone, then it starts getting to the point of selfishness and absurdity. If characters aren't allowed to grow and develop over time, then there's no reason to bother reading, watching or playing anything that has the character in it.

Of course, there are limits too. Characters are expected to develop, but say if the core of a character is to be a badass, then making her suddenly "develop" into acting like a complete wuss is out of the question.


As for interest in the character, I think that as a whole it's actually growing, not shrinking. Marvel has done a terrible job in the past of promoting the character when she's had big breaks like the WatXM cartoon or appearing in Exiles, so I don't think, at least in the past 5 years, that there's been much of a decline on account of how she wasn't permitted to give out a fair level of exposure in the first place. On the flipside, Lorna is getting promoted more and more all the time through cosplays, fanart, etc. Remember, Yaya Han, a big enough cosplayer that someone I know who isn't obsessive over cosplaying and NEVER shows me them, found out about her cosplaying Lorna and proceeded to link me. That didn't happen in the early 00s, that happened in the past year.

In spite of everything Marvel is failing to do to make good use of Lorna, interest in the potential and the idea of her is still very high and seems to be growing. It's a shame that Marvel doesn't seem to want to acknowledge it and increase their revenue by using what they've got to great effect, but that's their prerogative. We can keep pushing for her, pointing out how much could be done with her and why we like her so much, but ultimately it may take a long time before Marvel realizes how much potential revenue they lost out on and proceeds to give Lorna a fair shot before they lose out on any more.

[The_Greatest_Username]

We need to do more to promote Lorna of the 2000s and why she mattered, was different and kick ass to fans and perhaps we can respark the dying interest in the character.

I swear I'll make a thread about it before this year is over.

My experience has been that even in games where story is considered practically pointless, how they're used in the story still matters greatly. There are a lot of characters in games from the NES and SNES days that I've seen bashed as being "bad characters" over their depictions in the story despite how it's nearly unanimous that the story in games from back then was weak to non-existent. Whole lengthy commentaries about Samus as a character in Metroid have been made based near exclusively on discovering she was a woman at the end of Metroid. Sure, bad depiction of Lorna in a LEGO game wouldn't be nearly as bad of a blow as a bad depiction in something taken more seriously, but it would still do a lot more damage than I think you are giving it credit.

That certainly would be the case for Lorna if she were to appear in any other game. Predominantly in the LEGO games, majority of the playable cast does nothing except make noices (like grunts and punching) and attack. That's sort of what we're trying to go for in Lorna's case here. The absolute worst thing that could possibly happen to the character would be for her to have a minor appearance in a cut scene to be shocked by lightning from a certain Claremazon. Even with that worst case scenario it would be nothing more than just a throw away moment for light humor. Being playable in the game would open more opportunities for her as she'd have "being playable in a video game" under her belt. Those little things can easily spark more interest the character.

[Mitteloss]

Some on-panel interaction with Iceman may happen after X-Termination in AXM as the following arc focuses on "ex-girlfriends" according to Liu.

http://www.comicbookresources.com/?p...ticle&id=43335

As with Magneto, it is pretty certain Lorna and Bobby interacted a bit off-panel during AvX.

If we do see Lorna in AXM- both the characters have matured alot since he and Lorna split so I hope they're civil and friendly as always, but Iceman might not think too highly of her romantic reunion with Alex in space after the wedding...

I think Breaking Points served to show that Lorna and Alex's rekindling of their relationship was pressured by circumstances of being alone together alot rather than a genuine respect towards one another and understanding of the nature of their relationship. Was it a mistake? Maybe not in space when they more or less needed to be close. Was carrying on the relationship following their return to Earth? In the long-run... no. They both know that now.

In this case- I hope Lorna and Bobby are 'just friends', I want her to be single forever now .

[salarta]

Some on-panel interaction with Iceman may happen after X-Termination in AXM as the following arc focuses on "ex-girlfriends" according to Liu.

http://www.comicbookresources.com/?p...ticle&id=43335

As with Magneto, it is pretty certain Lorna and Bobby interacted a bit off-panel during AvX.

If we do see Lorna in AXM- both the characters have matured alot since he and Lorna split so I hope they're civil and friendly as always, but Iceman might not think too highly of her romantic reunion with Alex in space after the wedding...

