Marvel Comics General

Eh, I liked that run. Valentine's entertainingly shifty and stabby.

They don't read too much like a self-insert to me, and it's not surprising that an LGBT+ Asian creator brings in more Asian characters and/or LGBT+ characters (especially when writing a lead character who's supposed to be pan).

YMMV, or course.

It was less that Mantis was widely hated and more that nobody outside of Engleheart cared about her. I don't think she qualified as a full-on Creator's Pest, everyone was just kind of ambivalent about her. She was absolutely Engleheart's pet character though.

In regards to Freedom Rings mentioned earlier, Robert Kirkman has specified that it was the horrible end result of him having two different ideas for a comic - a book about a rookie hero who dies tragically young and a book about a gay hero - that he ended up merging together into one story without realizing that Marvel had very few LGBT characters at the time. He regretted killing the character off near-immediately for precisely that reason.

With regards to "corporate allyship" by comic book companies, Phil Jimenez wrote an interesting piece for last year's DC Pride where he talked about that. He said that while it's admittedly impossible to tell how sincere a corporation is about anything, since they want money above all else, he feels that, no matter what their actual motive, having a powerful force like a big company on your cause's side can only be a good thing.

It was well-argued, though I can of course see counterarguments.

Edited by HamburgerTime on Mar 22nd 2024 at 10:28:55 AM

I'd say a similar but better argument is that the mere fact that a corporation is publicly pandering to LGBT people at all is, if nothing else, a sign that said demographic has truly begun to win acceptance in the world. Up until the New 10s, most corporations wouldn't even want to acknowledge that LGBT people exist, let alone see them as a potential source of profit.

Yes, corporations pandering is hollow. But the fact they think they should pander at all is a positive sign.

That's a good way to look at it.

In other words, Corporations are now treating LGBT people like everyone else.

I suppose a step forward is always a step forward, even if for the wrong reasons, because it can lead to people doing the same for better reasons.

I mean, Northstar's coming out scene was cringeworthy. Claremont's hints about Destiny and Mystique were well-intentioned but frustrating.

But that's what got us here.

Now we get a happily married Northstar (married to a human guy, and everything), Destiny and Mystique get to be married villains... which is ok, as Marvel has non-straight heroes too... and new characters like Kobak and Viv Vision, in major and minor roles, get to be LGBTQ+ without it being news.

Edited by Mrph1 on Mar 22nd 2024 at 4:50:21 PM

Speaking of corporations...

Bleeding Cool pontificates if anyone remembers how SDCC 2023 had Marvel teasing about "New X-Men" in 2024...only for New X-Men to not be anywhere.

According to Brevoort's newest update on Substack, said plans apparently got scrapped when he took over as editor on the X-Office.

But BC notes that the strange thing is Marvel made Brevoort take over the X-Books around the end of July/beginning of August 2023 and the SDCC 2023 panel was on July 20th, meaning they changed direction a mere ten days after the SDCC panel.

Huh, wasn't there something else that happened last year around that same timeframe that nobody liked? Something about a certain lovable hero having a really bad time? Hmmmm... (Because the handling of Kamala's death and resurrection happened under Brevoort's watch, getting shafted to the X-Books might be his punishment for bungling it. I do remember that it got leaked three whole weeks before ASM#25 was supposed to drop.)

Double post as we now have more details on the "Pride Allies" covers —

Each one spotlights one of Marvel's LGBTQ+ heroes alongside an ally.

Northstar and Spider-Man. Askani and Daredevil.

Plus Hercules, Loki, Hulkling, America Chavez, Black Cat, Rūna etc.

Details here

Oh hey the Internet exaggerated something, must be a day ending in Y.

Well, that's marginally better.

Edited by ClancyGardener on Mar 22nd 2024 at 11:17:38 AM

You know, sometimes I think the best way for corporations to make money is to make it look like they're doing something dumb to drum up attention, and then reveal no, we actually aren't that stupid.

