So, Iceman of the X-men is gay.
The character was outed this week in All-New X-men by his telepathic teammate Jean Grey. Just to clarify, this is the so-called ‘Young’ or ‘Original’ Iceman who has been transported to the present from the 60s. The character was transported to the present, together with the rest of his team, in order to prevent a coming mutant genocide caused by former team leader turned terrorist, Cyclops.
Talk about confused.
So, the teenage Iceman is gay, despite the fact that his grown-up counterpart is, apparently, straight. This has made some people a little upset. Largely because, on the face of it, it makes no sense. Fans don’t like it when writers mess with established characters. We saw that enough when Marvel announced the introduction of Miles Morales, the mixed-race Ultimate Spiderman from a parallel universe. Or, when it was first announced that the new Fantastic Four film would feature a black Human Torch, despite the fact that the character is white in the original comics.
Oh, and in case you were wondering why the original Jean Grey didn’t out Iceman back in the 60s when they were first growing up? Basically, time travel has amped up Young Jean’s powers, and she felt that the fact that we’re all so open about sexuality these days meant that she could just go and read er friend’s mind and force him to come out to her. Because that’s what teammates are for.
Personally, the idea of people rejecting this change because Iceman is gay seems bizarre to me. Since their inception, the ‘mutant’ population of the Marvel universe has been used as a proxy for just about every minority going. Black, Asian, Jewish, Muslin, disabled, transgender, and homosexual characters have all been featured in the book’s history. People’s reaction to the revelation seems to be less about the fact that they’ve made a character gay (there’s already Karma, Northstar, Anole, and Prodigy). It’s the fact that they’re meddling with an already established character. Why change the history of an existing character, when there are already gay characters out there that deserve time and attention? Why not simply introduce a new, gay character? The asnwer is simple: because it’s not that kind of story.
A lot of people have already started calling the change to Iceman’s character a ‘retcon.’ Except that it really isn’t. A retcon occurs when new information is inserted into a story, altering the history of a character by providing a new interpretation of a character. Retcons tend to cut out whole sections of a character’s past. A true retcon would make Iceman openly gay from the start of his career. It would have erased his many relationships with women, presumably replacing them with romantic connections with men. The Original Iceman’s history remains intact. The fact that he is, was, and always has been gay- at least according to this week’s issue- simply means that he has been living his life in the closet.
And there’s nothing really that surprising about this fact. Recent Western history is filled with individuals who have come out as homosexual later in life. They remain in the closet for decades because of social pressures, because they fear a negative reaction from their families and friends, worry about damaging their career, or are silenced by a conseravtive religion. Celebrities and politicians are particularly vulnerable to speculation regarding their sexuality. And when they do come out, it causes chaos. Spending so long hiding such a major part of your life obviously has vast consequences on an individual’s psyche. But spending decades ‘playing it straight’ affects everyone you meet. Closeted gay people will marry, will have kids, to avoid speculation over their sexuality. So when they do eventually come out, it not only massively alters their lives, but those of their partners and children.
This has already been touched on in the current issue of All-New X-men as Young Iceman questions how he could be gay when his adult counterpart isn’t. And that much is true. In the past, Iceman has had relationships with well-known figures such as Polaris, Kitty Pryde, and Mystique. The fact that all of these relationships have failed quite spectacularly is one of the things X-men writer Brian Bendis has drawn on in the current series. In the films, Iceman is in a relationship with Rogue. Of all the girls at the Xavier school, he chose the only one who nearly kills people after ten seconds of physical contact.
At this point, I really want to emphasise the difference between the comic books and the films. Marvel comics is well known for using multiple universes as a plot device. It means you can have a whole major storyline which doesn’t have any effect on the main universe. You can introduce new relationships, alter characters’ personalities, change their histories, and so on. Just because the comic book Iceman (living in Earth-616) is gay, doesn’t mean that his movie counterpart has to be gay, too. In fact, X-treme X-men introduced an alternate universe Wolverine who had gold claws, was the British Empire’s Governor of Canada… and was gay. In fact, he was in a relationship with his universe’s version of Hercules. This did not make the main Wolverine gay, nor did it alter the sexuality of his movie counterpart.
As ever, comic books are looking for new and exciting storylines. And the best ones are those that relate to real life. The impact that this one revelation could potentially have It’s not just about Young Iceman being gay. It’s not even just about Grown-up Iceman being gay. It’s about how the writers explain why the character hid his sexuality for the better part of 50 years of storylines. It’s about how the revelation alters the x-men’s group dynamic. It’s about how it alters not just the two Icemen, but their relationships with just about everyone. And, most importantly, it’s about all those people out there, right now, who are still actively denying their sexuality because they’re afraid of what will happen if they come out.
Oh, and for those of you thinking that this change has come out of nowhere, I present to you this tidbit from youtube. You know that something is already deeply ingrained in the cultural conscious when Family Guy make a joke out of it. (Apologies for the low quality)
The Backstreet Imaginarium 