I think Breaking Points served to show that Lorna and Alex's rekindling of their relationship was pressured by circumstances of being alone together alot rather than a genuine respect towards one another and understanding of the nature of their relationship. Was it a mistake? Maybe not in space when they more or less needed to be close. Was carrying on the relationship following their return to Earth? In the long-run... no. They both know that now.

In this case- I hope Lorna and Bobby are 'just friends', I want her to be single forever now .

There's potential, but as always for Lorna, I doubt Marvel will acknowledge or use it. In fact, what's in that interview reaffirms all the problems with Marvel that I've said before, especially when it comes to Lorna. Here we have Iceman, about to cover his ex-girlfriends, pregnancies, Apocalypse... but where is all of that for Lorna? Where are the storylines where Lorna has to deal with her time as Pestilence under Apocalypse? Where are the storylines about Lorna's time on Genosha and the trauma she experienced from its destruction, or anything else that's happened to her since she was created?

Characters like Wolverine or Storm or Iceman will get a whole heap of focus on who they are and what they've been through, but when they get to Lorna, everything about the character, who she is, what she's been through is completely ignored if not outright whitewashed to force her to fit into the background of whatever team she's been put on. Most of the time, she's not treated like a character; she's treated like a plot device to build up everyone else around her.

If her powers are inconveniently similar to Storm, they will be removed and new ones will be forced in their place. If her relationship as a daughter of Magneto is inconvenient to promoting Scarlet Witch, her activity during House of M will be ripped out of flashbacks and Lorna and Magneto will either conveniently ignore each other or outright act like they want nothing to do with each other. Costumes change depending on the needs of the other characters, rather than the needs of Lorna. And I have no doubt at this point, based on Marvel's track record, that if Lorna were to get on a book with Agent Brand, they would force Lorna's hair color to change back to brown or some other color so she wouldn't "take away" from Agent Brand.

Marvel has made it pretty clear: Lorna is not a character in their eyes, she is a tool. We see all that could be done with Lorna, we see the wealth of untapped potential, but for some reason Marvel is stuck in this attitude that Lorna has none because to them, she's an object, a toy, but not a character, and any genuine potential she displays in her own right based on her own character history is "wasted" on her and should be transferred over to some other character they actually recognize exists as a character.

Which as far as I'm concerned justifies my lack of desire to read anything else Marvel has to offer. It's always said that the measure of whether or not a person is truly good is how they treat people that aren't very high up in the world. And how Marvel treats Lorna, and I'm sure countless other characters, reflects very poorly on the company.

I'm probably preaching to the choir at this point, but I felt like I needed to say it again.

[The_Greatest_Username]

salarta, you're reading WAY too much into this. Iceman is actually a character who gets almost no focus what so ever. The last time anyone did something with him was around 2008-ish when Mike Carey was writing a small story for him in Manifest Destiny. Lorna will get focus when a writer comes along that wants to deal with her issues and there are writers that do that. Austen dealt with her surviving Genosha, Milligan dealt with her power loss, and David gave her an origin story.

Anyways, thanks for sharing that Mitteloss, it'll be pretty cool to see Liu's take on Lorna at least for an issue.

EDIT: http://www.comicbookresources.com/?p...ults&msg=voted
You KNOW what to do.

[ariwl1]

That is a great wig on that Polaris cosplay.

Last X-Men game I played was nearly a decade ago when X-Men Legends was released. And yes, Magma was my favorite character there along with Jean Grey.

Loved that game. Magma was a pretty impressive tank. And powered up Jean meant your team practically had to die on purpose.

Listen here, it's Jean GREY, like goose, or fifty shades of, not Davis or anatomy.

*clink*

[Siena Blaze]

Listen here, it's Jean GREY, like goose, or fifty shades of, not Davis or anatomy.

Of all names to misspell, it had to be the X-Men's original leading lady! Shame on you, jmc! /prepares for excommunication proceedings

My experience has been that even in games where story is considered practically pointless, how they're used in the story still matters greatly. There are a lot of characters in games from the NES and SNES days that I've seen bashed as being "bad characters" over their depictions in the story despite how it's nearly unanimous that the story in games from back then was weak to non-existent. Whole lengthy commentaries about Samus as a character in Metroid have been made based near exclusively on discovering she was a woman at the end of Metroid. Sure, bad depiction of Lorna in a LEGO game wouldn't be nearly as bad of a blow as a bad depiction in something taken more seriously, but it would still do a lot more damage than I think you are giving it credit.



