Latest / Vigilante Vibes Podcast / Ep. 260. Who is Lorna Dane, AKA Polaris, in Marvel Comics?!

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Ep. 260. Who is Lorna Dane, AKA Polaris, in Marvel Comics?! · Vigilante Vibes Podcast

• 0:09
  Hello Marvel fans, comic geeks, and on nerds between My Name is
• 0:12
  Megan and if you are living under a rock then you do not
• 0:16
  know that the first and only trailer for X-Men 97 Season 2
• 0:20
  released and I got so many looks at my girl Polaris Lorna Dane
• 0:26
  and I wanted to make an episode about her.
• 0:29
  I've done it before and I feel like it was way too long, like
• 0:32
  20 minutes long, so I thought I would make a more condensed one
• 0:35
  for you. So let's get into talking about
• 0:38
  one of my favorites. Polaris Lorna Dane first showed
• 0:42
  up in X-Men #49 in August of 1968 and was created by Arnold
• 0:48
  Drake and Don Heck. Which every time I say that
• 0:51
  guy's name, I love it even more. Don Heck Lorna Dane's life is
• 0:55
  basically what happens when the universe looks at someone and
• 0:57
  says, what if we gave this girl absolutely zero chill from
• 1:00
  birth? So Lorna is a mutant and
• 1:03
  surprise, it's a girl. She's the secret daughter of
• 1:06
  Magneto, AKA Marvel's favorite dramatic metal wizard.
• 1:09
  Her mom, Susanna, had an affair with him while married to a guy
• 1:12
  named Arnold. Naturally, Arnold found out in
• 1:15
  the worst possible setting while flying a plane with Baby Lorna
• 1:19
  on board, because apparently family therapy was unavailable
• 1:23
  and they did not know their beautiful bouncing baby was a
• 1:26
  mutant. The argument got so intense that
• 1:29
  Infant Lorna basically had the mutant equivalent of a toddler
• 1:32
  meltdown, which I think about a whole lot because of The
• 1:35
  Incredibles and Baby Jack Jack and suddenly my kids look like
• 1:38
  absolute angels. Anyways, instead of crying and
• 1:42
  throwing mashed peas like some kids tend to do, she unleashed a
• 1:46
  giant magnetic pulse that exploded the plane, killing both
• 1:50
  of her parents and permanently turning her hair green.
• 1:54
  Talk about a rough baby announcement.
• 1:57
  Magneto sense the magnetic blast Like ah yes, my child has
• 2:01
  finally entered the chat showing up the crash site and decided
• 2:04
  that she wasn't ready for the whole daughter of a mutant
• 2:06
  terrorist lifestyle yet. Which later she is but not yet.
• 2:12
  So he had mastermind wipe and rewrite her memories.
• 2:15
  Lorna grew up believing her parents simply died in a tragic
• 2:17
  plane accident and was raised by her uncle and aunt thinking they
• 2:21
  were her real parents. Also want to point out like the
• 2:25
  fact that Magneto was like oh shoot my kid is here.
• 2:30
  And then for like the rest of Marvel Comics treats her so
• 2:35
  trashy. He's such a bad parent to her
• 2:38
  but such a good parent to Wanda even though he's not her parent.
• 2:42
  We'll get into that later though.
• 2:44
  Fast forward to when Lorna was around 20.
• 2:46
  Cerebro detects her, Iceman meets her, and things
• 2:49
  immediately become chaotic because this is the X-Men.
• 2:53
  Of course, A villain named Mesmerow kidnaps her, boosts her
• 2:57
  powers with a mutant stimulator machine, and convinces her that
• 3:01
  she's Magneto's daughter. He's lying to her, but it turns
• 3:06
  out it was accidentally true. Comic books can be pretty
• 3:11
  exhausting. Lorna briefly sides with Magneto
• 3:14
  against the X-Men until Iceman basically goes hey, maybe don't
• 3:18
  join the mutant terrorism today and convinces her otherwise.
