Andy Mangels on Marvel’s Recent Weirdness Regarding LGBT Characters

Dirk Deppey points out this summary article by Andy Mangel on Marvel's recent apparent hostility and doubletalking regarding gay characters in their books and any policies about same. Dirk's analysis is worth reading as well. You know things are grim when Mangel can give us a hilarious line like this one, and it's somehow not funny at all.

"Minor characters Flatman and Living Lightning, both outed in GLA in mid-2005 have appeared in current Civil War books. They are not yet dead, nor tortured."

Mangels describes recent, baffling press work that sounds like there are two minds working at Marvel regarding what to do with non-heterosexual characters, and the inescapable fact that such characters as exist at Marvel tend to get killed. A lot. Including recently. Although with Marvel having one of its few name black characters killed a couple of weeks ago by a coalition of white authority figures using a cloned Nordic god as a weapon, it's not as if they seem really concerned about the unfortunate symbolism thing in any prominent category.

The weirdest development to me is a recent statement of canon that resolves western character Rawhide Kid having both gay and seemingly straight versions by favoring the heterosexual version. That does come across as a little over-concerned and odd, although I think Marvel has denied any and all lousy intentions. Dirk's right in that many of Mangel's points are loaded and that a lot of what comes across as lousy treatment is simply a narrative or two wrapped up in the demands of the superhero genre. On the other hand there does seem to be a lot of attention paid to finessing some minor plot points in books in a way that makes you go, "Would it kill them to have had that stay the way it is?" All together, it's enough to make the average wonder concerned about such issues wonder what the heck is going on.
 
posted 10:03 pm PST | Permalink
 

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