Sure, that can easily backfire (turns out you were that stupid, you just didn't realize it), but when it works, suddenly everyone knows about this thing, and when the good press comes in, it'll be even more successful.

It worked for a film about an alien hedgehog.

Of course, that's because they realized they botched it and fixed it, but that did help them get some attention ahead of time, and once they fixed that issue, the movie basically soared on its own merits.

I mean, it's still incredibly stupid. Because it's apparently just pairing a straight character and a gay character who have nothing to do with each other. Like, has Daredevil ever even met Rachel Grey? And it still ends up centring straight people for Pride.

As noted DC is doing this better.

Aside from the Rachel Pollack special reprinting Coagula's debut issue (DC's first trans superhero) the Pride special, cover collection book, and variant covers all place center focus on queer characters.

Plus I just now realized they do have more queer characters currently with their own books. Harley Quinn, Poison Ivy, Catwoman, Dreamer's continuous push always written by Nicola Maines, Alan Scott in both JSA and his own GL mini, Connor Hawke in Green Arrow, and recently they had a miniseries starring their new nonbinary character Xanthe in Spirit World.

Yeah my first thought reading that was... what does Spidey have to do with Northstar? Seems completely random, I don't know if they've ever interacted before.

Yeah, looking at Marvel's solicits over the next few months, and there's really not much in the way of queer characters in major roles. The Jackpot & MJ mini, Herc's going to be in Avengers for a couple issues, I understand Al Ewing continues to write Loki as gender-fluid in Thor. Deadpool, who has at least finally had a non-woman romantic interest, though I'd be genuinely surprised if they're present in the new run. Rachel and Prodigy are both in the Dead X-Men mini (and that Marvel article states that Rachel and Betsy will actually both be in one of the upcoming X-titles, I would assume X-Factor). I think the Heirs of Apocalypse mini had Rictor on one of the covers?

I feel like Marvel's queer rep somehow comes in waves. They'll have a whole bunch of books featuring queer characters, half of them make it 12 issues if they're lucky and don't get replaced, and the rest are gone within another year, and then there's a year or so of very little rep. It's weird. I pay less attention to DC, since it was never really my thing, but the impression I get from what I do hear is that they are generally more consistent about it.

Black Cat's queerness has notably stuck.

Fans have also embraced Bobby.

So retcons aren't always bad.

I actually hope Black Panther's trans Catwoman analog sticks around.

Edited by CharlesPhipps on Mar 23rd 2024 at 5:31:59 AM

Yeah, which is more than can be said for the Dynamic Competition's own iconic cat burglar.

I'd snark about it being the easiest queerness available but that's rather erasing and unfair. Plus even that gets fumbled surprisingly often. >.>

It helps that Mac Kay's run on the character was very well-received, and made her romances with women a major element. That said, she's a character who seldom really gets to be front-and-centre like that. She's usually a supporting character, and usually a supporting character for Spider-Man. So, it's entirely possible for her to go years without any sort of romantic subplots of her own.

Which is fine, it's the curse of having so many characters. Marvel's not going to retcon away Black Cat being bi, and even if she never ends up with another girlfriend, it's not like that erases her bisexuality.

Oh yeah Insomniac Spider-Man 2 had her with a girlfriend so her bisexuality made it to a major adaptation.

It also helps that Felicia isn't Peter's main love interest. The biggest obstacle to focusing on Selina's bisexuality is that as far as editorial is concerned, people only care about Selina's relationship with Bruce.

I know that Felicia’s bisexuality goes back to the Spider-Girl book. Does it go back even earlier?

As far as I can tell, the Spider-Girl book was the first time she was ever depicted as bisexual.

I keep saying this, the best way for Marvel to get a leg up on DC is to pull a Connie Kent. They fumbled a golden idea, go steal it. Have a minor-ish previously established character come out as pre-everything transgender. An instant spotlight on someone with none yet, and a fresh angle for lgbtq representation to follow their transition.

Edited by raykoda16 on Mar 23rd 2024 at 10:50:31 AM