• 3:22
  Then Magneto turns out to be an Android duplicate because
• 3:25
  apparently regular family drama just was not enough, so they had
• 3:28
  to keep it going. She joins the X-Men, trains
• 3:31
  under Professor X at Xavier School, survives Danger Room
• 3:35
  sessions that definitely violate OSHA regulations, but that's not
• 3:39
  talked about enough. That's fine.
• 3:41
  And becomes close with Havoc. Cyclops's younger brother Iceman
• 3:46
  had a crush on her, but Lorna was way more into Alex Summers
• 3:50
  because she clearly enjoys emotionally unavailable men with
• 3:53
  energy powers. Because who doesn't?
• 3:55
  She and Havoc fight aliens, giant monsters, secrets,
• 3:58
  conspiracies, Hulk incidents, and the island of Krakoa.
• 4:02
  Yes, the island itself was evil because Marvel said geography
• 4:07
  can throw hands too. At one point Lorna gets so
• 4:10
  powerful she literally disrupts Earth's magnetic field and Yeats
• 4:14
  Krakoa into outer space. Common Lorna West, but even then
• 4:19
  Magnetos doesn't treat her well. It's fine.
• 4:23
  Later, she and Havoc leave the X-Men to study geophysics
• 4:26
  because apparently after battling even mutant islands,
• 4:29
  graduating school sounded relaxing.
• 4:33
  It does not stay relaxing. A share agent named Eric the Red
• 4:37
  brainwashes her and officially gives her the code name Polaris.
• 4:41
  She and Havoc get mind controlled into trying to
• 4:44
  assassinate Professor X at an airport, because apparently
• 4:47
  airports and comics are legally required to host at least one
• 4:50
  superhuman catastrophe per year. If anyone can't pick up on the
• 4:56
  sarcasm there, that was sarcasm. After recovering on your island,
• 5:02
  things somehow get worse. She fights the living monolith,
• 5:06
  gets rescued by Thor after being swept out to sea, battles
• 5:09
  Proteus, deals with brood aliens, then gets possessed by
• 5:13
  an evil psychic entity named Malice.
• 5:16
  Malice basically hijacks Lorna's body and turns her into a
• 5:19
  terrifying goth leader of the Marauders for months.
• 5:23
  You want to know the wild part though?
• 5:25
  Malice and Lorna's powers bonded so well that they became
• 5:28
  practically inseparable. Mr. Sinister Who?
• 5:32
  If you don't know who that is, he's the guy that looks like
• 5:34
  Dracula started doing genetic research.
• 5:36
  Was very proud of this nightmare situation.
• 5:40
  Eventually, Lorna gets free only for her alleged sister Zaladane,
• 5:45
  who to steal her magnetic powers in the Savage Land using weird
• 5:48
  high evolutionary machinery. During this, Lorna suddenly
• 5:52
  develops A secondary mutation where she becomes gigantic,
• 5:55
  super strong and vulnerable and accidentally amplifies negative
• 5:59
  emotions around her. So not only was she emotionally
• 6:02
  overwhelmed at the time, she turned everyone else into an
• 6:06
  angry disaster too. She really said if I'm going
• 6:09
  down, you're going down with me. The Shadow King notices this and
• 6:13
  immediately goes, oh excellent emotional instability, My
• 6:16
  favorites. He uses her as a psychic doorway
• 6:20
  into reality, causing worldwide rage and violence until the
• 6:24
  X-Men finally stop him. Afterward, her normal magnetic
• 6:27
  powers return and the giant rage mutant phase thankfully ends.
• 6:31
  Then comes X Factor, where Lorna and Havoc become government
• 6:35
  sponsored mutant superheroes. Their relationship basically
• 6:38
  turns into a Will they Won't They situation, except stretched
• 6:41
  across approximately 17 emotional catastrophes, several
• 6:46
  wars, and at least three mental breakdowns.
• 6:49
  At least three. Malice comes back, because who
• 6:53
  doesn't want Malice back? Apparently Mystique and
• 6:56
  Sabretooth join the team because the government apparently
• 6:59
  recruits entirely through bad decisions.
• 7:01
  Havoc goes undercover as a fake terrorist.
