Weekend link extravaganza plus gay Iceman

There have been no celebrity birthdays since my last post that I felt the need to comment about so I used the time to get rid of a lot of stuff that had accumulated on my laptop. You know how these things just pile up.

So I spent these last days doing that but also preparing the stuff for new posts and follow up on some stuff from previous posts. But to not leave my readers hanging without any new posts for the weekend I thought I could do one of these link posts I used to do. As usual I will go through the links in the order they appear on my toolbar which will not be the order in which they wind up in the post. So the first thing you will read as it first appears on the post may end up on the bottom and vice versa. But now without further ado let´s get to the things that have kept me busy.

TRUE CONFESSIONS OF A POP CULTURE ADDICTED COMIC BLOGGER

Now I have already mentioned a few times that with the amount of time it takes me to do these posts I often only get to read many of the links I include in the posts after the fact except for those I have to read to make the actual post. Some of the links I included in my post about Russ Meyer actress Haji are from Sam Tweedle´s CONFESSIONS OF A POP CULTURE ADDICT and I just had the chance to peruse the archive at more detail.

Besides more orbituaries for such pop culture legends like Leonard Nimoy , Patrick Macnee or Yvonne Craig he has a few comic related posts. He has two interviews with Ronn Sutton about his work on the Honey West and Elvira comics, an informative post about Peyo´s THE SMURFS comics ( Did you know that the Smurfs predated the Justice League of America and the entire Marvel Age of comics ? ) and a really funny post about why you should never tell superhero jokes to comic readers. For the fans of top Ten lists ( and we all are ) there are Comic´s 10 Greatest Dads and two lists about the Top Ten Lamest Superheroes Of All Time ( list 1 / list 2 ) which I´m happy to report doesn´t include the Avenger´s Gilgamesh.

Speaking about Top Ten lists, he lists his Top Ten Picks From The New 52 which was followed up one year later ( no pun intended ) with a post on what worked and what didn´t. And since we are on the subject of awful reboots he has a post on the most awful reboots in comic history in two parts ( part 1 / part 2 ) that includes such great ideas like Dracula, The Shadow and the Blackhawks as superheroes, the Metal Men getting human secret identities, Dick Tracy in Space and the Justice League of Detroit.

To close the book on DC´s NEW 52 there is a really interesting post about why DC made the wrong character gay when they decided to turn Alan Scott gay on EARTH 2. Which leads us directly to our next hot topic.

WOW ! BRIAN MICHAEL BENDIS MUST REALLY HATE OTHER WRITERS

Out sheer curiosity I decided to find out whatever happened to gay Iceman after all the hullubaloo that was made about that on the internet.

I for one was not so sure that he would survive the SECRET WARS but apparently I was right in my decision to ditch ALL NEW X - MEN because after bullying the Iceman from the past into admitting he´s gay when he clearly is not now Jean Grey got him so brainwashed that he even teamed up with her to lie to the Iceman from the present and tell him that he´s secretly gay. Which shocked Iceman so much he actually believes it.

Yep, sounds ridiculous but that´s exactly what happened in UNCANNY X - MEN 600 ( way to celebrate an anniversary ) and it seems this " important story " will be " continued further " in the new ALL NEW X - MEN book that starts with a new number 1 and will not be written by Brain Michael Bendis who will leave the X - Men franchise altogether. So the question remains if Bendis was going to leave the x - books anyway, was this his version of a mikedrop or was he even giving all the other writers that come after him the finger, even if it´s only metaphorically ? Why was Iceman turned gay ?

While Disney, Bendis and all the other writers at Marvel insist it was only to tell a good story you have to question if the same story could not as easily have been told with a new character that is gay. After all if you are arguing that it would not have had the same impact with a new character you also imply that Bendis does not have the capability to write a new character and make him that compelling and interesting that it doesn´t matter it´s a new character. And if you say that´s not possible you might want to check out the original SPIDER - MAN 2099 series by Peter David.

I also have noticed that with all the reactions from the first " reveal " of Iceman being gay to now I haven´t heard one person mention the story at all. Not one person. There were a lot of comments about the importance of the story, how everybody who doesn´t like it is a homophobic and how we need more diversity in comics. Mind you, not real diversity OF comics meaning comics that appeal to all kind of readers which is more than just superhero comics but rather superhero comics that represent all kind of people and races and religions because that is what we all want to read about. And we can only identify with people who are the same as we because we don´t understand other people and we do not want to.

