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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
Posts: 132282
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| Posted: 22 April 2015 at 10:04am | IP Logged | 1
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Has me wondering, when did retcons start or became a regular used fallback? Did creators take the lead from What If?••• "Retcon" as a word is fairly new, but as an artifice it's very nearly as old as the form. Superboy is considered by some to be the first retcon, tho the various character histories had been substantially tweaked before he showed up.
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Rick Whiting
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 22 April 2004
Posts: 2188
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| Posted: 22 April 2015 at 12:28pm | IP Logged | 2
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And let's pause a moment to recall the sensitive portrayal of homosexuality in that series!
__________________________
And that's not the only insensitive portrayal of homosexuality in Marvel comics over the last 15 years. In the first Ultimates series, Mark Millar had Tony Stark making jokes about Jarvis (who is gay in the Ultimate Universe) molesting young boys. Then in the Great Lakes Avengers mini series, Slott retconned Living Lightening into being gay all for the sake of a lame joke at the expense of the character. Slott had Living Lightening seeking out the GLA to join them because he mistook them for being the Gay and Lesbian Alliance. Now I could be completely wrong, but it seemed to me that Slott was trying to say that Living Lightening visually "looked gay", so let's out him.
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Eric Kleefeld
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 21 December 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 4422
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| Posted: 22 April 2015 at 12:30pm | IP Logged | 3
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Over on the DC side, Obsidian was a rare instance in which retconning that he'd been in the closet the whole time actually worked nicely, and meshed with a lot of what had been established about the character.
As for Iceman, this strikes me as overwhelmingly forced and artificial.
Edited by Eric Kleefeld on 22 April 2015 at 12:31pm
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Ed Love
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 05 October 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 2712
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| Posted: 22 April 2015 at 2:09pm | IP Logged | 4
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Disagree about Obsidian. It only meshes in that he didn't have decades of backstory to invalidate. However, of all characters he is one of the few that has had a story arc that specifically dealt with the issue and that the whole point was that he was NOT gay; the humor, angst and point being the problem of judging people based on exactly the non-evidence and stereotypes that are being listed above. Making him gay completely invalidates the whole point of the story, one of the few storylines that focused on him as a character as well as sends the message that it is indeed ok to assume someone is gay based on said stereotypes. Adding insult to injury is that people cite how Obsidian was handled during that story arc as proof of his homosexuality, obviously missing the point of the story.
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Ronald Joseph
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 18 April 2011
Location: United States
Posts: 1784
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| Posted: 22 April 2015 at 2:12pm | IP Logged | 5
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Love triangle on Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends -- ruined! (Or is it?...)
You're referring to the one that doesn't involve Ms. Lion, yes?
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Stephen Robinson
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 16 April 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 5835
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| Posted: 22 April 2015 at 2:36pm | IP Logged | 6
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JB: Around the office, back in the day, the response to
fan buzz about Iceman being Gay because of his social
ineptness and lack of success with women prompted the
response "You mean like the fans?"
SER: This hits very close to home! And it's too obvious.
A guy I went to high school with was charming, handsome,
dated the homecoming queen... and later came out as gay.
We joke that we'd "swapped" stereotypical high school
lives. I knew very few gay men who fit that profile --
not to say that it isn't true in some cases but a lot of
the guys I knew who later came out were popular and
dated far more successfully than a lot of straight guys.
I recall someone suggesting a similar "retcon" for
Geordi on TNG -- his similar ineptness must mean he's
gay. Sometimes shy is just shy.
This is why I thought Northstar was so well handled. He
didn't fit into any easy tropes.
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Jason Schulman
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 08 July 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 2473
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| Posted: 22 April 2015 at 3:43pm | IP Logged | 7
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That story must be troubling to modern readers, as it strongly implies that she's strictly lesbian until the manliness of Batman shows her the light. Of course, she's also working as a dominatrix prostitute and cohabiting with a minor, so not the most positive portrayal of homosexuals ever seen.
