axumblade said:
My point has still been proven. Especially considering Alpha Flight was a flop (hense why it ended in the 90's) wheras people actually read Ultimate X-Men. Unless they have brought back the comic since i stopped reading comic books a long time ago. |
axumblade I give you as much space as I can when I say, "Times have changed a bit." So please read my post before you start quoting dates, I already took that into consideration.
Still, my point was that people are ribbed because of the characters they play and the things that they associate with NOT that comics fail in 2009 because of gay or female characters.
Tell how life with your friends undoes my own personal observations, and not only that what does the open-mindedness of your friends, as a whole, have to do with the struggles of gay americans? Are you saying because you are open minded that they can not claim persecution, because everyone is like you?
You are trying to make a point with my words, all I have said is that people are persecuted for such things. So do not try to pull me off point with trickery.
Here is the Wikipedia post (which I include to show you it WAS controversial). Google these words ("NorthStar" "comics" "gay") and you will see the controversy.
Comic book writer and artist John Byrne has stated that while planning the Alpha Flight series that was launched in 1983, the characters had little to no depth, and so he decided to flesh them out:
| “ | One of the things that popped immediately into my head was to make one of them gay. I had recently read an article in Scientific American on what was then (the early 80s) fairly radical new thinking on just what processes caused a person to be homosexual, and the evidence was pointing increasingly to it being genetic and not environmental factors. So, I thought, it seemed like it was time for a gay superhero, and since I was being 'forced' to make Alpha Flight a real series, I might as well make one of them gay. . . . I settled on Jean-Paul, and the moment I did I realized it was already there. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I must have been considering making him gay before I 'decided' to do so.[20] | ” |
Marvel editor-in-chief Jim Shooter, wary of promoting agendas from either side of the political spectrum, had decreed that there were to be no explicitly gay characters in the Marvel universe.[21] The Comics Code Authority also prevented Marvel from publicly stating Northstar was homosexual.[22] Byrne, therefore, was only able to imply that Northstar was gay.[20]
When Bill Mantlo succeeded Byrne as Alpha Flight writer, he began a storyline in which Northstar became infected with a strange illness. Mantlo intended to reveal that the illness was AIDS and then kill off the character in Alpha Flight #50. However, Marvel's editors intervened and Mantlo was forced to change the ending: instead of dying of AIDS, Northstar was revealed to be a magical being whose illness was the result of prolonged separation from his homeland. Peter David later sarcastically described this incident as "He wasn't gay. He was just a fairy."[23] The fairy retcon was retconned back out by later Alpha Flight writers, though what Northstar's original illness had been was not addressed.
In Alpha Flight #106, published in 1992, some years after Shooter had left Marvel, writer Scott Lobdell was finally given permission to allow Northstar to utter the words "I am gay."[24] The event generated some publicity in the mainstream press[25] and Alpha Flight #106 sold out in a week, despite the fact that the series was not a very popular title.[24] Shortly before Northstar admitted he was gay, he was voted Canada's most eligible bachelor, in the Alpha Flight series.
Northstar's coming out was controversial[26] and as a result, little mention was made of his sexual orientation for the remainder of the first Alpha Flight series, which ended in 1994. It wasn't ignored entirely, however; one subplot dealt with his sister Aurora's reaction, in which the "Aurora" personality was accepting, while the "Jeanne-Marie" one was not. A subsequent mini-series starring Northstar also dodged the issue.
While at least three background characters in the classic 1986 mini-series Watchmen were homosexual, making it the first mainstream comics series to feature openly gay characters,[citation needed] the characters Northstar, Mystique and Destiny were all created years beforehand. And even though the editors at Marvel would not let it be openly stated, these characters were intended from almost the beginning to be gay/bisexual.[27]
By 2001, society's views on homosexuality had changed considerably. In that year, Northstar's sexual orientation played a large role in the storyline in which he joined a temporary team of X-Men and faced another recruit, Paulie Provenzano, who was extremely homophobic. Though the two began their mission as enemies, they eventually made peace with one another. Northstar developed the same relationship with Juggernaut, when the two served on the same X-Team.
When Northstar joined the X-Men as a regular member in 2002, writers were less hesitant to address his sexual orientation. Northstar even experienced a crush on the long-time X-Man Iceman, though it was a one-sided love.
One of his students in the Alpha Squadron, Victor Borkowski, the gay mutant Anole, looks up to him as a role model.