I mean let´s be honest here for a moment. Is it really necessary that someone has the same sexual orientation as yourself for you to identify with him ? Does he need to have the game racial background ? Must he have the same age, the same job or even the same sex ? There is this lie being repeated again and again ever since Robin was created that the younger readers couldn´t identify with Batman because - well, obviously he was much too old, duh ! Okay, newsflash, but in all the stories I read with Batman and Robin I always was Batman. Why ? Because he´s the boss and what many adults don´t seem to get into their head is that just because there is a sidekick around younger readers don´t automatically just identify with him because he´s young. It´s a fantasy and sorry, but in my fantasy I´m not the sidekick or the gopher, I´m the guy in charge.

Yeah, Batman was older than me but so what ? I was going to be older some day and that was my example to aspire. In all the comics I read with Superman, Spider - Man or Thor that inspired me I never thought " Gee, I wish there was a young guy around I could relate to because the main character is much too old to identify with. " Maybe that´s a generational thing. I grew up reading a lot of francobelgian comics like ASTERIX, LUCKY LUKE and TINTIN and all these comics were a huge success with kids even if the heroes were all grown ups. So is Today´s comic reading generation unable to relate to people outside of their own small group ?

Okay, back to the topic of gay Iceman, some people say that the change was just made to have diversity for diversities sake , some people tried to make an argument that Iceman already was written as a gay character in the comics which doesn´t make any sense because if you HAVE dated women and are now interested in men, I think people used to call that bi - sexual in my day and age. So understandably the bi - sexual people are not happy that the gay have shanghaied their new break out character.

Another factor here is the movies because they are the real cash makers for Disney so they don´t care what happens in the comics as long as they get a good movie out of the deal. And if you still don´t believe that after they just flushed over fifty years of continuity down the toilet I can´t help you. So actor Shawn Ashmore was asked about this and he said he´s ready to play Iceman as gay . Which in plain english means " Yes, I like to eat and I´m not that stupid that I want to ruin my chances of being in any further Disney movies. " I mean, there´s an old german saying that whose bread you eat their song you´ll sing. And if Disney decides that Iceman is gay that´s how you play him if you want to get paid. Also for an actor who has already played that part a few times it can get boring and so he has a new challenge. Especially since they have already established that he had romantic involvements with Rogue and Kitty Pryde. I wish they had put only half as much effort into finding challenging things for Oscar winning actress Halle Berry to do as they put in finding a way to make Iceman gay.

Of course Stan Lee has also been asked what he thinks about Iceman being gay but I think the interviewer Kit Simpson Browne mistakes Stan Lee´s - let´s say carefully diplomatic - answer as actual approval.

He´s not going to say anything negative about Marvel because he doesn´t want to pee off Disney. All he´s saying is that as long as it´s a good story it´s okay with him. And I think that is as good of a closing argument as any because I think if it had been a really good story nobody would have complained. I mean we swallowed Sue Dibny being retroactivly raped and killed and Tim Drake´s father and the original Captain Boomerang biting the big one in one comic because it was such a good story. So if there was so much fuzz about Iceman being gay . . . you draw your own conclusions.

YOU KNOW YOU ARE OLD ( OR HAVE TASTE ) WHEN YOU LIKE THIS

Among the many bookmarks that have amassed over the last year are many from fellow link partner DIVERSIONS OF THE GROOVY KIND and since putting them all here would bust the size and purpose of this post I´m doing a small selection of everything I have saved for future posts.

I´m a huge Sal Buscema fan and one of his best - if not THE best - series is ROM, SPACEKNIGHT where he collaborated with the great Bill Mantlo.

Sadly Marvel doesn´t have the rights to the series anymore but who knows ? If the MASTER OF KUNG - FU omnibus books are a financial success maybe Disney will get the license back. In the meantime you can haed over to Old Groove´s blog to read A House Is Not A Home from ROM 5 ,  Dog Day Afternoon from ROM issue 6, As I lay Dying from ROM issue 7,  Deathwing from ROM 8 and The Stalker In The Night from ROM 9.

It´s a series I can´t recommend high enough that should be easily found in dollar bins especially since there are no plans to bring it to the movies.

Of course Sal Buscema did more than just ROM and you can also find Kill ! Cried The Raven ! from SUB - MARINER 26, When Wakes The Kraken from SUB - MARINER 27 and this collection of splash pages from the series on the blog as well as  and another collection of splash pages from his run on INCREDIBLE HULK with inker Joe Staton ( we will return to him later on ).