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I was 13 when I read Batman: Year One. I didn't see any "portrayal of homosexuals" one way or another. Just prostitutes, one of which was underage and the other of which was a domme. (Yes, at 13 I kinda understood what a domme was. I don't remember why I knew this.)
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David Bensette
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 05 October 2014
Location: Canada
Posts: 351
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| Posted: 22 April 2015 at 4:37pm | IP Logged | 8
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The Iceman Cometh…Out
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Shaun Barry
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 08 December 2008
Location: United States
Posts: 6833
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| Posted: 22 April 2015 at 4:46pm | IP Logged | 9
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Show me all the interviews over the years with Stan Lee or Jack Kirby, where they reveal their original intention to make Bobby Drake gay, but lament that the "timing wasn't right in 1963" and I'll say great, more power to Marvel.
Otherwise, can we just call this for the short-sighted, shallow publicity stunt that it truly is, masquerading as progress?
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Brian Skelley
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 14 February 2012
Location: United States
Posts: 231
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| Posted: 22 April 2015 at 4:59pm | IP Logged | 10
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According to a buddy of mine, there was another comic called the "Black Vortex" Omega that he thinks caused the change. It seems the Black Vortex doohickey caused changes in the characters after they renounced whatever it did to them. There was a panel that had Young Jean (not sure if Old Jean is still dead) saying something along the lines of "the change was in his heart".
I'm not sure which is odder to me, the idea that Iceman has been gay and no one knew (except the internet idiots who'll make anyone gay and even come up with forced evidence that only works when ignoring a lot of other stuff) or some cosmic doohickey makes people gay.
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Stephen Robinson
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 16 April 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 5835
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| Posted: 22 April 2015 at 6:39pm | IP Logged | 11
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JASON: I was 13 when I read Batman: Year One. I didn't
see any "portrayal of homosexuals" one way or another.
Just prostitutes, one of which was underage and the
other of which was a domme. (Yes, at 13 I kinda
understood what a domme was. I don't remember why I knew
this.)
SER: Selina Kyle is a cat burglar -- perhaps one of the
best (this would warrant her position in Batman's rogues
gallery). I don't mind the idea that she uses the
profits from her burglaries to fund her society girl
identity. But Post-Miller, it's been hard for creators
to get a handle on the character. Her antihero period
also sort of misses the point (she plays out like a
female Batman).
Part of the problem might be that Post-Miller, there was
an increasing desire to depict Batman's foes as drooling
lunatics or outright psychopaths. So where did Catwoman
fit in? Especially once Talia appeared in the 1970s and
took the place of the "femme fatale" in Batman's life
(though even she wound up falling in the two camps I've
mentioned).
This is a bit of a tangent but I do think it fits into
what I'd call the unnecessary "sexual amplification" of
all-ages characters. 50 years or so ago, it was
sufficient for Catwoman to look like Julie Newmar or Lee
Meriwether in a catsuit. It didn't have to be more
erotic than that. But by the 1980s, she's a prostitute
or a madam or a dominatrix. Sigh.
Iceman as gay is just a salacious news story. It
cheapens homosexuality. Meanwhile, on the FLASH, a
character is created as gay and is depicted in a far
more mature manner.
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Andrew W. Farago
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 19 July 2005
Location: United States
Posts: 4067
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| Posted: 22 April 2015 at 6:45pm | IP Logged | 12
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Has Bobby Drake had any really long-term/serious relationships? He and Hank McCoy double-dated with Zelda and Vera, he briefly dated Polaris, then you skip ahead to Cloud in the Defenders, Opal Tanaka in X-Factor...never anything that seemed to last very long or be a big part of his life.
In our world, there have been any number of celebrities who have come out decades after it could have adversely affected their careers (Barry Manilow, Jim Nabors, George Takei, just to name a few), and I've got any number of friends with family members who came out of the closet after years of marriage, sometimes with multiple kids. Sometimes they were in complete denial, sometimes they'd done what they thought they had to do...it's not something that's completely without precedent.
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Topic Closed)
