LGBT+ Marvel Characters Discussion

[Tiamatty]

Okay, for one thing the gay relationship in the first volume of YA was in no way subtext. They came right out and said it. It just wasn't the be all and end all of the characters like with Gillen. They were fully rounded characters who did superheroics with the rest of the team. With Gillen everything they did was about their relationship. Which isn't in and of itself such a bad thing if Gillen didn't present it quite so melodramatic.
If anything both those love triangles you mentioned were much more subtext than the Billy/Teddy relationship. A large part of the last arc was about Billy trying to rescue his boyfriend. That isn't subtext.

And there's plenty of reasons to dislike the whole Prodigy thing (and indeed Gillen's entire run) that has nothing to do with 'shoving it in our faces' types. I've seen a lot of gay people online (obviously myself included) who really disliked what was done with the YA and Billy and Teddy in particular.

Billy and Teddy stated they were a couple, but it took all the way until Children's Crusade for them to actually kiss. Can you imagine a straight couple who were never shown kissing? Subtext may have been the wrong word, but it was definitely not given the same focus as the straight relationships in the book.

And I still suspect that the majority of the people who objected to Prodigy kissing Hulkling were just knee-jerk "shoving it in our faces" types. There were people who had valid complaints about the writing, but there was also a lot of complaining about something that they wouldn't even bat an eye at if it was a straight couple.

[Kieran_Frost]

I dunno I didn't like it much because in the end there's so little about Teddy as a person, and way too much about Billy. The narrative and relationship felt unbalanced. Even the point about Teddy losing his mom was made into a plotline for Billy.

Disagree. Who's POV was their break-up? Teddy. Who got a stand alone issue about how he feels about the break-up? Teddy. Who did Prodigy kiss? Teddy. Wiccan, while the driving force of the story, wasn't actually in it half as much as people think. Towards the finale of the series Gillen intentionally kept us away from Wiccan, so we didn't know what he was thinking or doing. Wiccan, Prodigy and Teddy all got stand alone issues, Wiccan didn't. Wiccan isn't actually in 1/5 of the comic, and barely in 1/3 of it (let alone how many issues he's present but not actually focused on). This idea it was all about Wiccan just baffles me.

[Wren]

Disagree. Who's POV was their break-up? Teddy. Who got a stand alone issue about how he feels about the break-up? Teddy. Who did Prodigy kiss? Teddy. Wiccan, while the driving force of the story, wasn't actually in it half as much as people think. Towards the finale of the series Gillen intentionally kept us away from Wiccan, so we didn't know what he was thinking or doing. Wiccan, Prodigy and Teddy all got stand alone issues, Wiccan didn't. Wiccan isn't actually in 1/5 of the comic, and barely in 1/3 of it (let alone how many issues he's present but not actually focused on). This idea it was all about Wiccan just baffles me.

Maybe that's what it was. With this focus on Teddy... I didn't get a sense of who he is actually. It was the focus on him *in the context of his relationship to Billy*. How he feels about the breakup. How he reacts to the breakup. How he reacts to someone hitting on him, because he's Billy's. Prodigy and Teddy just seemed like it would very obviously go nowhere, and was just there to reaffirm Billy&Teddy. The thing with Prodigy seemed shallow and pointless to me.

[Sutekh]

Maybe that's what it was. With this focus on Teddy... I didn't get a sense of who he is actually. It was the focus on him *in the context of his relationship to Billy*. How he feels about the breakup. How he reacts to the breakup. How he reacts to someone hitting on him, because he's Billy's. Prodigy and Teddy just seemed like it would very obviously go nowhere, and was just there to reaffirm Billy&Teddy. The thing with Prodigy seemed shallow and pointless to me.

I get the same impression, at times. Even when the storyline is about Teddy (his Skrull and Kree 'family' fighting over him, for instance), he seems to have less of a 'voice' than Billy, on the page. And the big, big drama is always all about Billy and his destiny or plot device powers.

Meanwhile, it seems to slide by that the entirety of Civil War, and the Skrull invasion that happened afterwards, may stem in part from Teddy walking away from his own 'destiny' as prince / ruler of the Skrulls, which, as their ruler, he might have been able to prevent, or, at the very least, warn people was happening before the heroes of Earth had softened each other up / locking each other up in the Negative Zone to set the stage for the invasion.

I also feel like it doesn't do Wiccan any favors for the plot of various Young Avengers outings to be, 'Wiccan screws up another reality-manipulation (which he shouldn't even have as a power!), doing something he probably shouldn't have been doing anyway, and it's another Tuesday night in Sunnydale.'

