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

I didn't realize how far things had actually regressed is some ways in regards to diversity from when I started reading comics in the early eighties, until I read the first issue of Deadpool's Secret Secret Wars set during the original Secret Wars, close to when I started reading comics. A black guy was Iron Man, a white woman lead the Avengers, followed just a few years later by a black woman. A black woman would soon take over leading the X-Men as well. "Power Man and Iron First" and "Cloak and Dagger" were some of my favorite books from around that time.

Over three decades later and it now takes PR initiatives and stunts to make things happen that use to seem natural and organic. I've tried to put my finger on what the difference is between now and then, and I think a lot of it back then was writers and artists were focused on creating new characters and developing them and giving them page time.

After so many from Marvel departed to form Image, creators at both Marvel and DC became more focused on using existing characters and saving their creations, or at least their better ones, for their own creator-owned work. So most of the new characters created are C- & D-listers who don't start off with much potential and never get much development. If someone had a concept for a potential A-list gay superhero, for example, it would most likely end up in an indie book rather than at Marvel or DC.

And even when the Big Two have a potential A-List gay character, they don't treat them like one. Batwoman was too peripheral to the Batbooks at DC to even really benefit from being a part of the bat-family of titles. Midnighter is getting some push from DC, but is always going to be hamstrung by the fact the he and Apollo got their start at Image as a gay Batman and Superman analogue/parody.

As for Young Iceman...The Iceman-is-secretly-gay thing has been used for so many years for so many people to take shots at the character and troll his fans. Claiming he was "pathetic", "a joke, and "a loser at being straight", that "not even God could make a real ''straight' man out of him". Labeling every female character he has had a relationship with as a 'beard' and insulting them and trying to de-legitimize their relationships with Iceman. Derailing almost every attempt to talk about the character into something about his orientation...Even if the adult version is left straight after the dust finally settles on all this, given the history involved and the fact it was mostly the trolls from CBR who kept hounding Bendis that caused all this, Iceman fans are about as likely to want to embrace Young 'gay' Iceman as black people would want to embrace a black superhero that comes wrapped in a Confederate Battle Flag.

Many Iceman fans are going to see Young Iceman as nothing less than a 'living' monument to the trolling they have had to deal with for years on message boards, primarily CBR, the reason most Iceman fans avoided CBR like the plague in the first place. So when Marvel makes the statement "if you liked Bobby Drake before, you will still love him now", is really burying their head in the sand on all this.

Regardless of his origins, I don't have a problem with supporting the character; provided the adult character doesn't get retconned to go along with it, and Young Iceman is treated with respect. If they retcon the adult character's history or make Young Iceman the subject of gay jokes in the comics the way they have the adult version for years, to continue to mock and ridicule either version of the character and facilitate trolling of his fans, then I am finally parting company with Marvel, something I was considering before all this. I am not going to keep paying money to a company only to watch them troll my favorite character mostly to appease people who wouldn't buy an Iceman-centric comic or his merchandise if it was practically free.

This whole thing is playing like a comedy of errors if not an outright joke. Considering Marvel has only ever addressed the "fan theory" in the form of letting some of their writers make gay jokes about the character in the comics over the years, which was not only to the character's detriment as it fueled the perception of him as a joke, but also fueled trolling of his fans on the internet...Given that coupled with how this has started off, I'm not hopeful.

After the 'leak'(almost certainly staged), Bendis started this off proclaiming in interviews he had been convinced by scans posted on his Tumblr(the same scans posted at CBR by mostly the same people, scans made up of things taken out of context, sometimes cropped and even digitally altered, to mean something other than what they did, and gay jokes made to play to that perception) that Iceman is gay, and has been for fifty years. When asked in an interview by a gay fan if Iceman had been living his 'gay life' between the panels for fifty years and we just haven't seen it, Bendis's response was "exactly". He then later does another interview, and he's talking about how no one knows if the '05' are even from the same reality, and complaining and saying he is upset about people making assumptions that any of this even impacts on the adult character and how he didn't want any of this. He keeps blaming people for making assumptions first based off the leak, and then later the comic itself(ANXM), when a lot of people are going off what he has said in interviews, which keeps changing.

