What do you think about the Marauders line up?

[houndsofluv]

Given what I’ve read about marvel policing the hell out of Sina Grace’s Iceman coupled with their apparent “apolitical stance” I feel like this book won’t be as queer inclusive as we hope. duggan feels like a button pusher though so maybe he’ll go for it

[RachelGrey]

Oh it was definitely that, he definitely enjoyed amazonian-like powerful and self-assured women that take charge, as an straight man, i was mostly fine with it, although i did think that i got a little creepy sometimes, bordering on unappropriated. I never saw much LGTB representation from him personally, although i don't think that he was against it

Didn't he say he intended Rachel and Kitty to end up together in an interview once? I think he said that the editors wouldn't allow it.

[powerpax]

Frankly I don't think what I've seen of Grace's work is that fantastic. Either way: I just have yet to see a writer get Bobby Drake out of second gear, ever, gay or str8. They've been vowing to do it since at least 1995 - "Bobby finally reaches his full potential! Bobby struggles with his demons! Bobby becomes a man! Bobby is gay!" The upshot is never a fully realized adult character. So in terms of gays in the X-Men I'm currently only so interested in Iceman unless he gets beyond the latest storyline designed to prove he's not a joke. The next creative team always drops the ball. Now I feel like it could easily become 'well, he's gay, isn't that enough?'

[RachelGrey]

Frankly I don't think what I've seen of Grace's work is that fantastic. Either way: I just have yet to see a writer get Bobby Drake out of second gear, ever, gay or str8. They've been vowing to do it since at least 1995 - "Bobby finally reaches his full potential! Bobby struggles with his demons! Bobby becomes a man! Bobby is gay!" The upshot is never a fully realized adult character. So in terms of gays in the X-Men I'm currently only so interested in Iceman unless he gets beyond the latest storyline designed to prove he's not a joke. The next creative team always drops the ball. Now I feel like it could easily become 'well, he's gay, isn't that enough?'

It will help if Pyro turns out to be gay too and the reason he joins them is because Bobby asks him to join the team. It would give Bobby some agency as well since he would be the one recruiting Pyro not Kitty.

[TheCape]

Didn't he say he intended Rachel and Kitty to end up together in an interview once? I think he said that the editors wouldn't allow it.

Is likely, i mean he has Destiny and Mystique, even if it was mostly implied, but at the same time i doubt that he gave much though to the idea of same sex pairings, he seemed more into making the women just as badass (or even more badass) than the males, at least i thought than that was his priority.

[Maestroneto]

Didn't he say he intended Rachel and Kitty to end up together in an interview once? I think he said that the editors wouldn't allow it.

Yeah, they're supposed to be married in The End. But these days, Claremont insists Kitty's OTP is Moira's granddad from a mini nobody read.

[powerpax]

It doesn't help that just about every writer to work on him gives Bobby these OTT speeches about My Potential!! where he sounds like a complete weenie giving some long preamble in junior high debate club. Grace included. I mean, all comic book characters are prone to those; the speechifying is an issue of the medium and one that is still being updated. But when Bobby gives them, oof, it's worse than usual for me.

[powerpax]

Yeah, they're supposed to be married in The End. But these days, Claremont insists Kitty's OTP is Moira's granddad from a mini nobody read.

I don't even want to know.

For me it's Kitty and Wisdom to the death tbh

[Maestroneto]

I don't even want to know.

For me it's Kitty and Wisdom to the death tbh

I think Wisdom's on the cover for Punisher Kill Krew #5 (also written by Duggan, hmmmm)

[houndsofluv]

Frankly I don't think what I've seen of Grace's work is that fantastic. Either way: I just have yet to see a writer get Bobby Drake out of second gear, ever, gay or str8. They've been vowing to do it since at least 1995 - "Bobby finally reaches his full potential! Bobby struggles with his demons! Bobby becomes a man! Bobby is gay!" The upshot is never a fully realized adult character. So in terms of gays in the X-Men I'm currently only so interested in Iceman unless he gets beyond the latest storyline designed to prove he's not a joke. The next creative team always drops the ball. Now I feel like it could easily become 'well, he's gay, isn't that enough?'

