Marvel Comics Outs A Founding X-Man As Gay

[Fanghawk]

Marvel Comics Outs A Founding X-Man As Gay

According to leaked pages from All-New X-Men #40, one of the original mutants from X-Men is gay.

Spoiler Warning: The following contains spoilers for the upcoming All-New X-Men #40.

Marvel Comics has been pushing hard for diversity among superheroes, whether <a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/134175-Brian-Michael-Bendis-Talks-Race-Sexism-and-Ultimate-Spider-Man>introducing Miles Morales as Spider-Man or <a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/139743-Marvel-Comics-All-Female-A-Force-Team-Replaces-Avengers-for-Secret-Wars>assembling an all-female Avengers team. Now the upcoming All-New X-Men #40 offers a major shake-up of its own - the revelation that Bobby "Iceman" Drake is gay.

Written by Brian Michael Bendis, All-New X-Men focuses on New Now Next - Jean Grey finally confronts Iceman about his sexuality after he continues to overcompensate with the team. Since Iceman can't hide his true feelings from a telepath, he finally admits he's not only bisexual - he's "full gay".

Here's where it gets tricky - the adult Iceman is, from all appearances, completely straight. Jean Grey acknowledges, however, that the adult Iceman doesn't have a great track record with women and the issue might be complicated. The young Iceman theorizes that "maybe he couldn't handle being a mutant and gay in a society that had issues with both ... and one is easier to 'put away' than the other". There's no clear answer within these leaked pages, but according to a prepared statement from Bendis, more will be revealed in time.

"There are thousands if not millions of stories of people who, for many different reasons, felt the need to hide their sexuality," Bendis said. "The X-Men, with the conceit of time travel, give us a fascinating platform in which to examine such personal journeys ... This is just the first little chapter of a much larger story that will be told."

We'll likely have to wait for future issues to learn more. All-New X-Men #40 hits comic book shelves on Wednesday, but you can also see the leaked pages below.

[gallery=4044]

Source: New Now Next, via <a href=http://www.comicbookresources.com/article/marvel-comics-outs-all-new-x-man>Comic Book Resources

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[Ukomba]

Wasn't that a joke on Family Guy or something?

 

[JSoup]

I somehow feel like this was already known or hinted at under other writers in the past.
I'm not as up on X-Men lore as others, but I'm pretty sure this has been touched on before in the past.

 

[Spaceman Spiff]

The bigger issue here is: why is she reading his mind without consent? She just mind-raped him.

Wasn't that a joke on Family Guy or something?

Yes it was.

 

[Ramzal]

The tact of a telepath is that of a house cat with a 1 legged mouse.

 

[Areloch]

Wait, so teenage Iceman is gay. But adult Iceman is straight, but they're the same person just at different points in time along the same life?

And the explanation is apparently that he quit being gay because it's the easier option? What?

Also, way to keep the mind reading in a classy place, teenage Jean. "I know I read your mind without consent to find your deepest, darkest secret, but it's cool, everyone on the team is fine with it."

 

[Batou667]

Yay, trendy revisionism of existing characters. No way that could prove controversial.

Anyway, I thought Colossus was already gay?

 

[Fanghawk]

Yay, trendy revisionism of existing characters. No way that could prove controversial.

Anyway, I thought Colossus was already gay?

I thought that was just Ultimate U Colossus - Earth 616 Colossus was always straight.

 

[The Harkinator]

The dialogue in the earlier panels, and therefore the way they've outed Bobby is so... clumsy. The later panels work once they've managed to get the fact out there and Jean starts talking to Bobby like a person again, but those first one or two panels look like the writers didn't know how to reveal it without just saying it.

Also, Family Guy totally called this.

Also, also, don't quite understand the mangled dialogue about later Bobby not being gay or choosing to hide it or something.

 

[Meinos Kaen]

... *sigh* So, Northstar wasn't available anymore? They just had to shoe horn in this. I'm not even getting angry at these things anymore. It's just... Pathetic.

 

[Ukomba]

Um, doesn't this push the idea that being gay is a choice? I mean, if the older him chose to be straight...

Does this all seem lazy grab for notoriety to anyone else?

 

[Meinos Kaen]

Um, doesn't this push the idea that being gay is a choice? I mean, if the older him chose to be straight...

Does this all seem lazy grab for notoriety to anyone else?

And we have a winner. But if subscribing to the Invincible school of 'same panel over and over with no background' wasn't enough indication of this team's laziness... I mean, they didn't even remove the movement lines. It's like Jean Grey is doing a cheerleading routine in that page.

 

[Zontar]

Yay, trendy revisionism of existing characters. No way that could prove controversial.

Anyway, I thought Colossus was already gay?

I thought that was just Ultimate U Colossus - Earth 616 Colossus was always straight.

Does Ultimate anyone still exist? I have no idea what happened to that universe after it got merged with the 616 (I'd also not consider anyone from that universe a "founding member" of any hero team that wasn't specifically the Ultimates version if that was the case).

 

[Fox12]

I won't lie, I hate it when they retro-actively decide to change a character like that. I don't keep up with comics, was this ever foreshadowed, or was he always straight until now?

Also, that's one of the worst, heavy handed explanations I've ever seen. "I can't be gay and a mutant, so I'll just stop being gay now." I mean, what? That's some really weak revision. And it's a little bit offensive. Why didn't they just introduce a new character or something?

Props for the dialogue, though, it was actually pretty snappy. And Jeanne's body language was adorable.

"Do you think Angel is gay?"
"No."

lol.

 

[crimson5pheonix]

"I'm sorry, you're son has... &#57507;full blown gay"

Also, "Thank God I invaded your privacy like that!"

 

[Meinos Kaen]

Also, by the way, does this make him double gay so straight again? Because I thought being a mutant was already used as metaphore for being gay... You know, when they actually wrote good stories.

 

[Virtual Boy]

Marvel is more concerned with politics now than telling a good story.

 

[Virtual Boy]

Yay, trendy revisionism of existing characters. No way that could prove controversial.

Anyway, I thought Colossus was already gay?

I thought that was just Ultimate U Colossus - Earth 616 Colossus was always straight.

Does Ultimate anyone still exist? I have no idea what happened to that universe after it got merged with the 616 (I'd also not consider anyone from that universe a "founding member" of any hero team that wasn't specifically the Ultimates version if that was the case).

the Universes haven't been merged yet. That's coming up soon with Secret Wars. Ultimate Colossus was still alive last I checked.