#Zaladane

[gotham-at-nightfall]

ABC's of the X-Men

A is for Apocalypse

B is for The Brood

C is for Callisto

D is for Deathbird

E is for Exodus

F is for Fenris

G is for Goblin Queen

H is for Hellfire Club

I is for Imperial Guard

J is for Juggernaut

K is for Krakoa

L is for Legion

M is for Magneto

N is for Nimrod

O is for Omega Red

P is for Proteus

Q is for Quicksilver

R is for Reavers

S is for Sabretooth

T is for Toad

U is for Upstarts

V is for Vertigo

W is for Wendigo

X is for X-Cutioner

Y is for Yuriko

Z is for Zaladane

By Joel Furtado

[sstartwork]

Zaladane!

So here’s my way to bring her back.

Polaris is missing, presumed dead. Wanda is asked to skry for her and she picks up her essence in the afterlife. She summons “Polaris” to the living realm, only to find out that the essence of Polaris she sensed was actually the part that Zaladane had siphoned off before she was killed.

Now she’s back and on the loose!

Thoughts?

[karenxmenfan]

Zaladane (x/x)

[pageofqueens]

Credit to: https://www.instagram.com/cerebrofiles/

[sparklingelectricblue]

Headcanon: Origins of Zaladane

Astra is Zaladane's "mother"!

Wait! wait! Stay with me...

Astra learned of Lorna Dane's existence from Mastermind. She probably did some investigation because she noticed Magneto was preoccupied with something (Lorna). Due to Astra's unhealthy obsession with Magneto, she steals some DNA from him (from the med lab, his hairbrush, or whatever) and creates a child that is combined with Astra's DNA. She grows Zaladane in an artificial womb and artificially advances her age (because babies, ew). Then presents Zaladane as a child to Magneto while he's in his Savage Land base, hoping that Zaladane is something that Magneto wants and it would cause them to be closer.

Magneto is horrified and feels violated by the fact that she used his DNA and threatens to kill her if he ever sees her again. She teleports off, leaving Zaladane behind because she doesn't really care about Zaladane. Astra is more upset that her plan didn't work. Magneto takes pity on Zaladane and leaves her with a family in Savage Land.

I imagine that Astra see Zaladane as a means to an end and is a bit cruel to her before presenting her to Magneto. Combined with Zaladane's fast aging (in my headcanon), or maybe adjustments that Astra made to Zaladane's DNA, Zaladane ends up psychotic.

Then she shows up in later stories, and we know how her story ends...

[splooosh]

“does she have no sense”

Jim Lee - Scott Williams

[pepperclint]

[morose-magnetrix]

Uncanny X-Men (1981) #249

The fact that Claremont made Zaladane = Zala Dane will forever make me lose my fucking mind lmao

[frogoat]

A blog about comic books and geek culture in general and Spider-Girl and the MC2 universe in particular.

[eliah]

[bananabrain0]

If you are a Zaladane stan and you have not checked out this spectacular chapter of the New Mutants fic, I immediately revoke all the privileges from being a part of the tribe!

If you have indeed checked out this lesbian fever dream of a fanfic, I bet you liked it. Repost it into filth! Let the world and the people tremble!

[pacing-er]

Listing Magneto's 10 biological children bc I think it's hilarious. I'm gonna start with identifying the baby mamas and then listing the children resulting from the affair.

(Note: Some are only canon to specific story arcs/runs and/or have been retconned. I am aware of these things but am choosing to ignore them. Also I am not going to force myself to read the comics they're from lol so I'm quoting articles I found)

Magda Eisenhardt:

-Anya Eisenhardt

-Nina Gursky

-Wanda Maximoff

-Pietro Maximoff

Suzanna Dane:

-Lorna Dane

-Zaladane (not confirmed)

Rogue:

-Magnus

-Charles Lehnsherr

Rogue Darkholme (not the same as Rogue):

-Plague

Charles Xavier:

-Onslaught

No Baby Mama, Made in a Lab:

-Alpha

It makes me so happy that Charles is on the list of baby mamas XD I know it's not the same bc it was a psionic brain baby but still. If I were to make an AU all of them would be included bc I love that tomcat energy and messed up family dynamics are fun. Man has so many children it's ridiculous. My primary source is this article where they call procreation Magneto's most potent superpower.

