Make Mine Marvel

I've been reading a lot of comic books lately. Probably too many. Solitary bingeing on any form of entertainment can be a depressive behavior, especially if it's something mentally disposable like superhero comics. But that's a topic for another time. Last October I subscribed to Marvel Unlimited, a subscription service where you can read everything Marvel publishes for a flat monthly or annual fee. New issues of current titles are added six months after publication, and there's a back catalog of thousands of issues, including pretty much everything from the last twelve or fifteen years. You can see how I could get lost in it.

A couple years ago Marvel did one of those big crossover events where the whole history of the fictional universe gets tweaked to create a new jumping-on point. I figured that was a good enough place to start, so I spent a couple very busy weeks catching up, and since then I've been reading everything in the main continuity as it comes out. One big feature of this reboot is an effort to make the diversity of the hero lineup match the diversity of the country. Thor and Wolverine are female, there's a black Captain America and a Hispanic Spider-Man, Ms. Marvel is a Muslim teenager, the Hulk is Asian. And there are quite a few gay characters.

I've always told myself that I don't need validation from portrayals of gay people in popular culture. I'm too tough for that, too much of a loner. I don't need a sense of community, and I don't see any value in applauding straight people for deeming me worthy of inclusion in their narratives. I wanted to punch Ranul Keru in the face. I don't find Cecil and Carlos even remotely charming.

But there's something about the gay characters in the Marvel Universe that's cutting through that tough loner bullshit. (Where did I get that from, anyway? It may be one of the vestigial ways in which the idea of masculinity still has a hold on me.) Hulkling and Wiccan give me what I'm going to be honest and call the warm fuzzies, and Iceman... A couple weeks ago when I started drafting this post I went back to reread the issues where Iceman comes out, and they made me cry. Granted, around the same time the sight of an elderly dog made me cry, so that's not saying a whole lot. But still, I'm not sure why these gay characters in particular are affecting me so much.

I could offer up some theories. It may just be that I'm reading these comics right now, when I'm trying to be more open to my sense of vulnerability and my discomfort with my sexuality. Or maybe I subconsciously see comic books as more mass-market, all-ages than other media, a more definitive test of social inclusion. That would be a false belief, both because comics aren't actually mass-market any more and because media portrayals are a poor metric of social inclusion, but you can't argue with the subconscious. I could mention Iceman being iconic not only in comics generally but also in my imagination. One of the first comic books I can remember seeing was a reprint copy of The X-Men #1 that my father bought, or showed me in a store, or something. I was young enough that I really don't remember the circumstances, but you could gin up some Freudian thing or other around it.

But I don't know that I believe any of those theories. I'm not sure we can ever fully explain powerful emotional responses. The layers of our histories are too complicated, the large and small experiences that shape us too numerous to be remembered and classified. All we can do is admit what we're feeling. And I am really very desperate for more gay characters in comic books. Once I get through this week's new titles (only ten issues to go) I'm going to be hunting through the back catalog for more Hulkling and Wiccan. And that's OK. I am allowed to be moved by whatever moves me, even if it's gay superheroes.