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Whew, your list needs a major update.

Old man Logan, by Jeff Lemire and Andrea Sorrentino.

Wolverine, by Tom Taylor and David Lopez.

Deadpool, by Gerry Duggan and Mike Hawthorne.

All-New X-Men, by Dennis Hopeless and Mark Bagley.

Extraordinary X-Men, by Jeff Lemire and Humberto Ramos.

Uncanny X-Men, by Cullen Bunn and Greg frigging Land (because he wasn't awful enough the first time he drew that book).

Angela, by Marguerite Bennett, Kim Jacinto and Stephanie Hans.

Karnak, by Warren Ellis and Gerardo Zaffino.

Howling Commandos of SHIELD, by Frank Barbieri and Brent Schoonover.

Venom: Spaceknight, by Robbie Thompson and Ariel Olivetti.

Daredevil, by Charles Soule and Ron Garney.

Web Warriors, by Mike Costa and David Baldeon.

Vision, by Tom King and Gabriel Walta.

Illuminati, by Josh Williamson and Shawn Crystal.

Spider-Woman, by Dennis Hopeless and Javier Rodriguez.

Ultimates, by Al Ewing and Kenneth Rocafort.

Carnage, by Gerry Conway and Mike Perkins.

Scarlet Witch, by James Robinson and someone.

Silk, by Robbie Thompson and Stacey Lee.

Uncanny Avengers, by Gerry Duggan and Ryan Stegman.

Agents of SHIELD, by Marc Guggenheim and Mike Norton.

New Avengers, by Al Ewing and Gerardo Sandoval.

Sam Wilson, Captain America, by Nick Spencer and Daniel Acuna.

Hawkeye, by Jeff Lemire and Ramon Perez.

Guardians of the Galaxy, by Brian Bendis and Valerio Schiti.

Star-Lord, by Sam Humphries and someone.

Amazing Spider-Man, by Dan Slott and Giuseppe Camuncoli.

Howard the Duck, by Chip Zdarsky and Joe Quinones.

Spider-Man 2099, by Dan Slott and Will Sliney.

Drax, by CM Punk and Ed McGuinness.

Nova, by Sean Ryan and Cory Smith.

Ms. Marvel, by G. Willow Wilson, Takeshi Miyazawa and Adrian Alphona.

Mighty Thor, by Jason Aaron and Russell Dauterman.

I will never be the one to make someone apologize for being long-winded and rambling. I do the same thing.

I always felt the "Iceman is gay" thing was just the standard "everyone is gay" stuff. Pretty much any character with any sort of fanbase has people speculating that they're gay, and providing "proof" of it. Iceman's gay, Beast is gay, Scott is gay, Wolverine is gay, Captain America is gay, Iron Man is gay, Rogue is gay, Illyana is gay - everyone is gay. Or at least, everyone has people speculating that they're gay. Granted, some characters have stronger cases than others - I will never not think Storm should be revealed as pansexual - but most of the time, it really is either jokes or wishful thinking. It's either people amused at perceived homo-erotic subtext, or people who find the idea of two guys making out to be really hot and want their slashfics to be canon.

So that was my take on the "Iceman is gay" thing. I never saw it. Whatever some people were seeing, I just didn't see it. He always came across to me as a straight guy. A really boring straight guy that I never cared about, and who I didn't want to see in a relationship with any of the female characters I liked. (When Amazing X-Men launched, I dreaded the inevitability of an Iceman/Firestar romance. Had Aaron stuck around, I've little doubt he would've done it. Another reason I'm glad Aaron didn't stick around, as though I needed more reasons to be glad he left the X-franchise.)

It's definitely really unfortunate that UXM #600 got delayed so much. It just creates that much more speculation and allows animosity to build. If people knew it would be resolved in a month, then they'd be willing to wait and see. But waiting 5 months has people just wanting to know what the hell is going on. Marvel can't really say much about it, because they're not in the habit of spoiling stories like that. Not directly, anyway. They usually do it through solicits or announcements. "This character's going to be a part of this book! What? That writer has a story in that book where the character's dead? And we just told you that the big twist is that the character is going to be resurrected? Oh, well." Indirect spoilers.