I can understand why some hardcore Marvel fans would be so opposed to Lorna being depicted differently from the Claremont era, but I think all of them are so obsessively focused on being "traditional" that they mistakenly think any change whatsoever is an affront. In Lorna's case, her changes came from actual, honest to goodness character development. Gradually, things happened to her that shifted her from the way they kept seeing her used, to the way she is at her best, which also happens to be the way people that aren't hardcore old time fans actually want to see Lorna treated.

Basically, any demand that Lorna must revert back to the way she was during the Claremont era, or even before the early 00s, seems to me like it's on par to demanding that Psylocke go back to being British and completely lose everything that's happened with her in her Asian body, or that Beast should go back to simply being a very strong mutant with none of the fur and other animal characteristics he's developed and his time that way should never be referenced. When it goes that far, demanding that meaningful character developments be undone, then it starts getting to the point of selfishness and absurdity. If characters aren't allowed to grow and develop over time, then there's no reason to bother reading, watching or playing anything that has the character in it.

Of course, there are limits too. Characters are expected to develop, but say if the core of a character is to be a badass, then making her suddenly "develop" into acting like a complete wuss is out of the question.


As for interest in the character, I think that as a whole it's actually growing, not shrinking. Marvel has done a terrible job in the past of promoting the character when she's had big breaks like the WatXM cartoon or appearing in Exiles, so I don't think, at least in the past 5 years, that there's been much of a decline on account of how she wasn't permitted to give out a fair level of exposure in the first place. On the flipside, Lorna is getting promoted more and more all the time through cosplays, fanart, etc. Remember, Yaya Han, a big enough cosplayer that someone I know who isn't obsessive over cosplaying and NEVER shows me them, found out about her cosplaying Lorna and proceeded to link me. That didn't happen in the early 00s, that happened in the past year.

In spite of everything Marvel is failing to do to make good use of Lorna, interest in the potential and the idea of her is still very high and seems to be growing. It's a shame that Marvel doesn't seem to want to acknowledge it and increase their revenue by using what they've got to great effect, but that's their prerogative. We can keep pushing for her, pointing out how much could be done with her and why we like her so much, but ultimately it may take a long time before Marvel realizes how much potential revenue they lost out on and proceeds to give Lorna a fair shot before they lose out on any more.

Too much focus on the fear of what may happen, IMO. I say give Polaris a chance. If she ends up being a man by the end of the game, so be it.

Some on-panel interaction with Iceman may happen after X-Termination in AXM as the following arc focuses on "ex-girlfriends" according to Liu.

Cool! I hope Polaris shows up! Even in flashback mode.

Loved that game. Magma was a pretty impressive tank. And powered up Jean meant your team practically had to die on purpose.

No kidding! Magma, a character that gets no love got a whole game to shine!!! I still remember my excitement learning she was not only in the game and playable, but starring too!!! And what can I say about Jean that hasn't been said already? Pink energy globules rock!! I used to fly all over the place with her. She was the only one I liked flying with, didn't care much for Storm or Rogue. Actually I take that back, Storm was the Mistress of Melee for me in that game.

[Siena Blaze]

EDIT: http://www.comicbookresources.com/?p...ults&msg=voted
You KNOW what to do.

I voted! But she's losing pretty badly! I wish we could blame Teen Polaris.

[Mitteloss]

The poll results are so gutting :(

[Siena Blaze]

The poll results are so gutting :(

It would have been really funny if she only had 3 votes from the 3 of us that said we voted for her.

[The_Greatest_Username]

The poll doesn't close until the end of the month, there's still time! It is pretty sad that she's losing to TeenJean, but at least she's ahead of Pixie who I honestly thought would be trumping her. Also, the lack of New Mutants (like Dani Moonstar) and X-Factor characters (like M and Siryn) I think also hurt Polaris because their fans probably voted for other characters just because their favorite wasn't included.