Marvel Addresses "Hercules'" Sexuality

[Kencana]

It's not BS, Marvel is not publishing any solo LGBT leads. And no, Marvel's Hercules has not always been written as a straight white male, but they've made the decision to write him as one now. There's not wrong with being straight, but it's not Hercules.

BOOM. Unless someone can tell me solo bisexual lead in Marvel beside Loki.

Plus you cannot split gender/race and sexual orientation. You can be bisexual, Asian and woman at the same time.

Whatever there's a discussion about LGBT character, someone will always said "I don't read superhero comic for their sexual orientation!" yet keep debating which female character that should date Peter Parker. I've been in CBR for a long time and there's poll about "Which female character that should date X?" yet NO ONE reply with "Why everything must be sexual? I don't read superhero comic for romance!" Apparently they don't care about sexuality as long as it's heterosexual.

Sorry, if you're the one ranting about how you don't care about sexual orientation etc etc but ONLY watch/read media featuring heterosexual then bye bye. If you reply with "Well, of course most of my comic book staring het male, but it's because most of LGBT character suck lmao," then maybe you should admit media suck at portraying LGBT people as well-rounded and three dimensional human being.

[MichaelC]

Wait Wait Wait so...

Iceman who has always been hirtorically written as straight (and If you want to talk AU, AoA was seen in bed with like 8 women and one had a kid with kitty pryde in a future set issue of WaTX-M) is now suddenly Gay (Not Bi..."Full Gay" acording to little miss mind invader)

but Hercules who has been CANOICALLY and HISTORICALLY bi....is now straight...

what the truck is this marvel!?

can we just have our characters the way you gave them to us, thats all i'm asking just stay faithful to the creators original characters.

It's likely a business decision: Iceman is a minor part of a team-book. Whereas Hercules is about to get a solo-series. They want their solo-series stars straight.

[Haquim]

Huh, I was pretty sure they we're going to make Hercules into a bisexual. Weird that they are keeping him straight, the historical Hercules had male lovers too.

1st: There never was any "historical" hercules.

2nd: I suppose you are talking about Hylas here, but that is a later addition to the myth, and yes myths used to change based on who was telling them. The Heracles mythos changed all the time through history. Heracles by the way is the greek name and Hercules the roman name.

3rd: When people here talk about ancient Greece, they seem to talk about something like a modern era Nation. But ancient Greece wasn't, it was an entity composed of several warring city States all fighting each other from time to time and with very different views on most things including sexuality, Athens was A LITTLE more progressive than Sparta for example, but it's not like bisexuality was widespread even in Athens, it was much less frown upon but it was praticed by the aristocracy not by the masses.

4th: The myth of Hercules was further developed and changed by Roman sources (and to be honest Roman authors were generally not very LGBT friendly)

[ian0delond]

Meh, whatever.
Iceman was officialy straight 6 months ago.
Hercules has been shown heterosexual so he is until any contray proof.

If they want him bisexual he can turn to be bisexual.

Whatev'...

[krazijoe]

Oh come on...He is based on Roman/Greek Mythology. The Gods slept with whomever and what ever they wanted to, be it a man, woman, dog, tree, flower, goat or an Axel. Just have fun with it and stop putting boundaries on sexuality.

[Lethargyman]

I always figured Hercules as an 'any hole is a goal' kind of guy. I'll continue to see him in that light, whether Marvel wants me to or not.

[Shadowbrat]

They characters were never depicted as anything other than heterosexual. And please stop with the Marvel doesn't offer up diverse comics because it's B.S. They have been introducing more LGBT characters over the last few years. They have put more and more comics out with with a diverse cast of women and ethnically divers characters over the last 10 years. And yes, Marvels Hercules is a straight white male. So what? What's wrong with being straight?

lmao let's look at ALL the LGBT in Marvel's current 50 announced issues for ANAD Marvel:

1 and 2) Iceman and Iceman
3) Wiccan
4) Hulkling
5) Angela
6) Serah
7) Deadpool (and that one is brought up so little, that Alonso might as well confirm him 100% straight in the next AiC)

SO DIVERSE!!!

You ask what's wrong with being straight. I don't think anyone thinks there's anything wrong with being straight, but you definitely seem threatened by a character who isn's straight in a comic book universe where almost everyone is straight.

[MarvelMaster616]

Not very surprising. I think everybody kind of assumed his bisexuality, if only because he (and many other major character) were like that in Greek Mythology. But I'm glad Marvel is actually going to explore it a little. We've had characters come out as gay before, like iceman. But Marvel hasn't really explored bisexuality all that much and I think it's worth exploring.

[responsarbre]

...What? Straight, black African. Any other ideas are probably ill-conceived.

And yeah, I disagree with this move.

This is from a few pages back but oh my god if you're trying to say Storm is straight you need to read at least one page where she ever interacts with Yukio at all

[AntoninoC]

And this is the problem with being a slave to continuity. Hercules wad written by one writer to have had a male lover. None of the other writers as far as I know have written him as bi.

I think I'll just read the book and enjoy it or not based the writing and story within. Gods forbid Marvel write a book without political/social motivations, right? It's not like their in the business of just entertaining people. Oh wait...

[TheJoaker]

I haven't read that issue the show images from. But there it's not ever outright stated, just strongly implied... As a line played for laughs in an issue where characters are talking directly to the reader. Has there been any other instances where something like this is shown?

[The_Greatest_Username]

I was actually going to buy this book whether they were going to bring up his sexuality or not, but because Alonso went out of his way to say "nah he's totally straight" I'm not buying it. I just don't get why people don't think this is an issue. If it isn't an issue where's the problem with him being bisexual?

It's likely a business decision: Iceman is a minor part of a team-book. Whereas Hercules is about to get a solo-series. They want their solo-series stars straight.