Bendis has also said other writers will continue this beyond him, that he has even heard their plans. Since no other writers seem to be speaking up about their plans, my guess would be Marjorie Liu. Most writers over the years, if asked about the theory(usually during fan Q & A's at CBR), generally gave a tactful answer along the lines of it not being a part of their plans for the character. Marjorie, however, took a very strong stance. She said the character was created as straight, written as straight for fifty years, that she saw him as straight and wrote him as such. She then spent almost a paragraph taking fans to task for not just enjoying their fantasies instead of trying to force them on other people, and closed by saying if Marvel was to 'out' the character at some point she would however be okay with it.

She has since won a Gladd media award for Astonishing X-Men's gay wedding and is/was taking enrollment for a course she is teaching on comic writing 'with an emphasis on race, gender and orientation'.

Fast-forward to this story breaking that "Iceman is coming out", and Marjorie quickly takes to Twitter, saying someone had just asked her if she saw Iceman as "deeply closeted" back when she was writing Astonishing and that she responded 'yes, absolutely'. It should be noted that she did not respond to an actual Twitter poster's question, only tweeted that she had been asked that by someone.

I strongly doubt Bendis was really convinced by people posting on his Tumblr that Iceman has been secretly gay off-panel for fifty years, or that Marjorie would honestly go so strongly one way in one interview, and then contradict all of it right after this story broke a few years later. I think there is more than a bit of Brian William's Syndrome involved here.

It seems increasingly likely to me that someone at Marvel saw how much message board discussion there has been about this over the years, mainly at CBR, and tried to figure some way to make money off of it. And that coincided with Marvel's current diversity push to broaden their appeal to other markets, and an increasing willingness to troll their own fans, especially fans of the X-Men.

Marvel seemed to have mistakenly assumed three things: First, that they could please the majority of fans who see the character as straight and like him that way just fine and have in some cases for several decades, because, as they said, "if a fan likes Bobby Drake as straight, they will like him as gay(not understanding it's not a matter of liking or not liking. I like both trucks and cars, but if someone tries to turn my truck into a car and tells me it always was a car(or vice versa) and I should just be fine with it just the same, there will be a beating! You can't just swap out someone's race, or gender or orientation like you are changing their hair style. Those things are intrinsic to who someone is, sometimes in small ways, sometimes in big ways). Second, that they could write a story to play largely to message board trolls while simultaneously making the LGBTQ fans happy simply by giving them a gay character, assuming they would be so desperate for diversity and representation they would take it in whatever half-assed, misbegotten way it was delivered to them, because historically they often have and have had to(I think the negative reaction from many LGBTQ fans to this is probably what prompted Marvel to tap the brakes a bit as much as anything). And third, that after years of gay jokes in the comics and trolling on the boards over this, that this was going to be seen as something other than more of the former and more fodder for the latter, especially given how this has been handled.

To borrow one of Iceman's puns, I wish Marvel and all the creators involved would stop with the jokes and the trolling and the spin and the PC stuff and outright BS and just play 'straight' with the fans in this. It seems like some of the writers have felt the need to involve themselves in the 'debate' to establish their bonafides in all this, which is ridiculous. They are supposed to be professionals, they should be above some of this. You don't have to convince people you believe in the theory of Bigfoot to write a story based off of it, and it might go a lot better for you if you didn't.

A large part of the problem is fans are totally in the dark. There's a lot of speculation and a lot of rumors and many of them contradict each other. And what little has been said by anyone involved with Marvel is contradictory. Bendis has made numerous contradictory statements on this since the story broke, and that seems to largely depend on who his audience is and the current public reaction. He talks about 'the theory' as if it is universally known and widely accepted, and can't understand why he is hearing from so many people who knew nothing about it, much less agree with it. Brian Singer, who identifies as bisexual(a lot of people label him as gay, but I'm using his label for accuracy and respect) and has directed most of the X-Men films, had never even heard of the theory until the story broke. As I found out in an Iceman fan group after this broke, even plenty of fans of the character hadn't heard of the theory and almost none of them accepted it. Fabien Nieciza expressed the same sentiment as Bendis on Twitter saying 'how can so many people not have known about this, thousand of people have been debating this for twenty years!' I think thousands is a great exaggeration, most of the 'debate' has been centered at CBR, with mostly the same people arguing over it year after year, which is why so many were ignorant of it. The debate thread on the old forum had a poll that was open for years, I don't think it ever even got to a thousand votes total(and eventually it got reset after several years by one of the mods, at the request of some of the trolls, shortly before the forum reboot; Why? Because "Iceman is straight" was winning, and that was with very few outright Iceman fans even on the CBR boards because of the trolling). But even if it was actually thousands over the years, thousands of people is actually a small group of people in the scheme of things for a global publisher with several popular cartoons and hit movies and comics going back many decades. A few seconds of a bit on an episode of Family Guy because some of its writers were active at that time on CBR doesn't mean something is common knowledge, plenty of people don't even watch Family Guy, and those that do wouldn't have any knowledge what that very brief(a few seconds long)bit was about unless they knew of it some other way.

