When Marvel’s The Gifted arrived on television screens in 2017, the show served up various mutant characters from the pages of the X-Men comics, including Blink, Thunderbird, and the Stepford Cuckoos. The series – which was created as a spin-off of the live-action X-Men movies – was keen to take the story in a whole new direction with new lead heroes and new villains.
The initial focus of The Gifted was on the Strucker family: Reed, Caitlin, Andy, and Lauren. During the course of the first episode, ‘eXposed‘, the family find themselves on the run from the shadowy government agency known as Sentinel Services, and this became a key driver for the series moving forward.
But anyone who was a fan of the two-season show will tell you the real focus of The Gifted should have been on another character, who was arguably the most interesting player in the series. And that character was Lorna Dane aka the green-haired mutant, Polaris, as played by Emma Dumont.
And I should point out Dumont’s portrayal of Polaris was the first time the character had been brought to life in live-action. Prior to this, Polaris had only been seen in the comics or in animation, so The Gifted provided a platform for Lorna to develop.
Early into the series, Polaris demonstrated that not only was she a very interesting, very complex mutant, but one who was somewhat unstable. She clearly had issues, which the show was tasked with resolving.
Polaris was also very powerful. In episodes such as ‘eXodus‘ and ‘eXit stratergy‘, Lorna made it clear she had impressive mutant abilities, with a significant control over magnetism.
And yes, her power over magnetism was just like the mutant villain, Magneto – her father. However, The Gifted was keen not to come out and say Polaris was related to Magneto, the show hinted about the connection instead.
Polaris was aware of Magneto and knew who he was in relation to her, but the audience was kept somewhat in the dark. This bough Polaris some breathing space and allowed her to stand on her own two feet, rather than just be seen as the daughter of a mutant terrorist.
But her connection to Magneto was developed a little more during the second season of the show, and by the episode, ‘the dreaM‘, Polaris started wearing a headpiece fashioned from a medallion left to her by Magneto. Incidentally, the headpiece looked similar to what Polaris wore in the comics, moving the character more in line with her comic book counterpart.
Now, unfortunately, Polaris’ journey was cut short due to The Gifted‘s cancellation at the end of Season Two, but before the series ran out of road, Polaris used her powers a few times, gave birth, and had an on/off relationship. So, a fair bit of character development.
There was plenty of potential for much more too. Polaris was torn between her loyalties to her fellow mutants, her attempt to build a family, and her desire to belong, and this gave the writers lots of room to push the character in new directions, if only they had the chance.
Either way, what started off as a show about the Struckers, found time for other mutant heroes to shine, and Polaris was certainly one of them – and arguably the best of the bunch. A decent showcase for the mutant hero, who will hopefully go on to bigger things in the future, but for now, it’s worth reminding X-Men fans, who may only know Polaris from episodes of X-Men ’97, that she was the real star of the oft-forgotten TV series, The Gifted.
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