The X-Axis – 27 May 2012
This is the quietest week for X-books in ages, with just one regular X-Men title, one Avengers vs X-Men tie-ins, and one single tie-in from another crossover elsewhere in the line. Why, you’d almost think they wanted to give something a clear run at getting attention…
Oh, and I haven’t got my copy of Secret Avengers #27 yet (the AvX tie-in). So for the moment, we’ll just stick to the two I’ve read…
Astonishing X-Men #50 – As seen on The View, it’s the gay wedding storyline! Actually, it’s part three of a story that began with Marjorie Liu’s debut issue, and in theory the main plot is about the X-Men being attacked by C-list villains who are being mind-controlled by some mysterious bad guy. As flash forwards already established, this is heading towards everyone else getting mind-controlled and piling on Northstar, which duly happens in this issue.
But that’s the functional bit. What Marvel really want everyone to be talking about here is Northstar proposing to his boyfriend Kyle, which (to judge by the cover) will lead to an actual wedding in the next issue. Or more likely in the epilogue to the next issue, since the main story will probably still have to be concerned with fighting bad guys and such forth.
In a sense, of course, this is a publicity stunt. In fact, Marvel were pretty explicit about that in the solicitations for chapter one, which they cheerfully billed as “the first chapter of what will be the most controversial story of 2012.” Thus far, in fact, it has singularly failed to excite much in the way of controversy at all, which must be a terrible disappointment to somebody in the marketing department. Still, it’s hardly a solicitation that inspires confidence that the story is being driven by any sort of creative agenda. Nor does the fact that Northstar was pretty much in limbo until he was dusted off and shoved into a starring role two issues ago. You do rather get the feeling that Marvel started off by deciding they wanted to do a gay wedding story, and working back from there.
Still, all that being said, it’s not the worst idea in the world. To the extent that it becomes an attention-grabbing gimmick, that’s somewhat inevitable when you do a topic like this for the first few times. Northstar as a character has drifted in recent years. He needs some direction, and this is a direction. It also gives him a unique position in the X-Men’s cast as the only member of the group who has a spouse – in fact, any sort of family contact – in the real world. That’s something future writers can work with, without the topicality necessarily dominating everything.
Marjorie Liu certainly tries her hardest to make this a story about the relationship between a superhero and his civilian partner, and to keep the gay angle purely incidental. That’s probably wise given the need to stop the purely topical aspects from overpowering everything else, and the imperative to give Kyle an agenda of his own so that he doesn’t end up as a character who exists merely to provide Northstar with the opportunity to be gay. The story itself steers clear of easy targets.
All that being said, it’s far from a stand-out story. While Northstar and Kyle’s relationship is fairly well defined, it doesn’t quite feel like Northstar is being written in character (you can make a case that this is a different side of his personality, but I’m not sure this book has really established what his default persona is meant to be yet). Kyle isn’t a terribly interesting character; the story is so clearly on his side in his argument with Northstar that to all intents and purposes he’s being written as a long-suffering saint. And the actual story – you know, with the villains and such – feels decidedly perfunctory. So a random bad guy is sending henchmen to attack the X-Men – well, yes, isn’t that just Tuesday?
Take away the topical angle, and what you’re left with is a story where the X-Men fight a mystery villain though the mystery isn’t particularly compelling, and we’re asked to care about the marriage of two characters who only joined the cast two issues ago. Judged on that level, it’s alright. But it’s no more than that.
Journey into Mystery #638 – Part 4 of the “Exiled” crossover with New Mutants. The Disir are running riot in San Francisco; the Asgardians aren’t much help because they still don’t remember who they are; but Loki belatedly gets his memory back in time to take some kind of control and set up the Disir’s origin flashback.
The crossover as a whole has been rather more of a Journey into Mystery story than a New Mutants one. With the last chapter, in their own book, the New Mutants seemed to be getting some mileage out of having the chance to interact with their San Francisco neighbourhood. Plus, they were needed to drive the plot. Now that Loki’s got his memory back, it’s rather less clear that New Mutants have an essential role to play in this story, beyond the happy coincidence that Dani happens to be a Valkyrie. In fact, the Disir’s origin flashback takes up a good third of this issue. But fair enough; it’s an issue of Journey into Mystery. It’s probably got its priorities right.
