Why isn't Northstar more popular?

[Anduinel]

Cowardice. Or, more diplomatically, lack of follow-through.

Northstar's early history is roughly a decade of writers trying to get around the fact that they weren't allowed to say the character was gay, and then once it was allowed to be explicitly put in print, it was treated as an endpoint. Northstar says he's gay, then it's mentioned only once more in the Alpha Flight series, and it's his sister being homophobic (again). There's no love interest, no further revelation, no emotional fallout from the death of his daughter, no development. Just "I'm gay", and that's it.

His miniseries? Utterly forgettable toothless 90's twaddle, more veiled homophobia, and no direct mention of his sexuality.

Alpha Flight volume 2? Northstar tries to commit suicide, for no reason ever elaborated on. Because that's what gay people do, apparently. We have a "born that way" PSA, then it all goes under the rug as the writer concentrates on characters he actually gives a shit about.

Then pretty much nothing until Northstar joins the X-Men almost another decade later, where the notable high points are a mentorship to Anole that takes place entirely off-screen (and a role that's ultimately taken out of Northstar's hands and given to a straight character), Mark Millar killing him off in a storyline where he has zero agency, Mike Carey cleaning up Millar's mess in a story where Northstar is mostly a quest object, and, finally, his wedding, which if you're keeping track, is the only just about the only storyline since the 1990's where he was 1) central to the plot, 2) written remotely in character and 3) was treated as a full-fledged character in his own right before we hit The X-Tremists this year.*

Northstar's more a footnote than an icon because Marvel took all of their early missteps with regards to LGBTQ rep with him. Because Marvel thought having a character show up and say "I'm gay!" once every ten years counted as decent representation. Because writers don't know how to handle a gay character who's unapologetically disinterested in making people comfortable, and so flatten him into a bitchy gay stereotype, if they even know anything about him other than his being "the gay one". And when he finally got spotlight with a writer who did quite a good job with him overall, once again there was absolutely no follow-up about what any of it meant to him as a character.

Northstar's a character who gets used intermittently, is challenging to write, has a history of being used poorly when he does turn up, and then immediately gets put aside for bigger names on a regular basis. Meanwhile, Bobby's a founding member of the X-Men, he's likable, relatable, funny, sympathetic, has appeared in just about every X-Men media adaptation, and had his coming out at a time when there was a lot more awareness wrt the portrayal of minority characters. It's really not much of a contest.

*(And no, I'm not forgetting Amazing X-Men #13. I enjoyed it a lot, but, ultimately, Northstar was a prop.)