The comics world was absolutely floored last week when national treasure Brian Morton Bendis revealed that Iceman is gay, only five months after Bendis subtly hinted at Iceman’s sexuality by…announcing that Iceman is gay.
Like Michael Sam in football, the comics world was staunchly divided between people embracing Iceman’s acceptance of his sexuality, and others worrying about how this revelation will affect the locker room at Xavier’s Academy before its big homecoming game against the DeVry University for Mutants. In fact, at the GOP debate in Milwaukee last week, the normally-tolerant Donald Trump proclaimed that Iceman coming out would likely cause thousands of gay immigrants to illegally cross the U.S. Border, thus necessitating America’s need to build a wall even more.
So is society truly ready for a gay Iceman? Let’s debate, Man vs. Rock style.
MAN: First, I have a confession to make – I just don’t care that Iceman is gay. In fact, I care so little that Iceman is gay that after I spent my entire weekend reading articles about it, I just thought to myself “BORING. Why is this news?” … and then I read a few more tweets about it, watched Axel Alonso’s interview on YouTube, wrote this article, and still didn’t care at all!
I have to give Marvel credit though for making Iceman’s coming out accessible to readers. What closeted gay man can’t relate to his younger self time-traveling to the future to confront him about his repressed sexuality? Kudos to Bendis for finding an easy, approachable way to address this complicated issue.
ROCK: I’m offended! I have been waiting years, even decades, for a heterosexual character in comic books! Can Superman please have a female love interest for once? Could Spider-Man please have a woman he erotically kisses while he hangs upside down? And for God’s sake, would somebody please just let Wolverine finally get laid?! Just when I thought we as a society were ready for a straight hero… what does Marvel give me: Iceman?
MAN: You and the rest of society just aren’t nearly as enlightened as I am about how little I care that Iceman is gay. Not. Even. Close. In fact, publications like Comic Book Resources, USA Today, Fox News, Bleeding Cool, and even AiPT! were practically screaming for attention by publishing articles about Iceman coming out. If you ask me, any website or news company that cares about Iceman coming out should be blasted for being homophobic and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law in more tolerant places like Texas or Mississippi. In fact, taking it a bit further, Marvel and Brian Bendis might be a little homophobic for making such a big issue about Iceman being gay in the first place. If sexuality really doesn’t matter, why did Marvel need to devote an entire two pages out of a 48 page issue to obsess over it? As founding father Benjamin Franklin famously once said, “it goes both ways.”
ROCK: It’s just another click-bait ruse by the Blogger Elites that are ruining this nation. Those nerds want to get us all worked up about gay comic book characters and you know what … I commend them for it! According to the new Kirk Cameron movie I just watched, there is no faster way to bring on the rapture–which is my ultimate goal in life.
MAN: All this uproar reminds me of the iconic issue, Uncanny Bendis #600, where Brian Bendis’s younger self time traveled into the future to come out to his older self as bald:
ROCK: That’s exactly how I found out I was bald. Damn that handsome Tom Brevoort.
MAN: In closing, I have a little helpful advice for Marvel and DC: Give me something unique like a cross-over or an event about superheroes fighting each other. But as I’ve just explained at length in the past 1,000 words, no one cares about Iceman being gay.
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