And it’s another strong issue from arguably Marvel’s most consistently interesting title. Loki’s plan to stop the Disir’s rampage is as inventively underhanded as usual, while the Disir’s origin story has a suitably mythical feel to it. I’m not a huge fan of the art, which has some strong moments but doesn’t flow terribly well from panel to panel. Still, it gets the job done. If you’re reading the series anyway (and I am, and you should be), you’ll probably be quite relieved that the crossover isn’t dragging the book away from its usual strengths.
It’s a good issue – not necessarily one that needs to have the New Mutants running around adding to the cast, but a good one nonetheless.
In the 90’s I used to purchase a huge amount of comics. I still like to have an idea of what is going on, but I am so glad I don’t waste money on stuff like this when Northstar is the kind of characters they are pushing on the fans. It really feels like the big 2 don’t know what to do with their characters outside of the movies that retell perverted versions of their origins or early adventures.
POSSIBLY SPOILERISH SPECULATION
I only hope there’s a “mystery villain” in Astonishing X-Men, because on the page where the team gets taken down, it’s clearly Karma taking them down (or rather, it’s clearly someone wearing yellow gloves with a cybernetic foot who causes a pink “flash” effect around their heads similar to the one Karma’s using on the cover of the book, in a book in which Karma’s powers on the recap page are described as “mind control” instead of “possession,” and in which she appears on the cover and the recap page but doesn’t actually appear in the story itself unless that is, in fact, her).
So I certainly hope there is a mystery villain controlling her (though the most likely candidate would be the Shadow King and good lord could I go the rest of my life without ever reading another Shadow King story), and that this isn’t Karma actually going bad. Hell, misservice to the character aside, having an openly gay male X-Man get married in a storyline in which the only (to my memory) openly lesbian X-Man turns evil and tries to kill him seems … ill-considered. Best case scenario (aside from “they just didn’t think it through”) it looks like the two elements were meant to balance each other out; worst case scenario it looks like “gay men are good but gay women are evil.”
So, no Ultimate X-Men reviews anymore?
Spoilers:
It looks like there is a possibility of a reset happening. They may un-Loeb the universe.
The Astonishing story (and DC’s upcoming gay character reveal) has got some group called One Million Moms up in arms. Not exactly a firestorm, as I don’t know that anyone cares what one uptight group thinks, but there is at least a little bit of controversy from it.
Last few times One Million Moms tried intimidating companies out of being queer-inclusive, JC Penny’s got more customers, and the Archie gay wedding issue sold out completely. Part of me is thrilled that they’re giving Northstar’s wedding some attention, since I’m actually quite enjoying Astonishing and I’m sure it could use the sales boost.
I suspect One Million Moms is actually an advertising company hired by these publishers just to get them more press!
Paul, I’m slightly puzzled by your description of the Marauders as “C-List villains, considering their significant history and bad blood with the X-Men; come to think of it, it makes me wonder why we’ve never had an X-Force storyline in which X-Force specifically goes after the Marauders. You’d think the Marauders would right at the top of their hitlist…
Pete, I think there was a one-shot in an anthology abouth the guy with the harpoon hand living in a trailer and somebody tracking him down to kill him . . .
Well, the Marauders stopped being a threat after they were comprehensively dealt with in Inferno, which was more than 20 years ago. They’ve seen little use since, mostly as generic cloned henchmen for Sinister when he feels like it (such as in Messiah Complex). Since it’s obvious he now has other plans, I’m not sure the X-Men were even aware the Marauders are still around. (What with, you know, them often being killed off right after being brought back.)
“C-list villains” is a good summation of the Marauders’ current status. The Mutant Massacre was too long ago for their past effectiveness to still be a factor. Diminishing returns have settled in.
(Also, it’s not like they were that interesting to start with.)
Didn’t the Marauders show up in the .1 issue of Uncanny X-Force?