[pageofqueens]

[salarta]

Polaris is the Moment

On a drive today, I was thinking more about Polaris/Lorna Dane and where we are as a society. When you get down to it, Lorna would be the perfect character for exploring modern issues. The problem she has is people working at Marvel who are too up their own asses with their toxic nostalgia to recognize and respect this.

Trauma

Literally no matter your view of Lorna, trauma has been a major element of her usage throughout her entire existence.

The biggest and most important case, of course, is surviving the Genoshan genocide. She witnessed the horror of a modern genocide firsthand. Magneto, her father, has genocide background too, but his is from the Holocaust. Being that happened almost a century ago, a lot of younger readers will of course respect that, but there are changes to society since then.

Of course, there's the genocide that Israel (mainly Netanyahu) is carrying out toward Palestine, and now is starting to do it to Lebanon. If Marvel today were less corporate and more responsive to the moment, the comics would reflect this matter and address it. It's been a year already.

But even setting aside the genocide (which feels wrong to say, and Marvel should feel even worse for pretending never happened with her), she's had several traumas. She's been mind controlled and possessed multiple times. She's had her body itself forcibly changed twice (Zaladane and Apocalypse), with changes that caused her to indirectly hurt people (the stupid ass hate aura type power via Zaladane, and diseases as Pestilence). Many people around her have died, which isn't unique to her, but ball it all together with all else she's endured and it's a hell of a lot.

Lorna isn't new to trauma. So as we live in a moment where we're putting real thought into our traumas, Lorna offers a far better window into that reality than most Marvel characters, let alone X-Men characters.

Technology

When Lorna was created in 1968, we had TV, radio, phones, and the infancy of computers. But that's it. Back then, if you didn't live in a city, you could probably still get by. And your communications and social circles were entirely local, aside from perhaps pen pals. You still used paper and coin money, and checks, for transactions. Credit cards as we know them were extremely new.

Cut to today. Basically everything is tied in with technology and the internet. Most money transactions are done online. We often do more social interaction online than off. We rely on computers for just about everything critical to how society functions. Most people would be fucked if we lost all of that. And the internet is the core way for misinformation and disinformation to spread and get made now.

Lorna's powers are electromagnetism. Not just flinging cars around because they're made of metal. A woman like that, powers like that, at her age in the comics? Why the fuck isn't she being used in relation to technology more? Why isn't she accessing the internet with her mind? Why isn't she tricking her enemies by sending them fake messages imitating the voices of the enemies' allies? Why isn't she kicking ass in both the physical and virtual worlds?

Because toxic nostalgia held by people like Brevoort says she needs to alternately cry into Havok's lap and suck his dick while getting captured cause all she can supposedly do is fling cars around. That's why.

Geoscience and Climate Change

Lorna was going for a geoscience degree back in the 70s. At the time, it happened only cause of a stupid excuse to write her out of the comics by having her leave the X-Men with Havok and do the same degree as him.

We can do better now. And while the 2020s X-Factor pissed me off in most ways, one of its few positives was establishing that Lorna has a PhD now.

That her powers involve electromagnetism means she should be able to directly tap into and sense the Earth and its electromagnetic field. She's already done it in Giant-Size X-Men when she threw the island Krakoa at the time into space. This connection SHOULD mean she has a sense of things going wrong with the planet.

Now, I want to very heavily stress something. I do think there are other characters for whom this topic is better suited, like Storm within X-Men and Marvel because of her weather powers, or Poison Ivy in DC because of climate change's impact on plant life. If the story is heavily focused on these things, I do think those characters take higher priority than Lorna for tackling them. Same as I would find it wrong for Storm to tackle the Genoshan genocide when she didn't experience it, or acting like she's a greater authority on electromagnetism than a character (Lorna) whose entire power set is electromagnetism.

But in a world where all's fair and done well, Lorna can definitely be a voice in the overall story of addressing climate change. She can address it in academic ways and specific to the electromagnetic side of things. Limited scope that suits the character's background.

You would think that a woman with this background would care about this issue. At least, that would be the case if Marvel actually reflected the moment.

Identity and Self-Expression

This topic is SUPPOSED to be the bread and butter of X-Men. The entire concept of X-Men came out of the civil rights era. So, technically, all characters in the franchise can address this issue.

But Lorna has background that makes her better for addressing it than most X-Men characters.

