Bendis makes Teen-Iceman gay in All-New X-Men

I understand your point of view, and would perhaps feel differently about this but for the following reasons:

1. I have been a fan of the character for over thirty years, most of my life. I've read fifty years worth of his adventures. I have enjoyed and rode the roller-coaster ride of his various relationships with female characters, becoming heavily invested in some of them as fans do. I was 'shipping him with Firestar when I was too young to know what a 'ship even was, and to finally get to see that play out in Marvel 616 continuity a few decades later, was one of the happiest days of my life.



And when Firestar recently, finally, after decades, joined the same team Iceman was on and there was still flirtation between them, many fans were like: Yes! It was balm to sooth wound opened when BobCat(the 'ship name for the Kitty/Bobby pairing that came to an abrupt, out-of-nowhere ending on Bendis's sole orders(actually derailing two other writer's story lines involving the two characters).


Understand, Iceman's relationships with certain female characters is a LARGE part of his popularity, and that only increased in recent decades with the Bobby/Rogue/Kitty triangle in the X-Films. Batman has his war on crime in Gotham, Superman protects Metropolis, Iceman has his relationships. It is a defining part of who he is as a character. The dysfunctional nature of them is also a large part of his appeal and something a lot of his geek/nerd fanbase can related to.

There is a lot of emotional investment in those relationships by his fans, especially when they are touched on, revisited or even rekindled in the books. A LOT(When I didn't have internet access years ago, a friend would go online looking for any new Iceman fanfics and print them up and send them to me. I collected them in five, two-inch thick notebooks; completely filling them; and most of those stories involve his past relationships with various female characters.)

If Adult Iceman is 'made' gay, fifty years of loved story-lines are going to be essentially rewritten to mean something that was never intended, and those relationship are going to be permanently altered, never again to be revisited(because returning him to being straight by a later writer would not even be feasible in this sensitive climate, it would be treated by the LGBTQ community as putting him 'back in the closet', instead of returning him to his original orientation). A much-loved, and a large part of the adult character, is potentially about to be ripped out and simply discarded.

2. For at least the past decade, the "theory' that Iceman is secretly gay has been primarily and loudly advocated by a group of trolling, harassing, cyber-bullies on one internet message board, and given little to no credence anywhere else except by members of that faction occasionally posting other places. They frequently post panels out of context to mean things they do not mean, and hurl a string of insults at the character(he's "pathetic", "a joke", "a loser", and a long list of others that they claim is just because he is secretly closeted, and that they will only stop if he "comes out") to troll and harass and bully his fans. And if you do not approve of what they are doing, they spin, doubletalk and bullshit like career politicians to try to say YOU are the bigot, not them. They have attacked every relationship he ever had with a woman and tried to de-legitimatize it. They hijacked and derailed almost every thread about him to the point that even trying to discuss anything about the character on the main forum became all but impossible. They created a 'debate' thread about his sexual orientation that would go for many pages with nothing but them hurling insults at the character and equating those insults to him being secretly gay.

These are the same trolls who have posted scans out of context to routinely label Wolverine, Colossus, Angel and Nightcrawler, among others, as pedophiles. They do the same to label Storm and other female characters as men or 'trannies', and then proceed to call them "sick", gross" and "disgusting" for it to troll their fans. And if anyone complained, they spin and doubletalk and say they are doing something positive for secretly LGBTQ characters. And it was mostly tolerated because even some of the moderators there were also trolls. Fans of certain characters like Iceman finally had to have their appreciation threads moved to a sub-forum to provide some protection and a safer environment away from the harassment(even after the reboot, some still avoid certain boards there altogether) most simply left the site in droves never to return. It took the hacking of a woman's bank account by the trolls there and threatening her with rape for the owners to erase the forum, reboot it and try to start over, banning the worst offenders, but the place is still a nightmare.

3. In recent years Marvel and some of it's writers, including Bendis, have been openly playing to that internet-troll element there. They have put things into books deliberately to provide scan material for the trolls there to post about(including borderline-homophobic jokes at Iceman's expense), and ultimately to harass and bully fans of certain characters over. Instead of trying to craft good stories, Bendis has shifted his focus in recent years to writing things to, in his own words, "provoke nerd-rage" and to try to "break the internet" with controversy, and playing to a core fanbase that openly call themselves "Bendis-trolls'. He does that to the detriment of some of the characters he is writing; and is changing his reputation from a once-respected writer to, increasingly, a hack.

