For years, both fans and writers have been seeing the X-MEN as a metaphor for being gay. Perhaps the best-known bit was from the second X-Men movie in which Bobby Drake, (alias Iceman) admits to his family that he is a mutant, and his concerned but clueless parents ask, "Have you tried NOT being a mutant?"
This week's big news in the world of comics is the revelation that Bobby is gay, too. He is not the first Marvel character to come out of the closet like this, (Northstar from ALPHA FLIGHT was first, and I plan to do a diary on him fairly soon), but Bobby Drake was one of the founding members of the X-Men, a member of the first class of students at Charles Xavier's School for the Not Quite Fitting In.
(cont'd...)
First a little background. The revelation takes place in ALL-NEW X-MEN #40, whose premise is that the original, youthful team of X-Men have been brought forward in time to the present in order to show their current, adult counterparts how grim and cynical they've be come. And maybe crush the hope and enthusiasm out of the younger version. I'm not sure.
The major story arc currently involves a group called the Utopians, and writer Brian Michael Bendis intended a big reveal about the Utopians to be the big surprise of the issue.
But during some downtime between crises, there's this little scene between Bobby and teammate Jean Grey, a telepath. You can read the entire sequence here.
It's a cute scene. I love the way Jean tries to bring up the subject without blurting it out, and winds up doing it anyway. The fact that she's reading his deepest secrets from his mind is creepy, but the exchange addresses this too. Bobby and Jean talk about a lot of things; including the weird fact that Bobby's adult version doesn't seem to be gay at all.
Is the adult Bobby just more deeply closeted? Is Bobby bi, and his preferences have just slid over to the other side of the Kinesey Scale? If the writers decide that he somehow got "cured" of his "gayness" I can see a lot of fans howling. I have a suspicion that the whole situation is going to involve Alternate Universes, since that's the only way I can imagine the temporal paradoxes being resolved; but since I haven't been reading the books and am only commenting from a distance, my opinion is largely worthless.
Writer Brian Michael Bendis talks about the issue in this interview from the Comic Book Resources website, in which he says that Bobby's story will be explored further in future issues: Bendis Talks Iceman's Outing
Also from the CBR site, some thoughtful commentary about the matter: About that Gay Iceman Scene
And already a fundamentalist preacher has announced that Marvel is trying to indoctrinate kids into believing it's okay to be a Mutant. Or something. I'm not linking to that one; you've probably heard it before.