Is iceman gay ?

[William300]

So we trust the wiki info now? Is it updated by Marvel personel for fact checking?

What are you talking about? I never mentioned a wiki. All I said is that fans are calling for 05 Bobby to get a solo book now that he's openly gay

[ZNOP]

If teen Bobby does manage to get a solo book (or a Limited series) -- anyone really looking forward to him "whine" non-stop, issue after issue, as he's currently doing in ANXM?

[Kurolegacy]

If teen Bobby does manage to get a solo book (or a Limited series) -- anyone really looking forward to him "whine" non-stop, issue after issue, as he's currently doing in ANXM?

If he gets a solo series, something they never thought to do before, now that he's "gay and thus marketable" it'll be official that Marvel is so far up their own ass that they can't see the light of day. It'd just be too many PR moves so close together between that, Lady Thor and Captain Falcon (I'm probably missing more but can't think of them). It just wouldn't feel organic at that point.

[MasterOfMagnetism]

The rumour is that Ms. America and Northstar are getting their own series after Secret Wars but not Iceman. And if the rumour is proven true I'll have no doubt that there will be more straight, white old-timers bitching about Marvel shoving "the PC agenda" down their throats.

[AJpyro]

What are you talking about? I never mentioned a wiki. All I said is that fans are calling for 05 Bobby to get a solo book now that he's openly gay

On the wiki, all the ANXM 05 are listed as being from some place called trn-240.

Heck the description has this:

The path of Scott Summers of this universe seemingly followed the same of his Earth-616 counterpart until the day when Beast from an alternate future traveled to their universe in order to inform them they needed to return with him to the future.[3] Scott and the rest of the X-Men accompanied him to a "future" where Scott had killed Xavier, and Jean was dead (with the school now named after her). The shock of this caused Jean's dormant telepathic powers to surface.[4] While confronting the "future" Cyclops, Jean read his mind and was incredibly disturbed at what she had seen. This caused her to reject Scott. Under Jean's leadership, the team decided to stay in this time until its problems were resolved.[5]

[jgprime]

Bendis' run is obviously filled with some heavy inconsistencies and this is one of them. Given that what Jean said about Bobby is true (should be, she read his mind), we can't say that O5 Bobby is gay and adult Bobby is not gay because sexuality doesn't work like that, the only thing that could work at this point is that adult Bobby realised he was bisexual as he grew up. We can't say also that O5 Bobby and adult Bobby are from different realities because we've seen how when O5 Scott's heart stopped for a short while early in Bendis' run, adult Scott just vanished out of existence.

So far I guess both Bobby Drakes are gay. I feel that Bendis tackled this in a tacky, unoriginal manner and made a complete disservice to Bobby. You'd think that a writer known for his decompressed style would have made a character's turbulent love life a theme to be explored throughout a run, especially for a character that has been around for 50 years and who has had several difficult relationships with women. At least this would have made a lot more sense and even could have been compelling. Instead Bendis decided to reduce this to a couple of panels that fit better in a Tumblr post than in a comic book (Jean: "Bobby, I know your gay lolz").

[MichaelC]

Bisexual would have made more sense. and would have given representation to an even more underrepresented group than gays.

I can guess why it never occurred to Bendis to make him bisexual: because in the minds of writers, bisexuals are hedonistic libertines, and Bobby is supposed to be innocent. Bobby is defined by innocence, so he has to be straight or gay in the minds of most writers.

[The Fury]

This again? Young Iceman, yes, old Iceman we don't know. Most people claim due to his history of actually seeking out female companions that it is a no, properly establishing the 2 characters as different.

MichaelC above though has a better answer, they'll just make older bisexual or something. Which would be better, as it is a better way to retcon it anyway. (You know, because making old Iceman gay because Jean outted young Iceman, makes no sense).

[kid_omega_prime]

Well I think I would be better if the 05 still came from a alternate past. That would make more sense plus that way if the young bobby was.... Is gay it won't effect the present bobby. Now I found out that truth about herc I'm going to have to remove him from my hero list and replace him. Maybe I could swap him with Zeus... Umm. Maybe.

