| Author |
|
John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
Posts: 132270
|
| Posted: 23 April 2015 at 5:35am | IP Logged | 1
|
|
|
The best I've come up with is that a character should essentially remain what they are when introduced. You can look back on what they did before that point but aging characters is too slippery a slope.•• Precisely. Any change to a character draws a line thru their imaginary history, a Before/After point. And as fandom has shrunk, we have been left with more and more people, by percentage, who do not understand that these points are to be considered no more "real" than showing who's in the White House or meeting the Beatles. If that doesn't work for a reader, it's time for that reader to move on, not for the characters to change.
|
| Back to Top |
profile
| search
|
| |
John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
Posts: 132270
|
| Posted: 23 April 2015 at 5:36am | IP Logged | 2
|
|
|
Making a blanket accusation of homophobia is thoughtful?•• Especially given the characters I've created! And that's CREATED, not retconned.
|
| Back to Top |
profile
| search
|
| |
James Howell
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 23 September 2012
Location: United States
Posts: 363
|
| Posted: 23 April 2015 at 5:49am | IP Logged | 3
|
|
|
If you read the story, it can be interpreted as written, that Jean is mentally influencing Bobby into believing himself to be gay, not Bobby coming to his own conclusion about himself.
The words don't match the visuals, in that Jean is drawn with this sensitive look on her face, but her dialogue is so insensitive and accusatory.
Also, the subtext around this story suggests that being gay is a choice, forced upon you by a "friend", who says you haven't had enough stable (in her view) relationships with women, so you must like dudes.
Echoed, unfortunately, by some in this thread.
How many women you slept with as a man, has NOTHING to do with whether you are gay, or not.
Idiot women precluded that George Clooney was gay, because he didn't want to get married.
They were just angry, that he didn't want to marry THEM.
Besides, Bobby Drake is Iceman, not Gayman.
Reducing him to a demographic for a cheap stunt, instead of writing him as a PERSON, ruins his CHARACTER, it doesn't broaden it.
Edited by James Howell on 23 April 2015 at 7:15am
|
| Back to Top |
profile
| search
|
| |
John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
Posts: 132270
|
| Posted: 23 April 2015 at 6:00am | IP Logged | 4
|
|
|
I am reminded of the teapot storm around FRIENDS, when vocal Gay viewers started demanding that Chandler be "Outed," and for much the same reasons.* This despite the creators of the show -- one of whom was Gay -- insisting Chandler was straight._________ * Chandler is a "loser" who has no success with women. In Hollywood, this means he's having a relationship with a different beautiful woman almost every week. Women who usually break up with him because he's so high-maintainance.
|
| Back to Top |
profile
| search
|
| |
Stephen Robinson
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 16 April 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 5835
|
| Posted: 23 April 2015 at 6:57am | IP Logged | 5
|
|
|
These late-term "outings" also don't reflect the
progress gays have made in the past few decades.
Struggling alone with your sexuality, unable to tell
anyone, going through the motions with members of the
opposite sex all before eventually coming out in your
late 20s or early 30s -- that's becoming less common,
fortunately. Ideally, the term "coming out" will be a
misnomer. Gays discovering their sexuality will be no
different than heterosexuals doing so at the start of
puberty.
It reminds me of someone suggesting that Manny or Alex
on MODERN FAMILY eventually "come out." That would be a
disappointment -- they have a gay-friendly family. They
have gay family members!
But perhaps the perception is that homosexuality is
"delayed" and that everyone just goes through a
"straight" phase, which isn't the case.
|
| Back to Top |
profile
| search
| www
|
| |
John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
Posts: 132270
|
| Posted: 23 April 2015 at 7:20am | IP Logged | 6
|
|
|
But perhaps the perception is that homosexuality is "delayed" and that everyone just goes through a "straight" phase, which isn't the case.•• There is a lot of confusion about homosexuality among the straight community. That it is a "choice," that it is contagious, that one can "suddenly realize" one is Gay. Three strikes, there. I refer once again to a review I read, long ago, of the movie STAIRCASE, in which Richard Burton and Rex Harrison play, according to the review, "an aging but still Gay couple." Reading that, I thought You mean it wears off? In the end, whether or not Bobby is really being retconned, it comes down to a level of sophistication that considers Sue Storm with a navel ring the absolute zenith.
|
| Back to Top |
profile
| search
|
| |
John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
Posts: 132270
|
| Posted: 23 April 2015 at 7:22am | IP Logged | 7
|
|
|
He's a fictional character. He can be whatever the writer wants. He can also be changed back later by a different writer.•• Can you honestly imagine that happening?
|
| Back to Top |
profile
| search
|
| |
Steven Legge
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 28 July 2012
Location: Canada
Posts: 866
|
| Posted: 23 April 2015 at 7:25am | IP Logged | 8
|
|
|
A retired Bendis at a con in 20 years...
"You know in X-men comics that Iceman's gay, right? I did that!".
|
| Back to Top |
profile
| search
| www
e-mail
|
| |
Matt Reed
Byrne Robotics Security
Robotmod
Joined: 16 April 2004
Posts: 35728
|
| Posted: 23 April 2015 at 9:46am | IP Logged | 9
|
|
|
Ten, fifteen years ago I might have gotten my hackles up about this. Now? I just shrug. It's become par for the course at both Marvel and DC to do this kind of thing particularly with the sexuality of the characters. I'm of a mind that we shouldn't care one way or the other about the sexuality of any mainstream superhero. Most writers at both companies aren't adept at handling that kind of nuance anyway. It's just not their in their wheelhouse especially when approaching characters with as long a history as Iceman has, for example. But what do I know. I haven't read new Marvel or DC comics in five years and it's been even longer since I was honestly invested in them.
So...I shrug.
|
| Back to Top |
profile
| search
|
| |
Brad Krawchuk
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 19 June 2006
Location: Canada
Posts: 5819
|
| Posted: 23 April 2015 at 9:54am | IP Logged | 10
|
|
|
I'm with Matt - I think it's stupid, but I don't care since I haven't read a Marvel book in almost a decade and I don't plan on ever reading one again.
Those books are for other people now, not me, and I'm cool with that because I've got a lot of books on my pull list that I really enjoy.
|
| Back to Top |
profile
| search
e-mail
|
| |
Steve De Young
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 01 April 2008
Location: United States
Posts: 3488
|
| Posted: 23 April 2015 at 12:18pm | IP Logged | 11
|
|
|
So, apparently, this panel is now being used to justify the whole thing as not a retcon:
|
| Back to Top |
profile
| search
|
| |
Matt Hawes
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 16 April 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 16430
|
| Posted: 23 April 2015 at 12:22pm | IP Logged | 12
|
|
|
That panel is supposed to show that Bobby is still at an age where he has yet to develop a real interest in girls. He was the youngest member, after all.
John Byrne wrote:
| ... Chandler is a "loser" who has no success with women. In Hollywood, this means he's having a relationship with a different beautiful woman almost every week.. |
|
|
George Constanza had the same problem, poor schmuck. ;-)
|
| Back to Top |
profile
| search
| www
|
| |
Topic Closed)
