ULTIMATE TRUTH! How do CBR posters feel about Iceman being gay?

[Knight of DC]

At the end of the day, as someone who is Bi and wants to see more LGBQT characters in comics I'm just so indifferent at this point. One: was not worth the six-month death march. Two: Jean really shouldn't have been there. Three: Really, why did this require Teen Bobby? Really why did any of these developments require the original 5? It just comes off as attempts to reboot without having the spine to do it. And yeah, this is coming from a bitter-as-all-hell Academy X fan who thinks that generation got massively screwed over by everybody and thinks characters like Surge, Hellion and Anole have more potential than Teen Jean, Scott or Bobby because we haven't had literally over 50 years worth of stories with them.

If this had concluded with the original 5 going back, then maybe. But they're not. So yeah, I categorize this in how Bendis brought Spidey to the Avengers: It's a great idea, but there's also a bunch of other writers who could've made the idea work better.

[ExodusCloak]

Indifferent as it was barely a plot in the book.

[CraigTheCylon]

Iceman is not a character I have ever given a monkey's about before, now do I expect that to change (though I'll be picking up All-New X-Men when it releases, so we'll see if Hopeless and pals can surprise me). I suppose I'm another 'indifferent' reaction.

Having said that: given how hilariously terrible the initial 'reveal' scene with Teen Jean was, the follow-up in Uncanny #600 was shockingly not-awful, so we'll go with that for the poll option. And I do think this is a slight positive upswing for LGBT X-Men in general, at least in comparison to Daken (somehow even worse than his dad, thanks to terrible hair and douchebag tribal ink) or Fantomex (only noteworthy as an utterly detestable supervillain).

[Wulf1984]

Hate it.

I'd prefer Marvel make new gay characters than change up existing straight characters.

[diabaz]

It is quite difficult to separate the revelation from the execution. I still can't help but think that, say, Peter David could've had Bobby come out as gay and make you believe it. Mr Bendis just doesn't have the writer-fu to pull it off. Comic books as a medium are all about the execution. I didn't buy this reveal and I don't dig the retcon of adult Iceman's sexual preference, but that's nobody's fault but the creative team who did it.

Exactly this. Because of poor execution it's look much more like cheap gimmick rather than something noteworthy.

[Timbales]

I'm good with Adult Bobby being gay, but I don't feel his scene was well written. This scene to me did not feel like a man who was looking back on his past relationships and feelings now realizing that he is gay and was always gay. It read to me like a man who hid he was gay because he could deal, used relationships with women as beards and as attempts to fix himself. I've always liked Bobby as a character and I wanted more for him than how this played out. I hoped he was someone who struggled with trying to understand who he was, not someone who knew and was deceptive because he "didn't want to be gay and a mutant".

[bloodofthegods]

Well it is pretty difficult to be objective about a fictional character without considering the writer as they are literally the driving force of the character. Bobby is not a real human being we can ask about his life experiences with his sexuality. Mr Bendis writing is literally the thing to judge in how we this plays out. We can't judge Jean for her involvement as she is fictional as well. So in how one might feel about whether Bobby is heterosexual, homosexual or bisexual is directly on Mr Bendis' shoulders.

[xhx23x]

It's all good to me.

[Omega Alpha]

Yeah, I think this poll is incomplete without a "I like the idea but don't care about the execution" option.

[Kurolegacy]

Honestly not a fan though that's more based on it feeling like a slap in the face of over 50 years of continuity than any feeling on sexuality. That said, if they had to have gone that route, I'd have rather it been O5 Bobby but leave adult Bobby seeming straight. It'd be an interesting angle to go at possibly revealing that Bobby is actually bi and had only acted on his attraction to women and never men due to the bigoted views of the world around him growing up with his younger self essentially getting the second chance he never did and explore that part of his sexuality. I dunno, it just seemed like a waste of a really unique way to explore Bobby in away never really done before by just throwing all the cards on the table right away.

[Frontier]

I'm happy that the LGBT community now has a really prominent hero representing them in the X-Men, even if I never thought of Iceman as gay beforehand and still have difficulty doing it even now, and I'm also not as crazy about how Bendis went about establishing it.

[Knives]

Bendis could have done better obvious.
In the end nothing changes Bobby is a beloved character although had little development in recent years.

As for me a little annoyed with the execution than the fact itself.

[ERON]

I feel the same way about it as I feel about Alfred Pennyworth getting his hand chopped off. Both are, to me, cases of a writer making a drastic and likely permanent alteration to a decades-old character both for shock value and to leave his own lasting mark on the series - their version of "killing Gwen Stacy," if you will. But, seeing as how I haven't followed the Bat-books or the X-books in years, while it annoys me slightly, I'm not going to lose any sleep over it.

[Project Initiative Cascada]

Emma proved this whole theory true years ago in UXM #331, telling him that he was holding back his true potential. Seeing Robert now, she would be very proud of him.



I think she would be a bit disappointed in her student Jeen though, since she would've preferred to see Bobby come out on his own terms by himself.

[ZNOP]

Totally, indifferent because unlike Northstar -- Bobby's "outing" (IMHO) lacked the emotional buildup it deserved.