In the comics, we know that Magneto is Lorna’s father but ‘The Gifted’ has been gunshy on mentioning the Master of Magnetism’s name so far. It turns out that there are a couple of reasons the show has been vague on this so far. Sure, we’ve heard a slew of hints on the show that Magneto is her father. The closest confirmation is when Esme Frost stated that “You have no idea, do you…? About your father, your real father. You must have heard stories…. He was a member of the Hellfire Club. More than a member; a king.”
However, without explicitly mentioning Magneto, this could all be a red herring. The television show is under no obligation to hold faithful to the source material, but one has to wonder why they’re shrouding the name in secrecy.
The main reason according to showrunner Matt Nix is that “Not to be coy, but we don’t want to stumble into movie territory.” With keeping the X-Men and Brotherhood of Evil Mutants out of the picture, the show has been able to do just that. The series has gone out of their way to avoid being directly tied to the films outside of the occasional name drop and cementing Magneto as Lorna’s father would shatter that in a heartbeat.
Don’t expect a significant change from the comics though as Nix followed up with the fact that “canonically, Polaris’ father is Polaris’ father.” Even here he couldn’t drop the name, but it doesn’t sound like they’ll be changing things up.
Of course, another key reason that Magneto hasn’t been brought up is that when Polaris was introduced, she didn’t know Magneto was her father.
“One thing that we do use from the comics, that is legitimately part of the lore of Polaris, is that she doesn’t always know that Magneto is her father. And she has very mixed feelings about Magneto being her father, so we’ve taken what is kind of a necessity, in terms of us needing to stay out of the way of the movies, and turned it into a virtue in our eyes.” Meaning, “It’s now a feature of the characters that they don’t really want to talk about — [that Lorna’s father is] the leader of the mutant group that made mutants look horrible and kind of put them in the position that they’re in now.”
Unfortunately, Nix thinks this is a great idea and tosses out that “There’s a little Voldemort to it if that makes sense!” I’m sure giving the writers a creative exercise to not name the Master of Magnetism outright for as long as possible is fun for someone, just not many of the viewers.
Do you agree with Nix that not naming Magneto is the right way to go to keep ‘The Gifted’ segregated from the cinematic franchise? Will we ever see him mentioned and possibly even an iteration of the character appear? Share your thoughts below True Believers!
Source: TV Line