oh man do I ever agree. we’re already starved for lgbt characters, the least they could do let them develop a bit smh. bobby’s characterization was a hot ass mess before he was outed and that didn’t do him any favours. Who else is there? Northstar doesn’t get to do much except “look he’s gay and he’s here”, Anole’s gay and a student so he’s screwed twice over in terms of writers caring enough to flesh him out, Destiny’s just dead, everyone else coming to mind is just subtext. representation isnt just about checking a box but that’s all we get

[Anduinel]

Oh it was definitely that, he definitely enjoyed amazonian-like powerful and self-assured women that take charge, as an straight man, i was mostly fine with it, although i did think that i got a little creepy sometimes, bordering on unappropriated. I never saw much LGTB representation from him personally, although i don't think that he was against it

There was definitely some fetishism in there, but I tend to give Claremont more benefit of the doubt given the time period he was primarily writing in. He was in the same position as Byrne with Northstar, any characters intended to be LGBTQ couldn't be explicitly confirmed so - literally everything had to be subtext, stereotype, or innuendo. And even then, he managed to get Mystique and Destiny in there just due to having a decent vocab. The 2000's era, frankly, wasn't all that much better, and Claremont was getting a lot of editorial interference at the time (like everyone else in the X-Offices). The writers can do only so much with the toys they're allowed to play with, unfortunately, even if they create them.

[Hi-Fi]

There was definitely some fetishism in there, but I tend to give Claremont more benefit of the doubt given the time period he was primarily writing in. He was in the same position as Byrne with Northstar, any characters intended to be LGBTQ couldn't be explicitly confirmed so - literally everything had to be subtext, stereotype, or innuendo. And even then, he managed to get Mystique and Destiny in there just due to having a decent vocab. The 2000's era, frankly, wasn't all that much better, and Claremont was getting a lot of editorial interference at the time (like everyone else in the X-Offices). The writers can do only so much with the toys they're allowed to play with, unfortunately, even if they create them.

Exactly. Everything was subtext at that time. Claremont was able to give us Mystique/Destiny and Storm/Yukio. And he's also been on-record about how he sees Wolverine as bisexual.

[TheCape]

There was definitely some fetishism in there, but I tend to give Claremont more benefit of the doubt given the time period he was primarily writing in. He was in the same position as Byrne with Northstar, any characters intended to be LGBTQ couldn't be explicitly confirmed so - literally everything had to be subtext, stereotype, or innuendo. And even then, he managed to get Mystique and Destiny in there just due to having a decent vocab. The 2000's era, frankly, wasn't all that much better, and Claremont was getting a lot of editorial interference at the time (like everyone else in the X-Offices). The writers can do only so much with the toys they're allowed to play with, unfortunately, even if they create them.

As i said, i don't really think that he was against it, is just that his representation seemed to mostly included women being sort of bi-curious, not much came from the men side regarding same sex romance, so i tend to think that he lend more to the fetish part . Then again as you said it was a time when this kind of stuff was less accepted by editorial, so he probably couldn't do much about it even if he wanted to (Raven and Irene was mostly implied for a reason after all).

[Hi-Fi]

As i said, i don't really think that he was against it, is just that his representation seemed to mostly included women being sort of bi-curious, not much came from the men side regarding same sex romance, so i tend to think that he lend more to the fetish part . Then again as you said it was a time when this kind of stuff was less accepted by editorial, so he probably couldn't do much about it even if he wanted to (Raven and Irene was mostly implied for a reason after all).

Well, we can say he was at least a big advocate for male nudity and men in chains (see Sam and Berto swimming naked, Havok and Brian Braddock's Inferno outfits and submissive roles) so it's fair to think there was fetishism there, too.

[Maestroneto]

Exactly. Everything was subtext at that time. Claremont was able to give us Mystique/Destiny and Storm/Yukio. And he's also been on-record about how he sees Wolverine as bisexual.

One could argue he also gave subtext to Logan/Nightcrawler, Pyro/Avalanche and Xavier/Magneto.