@Brad : no, those were the Reavers. (Who were supposed to have been wiped out in the early 90s, but whatever.)
I’m actually surprised One Million Moms still exists. I just assumed they would have folded after the Ellen DeGeneres/JC Penny debacle. Never thought I’d see the day that friggin’ Bill O’Reilly would step in to defend a lesbian woman against a conservative organization.
One Million Moms sounds like a good title for a comic. Anyone else agree?
Come to think of it, when was the last time any X-Man besides Wolverine had anything to do with the non-mutant, non-superhero world? That seems to be as much a reason for the Schism as the child soldier issue; Cyclops’ team is based on an island nation, very few of the characters who stayed have any sort of civilian life, and they almost never take off their costumes to wear regular clothing. Everything’s about being a mutant, and everything about being a mutant is about being an X-Man. That black jumpsuit Cyclops wears must be getting pretty ripe, unless he has two dozen identical copies.
There’s no point in saving the world if you’re not even going to try to engage with it. And even if Astonishing X-Men isn’t the best comic, the notion of a character on the team having a life outside of the team is unfortunately radical.
@Nitz – Interesting. I think part of my affection for the current AXM set-up is that it reminds me a bit of the Claremont glory days, where it seemed like half the team had non-mutant (though not necessarily civilian) love interests, Kurt and Piotr were double-dating with their girls, and oh, the soap opera…
Of course, Claremont had more pages to work with, so it felt like less of an either-or situation. With the current one, the situation, unfortunately, seems to be that we’ve got room for action or for relationship hijinks, but not both.
From the team that brought you One More Day comes… One Million Moms. Okay, I promise I’m done with that.
@Nitz
I like that idea. I’m not sure if would have been enough to cause Schism in and of itself (Cyclops, we’re leaving because you won’t let us daaaaaate!), it honestly would have made a hell of a lot more sense than what we got.
Now that you mention it, I’ve had a similar thought here and there over the years. I’ve always wondered how certain core team members could stick it out as X-Men for so long with, like you mentioned, almost zero interaction with anyone else, and not just get sick of the whole thing or go insane. Long before Utopia. Cyclops is a lock in and he’ll be doing this until it kills him, but would “lost” souls like Rogue or Gambit really be doing this for that long? You could argue that Rogue finally found a family and always wanted her powers dealt fixed, I suppose. And I’m aware that both members have had brief, globe trotting absences before, but I’m not sure they ever just went on vacation. Gambit seems the more likely choice for someone who would eventually just say, “I’m out” and try to find adventure elsewhere. I never felt like he really bought into any of this Xavier crap as much as everyone else (he even said as much in his early appearances; he was just tagging along with the team then for something to do). Is there not ONE longtime member of this team who would start to become a little resentful that the X-Men have robbed them of any chance of a normal life and just want out? Cyclops would say that being a mutant automatically makes that impossible, but I call bullshit. I can’t see Gambit or Rogue being chased through the streets by a torch and pitchfork mob without the big bad X-Men there to protect them.
Good discussion.
Wouldn’t that make a good story. Cyclops has to go into the city for some reason, out of costume. Emma points out that his shirt is ten years out of style, and his other one is even worse. That’s when he realises he’s in costume so often that he doesn’t have time to wear-out his civvy clothes. He’s gotten by on the same two shirts since he was 18. And seventy different rubber unitards. This all makes him realise he’s a freak and a hermit who has nothing to do with the wider world around him. Does he hate the realisation? Does he LIKE it?
When it comes to the X-Men’s interaction with the other super hero community, adjectivless X-Men has for most of it’s run been a team up comic.
I reckon Karma’s twin brother is back. Lord knows we wouldn’t want another bad + bland Shadow King story.
What’s the Shadow King up to these days, anyway? He’s always imprisoned in someone’s mind after he’s defeated, so I assume he’s somewhere along those lines. I forget, when was he last seen?
@Si
I’d like to see Scott walking around the city wearing the checkered suit and bow tie he wore during the 60’s and then asking Emma if she’d like to hit up the Cafe A-Go-Go only to be met with a blank stare. He definitely needs to get out more.