Also worth reading is a four part saga by Chris Claremont, Sal Buscema and Steve Leiola that started in MARVEL TEAM UP 82 with No Way To Treat A Lady guest starring the Black Widow and Nick Fury, continued in MARVEL TEAM UP 83 Slaughter on 10th Avenue and went on in MARVEL TEAM UP 84 Catch A Falling Hero where we added Shang Chi to the mix which finally concluded in MARVEL TEAM UP 85 with The Woman Who Never Was . I couldn´t find any reprint information but I remember reading at least part of it somewhere in a spanish or german translation.

To end the Marvel section of this part and as a call back to my post on John Romita´s birthday there´s also a post that features the complete six page SATANA story from VAMPIRE TALES 2 along with some other stuff.

I said we were going to come back to Joe Staton and he is one of the artists on THE METAL MEN from the good old times before they got human secret identities. The artist on issues 45 , 46 , 47 , 48 and 49 is Walter Simonson though and Joe Staton does the issues 50 , 51 , 52 , 53 , 54 , 55 and 56 of the series with Jim Aparo providing the covers for the last 4 issues ( Walter Simonson did the previous covers of these issues ).

Joe Staton was also the artist on A Choice of Destinies from BATMAN FAMILY 18, Gotham Town Is Burning Down ! from BATMAN FAMILY 19 and Trial By Fire from BATMAN FAMILY 20 which introduced the Huntress.

And speaking about Earth 2 bombshells her bff Power Girl was front and center in All Star Super Squad and Brainwave Blows Up ! written by Gerry Conway and art by Ric Estrada ( not to be confused with Erik " Ponch " Estrada from CHiPs ) and Wally Wood from ALL STAR COMICS 58 and 59. In most articles about how artist Wally Wood made Power Girl´s breasts bigger in each subsequent issue you will see art from these stories.

Coming from a parallel earth to the far future one of my favorite series has always been the Legion of Super - Heroes and you can read The One Shot Hero from SUPERBOY 195 which introduced Wildfire, Timber Wolf . . . . Dead Hero, Live Executioner ! from SUPERBOY 197 by Cary Bates and Dave Cockrum and The Legionnaires Who Haunted Superboy ! from SUPERBOY 206 by Cary Bates and Mike Grell on Old Groove´s blog.

Apart from the Legion Mike Grell did a long and beloved stint on the Green Lantern book ( check out The Revenge Of The Renegade from GREEN LANTERN / GREEN ARROW 91 ) but his big opus as a writer / artist was WARLORD. I have been a bit lax with continuing to put the links on my blog so here is Arena Of Death from WARLORD 2, War Gods Of Skartaris from WARLORD 3, Duel Of The Titans from WARLORD 4, The Secret Of Skartaris from WARLORD 5, Home Is A Four - Letter Word from WARLORD 6, The Iron Devil from WARLORD 7, The City In The Sky from WARLORD 8, Lair Of The Snowbeast from WARLORD 9, Tower Of Fear from WARLORD 10 ( WARLORD 11 was a reprint of Travis Morgan´s first appearance in 1ST ISSUE SPECIAL 8 ), Trilogy from WARLORD 12 and The Hunter from WARLORD 13. This is a must read for all true comic fans.

COSPLAY LINKS : THE YAYA AND THE NIGRI ( NO UGLY ONES HERE )

One thing I have the feeling I´m always preparing is my upcoming big Yaya Han post which keeps getting delayed because I always get too worked up. Still I try to find the best stuff about her in the meantime which includes animated GIFs some of which I try to make myself.

And this is what I have been trying to make the last two days. Now despite my lack of success I have found some online and since I´m not sure when I can do my Yaya Han post I want to include them so readers can check them out and don´t have to wait until I can make the post.

The DR OCTOCAT tumblr has a few animated GIFs of Yaya Han cosplaying as the Red Queen which are actually borrowed from COSPLAY SLEEP EAT PLAY where you can find another post with GIFs of Yaya Han in her incredible Dark Elf costume , DARKNESS169 has some nice Gifs of Yaya Han ( cosplaying as Carmilla ) and Jessica Nigri ( cosplaying as New 52 Supergirl ) fighting and speaking about Jessica Nigri : H. Q. Roosevelt on THE ROOSEVELTS has 18 Reasons Why Jessica Nigri Is Better In Gif Form , NERD NINJA has 14 more Jessica Nigri GIFs and there´s the obligatory FUCKYEAHJESSICANIGRI tumblr where you can find all the latest Jessica Nigri GIFs, pictures and videos you will ever need. Never miss one.

And that´s all I have time for Today. I wanted to include a few more links but I got carried away by the whole topic of gay Iceman. Which I hopefully could outbalance a bit with the GIFs of Yaya and Jessica. I hope there is something interesting for you and I hope you have a good weekend.