In his ham-fisted, poorly done "outing" of teen-Iceman, he actually lifted many of the comments made by those trolls on CBR to be used in the comic itself, comments that members of the LGBTQ community have labeled as "bigoted", "ignorant" and even "dangerous" after reading the issue; something Iceman fans, on the receiving end of years of that trolling, have been saying for years. At least a decade spent trying to drag a straight character out of a closet he was never in, in a near-parrody of gay-bashing, for the purpose of trying to insult him and troll his fans. The only people really cheering this are the trolls who are declaring victory(with moderators on that rebooted forum having to practically beg the trolls to talk about teen Iceman being made gay as something positive and deleting the worst of their posts, and not a negative for them to crow over as they are doing) and thanking Bendis for this and already looking for the next character to target for this treatment; and members of the LGBTQ community and their supporters(which I would like to count myself among), who are ignorant of much of this and think a long-time secretly gay character is simply being outed.

As one gay Iceman fan put it: "I want more LGBTQ characters in comics, and higher profile ones, but not like this".

I hope you and others can understand why most Iceman fans, and a lot of X-Men fans in general, will not support turning adult Iceman gay, not only because of what will be lost, but because of the very ugly history involved.

This is fruit born of a very poisoned tree, water drawn from a very poisoned well.

Icefanatic

I'm still not sure how much this matters in the long run. Marvel is rebooting and removing it's properties they don't own the film rights to believe me if they screwed up the Maximoffs as much as they did there's no reason they won't remove the X-men.

Anyhow I'll leave this topic for now with this: Bisexual Bobby has a nice ring to it doesn't it?

Since she was the one who got all the pub and attention for a gay wedding, maybe she wanted to do more with a gay theme. She did bring all his girlfriends together for the death seed story and yet every she wrote for the most part was swept under. Perhaps she asked as was told no. I know Asmus asked if he could make Gambit bi and he was told no, this was stated in an podcast prior to the release of his Gambit solo. I have no idea why she would change her pov, unless she really wanted to do more with her Iceman arc and was limited by editorial.



You know, I'm a little fed up with the attitude as well. And not just with Iceman but with Gambit as well. Whether someone likes a character or not doesn't mean they don't have fanbases, and those fans care deeply for their favorite. Cyber bullying certainly is much more prevalent and its not just young people who need to know about it, but adults too.

Hate to quote myself   but I didn't want to edit something already replied to. Cronin also said he expected Marvel to out Iceman every other issue during Iceman and Rogue's "road trip" issues. Funny, he must have been reading different comics than everyone else, as Marvel acknowledged at the time in the letters page they had received so many letters from fans thinking Iceman and Rogue were going to get married when they got to Vegas that they felt the need to address that it wasn't going to happen, just to try to reassure Gambit/Rogue 'shippers who were freaking out.


In all honesty, I think the best thing Marvel could do is say teen Iceman is from an alternate reality; one where Iceman is gay, Jean has no respect for boundaries or privacy(seriously, 616 Jean Grey has never behaved the way teen-Jean does in her life), and all the other differences people are increasingly noticing between them and "our" 05. Teen Iceman finds the world he is living in now to be more suited to being able to live his orientation without prejudice than where he was from(something he has already commented on)and decides to stay. Totally believable. Iceman fans are actually not homophobic(contrary to some opinions at CBR) and generally embrace all iterations of the character. (Gay)teen-Iceman would have a loyal, ready made fan-base that would largely welcome him with open arms since it would not be coming in any way at the expense of the existing character, his history, or the storylines fans have enjoyed about him for decades. It would be no different than having Cable and Nate Grey(X-Man) existing in the same world, or Spider-Man and the Scarlet Spider. Or having the Ultimate version of Spider-Woman be a female clone of Peter Parker. Adult Iceman could even act as something of an "older brother" to him, which would be good for both characters and get both of them more attention.

Teen Iceman would also live his orientation in the open without a closeted phase, something that is thankfully going to be the norm for this generation, so the character would not quickly become archaic; as having adult Iceman living in the closet for 50+ years of his history would quickly seem to be.

I got something from a friend yesterday that kind of pointed out to me that sadly I haven't always been that understanding about that myself when the shoe was on the other foot.

I met Paul and Jamie(not their real names, I wouldn't post that and I only know their real names so I don't have something handy like "Icefanatic" to call them. It's *close* to their real names) at a small fan event a few years ago. They are a gay couple who met and bonded due to their love of the Avengers(former love, I should say). Anyway, I ate something that didn't agree with me and spent the night in the bathroom hugging a toilet and vomiting uncontrollably. Instead of enjoying the event, Paul and Jamie, two complete strangers, took turns looking after me. It was an embarrassing, humbling experience for me, but one that also reminded me of how decent other people can be, even to complete strangers.