@Tdubs
I had a response written before I realized you were talking about the most recent volume. I still consider adjectiveless to be X-Men Legacy, I guess. 🙂
I’m sure you guys are exagerating fo humor purposes, but Cyclops has been out his costume before, usually to harrass the mayor (these are usually the Land-drawn issues, where the part of Cyke is played by Don Johnson)
And of course when you establish yourself as a psuedo-independent quasi-nation that compares itself to North Korea, it’s gets a little hard to mingle in with the natives, even if you wanted to.
“He definitely needs to get out more.”
Nah, he’s better off staying at home. Scott’s life has veered so far away from anything resembling normalcy, that there’s no way he could reintegrate with society.
Imagine, for example, Scott on a first date with an ordinary woman.
Scott: “So, tell me about yourself.”
Woman: “Well, I’m divorced. Two kids. A boy and a girl. Both in elementary school. I work as a receptionist for a lumber company. My father is welder, but he’s retired now. You?”
Scott: “I’m a widower. My first wife was a clone of my dead girlfriend. My second wife was my dead girlfriend who came back to life. Except now she’s dead again.
I have a son from my clone wife, but he’s actually older than me because I sent him forward through time. By the time he returned to the present, he was a middle-aged man.
Oh, and my father was a space pirate before he was killed by my evil brother.”
Woman: *runs away*
*sigh*
Remember when all Scott ever worried about was how his eye blasts might accidentally hurt the people he cared about? What a whiner he was then. Now he’s just insane.
I’ve come to see Cyclops as a soldier who’s been in the war for so long that he’s reached the point where he doesn’t want it to end. If Xavier’s dream were to become a reality, then where would that leave Scott? What’s he going to do? Lead a normal life? He doesn’t know anything else. The whole idea of human/mutant peace probably terrifies him on a subconscious level.
Remember “The Shawshank Redemption?” Specifically, the bit where Morgan Freeman’s character was talking about prisoners who remain in jail for so long that they become “institutionalized.”
I guess I view Scott as having reached that point with the X-Men.
Northstar = ((Canadian Quicksilver – Daddy issues) * HE’s GAY!!!)) + He can fly
“What’s the Shadow King up to these days, anyway? He’s always imprisoned in someone’s mind after he’s defeated, so I assume he’s somewhere along those lines. I forget, when was he last seen?”
If my memory serves me well, he was last seen being eaten by the Panther God while battling Storm for T’Challa’s mind, in X-Men: Worlds Apart. It looked like a legitimate way to retire him permanently :).
The Shadow King showed up again in X-Force in the prelude to the Dark Angel Saga. He took over a military facility and tried to shoot some nukes at Utopia. When Psyloke showed up with the team, he took her down and freed the Archangel persona in Warren’s brain. Warren then killed a bunch of people and chops off SK’s head (albeit only in the psi-plane) blah blah blah AOA blah blah blah Life/Death Seed blah blah blah Warren is now Fabio with wings.
The last we see the Shadow King is actually as real life Amahl Farouk? giving a reporter some photos of Warren killing people. So technically he’s… STILL OUT THERE DUM DUM DUM.
@26
Speaking of which, doesn’t this Northstar stunt strike anyone else as Storm and Black Panther redux?
Great discussion on Cyclops here. I think Brian hit the nail on the head, also. Man, there are some great story possibilities in this thread! I’d love to read a Cyclops story like that because it just makes so much sense. I also think it would be interesting to have a story where Xavier confronts him and basically turns his back on HIM for a change. Xavier certainly had a lot to atone for, but I think Scott is catching up pretty quickly. Xavier would be saying, “I’ve made a lot of mistakes and you don’t have to forgive me, but you’re going too far and I’m not going to watch you do it anymore.” Instead we get a comic book version of Marvel vs. Capcom without the Capcom.