I've watched every episode of The Walking Dead, for example, and had no idea there was huge speculation on the internet that Daryl was gay because he hadn't been seen with a girl, came from an intolerant background and was abused as a child until creator Robert Kirkman debunked the theory on the 'Talking Dead' after-show. I wouldn't have given that theory any credence one way or the other if I had heard it because none of that makes you gay. The crap people think 'makes' or 'means' someone is gay is ridiculous! A lot of people that heard it simply disregarded the Iceman-is-secretly-gay stuff as a 'crackpot theory', like so many others theories. Who gives credence to something based on scans taken out of context to mean something they didn't, scans cropped and even digitally altered to mean something they didn't, and blatant jokes put there clearly to play to all that going on(something various writers and artists have admitted to over the years).

By not getting out in front of all this and letting people speculate for months and build more expectations, no matter which way they ultimately go with this, they are going to piss off and disappoint even more people. Some people are expecting the adult character to be outed in #600, some are expecting the ANXM issue to be retconned from existence, I personally am expecting ANXM to stand, with the younger Iceman as gay and the adult as straight and both from different realities. But not saying anything or giving vague and confusing and very limited answers for the next several months doesn't seem like a good move to me. They opened a can of worms, handled it very badly, and it's not just going to go away. And letting Bendis or anyone previously associated with this continue on it seems beyond foolish.

The first thing they need to do is make up their minds on all of this and then be honest about it with the fans. Beyond that, I don't know who could clean up this mess nor do I envy them the task; which, at least until Uncanny #600 hits, only involves Young Iceman. I still feel bad for Peter Milligan, who had to try to explain in his Doop mini-series of all places why Kitty broke up with Bobby out of the clear blue, because Bendis wanted to put her with Star-Lord. I think Kieron Gillen would be a very good choice to handle Young Iceman as a character, both as gay, as a teen and as an iteration of Iceman. I'm trying not to call him 'Gay' Iceman, because I have a feeling that is how he is going to be known. Tyke and Jeen and Gay-Iceman...

Just to chime in..

I'm 100% positive Bendis wasn't happy about the leak and definitely believe him there. Despite any personal opinions anyone has of his work, it's still his work. No one wants to have what they've worked on leaked by anyone and spoiled before the intended release. I wouldn't be happy about it either, if I were him.

Rucka would be good, but there are two problems. One, he'd be expensive - any book he writes will need high sales to stay profitable, and let's be honest, an Iceman book wouldn't get high sales. Second, he's tired for work-for-hire stuff and wants nothing to do with Marvel or DC right now.

Tynion would be good. I just really, really like Jen Van Meter and want Marvel to give her work.

I always found the X-boards at CBR to be insane. I tried to take part for a little while, but it was so full of these little in-jokes and conspiracy theories and just insanity that I found it off-putting. Made worse by the fact that, half the time, I couldn't actually tell if they were joking or if they actually believed it. I found the Avengers and General Marvel boards much better, even though I'm primarily an X-Men fan.

I thought that too when I first read that somewhere else, as well as some of Lemire's other comments along the lines of I am writing the adult character and the character I am writing is gay. Except he is clearly parsing the hell out of his words.

If he was saying adult Iceman was gay a more natural way to say those things would be: I will say that the adult Bobby Drake is the character that will appear in our series and he is gay post-Secret Wars or I am writing the adult character and he is gay.