• 7:04
  Lorna forgives him, then watches him seemingly die in a time
• 7:08
  machine explosion. Naturally, afterwards, she
• 7:12
  learns that she's one of the 12 mutants supposedly destined to
• 7:16
  reshape the future. Apocalypse shows up because of
• 7:19
  course he does. Magneto temporarily channels her
• 7:22
  powers to fight him, proving once again that this family
• 7:25
  communicates almost exclusively through giant electromagnetic
• 7:28
  disasters. Lorna later helps Magneto rule
• 7:32
  Genosha, mostly because she believes she can help stabilize
• 7:35
  things and because she genuinely wants to learn more about her
• 7:38
  powers. During this time, she finally
• 7:41
  runs DNA tests and confirms the truth.
• 7:43
  Yep, Magneto is definitely her dad.
• 7:46
  Unfortunately, literally right after this emotional revelation,
• 7:49
  literally Cassandra Nova sends Sentinels to Genosha and wipes
• 7:53
  out millions of mutants. Lorna survives, but spends
• 7:57
  months dearly losing her mind trying to contain all of the
• 8:00
  electromagnetic energy left behind by the dead, which is
• 8:04
  honestly one of the darkest things Marvel ever casually
• 8:07
  threw into a comic like that was.
• 8:11
  That was something. Things spiral harder when Havoc
• 8:15
  suddenly returns alive. Lorna immediately proposes
• 8:19
  marriage, he says yes, and then he leaves her at the altar.
• 8:22
  So naturally she snaps, makes herself a Magneto style helmet
• 8:26
  out of silverware, and tries to merk him, his nurse, and a
• 8:30
  child. To be very sure you understand
• 8:33
  the magnitude of the drama, the nurse in question was who Havoc
• 8:37
  left Lorna at the altar for. So you know, valid crash out.
• 8:42
  Except the child girl. Therapy exists in Marvel, but
• 8:46
  apparently nobody schedules appointments.
• 8:49
  Professor X digs through her mind and uncovers years of
• 8:52
  trauma, survivor's guilt, Magneto issues, Genosha, PTSD,
• 8:56
  and approximately 6 lifetimes worth of emotional damage.
• 8:59
  After this, Lorna becomes way harsher, more militant,
• 9:03
  increasingly sympathetic to Magneto's worldview.
• 9:07
  Then House of M happens and she loses her powers.
• 9:10
  But if we're being very honest, for Lorna Dane losing her powers
• 9:13
  was somehow still not the worst week she's had in her life.
• 9:16
  Soon after, Apocalypse kidnaps her and turns her into
• 9:19
  Pestilence, one of his horsemen. She gets mind wiped, infused
• 9:23
  with diseases, and nearly helps create a global plague before
• 9:27
  The Wolverine Havoc save her. Apocalypse also fuses weird
• 9:31
  celestial technology into her nervous system to restore her
• 9:34
  magnetic abilities because apparently regular trauma was
• 9:38
  just not enough anymore. Now she's cybernetically
• 9:41
  traumatized. Then she goes to space because
• 9:44
  comic books. Lorna joins Havoc, Marvel Girl
• 9:48
  and the Star Jammers in a giant intergalactic war against Vulcan
• 9:51
  and the Shiar Empire. During all of this she fights
• 9:54
  Gladiator, crushes enemies with her their own armor, commands
• 9:59
  starships with magnetism, survives torture prisons,
• 10:03
  battles giant war fleets, and helps lead full scale cosmic
• 10:06
  rebellions. At one point she gets so angry
• 10:09
  thinking Havoc died that she starts tearing apart she are
• 10:13
  warships like she's opening soda cans back on Earth.
• 10:16
  She rejoins various versions of X Factor, deals with Hell Lords,
• 10:21
  gets blackout drunk after another emotional collapse,
• 10:24
  nearly commits suicide by cop, and then gets recruited by a
• 10:28
  corporation to lead yet another mutant superhero team because
• 10:32
  apparently her resume looked excellent despite everything.