@wwk5d
“Northstar = ((Canadian Quicksilver – Daddy issues) * HE’s GAY!!!)) + He can fly”
This cracked me the hell up. Spot on. I’m probably going to catch hell for this, but I’ve always found Northstar, Quicksilver, and Namor to be three of the most irritating characters in existence. They’re alike in so many ways and I can’t stand the fact that so many characters put up with them (especially Namor; they seem to do it out of some strange idea of respect for this “remarkable warrior”, but I wish Cyclops and Mister Fantastic would just team up and kill him). As for Quicksilver, in his latest rounds of drama, it seems that Magneto isn’t even apologetic anymore, he’s just irritated and basically tells Quicksilver to get over it. Which, of course, he’s completely incapable of doing. And Northstar… he’s gay, so that means they have to compensate by just making him a general asshole. What were his early appearances like? Was he written to be gay (like the Fabes admitted he always imagined Rictor and Shatterstar were even though it wasn’t canon in the books at the time) or did that come much later? Was it something that most fans assumed, or was it completely tacked on to his character in the 90’s? I hate to say it, but without the gay thing, I can’t see much more to him than a Canadian Quicksilver, as you said. He’s even got the sister he might be in love with to go with it.
Fabian admitted that? Funny, he never wrote it that way. It was Jeph Loeb, who followed Nicieza and seemed to misinterpret their relationship and sexual preference and suddenly made them in love with each other or something. Under Nicieza, they were just good friends with no homosexual undertones to their friendship at all.
As for Northstar…he was written as gay when Byrne started the Alpha Flight series, and others picked up on it, but it was very subtle, since Marvel couldn’t openly make him gay in the 80s. But there were lots and lots of clues and references. He was also written as a jerk from the beginning, so those 2 traits were always there.
@Jon Dubya
That’s exactly what it is. Paul explained Marvel’s motivations pretty well in his review, I think. I don’t even know what to think about things like this.
Right now, DC, not wanting to be left out, is dropping giant teasers about an “iconic” character of there’s who will soon be revealed to be gay. I’ve been on message boards and seen fans absolutely gushing over this (granted, these particular fans are probably much more liberal than I am lol) and patting DC on the back for being so “progressive”. My response to that? Hogwash. Superman will never be gay. Batman will never be gay. Not in a million years. It’s going to be a third stringer. To me, it strikes me as these companies throwing the gay community some scraps and saying, “See? We’re looking out for you guys!” But they know full well they could never put Cyclops or Wolverine or Spider-Man in a gay situation so they plaster freaking Northstar on the cover with his spouse (who has got to be even more obscure, we’re talking z level character here) and think they’ve done their progressive deed for the year. And they know they’ll sell a ton of books (thanks to Whoopi Goldberg and co). I don’t know, it just seems to half hearted and pandering to me, and I’m not even gay nor does the issue really even concern me most of the time (gay marriage is a pretty “meh” issue in my mind). What do you guys think? I swear I’m not trying to get political and I hope I don’t start any kind of firestorm. I don’t care that the books have gay characters or that they’re getting married. It just seems that, because of the characters used and how it’s being done, that the whole thing is so trite and transparent and not near as ballsy as some fans would like to believe.
Last post for a while then I promise I’ll shut up! 🙂
@ wwk5d
You might be right about Fabian, I could be confusing him with someone else. But I can’t recall who. Sorry for the misinformation.
@DanLichtenberg
I feel the same way about the three characters you listed above. ( allow me to say it now that I grew up in the 80’s so my impressions start from that period. ) there has only ever been Stern and Byrne that have ever written a Namor I liked and Peter David that wrote a Quicksilver I enjoyed. They were spot on for me and hardly anyone gets that voice for them. Northstar never clicked with me as a character and early Alpha is how I remember him.
I know that Rob Liefeld got very upset when Rictor and Shatterstar were put in a relationship, because he apparently specifically invented them as heterosexuals (he didn’t invent Rictor I know).
DanLichtenberg, I agree with a lot of what you’re saying, and I’ve heard it in other places too. It cheapens the whole thing when it’s done as a publicity stunt. It’s not affirmative action at all, it’s a cynical ploy, and I don’t know why people think it’s a good thing. I also don’t like it when established characters are suddenly written as gay. Realising you’re attracted to the same sex would be a powerful experience, full of conflicting emotions and stages of dealing with the issue. But it only ever seems to happen in comics as the character suddenly proclaiming gravely they like men/making kissy faces at girls and winking suggestively at the reader. I think X-Factor did handle Rictor more realistically? I didn’t read it. But it would be the minority if it did.
