Table of Content

Table of Content Introduction.................................................................................................................................... Chapter I: The Misrepresentation.................................................................................................1 1. Wolverine vs. Northstar.......................................................................................................3 2. Rawhide Kid........................................................................................................................7 3. Freedom Ring......................................................................................................................9 4. Punisher.............................................................................................................................11 5. Hulk vs. YMCA.................................................................................................................13 6. Superior Iron Man.............................................................................................................18 Chapter II: Coming Out As a Mutant: Queerness in X-men Comics..........................................22 1. Legacy Virus – the Image of AIDS in Comics...................................................................24 2. How (Not) To Be A Mutant – Acceptance And Self-acceptance........................................29 Chapter III: Bisexuality and Gender Transgression in the Marvel Universe...............................33 1. The Case of Peggy Carter vs. Howard Stark......................................................................34 2. The Case of Sam Wilson and the Superhero Love Interest................................................38 3. The Case of Peggy Carter and Edwin Jarvis......................................................................42 4. The Slut-shaming of Iron Man...........................................................................................45 Chapter IV: New teams, new representation...............................................................................49 1. Rainbow Lesbians And Genderfluid Aliens – Runaways...................................................50 2. Am I the Only One Straight Here - Young Avengers And Loki.........................................54 Conclusion..................................................................................................................................64 Works Cited................................................................................................................................73 Primary Sources....................................................................................................................73 Secondary Sources................................................................................................................80 English Resume..........................................................................................................................85 České Resumé............................................................................................................................87 INTRODUCTION In this work, I want to examine the way Marvel Comics – across its different incarnations – approaches the issue of queer representation. The intent is not to catalog every queer character that have ever existed in Marvel Comics, but to examine the key or significant instances of both direct queer representation or a metaphorical depiction of these issues. These examples are both positive and those that can be seen as stereotypical, misinterpreting or simply unfortunate. The first chapter records the instances where Marvel either introduced character as queer or hinted on this possibility, but the final execution was far from ideal. The first character that is analyzed is Jean-Paul Baubier, alias Northstar, from the comics Alpha Flight, whose history highlights several issues of queer representation. Baubier was originally meant to be an openly gay character, but an intervention from Marvel executives prevented this from being revealed until much later. The way in which he is “outed” then highlights another issue of queer representation – the tendency to turn the character's sexuality into the central point of their narrative and their sole motivation. Finally, he is killed by a considerably more popular, heterosexual character. The second character examined in this chapter is Johnny Bart, the main character of the Western comics Rawhide Kid. He was originally created in 1955 and published by the predecessor of the modern Marvel Comics, the Atlas Comics. Important for this thesis, however, are the miniseries Rawhide Kid vol.3: Slap Leather and Rawhide Kid vol.4: The Sensational Seven, published in 2003. Here, the originally heterosexual Bart is reimagined as gay. The character was surrounded by controversy, both due to this change, but also due to the Marvel's decision to keep Rawhide Kid in a mature-only inprint and to annul their decision about Bart's sexuality. On his character, I want to explore the issues of reimagining an already existing character as queer, as well as the stereotype of queerness as something inherently sexualized and “unsuitable for minors”. In contrast with Rawhide Kid, where a preexisting character was reimagined, Freedom Ring, created in 2006 by Robert Kirkman, was created as a queer character from his beginning. This is often presented as a better alternative to “revealing” the sexuality of characters previously presumed to be straight, as such a change is perceived as “disrespectful towards the character” by some. The issues of depicting heterosexuality as a default state notwithstanding, there are other problems surrounding the creation of such a character. Like Northstar, Freedom Ring was killed off by a well established heterosexual character. Unlike him, however, Freedom Ring had been planned to be killed from the very start of his miniseries. The next category of a failed queer representation I want to address shortly are Jokes. Sexuality of such a character is only meant to be a punch line and is even presented as something degrading. This is examined on the case of Frank Castle, aka Punisher, in Wolverine Vol 2 #186 (2003). In this story, Punisher is beaten by Wolverine and, as a final act of humiliation, “outed” as gay. To make this situation worse, the story itself was written as a revenge to author Garth Ennis, who let Punisher to brutally defeat Wolverine in Punisher Vol. 5 #17. The possibility of being gay is thus presented as humiliating not only by the characters, but also by the author. The last two sub-chapters are concerned with characters in which queerness is depicted as a sign of their villainy. First of them are the gay rapists who attacked the main hero in the short story “...A Very Personal Hell”, published in 1980 in the Hulk! magazine. While these villains never reappears in any other comics, they highlight the issues connected with casting explicitly queer character as villains in a space with little to no queer representation. The next sub-chapter then examines Tony Stark alias Iron Man, as depicted in the 2014 – 2015 series Superior Iron Man, written by Tom Taylor. This series rewrites Iron Man, one of the oldest heroes of Marvel, as a villain after a universe-wide event reversed moral alignments of some of the characters. As mentioned in the chapter 3.4., there are hints in his previous characterization that would support this reading. However, Stark has never been canonically confirmed as queer. It is thus problematic that his queer-coding has become more prominent after he was recasted as a villain. In the second chapter, I want to look into the way the X-Men franchise use mutation as a metaphor for queerness and the issues of the queer community. X-Men have been used throughout the years to talk about different social issues – there is an often quoted and discussed parallel between the African-American civil rights movement leaders, Martin Luther King an Malcolm X, and the mutant leaders Charles Xavier and Eric Lensherr. I want to focus on the storylines in which the parallels with the issues of the queer community are especially noticeable. In the first sub-chapter, I focus on the storyline dealing with the Legacy virus story arc. This arc, which spans from the late 90s to the early 2000s, mirrors the narrative surrounding the HIV virus. While the story of a fictional virus helped Marvel to comment on the real life issue, their approach was not unproblematic. I examine how this arc repeats certain harmful discourse from the mainstream HIV/AIDS narrative, and the specific issues arising from the way Legacy virus is framed in the narrative. The second sub-chapter focuses on the issues of acceptance and self-acceptance that surround the storyline focused on the “mutant cure” - a fictional chemical able to suppress any manifestation of the mutant gene. Mutations manifest differently in each individual and the reaction of both the public and oneself to the mutation differs accordingly. This allow the writers to metaphorically depict the experience of a queer person of a many different social, racial and national backgrounds, as well as the experience of different subgroups of the LGBT+ minority. Above all, this storyline mirrors the issue of the so-called conversion therapy and the potential ramifications of the search for the biological nature of queerness. The third chapter explores the images of bisexuality and gender transgression in the Marvel universe,

Load more