• 10:36
  At some point, Longshot finally reveals the truth about the
• 10:39
  plane crash from her infancy that she accidentally caused it
• 10:42
  during the first mutant outburst.
• 10:45
  Learning this completely breaks her mind and leaves her
• 10:47
  catatonic until magic intervention literally restores
• 10:51
  her sanity, which honestly feels overdue.
• 10:55
  Later, she helps Magneto mentor the young X-Men, survives Nate
• 10:59
  Gray rewriting reality, gets trapped in the alternate mutant
• 11:02
  utopia prison dimension, returns to reality, and eventually
• 11:07
  becomes a citizen of Krakoa, the mutant nation built on the
• 11:10
  living island that she once launched into space.
• 11:13
  Full circle. She rejoins X Factor
• 11:17
  Investigations, helps solve mutant resurrection mysteries,
• 11:20
  fights supernatural threats like the Morgan, joins the official
• 11:25
  X-Men roster after the Hellfire Gala, and even helps Scarlet
• 11:28
  Witch perform a reality bending resurrection ritual involving
• 11:32
  some time manipulation and mutant souls, which is just
• 11:35
  another Tuesday for our girl Lorna.
• 11:38
  Eventually she helps defend Earth from alien invasions,
• 11:42
  pretends to betray Magneto to maintain a cover story around
• 11:45
  Scarlet Witch's murder investigation, protects Wanda
• 11:48
  from angry mutants, and later becomes instrumental in the war
• 11:52
  against Orcas by literally crashing a brood infested space
• 11:56
  station into another station with her magnetic powers.
• 11:59
  Most recently, we saw her make an appearance in the town of
• 12:02
  Loch Hill to help out her sister, the Scarlet Witch, and
• 12:05
  her brother Quicksilver against the end of everything.
• 12:08
  And I am a sucker for when these three work together.
• 12:11
  If it's a part of the storyline. If I get Lorna and Wanda
• 12:14
  together, if I get the three Pietro, Wanda, and Scarlet
• 12:17
  Witch, I'm buying the comic, no question.
• 12:21
  I should also mention that they're not actually siblings
• 12:24
  because of the retcon, where the Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver
• 12:28
  are not in fact Magneto's kids, which is bananas to me because
• 12:31
  they all act like siblings still, and Magneto, who is
• 12:35
  absolutely not the father of the year, treats the twins as his
• 12:38
  children and favors Wanda very heavily.
• 12:42
  If you were curious as to why this catastrophe of a retcon
• 12:45
  happened, it was actually because of the MCU.
• 12:48
  Pull up a chair for the shortest story of all time.
• 12:51
  Once Upon a time, Marvel Studios did not have the rights to
• 12:53
  mutants, but Fox did. So to use Wanda and Pietro and
• 12:57
  Avengers Age of Ultron, there had to be a separation of their
• 13:00
  parentage and that they could no longer be mutants.
• 13:04
  But in my heart, they're still mutants and no one can tell me
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  otherwise. The end.
• 13:10
  Beautiful story, I know. I'm looking to sell the rights
• 13:12
  for my own movie, but anyways, moving on.
• 13:15
  So in short, Polaris, my girl Lorna Dane, is what happens when
• 13:21
  someone inherits Magneto's powers, none of his emotional
• 13:24
  coping mechanisms, and all of Marvel's available trauma.
• 13:28
  But all jokes aside, in all seriousness, Lorna Dane AKA
• 13:32
  Polaris is someone of perseverance, someone who
• 13:35
  battles daily, whether it be with inner demons or outer
• 13:38
  demons, and still does the best she can to be the hero that we
• 13:41
  all need. So that is my girl Lorna Dane.
• 13:46
  I love her so much. I want to see much more of her
• 13:49
  and I'm very excited we're going to see her in X-Men 97 Season 2.
• 13:52
  To see my reaction to that video, you can just check my
• 13:55
  channel because it's literally right there.
• 13:57
  So with that being said, I hope you enjoyed this episode.
• 14:00
  I hope you like and subscribe and I hope you have a marvelous
• 14:02
  day.