I have to say I’ve always liked Northstar. He’s certainly not always been written well (remember when he adopted a baby with AIDS and then also had AIDS himself and then learned he was half fairy or whatever? ugh.), but I think the character is a solid one. Mostly, I enjoy that he’s a gay character who also *has a personality*. It may not be a great personality — he can certainly be a dick at times — but it’s been a pretty consistent one through the years. He also has a crazy past as an anti-Canadian government terrorist and an Olympic athlete.
I admit that I have a soft spot in my heart for all of the original Alpha Flight gang, but that’s not all this is. It’s just refreshing to see a gay character in comics who is fully fleshed out in the way that Northstar is. There are so many facets to his character that can be explored, which makes his gayness sort of incidental. That seems like a pretty realistic portrayal of an adult gay man to me (or at least as realistic as you can get in comics).
It only now strikes me that maybe it’s *because* Byrne covertly wrote Northstar as gay in the 80s that we got such a robust character. If you’re writing a gay character, but you can’t come right out and say that he’s gay, then you’ve got to find other ways to make him interesting.
Too often gay characters are written as gay first, as if that is the most interesting thing about them. That’s obviously changing, with Batwoman and the former Question being too really good examples, I think. But it’s still too easy to create a new character, say “s/he’s gay!,” and act as if you’ve created a personality for them. It doesn’t ring true to actually gay identity, and it doesn’t make comics that are very interesting to read.
P.S. All of that was to say that I find Quicksilver much more boring than Northstar, although marrying into a royal family and living on the moon for a while is nothing to sneeze at, I suppose.
I always found Northstar’s general belligerence toward Alpha Flight understandable, considering that he was strong-armed into joining and only stayed because his sister was at risk. First Hudson comes within a hair’s breadth of threatening to wreck his career by outing him as a mutant (and possibly as gay) in order to get him to join, then he pulls the “Oh, hey, it’s your long-lost sister…who’s barking mad in a way that means she may lose access to her powers every time she’s stressed (say, in the middle of a super-powered throw down), and we’ve got her on the roster too!”
Northstar was definitely supposed to be the team pill, but I think Byrne gave him enough motivation to justify the attitude.
@Thom H. – Agreed. The other interesting thing about Byrne writing Northstar as a queer character in the 80’s is that he defies the coding you’d expect to see used as lazy shorthand for homosexuality – instead of the stereotypical flamboyancy, he’s an aggressive, sharp-tongued Olympic athlete with a taste for a scrap. That starts going downhill with Mantlo, unfortunately, but it made the character interesting enough for me to stick with him.
@Thom H.
“That’s obviously changing, with Batwoman”
See, I see her as kind of a bad example. She’s a sultry, gothed out sex kitten and I have no delusion that her being a lesbian is about anything else than appealing to male readers. Maybe I’m too cynical. People in comics are always going to be good looking unless they’re evil or “tortured”, so maybe I shouldn’t expect Batwoman to be 300 lbs with a butch haircut. Still, I can’t see her as anything else but nerd bait.
The whole thing kind of reminds me of the movie Chasing Amy. Sorry, Kevin Smith fans, but I hate it. The movie seems to think it’s making a mature, insightful commentary on gayness, but it’s really just badly written and something I’d expect a 12 year old to come up with when trying to seem mature or intelligent.
Some people see these comic characters as signs the industry is “growing up” and becoming oh so progressive, but it’s always so heavy handed and silly that it appears completely opposite of that to me. That said, I don’t know what the “right” way to do it would be, either. I know for sure Chuck Austen is not the right way; his Northstar couldn’t take a dump without talking about how gay he was that day, it was ridiculous and I’d be surprised if gay readers didn’t think it was obnoxious too. But then again, we have straight relationships that are just as heavy handed and stomach turning (Rogue and Gambit for the last 20 freaking years) so maybe there’s not a difference? I don’t know. It’s a problem that will most likely fix itself. I think we’ll definitely see more and more of it in the coming years, and I think as writers become more comfortable with it and it’s not seen as such a Big Deal, it will flow more naturally and not have to be seen for what it obviously is right now.