Imagine for a second young Iceman has a different name from the adult character, say he is Timothy Drake. You could then have this:

Jeff Lemire: Brian Bendis won’t finish telling his story with the Icemen until UNCANNY X-MEN #600 this fall, so I don’t want to say too much, in terms of specifics. I will say that the adult Bobby Drake is the character that will appear in our series and yes, Timothy is gay post-Secret Wars. I’m excited to tell more of his story.

He's also said he will be addressing the impact of young Iceman coming out on both young and adult Iceman, so he is clearly to some extent writing both characters including young, gay Iceman and will be telling part of his story.

This is the modern comic book equivalent of "who shot JR" from the 80's TV series Dallas. Bendis fired a "bullet" at adult Iceman heterosexuality's and left us on a cliffhanger with a five month wait to see if it survives. Tacky as hell. I use to want to work for Marvel as a kid, and now I wouldn't take a job with current Marvel if offered. Too much of what they are doing seems like bad, lowest-common-denominator, reality television. Every time I watch an episode of Lifetime's UnREAL(yes I am a man who watches some Lifetime shows. Shiri Appleby is awesome IMHO and I will watch her in anything. If you hate most of realty television, you will love UnREAL.), I can't help but think that's how Marvel puts together their comics now.

Any time public opinion goes too far in one direction on how this will turn out, they will say something in interviews to lead people in the other direction, it's what they have done so far. I expect that will continue all the way until Uncanny #600 hits or gets leaked, not only to drive sales for #600, but to provoke interest and initial sales on Extraordinary. As one person put it on another forum, I wouldn't normally buy Extraordinary X-Men, but I want to see the train wreck with adult Iceman as gay now.

Rubberneckers, the New Marvel target audience?

Uggh.

I've been told I have some talent at writing, but my artistic skills leave a lot to be desired.

I'd love to write Marvel and DC's characters, I just feel I'd have to compromise who I am as a person so much to function within their current architecture of writers and editors I'd end up miserable. Too many of them at current-Marvel especially seem focused on tearing down, mocking and ridiculing characters I grew up loving largely for shits and giggles. I made the comment a while back that if I started reading X-Men in recent years, I wouldn't even be an X-Men fan.

Cyclops - From the respected field leader of the X-Men to a mentor-killing revolutionary to a nervous breakdown. I have no interest in seeing Cyclops even on a team of X-Men, much less leading them, and it will take many years of rebuilding on the character to remotely change that.

Marvel Girl/Jean - Has the distinction of being dead now more years than alive. Has a current teen incarnation running around who's behavior is making people hate not only her but her dead adult-self by extension.

Iceman - From the team joker and unlucky in love to being depicted as a joke and possibly closeted, the subject of mountains of mockery both in and out of comics.

Angel - Mind-wiped out of existence. Current incarnation is such a blank slate I see no point to his existence and he barely even gets any use.

Beast - Once wise and respected, to being depicted as an incompetent screw-up who apparently likes to commit genocide and who has become hated among many fans.

Wolverine - From the best there is at what he does to someone unrecognizable and almost a polar opposite of his popular incarnation. It got so bad they killed him and are now replacing him with an alternate future version to try to give people back something of what they liked about the character.

Colossus - Has actually fared better in very recent years, was mishandled and made largely irrelevant for decades, when he wasn't dead.

Storm - So mishandled for so long fans pretended she had been replaced by a robot. Now some fans are so sick of it the are asking she be killed off out of mercy.

Rogue - Took her character to it's logical conclusion. To me, Rogue's story ended years ago and I haven't had any real interest since.

Nightcrawler - A character who's morals and principles are very at odds with current comics. It's no wonder they killed him off. I suspect it's just a matter of time before they do so again, as most of the interest writers have in Nightcrawler seems to revolve around more violent alternate-reality takes.

Gambit - From a charming rogue and the Han Solo of the X-Men to being described as a "scumbag" by multiple Marvel creatives, likely explaining the current lack of use and respect the character receives in the comics.

Emma Frost - From a strong adversary to the X-Men to a leader in Generation X, to spending years functioning as Cyclop's personal cheerleader and accessory until I lost all respect for the character. Someone once called her Cyclop's expensive handbag, and if that doesn't show how badly they damaged her character, nothing will.

Marvel has basically taken so many damaging shots at characters I use to love and respect that I have a hard time even liking many of them anymore. They need to get some writers and editors who are focused on building these characters up some instead of continually tearing them down, or at some point there won't be any fans left.