Since I mentioned Batman in this post and I have bookmarked more Batman videos than I can post here´s Shades Of The Bat about the evolution of his animated series. It has been split into two parts.



I also wanted to add an Elvira video but because most of them on YouTube are of a really bad quality it took me quite some time to find this one.



One of the things I also mentioned in this post is that there are other comics besides super heroes ( and thanks to the efforts of Disney I will be checking out more of these soon ) but for all those readers out there who have no idea what I´m talking about here is a video of Amy Dallen´s visit to Portland, the mysterious town where independent comics thrive.



And speaking about diversity I also wanted to post something different with my music video so I chose this clip from Alisia. I have no idea to which lucky accident I owe finding it in the first place and I couldn´t tell you the title of the song or even from which part of the world she hails. All I know is that she´s hot and has great taste in choosing her outfits.



Last but not least here is the video from which I tried to make a GIF for the last two days without having any success. If somebody can do one of Yaya Han´s opening bit as Chun Li for me it would be greatly appreciated.



New to the blog ? Everything you need to know about TALES FROM THE KRYPTONIAN : top ten posts / more posts of interest / best of the best

Oh no ! Not again with the gay thing !

There are some posts you don´t want to write because you have already covered the subject but people can´t stop talking about it. There are some topics that get blown out of proportion in a never ending vicious circle and one of those topics is lesbians and gays in comics. It´s always good for a few news headlines and some free publicity and if somebody disagrees with your opinion just call him a sexist and a homophobic.

So since we already covered this topic here is a little re - post :

Originally written on Saturday, April the 25th of 2015

WHY ICEMAN IS NOT AS GAY AS GAMBIT IS

You must be tired of reading this but I was all ready to finally do another FLASH FRIDAY post when Disney went and crapped all over another hero.

Yep, gone are the days when X - Men were real men ( or X - Männer in my case ) all thanks to writer Brian Michael Bendis to get some publicity for ALL NEW X - MEN. I guess the sales must be floundering on that title.

COME ON THE RISIN` WIND WE`RE GOIN` UP AROUND THE BENDIS

Now I must admit that I gave Bendis ( I´m shortening the name from now on, not to dis the man - to which I would havbe good reason - but really because I´m lazy ) a second chance after he wrote what will probably go down as THE WORST story in Avengers lore EVER, the train wreck that is AVENGERS DISASSEMBLED. Longtime readers of this blog probably know all the reasons why the story sucks so much but the three things I will mention ( because I think they may come up in some posts in the near future ) is the total destruction of the character of the Scarlet Witch, Hawkeye going down in one of the most stupid death scenes I know ( basically he´s too stupid to take of his quiver ) and Doctor Strange explaining that there is no such thing as Chaos Magic after spending an entire storyline ( in his own title mind you, so Bendis had no way of knowing that ) looking for a new source of mystical power after he lost the favor of the guys he used to call upon. You would never guess what the new source of mystical power was that he used since then. Right. Chaos Magic. But that doesn´t exist - at least according to Bendis. So how could he use magic against the Scarlet Witch if his magic powers were based on Chaos Magic which according to him does not exist ?

I´m not going into this whole debate but if you want to read more about this check out Brian Cronin´s The Abandoned An’ Forsaked – Scarlet Witch Uses Chaos Magic ? post on COMIC BOOK RESOURCES´ extensive Comics should be good archive and also Neilalien´s Doctor Strange questions .

So despite all this - and a few other selected catastrophes where Marvel heroes behaved out of character - I gave Bendis a chance on ALL NEW X - MEN and so far ( I´m currently at issue 30 ) I have enjoyed the book.

In fact, apart from the months when Tim Bradstreet actually managed to deliver some art for WOLVERINE & THE X - MEN it was the only x - book I read. For somebody who has fallen off the X - Men train and not read an X - Men comic in years ( which includes basically everybody except the few diehard X - Men fans that still existed ) this was the perfect book because I had no idea what the hell was going on in the x - universe. One of the biggest things in AVENGERS vs X - MEN was Cyclops killing Charles Xavier - for everyone but me. I didn´t know he was still alive because in the last X - Men comic I read he was dead. So he was alive and then dead again.

And I guess I wasn´t the only one who couldn´t make heads nor tail of the new mutant universe. So a title like ALL NEW X - MEN, in which the five original members of the X - Men are brought into our time and everything has to be explained to them was the perfect jumping on point. Because the original X - Men had the same questions like the long absent readers.

