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Retroactively Gay
I grew up reading comic books, as did my husband. Marvel is the universe I wanted to grow up to live in. The revival of the Marvel universe on film and TV has been a treat! I think this is why, despite great differences in our origins, we can relate so well to each other. We are both living in some variation of the Marvel universe.
The hubby and I just recently finished watching the Daredevil series. After I got over the initial shock of a brunette Matt, we ended up enjoying it quite a bit. One cannot keep up the complaints about Charlie Cox for long, after all. And I am looking forward to the remaining three series to be launched on Netflix — and remaining mum on the specifics of Daredevil for those who have yet to watch.
Last evening, the hubby and I were looking though the YouTube on “Easter eggs in Daredevil” when he dropped the bombshell. “Did you hear Bobby Drake came out as gay?” Hmmmm. Et tu, Marvel?
No, no, I don’t live in a universe without homosexuality. One member of my immediate family stayed in the closet for decades before feeling comfortable to come out. I get it. It is a personal struggle, and each person gets to travel at the pace they choose. But I expected more from Marvel.
Bobby? Iceman? Could they not have introduced a new character? Could they not have picked someone more prominent? There is a lot of speculation on both sides on whether or not he “showed signs” of being gay during his 50+ year comic book life. I find it interesting. The poor kid got over being a mutant before he got over being gay. He is not one of the “main” main characters, but is not rare either. They had to pick someone in the Goldilocks zone I guess.
When the comic universes were being formed, there was a time when African-American heroes became a trend. That made sense to me. No one went back and “got color.” I suppose that would be hard to do. Female superheroes were never an issue — all comic book readers dig those. Characters on TV shows went from being male to female (Starbuck and Boomer in Battlestar Galactica). I don’t think the story changes much either way. And I don’t think Iceman being gay changes anything either. But it’s a shame that Marvel couldn’t launch a character that was gay from the start, Instead they had to make someone retroactively gay.
What, if any, opinions do you have on Bobby Drake coming out?
Published in Entertainment
There was a Marvel limited series in the mid 80s called “Damage Control” that was explicitly about fixing all the damage. I never read it, being more into Transformers than the Marvel Universe proper at that point, but I recall the cover in one ad having one of the Twin Towers slightly mis-aligned, with the title damage controller saying “Eh, good enough”.
So at least Marvel was, at one time, savvy enough to hang a joke on the damage bill. And they’re still a little better about collateral damage than DC. But in the end, it’s the MST3K routine: “In the end, it’s just a show. We should really just relax.”
Edit: And for being fast on the draw, it was already posted. My apologies.
Left this alone initially, but it’s a good point. Female heroes are approaching parity with male heroes in terms of numbers. Yet there are an absurdly small number of female villains. A similar thing will occur with gay characters.
Not only were you slow, you are wrong on the dates.
Damage Control first appeared as a four-page special in a 1988 issue of Marvel Comics Events, had it’s own limited series published between 1989 and 1991, and was a pretty big player in the Civil War storyline from 2006.
Mid-eighties indeed!
I’m a bit of a Damage Control fan who has always been angry that Marvel’s never given the company it’s own ongoing comic.
Considering that the Daredevil TV show on Netflix deals directly with corruption in the construction industry during the rebuilding of New York City after the Battle of New York (i.e. The Avengers movie), I really hope they introduce Damage Control in Season 2. After all, in the comics, Kingpin bought the company at one point.
I stopped paying attention to other people’s characters and universe and just started creating my own. Maybe someday I’ll team with an artist and do a graphic novel.
I wonder if the guy who did my second cover would be interested.
The thing that struct me about her “outgin” of Dumbledore was that I didn’t read anything in the books that indicated such a thing. I’ve heard some folks say the signs were very subtle, but I argue they were just reading that into the story after the announcement was made.
Although Dumbledore is Rowling’s character, I’m guessing that he never was gay or otherwise, and she just said that to prove a point, or to score some PC points . . .
Rowling is supposed to be working on a complete background of all the characters and institutions is the Harry Potter universe. This project is being referred to by some as “The Scottish Book.” Rowling is very cagey when this project will come out. Some background from the series leaks out in the online Pottermore game/site. I’m told that when the announcement was made that Dumbledore was gay, a majority of the people (mostly kids) on the Pottermore site cheered.
[Edit: This is weird. I don’t remember making this comment. This is something RushBabe would say. I don’t follow Pottermore.]
Can you say gratuitously gay, if it’s in a comic book, never mentioned before and does nothing to advance the story? He’s one of the X-Men? Didn’t follow that series.
Making mention is one thing. What will they do with this fact story-wise? Will they create icky situations? They don’t exactly do that for male-female relationships. For soap opera like supporting story lines, I always felt easier to relate to Marvel’s writing than what DC was writing. Maybe it was because of Stan Lee. Except I didn’t feel that way with the X-Men series. I think they went through a whole series of different writers over the years. Doesn’t seem like something Stan Lee would write. Maybe that’s why I just gave them a pass.