We stayed in touch online off and on over the past few years. Paul and Jamie absolutely hated what Bendis did with the Avengers, and Scarlet Witch in particular, saying he permanently ruined the character, who was their favorite, among others. I was...less than sympathetic at the time, and very much then still a Bendis fan myself, and rather defensive of him. In retrospect I am kicking myself.

I thought Jamie made some interesting points, including a couple of things I hadn't even thought of, and instead of trying to summarize part what was in it I asked if it would be okay to share it here, to which he agreed. It cuts off abruptly because he switched to talking about something else that had nothing to do with comics and would mean nothing to anyone here and there was no reason to post any of it.

So, how much do you like your Bendis now? Hmmm? Still want to defend him? Talk about how good he was on Powers and Daredevil? When I told you I had to almost pry a SW bust from paul's hands to keep hhim from breaking it, you laughed. When I told you I had stopped reading Avengers, you told me I would be back. When I told you we were selling our Avengers comics and merchandise on ebay you said we were overreacting! You should have expected this from him, I warned you, he is nothing more than a troll! Whatever he may have been years ago, he is not that now. Look at Frank Miller, same thing. he was an actual genius at writing comics and now I wouldnt want him to touch anything I care about.

I read the interview where Bendis gave he's reasons for thinking Iceman could be gay. Offended the hell out of me, adn paul too! nI haven't seen such homophobic reasons given for thinking someone was gay since the 1980's! I have been in actual denial, actually in the closet, and so has paul. We have seen it up close and lived it, and Iceman's history is not that. You can't just take a character who has been written as straight for fifty years and retroactively say he was just in denial or in the closet the who time, for reasons that would only be believable to a moron or a bigot! This is insulting as hell to LGBT people! Where the hell did Bendis get his idea of what being gay and closeted and in deniallooks like, from a bad, homophobic sitcom from three decades ago? Is that the type of reasoning you were up against and carrying on about at CBR? Now wonder it was making you crazy, you can;'t reason with ignorant people who think like that. Bendis trying to out Iceman because he meets the idea of what an ignorant, trollish STRAIGHT WHITE GUY or a bbunch of trolls from a message board so bad they had to essentially erase the whole damw thing after trolls there actually threatened to rape someone, think an in denial, closeted gay man is like is offensive as hell!

Not that this should surprise anyone. Two of teh Avengers stars just called their female costar's superhero character a slut and a whore in a press interview. And how many of MArvel's current and former writers have been accused of harasment and cyber bulling in recent years? I can think of several off the top of my head. Is it any wonder that that is making it into the books that they publish?

Last we talked you had dropped DC and were considering dropping everything Marvel except some stuff with Iceman. I say drop it all! I cut the cord with Marvel and DC years ago and couldn't be happier. I still read comics, always will, but nnot from tehm. Look at how they treat their fans, ingore them, troll them, all while gouging them for more and more money for comics and merchandise. Do you think an indie publisher is going to do that? They are grateful to have you as a customer, and want you happy so they can keep you. You think you'd get this from reading Hellboy? Good stories and good art is what you get, not trolling. You liked teh Hellboy movies, right? Give it a chance. Or find something else, something far away from Marvel and DC because the way they treat their fans is atrocious, it's like being in an abusive relationship.

I hadn't even considered how the trolling and harassment in places like CBR, being fed by things added to the books by Marvel's writers, correlates with some of Marvel's writers, current and former, being accused of very real-life harassment. Or how the fan relationship with both Marvel and DC is starting to resemble, more and more, an abusive one. Or how trying to pass off a character that has been written as very straight for fifty years as a closet homosexual for the purpose of outing him could be offensive to gay people(although I have seen quite a bit of that expressed around the internet since this broke), especially considering the only so-called evidence he was gay in the books amount to ugly stereotyping and homophobic jokes in recent years of the kind usually directed at straight people by people using gay as an insult, put there by some of Marvel's writers to play to trolls and cyber-bullies and foster harassment of some fans.

It's kind of like having people insult Storm by saying she's a man in the books when she clearly isn't, having a bunch of trolls saying it on a message board as an insult to troll her fans, and then after about a decade of that, Marvel tries to out her as transsexual and spin it as something positive while the trolls and bullies are cheering a victory. Think that would go over well?

I think Bendis and others have spent too many years listening to the Greek chorus at CBR. It is not reflective of fandom, and many of the opinions expressed there are unique to that place. And letting the opinions of trolls and cyber-bullies from a place so bad it had to be completely eradicated and restarted from scratch be your inspiration and guiding light on something like this was probably not a smart move.