Is Magneto currently one of the good guys or bad guys ? Was a member of the Hellfire Club really a teacher at Xavier´s school ? What the hell is a Xorn ? Since when does Wolverine remember his past ? By the way, who is this guys with claws coming out of his hands and what´s his obsession with beer ? Why hasn´t the mutant situation improved ? And what was that leather jacket nonsense all about ? Okay, so Jubilee lost her powers but got really big breasts in exchange, then was turned into a vampire and now runs around with a baby. That sounds totally normal, right ?

But not only does the series have an interesting story with the added bonus of the original members meeting up with their older counterparts, the art by Stuart Immonen is some of the best of his whole career.

Good writing, good art . . . . well, exceptional art. If you think that Stuart Immonen´s art looks good on regular pages you have to see his awesome double page spreads. Immonen totally kills it on those double pages.

Another big plus for me was that I love a good time travel story. And here Bendis really uses the possibilities of the concept of time travel. Not only do the X - Men from the past meet their counterparts from the present but they also encounter the X - Men of the future. Who are revealed as the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants when the REAL X - Men from the future arrive. It´s a really big no holds barred everything goes romp through time and space to borrow a phrase from one of my favorite television shows ( the space thing coming into play when they meet the Guardians of the Galaxy and Jean Grey goes on trial for her crimes as Phoenix ).

BENDIS` WIBBLY WOBBLY TIMEY WIMEY STORYLINE CONTRADICTIONS

And here´s one of the first problems of the whole " Iceman is gay " story. The Iceman of the past who gets outed by Jean Grey - or better bullied into saying that he is gay - has met Iceman of the present who is not gay.

What´s more, he has also met his future self who is also not gay.

Okay, current Iceman - not gay. Future Iceman - not gay. Past Iceman - suddenly gay. How does that work ? If you ask me, young Jean Grey convinces young Iceman that he is gay although he isn´t. Since current Iceman really knows he isn´t gay he puts young Iceman into a facility to de - gay him with the help of future Iceman because he doesn´t want to risk becoming gay at some point in the future because of some stupid notion Jean Grey put into the head of his past self. Do you have a headache already ? Then let´s look at how it happens in issue 40 .

Bobby doesn´t come out of the closet and say he´s gay. He is railroaded by Young Jean Grey who tells him that he is gay and she knows because she has read his mind. Without his permission. But since she is getting him to admit that he´s gay it´s all right. Because where homosexuality is concerned the normal rules of human ( or mutant ) behavior do not apply.

There are so many things wrong here that I don´t know where to begin. If you knew somebody and you were convinced he was gay would you do something like this to him when he´s clearly not ready to do it himself ?

Is Bobby only pretending to be interested in girls or completely clueless ?

Some people may think this is helping him but how can it be helping him if you do it for him ? Now the whole thing gets even more complicated by the fact that we don´t get to see into Jean Grey´s head. Or Bobbie´s for that matter. Which is something that does happen in comics or movies.

So we don´t know what exactly Jean saw or read in Bobbie´s mind. All we know is she says he´s gay and she knows because she read his mind. So she found some thoughts of him about how hot Hugh Jackman is ? I think he´s hot - for a guy mind you - that doesn´t make me gay. Did he just think " Wow, I´m really totally gay although I can´t admit it . " or what ?

Am I the only one who finds it highly suspicious that Jean just happens to take a peek at Iceman´s head to find out he´s really gay right after he has made some inappropriate remarks about some of his female team members ? Because that´s totally what women do. They make up stuff just to mess with your head. They tell you you´re adopted or your penis is too small or that you are gay. And this Jean Grey is one loco broad, ese.

I mean everybody´s going " If Jean Grey says it it must be true because she can read minds " but we´re talking about somebody who became - or is destined to become - one of the greatest mass murderers of all times as the Dark Phoenix. Or has everybody already forgotten all about this ?

Yes, Jean Grey is not really the most mentally stable person in the x - universe especially if she gets plucked from the past, thrown into our time and told that she will become a monster and die a few times in the next years. That knowledge can really do a number on any normal person.

A READABLE MIND or I KNOW WHAT YOU THOUGHT LAST SUMMERS

Okay, so let´s just for a moment assume that Jean did read Iceman´s mind and discover he´s really gay. Why hasn´t any of the other telepaths on any of the numerous mutant teams ever found out he´s really gay ?

I mean, what about Professor Charles Xavier ? He´s a pretty big telepath and while some argue that he didn´t know because he makes it a habit not to invade people´s privacy ( a concern the young Jean Grey clearly does not share ) he trained the X - Men in defense against the dark arts . . . . I mean defense against telepathic attacks. And for that he probably had to go into their deepest minds and would have stumbled about that.