[kevinism]

Well I think I would be better if the 05 still came from a alternate past. That would make more sense plus that way if the young bobby was.... Is gay it won't effect the present bobby. Now I found out that truth about herc I'm going to have to remove him from my hero list and replace him. Maybe I could swap him with Zeus... Umm. Maybe.

Sorry buddy. Look up Ganymede.

[William300]

On the wiki, all the ANXM 05 are listed as being from some place called trn-240.

Heck the description has this:

The path of Scott Summers of this universe seemingly followed the same of his Earth-616 counterpart until the day when Beast from an alternate future traveled to their universe in order to inform them they needed to return with him to the future.[3] Scott and the rest of the X-Men accompanied him to a "future" where Scott had killed Xavier, and Jean was dead (with the school now named after her). The shock of this caused Jean's dormant telepathic powers to surface.[4] While confronting the "future" Cyclops, Jean read his mind and was incredibly disturbed at what she had seen. This caused her to reject Scott. Under Jean's leadership, the team decided to stay in this time until its problems were resolved.[5]

what does that have to do with fans wanting 05 Bobby to get a solo?

[SolarRadical]

no he's not, jean is just trying to make her yaoi fantasies real. she wants some iceman and iceman action.

[idisestablish]

Oh, of course. Absolutely. I'm not going to talk in specifics because Brian's ["Uncanny" #600] hasn't come out yet, but yes, I will be continuing what Brian has established with Iceman and the character, his coming out -- both the adult and teenage versions of him sort of dealing with that in the modern Marvel Universe. I will have the adult Iceman on my team and that's something I will continue to explore with his character for sure.

Full interview with Jeff Lemire here.

That's the other thing. There's more to this story than just this issue. Other things are going to happen. In fact, the biggest questions are, "I don't understand. How is young Bobby out, but older Bobby isn't? What are you saying?" The answer is that you'll find out in "Uncanny X-Men" #600. I'm not going to spoil that. It will probably be spoiled for me, though.


This is a very complicated subject, and it requires more than a few pages to dive into. I thought it opened a great deal of possibility for the characters. I'm kind of leaving everybody in a different place than people thought we were going to leave them, including Angel and all the others. Let's just say that I'm pretty confident that the person following me is going to do this justice.

I'm not done with this story yet, though. I still have many pages to go, and then the next person has a story that they can do with a character that I would like to read.

Full interview with Brian Michael Bendis here.


I think this pretty clearly indicates that adult Bobby is gay. They are not alternate versions of each other. O5 Bobby is the younger version of 616 Bobby. I think Bendis' language in his answer is telling: "How is young Bobby out, but older Bobby isn't?" The question he posits isn't whether or not older Bobby is gay, it's why he isn't out. According to Bendis, all of the questions will be answered in Uncanny #600, but it seems inarguable that younger Bobby and older Bobby are the same person and they[?] are both gay.

[AJpyro]

what does that have to do with fans wanting 05 Bobby to get a solo?

Okay there was a mistake on the quoting and I was trying to tag the person talking about how on the wikis they have the 05 on ANXM listed as alternate.

[Zeitgeist]

3- They go with some well-intentioned but horribly mishandled story about sexuality being "fluid" or "complicated" or whatever and have adult Iceman be bi or even straight while O5 iceman is gay. This is my worst-case scenario and would seriously make me consider never buying a Marvel comic again.

Why is that? Comics are in big need of more notable bi-sexual characters, but I guess a character coming out as bi just doesn't grab the headlines as "full gay".

Gay Iceman was more than a meme, it's been an underlying theme for decades from one writer to the next.

More like it was an underlying bunch of fanwanking from a minor subset of fans who treated the idea of Iceman being a closeted gay as a joke, because he wore little yellow boots and slid down poles and someone said he should be an interior decorator that one time because 90's gay humour or something.

As for writers, Mike Carey came out and said he always thought Iceman was bi, and I doubt this "underlying theme" was present when Aaron was writing Bobby with Kitty only 2 years ago or so.