“remember when he adopted a baby with AIDS and then also had AIDS himself and then learned he was half fairy or whatever? ugh.”
Um, what? He actually had AIDS and was cured somehow? Did Hope come along and burn it out of him or something? Sorry. There’s “only in comics” and then there’s curing AIDS with fairy powers. Please elaborate if you can.
The “Northstar has AIDS” storyline took place in Alpha Flight v.1 c. #44-50-ish. Mantlo had Northstar fall victim to a degenerative disease that was intended to be AIDS, and was going to have that kill him off about the time he outed the character. Shooter objected on the grounds that there could be no queer characters in Marvel books, so Mantlo did an 11th-hour re-write to retcon the Beaubier twins into half-elves of Asgardian heritage who were wasting away due to being denied the light of their homeland (this was supposed to explain away Aurora’s DID as well). Northstar was cured by his sister’s increasingly erratic powers and both twins were written out of the books for the rest of Montlo’s run.
Pretty much as soon as he was gone, the next writer retconned the whole story into being a hoax of Loki’s and brought the twins back. Since the original explanation for Northstar’s disease was a lie, the general fanwank is that either he did have AIDS, but his Aurora cured it, or the illness was part of Loki’s plot to begin with.
@Dan Lichtenberg: I agree that Kate Kane isn’t the most interesting character in the world, but she’s far from two dimensional. I mean, she’s got a frustrated military career, some seriously complicated family dynamics, and various connections to the supernatural that tend to keep her from getting too boring. I can see her quickly becoming just a “gothed out sex kitten” now that Rucka’s no longer writing her, and especially if JHW3 moves on, but again the basics of a solid character are there to be picked up by the right writer. In my opinion, obviously.
As for Northstar’s brush with death, I don’t recall all that much. I believe I was mostly just monitoring the comic book scene at the time rather than reading the shitty comics that were being produced. Here’s a relevant bit from Northstar’s Wikipedia entry:
“The villain Pestilence senses decay in Northstar’s body and causes his sickness to grow serious to the point that his wounds no longer heal, slowly killing him. As his illness progresses, Aurora desperately uses her healing light to cure him.[26] The twins’ later use of their powers on one another stabilizes their abilities back to their original state, also allowing Northstar to generate light independently like Aurora.”
So not AIDS exactly, but there are rumors that Bill Mantlo was heading that direction with the character before he decided he would rather make Northstar and Aurora half elf (not fairy as I previously mentioned) instead. Because both of those are *very good story ideas*.
Oops — didn’t mean to step on toes, especially since Suzene has much better intel. Also, yes, Chasing Amy is the worst.
@Si — Liefeld’s problem with Shatterstar was that later writers gave a specifically asexual character (with no reference whatsoever on human sexuality) a specific codified ‘normal’ sexuality. As an asexual myself (thanks, worse living through prescription chemistry!), I could connect with Liefeld’s version a way I never can with David’s version. Not to mention that it frankly doesn’t work that way — if someone like me is stuck without a sexuality from lack of reference, an artificial being from the Mojoverse wouldn’t have a chance! That’s just bad writing from subsequent authors with their heads down their pants…
It never mattered to me whether Northstar was straight or gay — I liked seeing the angry jerk pushing everyone away. I also miss when Namor was more “Imperious Rex!” and less “Imperious Sex!”, but that’s another matter entirely…
“All of that was to say that I find Quicksilver much more boring than Northstar”
As others have pointed out, aren’t they basically the same character? A super-speed mutant who is generally a dick to most people but has a soft spot (and kind of unhealthy relationship with) for their sister? And they both have shady terrorist/criminal pasts even, as well?
I don’t think Quicksilver has ever been that closely associated with his sister? Not until the whole Ultimate sickness. They’re rarely even in the same comic.