Are we really meant to believe that young Jean Grey is a better telepath than adult Charles Xavier ? And that she somehow managed to uncover in a few minutes what he failed to notice in decades ? We are talking about a time span that begins in the sixties here. Now there are people who argue that if Xavier knew Iceman was gay he would have never told him about it as long as he himself was not sure about it ( another thing young Jean Grey has no reference for ) because that could influence the whole thing. If you have seen the first MATRIX movie you probably know what a self fulfilling prophecy is. So the argument here is that IF Xavier knew Iceman was gay the moment he told him that he would have technically turned him gay or something - which is much too metaphisical for me.

Professor X - too busy abusing his power to notice that Iceman is gay ?

Another argument is that as a mutant Iceman was already a victim of prejudice, hatred and bigotry so Xavier didn´t want to add fuel to the fire by revealing Iceman´s gayness. Which is total BS. If you are a mutant your life is already effed up enough. I mean there´s giant robots out to kill you just because you were born. What more are they going to do to you ? Hit you with the really painful death ray instead of the soft and gentle death ray ? Take away your X - Box or give you a bad grade ?

I mean Storm was never singled out from the other x - Men because they thought she would be hated more than other mutants. A mutant, an atheist, a woman AND black ? Clearly she has to suffer more than other mutants. Is that really what Disney now wants me to think ? That all people are the same but some mutants are clearly more effed up than others ? Sorry, but this kind of thinking doesn´t really work for me.

If political correctness means to divide discriminated persons into some kind of rating system depending on their " level of discrimination " I don´t want no part of it. Like, this would be discrimination but because a gay / lesbian / muslim / black person does it it´s okay ? When did this kind of reverse discrimination against certain individuals become acceptable ?

FIFTY SHADES OF GAY or STRAIGHT PEOPLE CAN BE DIFFERENT TOO

To come back to the main topic, yes, the X - Men comics have always been about being different but that doesn´t automatically mean gay.

Stan Lee came up with the idea of mutants not because he wanted to represent homosexuals and therefore he came up with these people who were born with special abilities. The simple truth is that he was sick and tired of always having to come up with a super special origin story like a radioactive spider bit him or he got hit by a radioactive gamma bomb or they were bombarded by radioactive rays from outer space. Because it´s really hard to always come off with a good origin story for every hero and with the advance of science people knew that you were more prone to die from radiation poisoning than get powers from a radioactive accident. So Stan just said " Let´s make them mutants. " and that way didn´t have to invent different origin stories for every mutant which in hindsight was a good thing because they grew like mushrooms. If you don´t believe me the whole thing is one of the original soundbites from the Man himself and you can listen to it on STAN LEE´S AMAZING MARVEL UNIVERSE, a book I pimped on this blog when amazon offered it at a bargain price.

 
I know it´s hard for some people to understand but there are individuals out there who are different and misunderstood and persecuted and who are not homosexual. Gays don´t have a monopoly on being different and certainly not on the X - Men comics. So, no, X - Men doesn´t equal gay and therefore there is no imperative for a gay member. I also don´t buy into the logic that on one side being gay is something you are born with and you can´t do anything about it but a gay man can have sex with a woman for years because he doesn´t know better or he´s afraid to tell.

Either you know you are gay and only have sex with women to pretend you are not and have a gay relationship on the side or you are not as gay as you think. I mean there are thousands of husbands who go to great lengths to come up with fool proof plans just to cheat on their wives and I´m led to believe that a gay man who has more reason to do this can´t ?

Or the whole thing that Iceman´s past relationships with women were what you call " experimenting " . I don´t know but it sounds like an awful lot of experimenting in a field he´s not supposed to like. My Mum always tells me " How do you know you don´t like something if you haven´t tried it ? " which usually is followed by her trying to get me to try some food I ALREADY know I do not like because I have FRIKKIN tried it a hundred times already. There are some things you don´t have to try for yourself - like running into a brick wall get hit by a bus - to know you don´t like them. There ARE others but if you keep experimenting and experimenting and experimenting you have to ask yourself if you really do not enjoy it.

 

So which part of the picture above shows Reed Richards experimenting ?

Now to come back to the topic of somebody reading Iceman´s mind and finding out he was gay - what about the White Queen of the Hellfire Club, Emma Frost ? She has spent quite some time with the X - Men and she never said anything about Iceman being gay. I mean she even switched bodies with him at one time so she definitely would have found out there.

She even was better than him of controlling his powers - was this because he spend a lot of energy on repressing something ? If Emma found out he was gay would she not have used this to mess with his head since she was still on the side of the villains ? And what about Cyclops ? He and Emma have had a lot of  intimate contact physically as well as telepathically. Would he not have found out ? Maybe she really is that good at hiding things from Scott but there are too many " buts " in this train of thought.