I love me some Young Avengers, and remember cracking up (right along with Patriot) when I first read those words from Kate Bishop "And you need to change your name before the press finds about you and Teddy and it becomes a national joke" and discovered that the writer had sort of snuck in that Billy and Teddy were a couple. But when they broke up, however briefly, I kind of hoped it would last longer, and we'd get to learn more about Teddy, whose quieter nature makes him sort of fade into the background when Billy is in the same scene with him.

I don't think that's necessarily a gay thing, either. Jessica Jones, in any scene that involves both her and Luke Cage, seems to be 'the one that stands in the background and holds the baby,' despite having been a more interesting and dynamic person, before her marriage. And it may be that Hulkling would be just as quiet and non-assertive a personality even if he was solo, much as Vision was already reserved and a bit distant, even before marrying Wanda.

[Kieran_Frost]

It's rude to infer my idea is stupid,it is just not yours or what I enjoy in the character . I would like for him to go diverse, instead of selling the idea of a happy gay couple means married. It is no worse than saying Scott had really few issues with Namor and since they are not married and had more invested together than sexual chemistry.

I didn't mean to imply your idea is stupid; merely un-thought-out. Do you REALLY want to sacrifice the only LGBT superhero marriage to explore a character who isn't "a happy gay couple"? Why not use one of the many other LGBT superheroes (Living Lightning, Anole, Striker, Cullen Bloodstone) to explore this; why ruin the only LGBT married couple? You may not care for "boring happy gay couple" but others do. There is room for all types of relationships, we shouldn't have to fight over "either/or" but ALL get our wish in what we want to see.

There are already gay divorces so it could be explored as a story telling device.

You'd be trading in the only gay marriage for a gay divorce; do you really want to send the message all Marvel gay marriages end in divorce???

He's interesting if you find the constant "waah my daddy left me" to be interesting. He's a whiny little bitch.

Read his solo series; that didn't happen. It's a false, uninformed opinion (which does get my goat, good sir ; because your hatred of Daken seems to be based on inaccurate and false assessments, so why do you hate a character so much you clearly haven't read much on???). Wolverine was barely mentioned in Liu/Way's run. Remender and that awful Williams made the daddy issues; Liu/Way (which is where most fans of Daken come from) did not.

His weird kind of sort of brother/sister dynamic with X-23 is kind of interesting as well. She's one of the few people in the world whom he has anything approaching genuine concern/affection for.

Agreed. Big, BIG fan of Daken/Laura. I'd add Johnny to the list of people Daken cares for (small list). Would you add Mystique?

[MasterOfMagnetism]

Agreed. Big, BIG fan of Daken/Laura. I'd add Johnny to the list of people Daken cares for (small list). Would you add Mystique?

Johnny who?

[NexusTenebrare]

Johnny who?

Johnny Storm presumably.
I disagree that Daken cared for him though. It was very clear to me that Daken was toying around with him.
Unsurprising really. With Storm's womanizing ways, Daken using his pheromones on him to ignite a bromance hits a certain kind of irony.
I quite liked that as I absolutely loathe Johnny Storm.

[Wren]

I get the same impression, at times. Even when the storyline is about Teddy (his Skrull and Kree 'family' fighting over him, for instance), he seems to have less of a 'voice' than Billy, on the page. And the big, big drama is always all about Billy and his destiny or plot device powers.

Meanwhile, it seems to slide by that the entirety of Civil War, and the Skrull invasion that happened afterwards, may stem in part from Teddy walking away from his own 'destiny' as prince / ruler of the Skrulls, which, as their ruler, he might have been able to prevent, or, at the very least, warn people was happening before the heroes of Earth had softened each other up / locking each other up in the Negative Zone to set the stage for the invasion.

I also feel like it doesn't do Wiccan any favors for the plot of various Young Avengers outings to be, 'Wiccan screws up another reality-manipulation (which he shouldn't even have as a power!), doing something he probably shouldn't have been doing anyway, and it's another Tuesday night in Sunnydale.'

I love me some Young Avengers, and remember cracking up (right along with Patriot) when I first read those words from Kate Bishop "And you need to change your name before the press finds about you and Teddy and it becomes a national joke" and discovered that the writer had sort of snuck in that Billy and Teddy were a couple. But when they broke up, however briefly, I kind of hoped it would last longer, and we'd get to learn more about Teddy, whose quieter nature makes him sort of fade into the background when Billy is in the same scene with him.

I don't think that's necessarily a gay thing, either. Jessica Jones, in any scene that involves both her and Luke Cage, seems to be 'the one that stands in the background and holds the baby,' despite having been a more interesting and dynamic person, before her marriage. And it may be that Hulkling would be just as quiet and non-assertive a personality even if he was solo, much as Vision was already reserved and a bit distant, even before marrying Wanda.