They get split up a lot, but Quicksilver is super protective of the Scarlet Witch. Basically, when one of them is a regular on a book, it’s rare that the other one will be on the same team these days, and I can’t remember the last time Wanda seemed to care much about what happened to Pietro, but whenever they’re both Pietro’s always obsessed with whatever Wanda’s doing during the big events. He was at her side during House of M (if memory serves, most of that was actually supposed to have been his suggestion – before it was retconned to be Dr. Doom’s suggestion), and when she vanished after that, he joined Hank Pym’s “Mighty Avengers” team only because he thought they could help him find her, then he kept turning up during Children’s Crusade trying to find her again, and during AvX 1 he was watching TV with her when the fighting broke out.
(Oops, that was supposed to say “…whenever they’re both ‘at large,’ Pietro’s always obsessed…”)
Quicksilver is awful. That confrontation with Magneto during AvX was just absurd. I couldn’t believe that after all these years we’re STILL going through the same old song and dance. Magneto was a bastard to them, yes, but he didn’t even know they were his children and he certainly didn’t abandon them by choice (his runaway wife, who apparently had no respect for a man who wanted to avenge his murdered infant daughter and protect his family took care of that for him). Magneto didn’t even get that riled in the scene, his response was more or less, “them’s the breaks, deal with it” and poor Quicksilver was almost at a loss because pappy Magneto didn’t want to join his pity party. He’s a grown man who’s constantly throwing childlike tantrums and his teammates have always put up with him.
@Brian
” I also miss when Namor was more “Imperious Rex!” and less “Imperious Sex!”, but that’s another matter entirely…”
I agree. I think Bendis and a few others got the idea in their heads a couple of years ago that some of Namor’s quirks were rather funny, and now the sex thing is mostly played for laughs. Namor’s recent “does it involve getting naked” line with Hepzibah was just stupid, right up there with Doctor Strange and his Twitter account or whatever the fuck that was (maybe it was checking hockey scores). It’s cutesy, post modern and done way too often. And seriously, Mister Fantastic put up with this guy wanting to bang his wife for years, and now he’s essentially doing the same thing to Cyclops, who also says very little in protest (although I actually wonder if Scott would even care at this point). Has Namor ever been interested in Wanda? I’d love to see him do his sexy talk to her in front of Pietro and see how that would go. Maybe they’d just kill each other off simultaneously. If that happened, I could probably handle Northstar on his own.
I think gillan’s randy dialogue is one of the best thing about the book right now.
I don’t think Chasing Amy was about “gayness” in such a way. It was more about that feeling when you meet someone knew and have to learn about their past. The idea to make the character gay, and then “fingercuffs” was to give her SO much baggage.
I do believe Kevin based that movie on his real life feelings about an actual girl named “Amy”, which is why the chick with the annoying voice’s character is NOT named Amy. Basically, the story Silent Bob (Kevin Smith) tells at the end is a real account, which was the inspiration to write that movie. And the lead girl herself wasn’t 100% gay, as they reveal her previous relationships with men. She’s adventurous and confused. It’s pretty much all spelled out during the carpark argument at the hockey game.
The real gay commentary in that movie was the Banky character. He’s just another Kevin Smith pervert nerd, and comes out of the closet at the end.
So between the 3 gay characters in the movie, you have 3 different ideals behind “gay”. The one who can’t be outwardly gay as it would ruin his professional status. The confused girl who may be gay, but could well not be, as she is confused AND adventurous when it comes to her sexuality. And the guy who isn’t written as gay, but it turns out he is gay. (And for those who didn’t walk away thinking Banky was actually gay, it’s confirmed at the end of Jay and Silent Bob strike back)
In fact, there is an interview with Kevin Smith where he recounts that a test audience member was saying “I really like the Banky character and really identified with him, and then it turned out he was gay. What does that say about me??” – Kevin Smith’s reply of “It means you’re fucking GAY!” may have been a bit over the top. To me it meant it was a gay character written without a neon GAY sign above his/her head.
(Sorry for the Chasing Amy rant. My wife just watched it last night and it’s all very fresh in my head.)