Love often blooms on the battlefield. but two X-Men still have an extremely complicated relationship, on and off the battlefield.
WARNING: The following contains spoilers for X-Factor #6 by Leah Williams, David Baldeón, Israel Silva, VC’s Joe Caramagna, and Tom Muller, available now.
Life on Krakoa has led many of the X-Men to repair old romantic relationships but one member of X-Factor is still conflicted about her on-again, off-again partner. It’s not as infamous as the Cyclops-Jean-Wolverine-Emma Frost love square or Gambit and Rogue’s difficult romance but the relationship between Lorna Dane/Polaris and Alex Summers/Havok is equally complicated.
Lorna clearly still has feelings for Alex but also recognizes that their relationship hasn’t always been healthy and recent events suggest that her friends believe she is better off without him.
In X-Factor #6 Lorna is reluctant to pick up her ringing phone, fearing that the caller is Alex responding after she had, in her own words, “gotten lonely and left an ill-advised voice mail.” Rachel Summers is clearly alarmed to hear about this and seems ready to explain to Lorna why it was a bad idea when Lorna realizes that the number is not Alex’s and answers. The fact that Rachel (who is technically Alex’s niece) realizes that they shouldn’t be together and Lorna’s own clear regret for the call suggests that she and Alex should remain separate from one another, at least for now. Lorna and Alex were the first additional recruits to the X-Men after the original five and although Iceman also had feelings for Lorna for a time, it became clear she and Alex were in love.
After the All-New All-Different team formed they departed with the rest of the original X-Men other than Cyclops. Unlike their teammates, however, they were able to stay out for a long time, although they did occasionally help the X-Men in times of need. The couple went to California to pursue graduate studies, but eventually while doing so they were attacked by the Marauders, after which Lorna was possessed by Malice and became their leader. Although Lorna’s abduction was what initially motivated Alex to rejoin the X-Men, during his time with the new incarnation of the team he and Madelyne Pryor fell for one another, and during “Inferno” he was bewitched into serving her after she became the Goblyn Queen. Lorna’s powers would later be stripped from her by Zaladane, but the process did have the fortunate side effect of separating her from Malice.