Her very first issue, way back in 1968, introduced her as a woman who had naturally green hair but always dyed it brown to avoid attracting attention.

Why?

Even before she realized consciously that she was a mutant, she was very concerned about her identity in the world and how people perceive it. She was hiding her own features, hiding her uniqueness and true self, to fit in. So you have to ask why. Did her foster parents push her into it? Was she getting bullied? Did she have stalkers obsessing over her? Was she simply worried about not being able to function in society and make connections with others if she stood out too much?

There has to be some kind of reason. And this hiding of a natural feature of who she is in order to fit in fits with how we're approaching identity and self-expression in the modern age.

Yet, she's existed since 1968. Which is another strong part of Lorna with this topic. The issues we're discussing when we delve into identity and self-expression aren't new. They're just finally being acknowledged and explored more broadly. Addressing this kind of thing with Lorna has advantages over doing it with a brand new character because doing so reiterates how these matters are not new. They've been around forever. Using a newer character, especially creating one specifically for this purpose, would miss the mark in a big way because doing so implies these issues didn't exist until recently. When that's just not the case.

Aside from hair, there's also the gold and red costume she briefly wore in the 90s. The point of it at the time was Lorna becoming more comfortable with her body, being more willing and eager to show it off. Then there was a ton of backlash to her wearing it, and she was put in a team costume.

I'm not advocating for going back to that costume, to be clear. She needs something that suits history, personality and powers, and that costume only handled a single facet of her personality. My point is, she has additional background with self-expression matters.

In closing, if Marvel weren't stupid levels of regressive and up their own asses with sexist nostalgia, Lorna would be a lynchpin character in this moment. We've seen repeatedly now how readers actually want more of Lorna, the real Lorna, not the toxic nostalgia for sexism take on her, and aren't getting nearly enough.

She broke out on Gifted for a reason.

She won the X-Men vote for a reason.

Marvel acts like she has nothing to offer, deliberately ignoring the evidence of their own eyes. Here, I've highlighted four elements of who she is that should make her essential for Marvel to use meaningfully, as a major X-Men character.

That Lorna's potential like this is not only ignored but deliberately undermined tells you much of what their real interests and desires are when they think they can get away with it.

[rogueslove]

Relationship Profile: Rogue and Magneto

A brief history: Rogue joined the X-Men when she was 18, and Magneto became headmaster at Xavier’s not too long after. Despite them residing the same place and fighting alongside each other, they did not have a huge amount of interaction while they were both in the X-Men during this time. It was not until both of them were in the Savage Land that they became friends and the attraction between them first occurred.  Magneto’s more militaristic and lethal mindset created a rift between them and they went their separate ways.  Even when they were enemies, they remained on fairly good terms, treating each other with respect.  When Magneto rejoined the X-Men on Utopia, he and Rogue worked alongside one another, and he made it clear that he was still interested in a relationship with her. They had a brief relationship, but once again their paths diverged.  Their split was amicable, although they have not had much interaction since Rogue’s marriage to Gambit.

Why Rogue likes Magneto: He is a passionate man with a deep concern for his people, which she seems to admire. Erik is intelligent, confident, and worldly, and while he is often serious, he has a wicked wit that she enjoys. He has never shown fear of her or her powers, which is extraordinarily rare for her, and it makes her feel safe and seen.

Why Magneto likes Rogue: Erik appreciates Rogue’s dedication, empathy, strength, kindness, and resilience in the face of a difficult upbringing and uncontrollable powers. He feels a kinship with her and is clearly very attracted to her. He has hinted multiple times he cares for her more than any other living woman he has been with, the only person other than Magda that he has considered sharing a life with.

Why it works: They are both passionate in their lives and in their relationship together. They understand each other well, have mutual respect for one another (a rare thing from Magneto), and are able to be open and honest with one another. In multiple other realities, most notably Age of Apocalypse, they were able to have a happy marriage and even a child.

Where there are issues: There are two main reasons why their relationship tends to fall apart, aside from her relationship with Gambit. The first is that Magneto is willing to kill for his goals, something that has haunted their relationship ever since she unsuccessfully tried to keep him from killing Zaladane in the Savage Land.  The second is that the cause of mutant supremacy will always be paramount to him, with his family coming second, and other relationships coming third.  Rogue is dedicated to a similar cause, but she always puts people above nebulous causes.  And she would not be content with being third on his list of concerns.