Yes you put it better than I could have, and yes I hoped the breakup would last for much longer than it did. I wanted to see them both operate solo to get a handle on them as separate people. I miss "getting to know Teddy", I think he is an interesting character with a lot left to explore about him and a lot that goes unsaid about his life, destiny, past, etc. And yes it's not a gay thing. It's a matter of writers just not writing very balanced stories.

And yes I don't think this does Wiccan any favors. Children's Crusade especially was not his finest hour, and neither was the Gillen run.

Johnny Storm presumably.
I disagree that Daken cared for him though. It was very clear to me that Daken was toying around with him.
Unsurprising really. With Storm's womanizing ways, Daken using his pheromones on him to ignite a bromance hits a certain kind of irony.
I quite liked that as I absolutely loathe Johnny Storm.

This is exactly how I read it as well. I don't loath Johnny but it was kind of hilarious.

[Punisher007]

I didn't mean to imply your idea is stupid; merely un-thought-out. Do you REALLY want to sacrifice the only LGBT superhero marriage to explore a character who isn't "a happy gay couple"? Why not use one of the many other LGBT superheroes (Living Lightning, Anole, Striker, Cullen Bloodstone) to explore this; why ruin the only LGBT married couple? You may not care for "boring happy gay couple" but others do. There is room for all types of relationships, we shouldn't have to fight over "either/or" but ALL get our wish in what we want to see.


You'd be trading in the only gay marriage for a gay divorce; do you really want to send the message all Marvel gay marriages end in divorce???


Read his solo series; that didn't happen. It's a false, uninformed opinion (which does get my goat, good sir ; because your hatred of Daken seems to be based on inaccurate and false assessments, so why do you hate a character so much you clearly haven't read much on???). Wolverine was barely mentioned in Liu/Way's run. Remender and that awful Williams made the daddy issues; Liu/Way (which is where most fans of Daken come from) did not.


Agreed. Big, BIG fan of Daken/Laura. I'd add Johnny to the list of people Daken cares for (small list). Would you add Mystique?

Honestly IDK about her. I think that he probably finds her intriguing (they're both master manipulators) after all. But genuine care, it's hard to tell with him.

[Wren]

I don't think Mystique and Daken have ever had 1 scene where I would say one genuinely cared for the other. Unless I'm forgetting something.

Laura absolutely I think she is warming up to him, though I'm not exactly sure why. They had that crossover of their solos but it was mostly business between them, though they got along.
I think seeing Daken get completely taken down in Wolverines has maybe triggered something protective or pitying in Laura-- she is a good person and he's a sad sight.
I guess she was not told or has forgiven Daken for his many many fits of mass murder... maybe having not known him she assumes that he, like her, did bad things because he was brainwashed into it.
I wonder if she knows he's like 70 years old?

I'm looking forward to them developing an actual relationship.

[Indelible]

Of all the LGBT characters in Marvel, Ben "Morph" Deeds seems to have the most potential to shine. A stealth agent who is a metamorph with what seems to be lithium gas based powers that are both passive (empathic) and active (disruption of machines) makes him a one-man SHIELD. But due to the recent Eva based storylines, we've seen little of him. He needs to go solo.

[MasterOfMagnetism]

Of all the LGBT characters in Marvel, Ben "Morph" Deeds seems to have the most potential to shine. A stealth agent who is a metamorph with what seems to be lithium gas based powers that are both passive (empathic) and active (disruption of machines) makes him a one-man SHIELD. But due to the recent Eva based storylines, we've seen little of him. He needs to go solo.

I think he has a lot of potential too, but I don't think he should go solo. I think the better X-Men students in general need to get showcased in the series more.

[dragonmp93]

I think he has a lot of potential too, but I don't think he should go solo. I think the better X-Men students in general need to get showcased in the series more.

Well, if the general status quo doesnt change after Secret Wars, then dont worry, there it will be lots of opportunities to put him in the spotlight.

[America / Bucky / Russia]

Of all the LGBT characters in Marvel, Ben "Morph" Deeds seems to have the most potential to shine. A stealth agent who is a metamorph with what seems to be lithium gas based powers that are both passive (empathic) and active (disruption of machines) makes him a one-man SHIELD. But due to the recent Eva based storylines, we've seen little of him. He needs to go solo.

Benjamin Deeds is adorable.

x-men 100.jpg

[Darth Phoenix]

I'm over in the "I loved it and thought it made perfect sense" group.

Me too, one of the issues of being cute or chrismatic or having a boyfriend who is that one of your friends my be waiting for the first crack in the relationship to show so they can move in. This is very common and I felt we got a small taste of this from the story. I was unfond of Prodigy before the drama and did not want him to get Hulking but now he feels written like a more introresting and personality diverse character. If they had ended up togother however I would have been bitching till they broke up.