SHIFTING SHAPES OF GAY or SHAPESHIFTER OF MY HEART

Another big " reason " that people cite for Iceman being gay is that he had sex with Mystique who is a shapeshifter. Because if you are having sex with a shapeshifter this can only mean you want her / him / it to become a boy or a man without your teammates finding out you´re gay, right ?

Wrong. The reason why you are having sex with a shapeshifter is probably that you want to have sex with a teammate - a girl - who doesn´t want to have sex with you or you are too afraid to ask because . . . . I don´t know, maybe read minds, like Jean Grey ? So it would totally make sense.

She never read that Iceman was gay. She read that he wanted to butter her sandwich and that shocked her so much that she told him he was gay.

And before you tell me how improbable that is - am I really supposed to believe that Iceman thinks he has to have sex with a shapeshifter in secret because the other X - Men will not accept that he is gay ? Do people who think along these lines ever read an X - Man comic in their lives ?

There are numerous reasons to have sex with a shapeshifter apart from the teammate thing or having sex with a superheroine who you know would never touch you with a ten foot pole. It could be to have sex with a female super villain without having to worry that she kills you afterwards.

Which might be a moot point with somebody like Mystique anyway. Way back when I started this blog I did a - much missed by longtime readers - section called COMICBABE BATTLE which also included the hot women on the Fantastic Four. There was a post about the runners up and one about the finalist which to my own surprise was not won by the obvious choice, MILF Susan Storm, but by Lyja, Johnny Storm´s shapeshifting skrull wife.

I explained the pros of shapeshifted sex at length in those posts ( in fact I went a bit overboard and had to give Lyja her solo post ) so I won´t say anything more on that subject matter than that there are certain benefits if your sex partner can look like anybody, any celebrity - alive or dead.

So Iceman is not the first male in the Marvel universe who had sex with a shapeshifter and nobody is saying that Johnny Storm must be gay. At least until now. And you know they did it because Lyja had his egg and all.

GOING ROGUE - GAMBIT DID IT BEFORE ICEMAN SO WHO`S GAY NOW ?

Which leads us to the Rogue thing and the title of my post ( I know, you thought I´d never come around to that ), a thing that´s more based on the movie universe than on the actual comics. Iceman had a relationship with Rogue in the movies before it happened in the comics. I would even say that it would not have happened in the comics if it hadn´t happened in the movies first. In fact, it didn´t happen in the comics which for many is a sign that Iceman is indeed gay. There is an issue where Iceman goes on a road trip with Rogue and the " tell " that he is gay is that he is not trying to get Rogue into his bed. And I have to say foul on this one.

If every man who does not try to get the woman closest to him into his bed immediatelly is gay that would be a lot of men. Maybe Bobby had other things on his mind on that day or maybe she just wasn´t his type. I read an interesting post ( probably related to the Batgirl thing ) about how female leads in comics have trouble finding a partner because nobody even the most perfect male specimen is not good enough. On the other hand it seems that any female is an elegible choice for any male in comics no matter how she looks like. And that doesn´t work in the real world and it doesn´t work in comics. So maybe Rogue just wasn´t Iceman´s type.

Or it could be that Iceman knew that somebody else was always putting the moves on Rogue and wanted to avoid being caught in a love triangle.

That´s right, my little Gambito. If there ever was an X - Men who needs to come out of the closet it´s the X - Men´s Cajun fighter ( bazinga ).

I mean, come on. If being in a relationship with Rogue is a sign of being gay would Gambit not have first dibs on this ? Am I really the only one who makes the connection here ? If there´s one über compensating member of the X - Men who always has to show off and even tries to come off much cooler than Logan it´s Gambit. Really, the fake french accent, the unshaven look that went out with Don Johnson, the long hair and that awful trench coat with body armor underneath - how much gayer can you get ? And then the fact that he was wearing this coat all this time just because he knows that it will rain some day. That´s not something men do. And the whole thing with the playing cards. That´s the worst you can try to throw with the aim of hitting your target. The worst I tell you.

And then he picks the one girl of all the hot women in the x - teams who can´t be touched to be his girlfriend. She´s like " Oh, Gambit, I love you but we can never consume our love. " and he´s all " Pas de probleme, mon chere, I´m fine with that. " and this is not highly suspicious to anybody ?

For me Gambit is a representation for everything that was wrong in the 90s. He´s what happens when you try to build a character based on what the marketing experts tell you is hip with the readers. He should not even be in the X - Men after they found out he was mainly responsible for the MUTANT MASSACER, one of the bloodiest incidents in mutant history.