In this case, Marvel just can't really say much about how the story will go. They don't want to spoil any of Bendis' plans, especially if it's part of a big twist he has planned. If the O5 are from a different reality, then that's a plot twist. It's something Marvel will want Bendis to reveal in his own way, and Bendis wants to reveal it in the story, not on Twitter or in an interview, because that's not how creative types like to do things. If you're writing a story, you don't tell people key plot twists.

By the way, I am inclined to believe Bendis when he says he wasn't happy about the leak. Call me naive, but I don't think he had anything to do with it, and I don't think he appreciated it.

Gillen would probably do well on a Teen Bobby series, but he's said he's not taking any new Marvel projects for a while. So my pick would be Jen Van Meter. She's a really good writer. Hopeless Savages, her graphic novel series, has a prominent gay character. The second volume was all about teen romance, and had a fairly major subplot regarding the gay character's own heartbreak. The third volume has him and his relationship as major elements, as well. So Van Meter has definitely shown a support for LGBT representation, though I don't know if it's shown up in any of her DC work, and I know it hasn't shown up in any of her Marvel work, but she's done very, very limited work for each. (As an aside, she's married to Greg Rucka, who wrote Batwoman and GOtham Central for DC and won a GLAAD award for his work on Detective Comics.) As a bonus, because Van Meter has done so little mainstream comic work, she'd probably be cheap for Marvel to hire, which would keep the cost of the book down, and would allow them to keep it going longer even with poor sales. Gillen's probably gotten just big enough that poor sales would kill a book he's on, but not big enough to bring in many readers based on his name alone.

I've made much the same complaint, in regards to the characters who get used. I've often complained that the only characters anyone cares about are the ones created before 1980, and back then, "straight white male" was probably at least 80% of Marvel's roster. I'm glad Marvel's been making more effort lately to diversify. They need to do a much better job in terms of orientation, though. 2014 was almost devoid of LGBT characters, and 2015's had few. And that does come down to the fact that Marvel didn't allow homosexual characters until 1991, so there's simply no classic LGBT characters who can be used.

Hopefully, Iceman being gay does mean that there's at least one gay character who gets consistent use.

I would imagine plenty of teenagers have that sort of conversation. This particular conversation is complicated by one of them being psychic, but that aside, I can imagine plenty of somewhat similar conversations that have taken place. While it's true that teens are still figuring out who they are, there's a lot who are certain of their sexuality. A lot of gay people know they're gay before they even know the word.

I gotta say, that complaint is really not a good one at all. It seems like you're suggesting gay people all have the same experiences, or at least that certain experiences never happen to any gay people. And that's really, really not a good argument to make.

Yeah, ANXM is over. The remaining plot threads for it will be wrapped up in UXM #600, in 5 months. Though really, the biggest remaining plot thread for ANXM is what's going to happen to them. Bobby's sexuality is something we already knew would be followed up on, and is less a plot thread and more, you know, a part of who the character is now. Same goes for everything else. Jean's fancy new powers, Angel's fancy new look, all that stuff is just who these versions of the characters are now.


You know, considering a major part of ANXM was making Jean a powerhouse while moving her away from the Phoenix, it's going to be a shame when the next writer inevitably does another "Jean and Phoenix" story.

I can't say I was very impressed with this. It's pure nostalgia, which has never held much allure for me. There's nothing that really sets it apart aside from that.

I actually mentioned earlier in the thread that my biggest problem with the reveal is that it didn't feel like Bendis dropped any hints. Or at least none I can think of. I didn't see any foreshadowing of it.

I think back to Avengers Academy, and Striker coming out. An early issue had a flashback of him surrounded by hot women, looking bored. He hit on Finesse and Veil in the most obnoxious way possible, guaranteeing neither would agree. When Veil did go to his room, he suggested they just sit and talk, rather than bow-chicka-wow-wowing. Gage did drop hints about Striker.

I didn't see any of that from ANXM. I can't think of a single instance suggesting Bobby was interested in guys. That was bad writing on Bendis' part. The reveal should've made readers think back to earlier scenes and say, "Oooh! I see what he was going for there now!" There should've been readers predicting the reveal based on scenes from ANXM, but there was nothing. Maybe I just need to do a re-read of the series to look for hints, but there's absolutely nothing that comes to mind.