Yep, welcome to Marvel where anyone can be LGBT unless they have their own book. Then it's off to limbo or a team book.

[PretenderNX01]

That Hercules is bi-sexual is news to me. I guess I never read any of the newer books he was in. The stuff I read he was always kind of a womanizer.

Being Bi doesn't mean "gay" they are not the same. Yes he likes women, lots of women, and some men. His being Bi doesn't erase his hetero history.

A single same-sex act does not constitute bisexuality--consistent behaviour does

No, that's not how it works. Just because you aren't acting on your sexuality doesn't make it go away. Are you asexual when you aren't getting any? If he's Bi, he's Bi even if he's mainly with women.

Yeah, did you criticize the change to Iceman and Prodigy? They were clearly heterosexual, until Marvel decided they weren't.

Again, Prodigy is Bi so it didn't erase his relationships with females, it added to them. And yes a lot of Tumblr complained about the bi-erasure of Iceman now being "full gay"

[jphamlore]

As I wrote in another thread, this is the real problem with Marvel's trying to truly portray the "historical" Hercules;

The gay relationships at the time of the historical Hercules were not the same concept as today's partnership of equals, particularly of similar age. Back then it was a teenage boy and an older man, something that would hardly be acceptable for a mainstream American comic to portray. According to Wikipedia for example, Iolaus was 16-years old when he was the companion to Hercules.

[vitruvian]

I read the quote very similar. The way I interpret it was that the sexual orientations of characters are fluid throughout the multi-verse and what happens in one universe cannot be applied to any other universe. Because we are starting over in a brand-new universe that means we are just going to have to find out who these characters are all over again. Personally, when I read I just assume all characters are bisexual until proven otherwise.

Oh, good. If nothing has to stick in the new universe, Reed and Ben can be together.

Why can't these so-called "observers" just enjoy a good book, regardless of the title character's sexual preferences? I mean, Hercules had books in the recent past, why is it such a big deal now?

Look up erasure in the context of prejudice. That's why.

There are many issues involved, but Comic!Hercules =/= Historic!Hercules. Same with Thor, or Loki etc. The real Norse pantheon definitely weren't tech-vikings, and Comic!Loki doesn't have a connection with fire that's prominent in the real-world mythology. Hell, there was some plotline where all the religious 'Sky Fathers' met up didn't they? Even though the existence of several of them implicitly denounces the existence of the others, therefore they are not in anyway meant to reflect the real-world mythologies they are based on.

Using historical/mythological accuracy as a precedent would make more than a few other fictional characters 'wrong' for not being 'historically accurate'. They are adaptations, they do not and should not have be forced to adhere to any form of accuracy or be judged on that.

However, the biggest issue is that Marvel's retconnin backwards on their own established canon, for no real discernible reason.

Except when mythological stories are specifically brought into the comics canon... and in this case, many of them have been. Those parts of the mythological (not historic, we don't really have any evidence of that) Herakles' story are in continuity... as is Amadeus teasingly asking Herc whether he looks at Amadeus in the same way he did at Philoctetes or Iolaus.

But beyond that, we have the writer who put in the Northstar reference in current continuity, saying it was not intended as a joke and he does see Herc as bi, so there's also that.

I've comented on this before. Sleeping with another guy doesn't mean you're a bisexual.

So, sleeping only with other guys doesn't mean you're gay, either? Interesting.

I wish comics would stop appropriating characters in this manner.

Don't hijack established characters, create new ones.

I applaud Marvel for keeping the character true to his history.

So, if they're keeping him true to his mythological character, they'll have a storyline where he gets caught with a 16 year old boy (though presumably not his nephew this time)? Interesting thing to applaud.

So because Pak who by his own admission, was not at the time of the question, involved with writing the character, says one thing, which is contradicted by Tieri, Dan Abnett and Marvel in general, only Pak can be correct? Genius.

Well, yes. Only he can be correct about what he intended in an issue that he himself wrote. And once published, it's part of continuity until directly and explicitly retconned.

Marvel says he's not Bi-sexual, he's not bi-sexual. They decide his sexuality. It's that simple.

They show us what they decide by virtue of what they publish in the stories themselves, though... and I have yet to see a story explicitly retconning the Northstar thing. Until that happens, the character as published remains bi, as a same sex relationship remains in continuity.

I'll take Pak's opinions on Hercules over 100% of Marvel's current crop on all things Hercules.
Also, any contradictions created by Tieri are simply contradictions and not rules. He's written homophobic jokes into his comics before, so I'll be taking his opinion on Herc's sexuality with a grain of salt.

The Tieri scenes aren't even a direct contradiction of Pak's take, when you read them. Just because somebody's picky about who they hook up with doesn't mean they aren't interested in people of that same gender... and given the historical Alexander's documented behavior, I don't think we can assume he would have made the smoothest of passes at Herc.

Namor is a mass murderer, why would he be a better representative of anything?



Loki is the ultimate pansexual in the myths. He has slept with everything.

Beyond that, in the comics he's both displayed his ability to be genderfluid as expressed through literal shapeshifting, and stated directly to recent friends that a) his culture doesn't really deal in rigid definitions so much and b) that he himself does indeed have enough of a reputation for being up for anything that he's technically the god of certain sex acts. So, if not necessarily defining himself as bi (see A), he's certainly not terribly straight either.

Not very surprising. I think everybody kind of assumed his bisexuality, if only because he (and many other major character) were like that in Greek Mythology. But I'm glad Marvel is actually going to explore it a little. We've had characters come out as gay before, like iceman. But Marvel hasn't really explored bisexuality all that much and I think it's worth exploring.

Did you miss where apparently they're not going to explore it, which has been the topic of this entire thread? This after Greg Pak had already at least touched on it.