Now people have told me time and time again that he should be forgiven to what I answer if they would say the same about a person who aided the Nazis or somebody who participated in the lynch mobs. If you ask me, he got away easy with the X - Men just leaving him in the antarctica to die.

Which happened in UNCANNY X - MEN 350, one of the X - Men comics I have read most often and not only because Gambit gets his just reward ( there´s some Madureiras art ). It´s one of the best written single issues by Steve Seagle which got totally butchered in the german translation.

Okay, back to our topic IF there is a character who is gay because he´s in a relationship with Rogue it should be Gambit. So why is it Iceman ?

MARVEL´S GAY MUTANT HYSTERIA or MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING 

Because nobody cares, that´s why. I know, there´s this whole thing now on the internet - and I´m participating - but it´s not about Iceman. It´s really more about the way they did it. Because it makes no sense like I´ve been saying the whole time. This is just Bendis trying to get the spotlight because I don´t believe for a minute that he just wanted to " write his story without it all becoming a big deal ". If that´s what he wanted he would have written it differently because it is possible to have gay characters in the Marvel universe without it becoming a big deal.

Like Wiccan and Hulkling on YOUNG AVENGERS. They are a gay couple and they never made the big news headlines. Why ? Because like I already wrote in my Is Warren Ellis gayer than Erik Larsen ? post, there are certain writers who just include gay or lesbian characters to become newsworthy. And it´s our own fault if they still succeed with this.

One part of this is clearly to get into the news. Because they didn´t choose Cyclops - that would have been too unbelievable after his time with Jean Grey and Emma Frost. They didn´t pick the Beast because they already tried that and backpedaled on that a few issues later. They didn´t pick Angel because they didn´t want trouble with the catholic church - if you´re making an angel gay that´s like picking a fight with the pope. So who´s left of the original X - Men who´s not a girl ? Right. The ice dude. The one member writers have been struggling with for years. Let´s be honest, there are no big stories involving Iceman which don´t include him losing his powers or his powers getting out of control. So you pick the X - Man who´s always in the background and turn him into a homosexual.

They didn´t get the attention they wanted with Northstar, Shatterstar, Rictor or any of the other b - or even c - listers like the Avenger´s Living Lightning so now they try their luck with one of the original X - Men.

And they want to give SONY the finger. SONY is clinging to the X - Men movie rights like the devil to a sinner´s soul so Disney is turning the Inhumans into the new X - Men. And they make Iceman gay. How you like that SONY ? I think it´s just pathetic. I have been reading ALL NEW X - MEN so far and I totally planned to keep it on my pull list. Yes, Stuart Immonen has left the title to do black Captain America but Mahmud Asrar is one of the best pencilers in the business right now so there´s no big problem there. They are going to make Mike Morales Spider - Man a team member in the next issues which I don´t have a problem with. I never read any of his ULTIMATE SPIDER - MAN issues but more because it´s not my book. My brother was following that series - at least until they killed off Peter Parker. I´m anxious to see how they end up in his reality.

But the whole " Iceman is now gay " thing ? That is so hamfisted that I doubt I will be reading the title after that. Which is a real pity because there are really not that many good titles left at Disney. But who knows ? The whole Marvel universe is supposed to end in a few months anyway so who knows how long our new gay Iceman is going to make it in the end.

I don´t know but it seems to me that there are not many decent writers left at Marvel. Iceman is gay because Jean Grey tells him. Thor becomes unworthy of Mjolnir because somebody whispers something in his ear. And Ghost Rider is now Ghost Racer because he drives a car. This is not comic writing but definitely abuse of drugs or other illegal chemical substances.

Two founding members of the Avengers are down - is Iron Man next ?

And this is the point where it´s time to end this and leave other things like black Captain America for another post. Today´s post has ben a re - post which means that most of the pictures have been changed for the benefit of the readers who have already read it. It also means that I added some new videos ( use the link to the original post in the header for all the videos about gay Iceman ) and I want to start with another great video by Comicbookgirl19 about X - MEN : BATTLE OF THE ATOM, one of the many good stories from ALL NEW X - MEN pre gay Iceman.



I wanted to put this in the original post but it was already too long.



Another great audition from The X - Factor and no, I´m not implying anything here. I don´t think there is any video from the casting shows I bookmarked that fits this topic. You can read into that what you want.



This video however HAS a connection to ALL NEW X - MEN  and Iceman.



I hate ending a post on a downer but since I learned that german comic legend Hansrudi Wäscher died from this post on COMIC BITS ONLINE I wanted to post this in memory of some of my childhood comic reads.



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