"If a character wasn't around by 1980, they are simply not allowed to matter. Readers refuse to give a shit about them." No offense, but that is such bunk. First, in the '90's, the older characters were considered mostly has-beens and no one cared about them. It took things like Heroes Reborn and Heroes Return and a lot of other pushes to get fans to actually again give a crap about any of those now hugely popular characters, popular due mostly to the movies. No one cared about Guardians of the Galaxy's characters at all until the movie, now most even have solo character books.

There are also many hugely popular characters created since 1980. Three of them, created in the '90's, immediately come to mind: Gambit, Cable and Deadpool. Characters so popular two of them are about to star in solo theatrical movies, and a third is likely to headline a planned X-Force film.

One reason people don't get invested in a book full of new characters is Marvel puts out those books full of new characters every year or two. As soon as people start to care and become invested, Marvel takes the spotlight off them and puts it somewhere else. Look at the X-Men student books alone from recent years. We went from New X-Men to Generation Hope, then to Arron's class, then to Cyclops's recruits then to the time-traveling 05. Who can get invested in that? New titles with new casts. It's not even the same title with a changing cast over time like New Mutants/X-Force was that fans could build loyalty to and get use to becoming a regular purchase. Kate Bishop became popular because she got more focus in Hawkeye, not being in Young Avengers. People are not going to invest in a wall of characters being thrown at them every year or two.

Then there is the fact those characters frequently end up getting de-powered or killed off en masse to add sizzle to the next "big event". They are the red shirts on a Star Trek landing party, and who invests in those characters? Marvel frequently kills or sidelines or otherwise makes irrelevant those characters, so what sane person would want to invest in them knowing they do that? Marvel has no one to blame for people not investing in those characters but themselves, based off of how Marvel frequently treats them.

In addition, one of the reasons the new LGBTQ characters don't take off is the kind of characters they create. Nice characters that are often essentially wallflowers. People tend to get more invested in characters that are confident and in some way bad-asses. Wolverine, Gambit, Cable. Do you see Marvel creating LGBTQ characters in the vein of characters that are hugely popular? No. When they get an idea for a character like that, they make that character straight, and when they become popular, all fans who want an LGBTQ character like that can do is hope the character somehow gets outed by a later writer which sometimes sets them at odds with that character's then already-existing fanbase. Northstar is much the exception to the background fate of most of Marvel's LGBTQ characters because he is confident and a badass. Ultra-confident and willing and able to mop the floor up with you. Put him next to Wolverine and Northstar knows he is not just as important, but more important. And if you don't believe that, he will show you why. Marvel just doesn't create LGBTQ characters like that.

Even Iceman isn't really like that. Adult Iceman's popularity stems from his doubts and insecurities, his dysfunctional relationships with women, and his issues regarding his powers. Teen Iceman doesn't have any of that, and has done nothing of note or relevance in 40 issues of All-New X-Men other than stand around making jokes and announce(or rather have announced for him) that he is gay. That is literally the be-all, end all of his character after 40 issues, and how that will make him popular and a prominent LGBTQ character and more than a token gay I do not know. And presumably if they do out adult Iceman, his dysfunctional relationships with women will presumably be replaced with now healthy, boring relationships with men(otherwise what's the point of all this). Coming out should similarly cure him of his other two selling points, his doubts and insecurities, and their impact on his powers; which then reduces Adult Iceman to a character who is gay and makes jokes. I don't see how this is going to work out good for anybody, and it seems incredibly poorly thought out.

Regardless of how this is being spun to mainstream and even gay media, this is Bendis clearly playing to the troll crowd at CBR, something Marvel has been doing more and more of to the detriment of some of their characters(hope that the trolls never set their sites on Karma, or she is screwed). They wanted Iceman made "full gay" to de-legitimize his relationships and legitimize their years of trolling and Bendis is giving them their reward. He even went so far as to fill the issue with some of their favorite saying, comments that have ended up being lambasted by members of the LGBTQ community as offensive and ignorant, not knowing he was just parroting a bunch of things said by internet trolls.

As for Iceman getting to have a fluid sexuality, unlikely. Do you see Northstar getting to have a fluid sexuality? He is Marvel's "most prominent", "most popular", "flagship", "full gay" character, and they are not going to do anything to detract from being able to claim all that, even if the LGBTQ community was accepting of it. If Adult Iceman is turned gay, he would supplant all of that and become just as politicized. He would have been the one getting a gay wedding in Astonishing to try to cash in on current events, appear socially relevant, and get Marvel press attention.