ElzieA19 • Hey Tom, Where are all the gay men at? Or just...

turknip-deactivated20170419 asked: Hey Tom, Where are all the gay men at? Or just LGBT characters in general? I appreciate Marvel's efforts at diversity but as a gay man I feel under represented in all forms of media

brevoortformspring answered:

I think that’s because you are underrepresented in all forms of media. But hopefully that’s changing as time marches on.

As I’m sure you are aware, there are an assortment of LGBT characters scattered throughout the Marvel Universe. Most of them tend to have grown out of team series, which I think gets to the heart of what you’re asking about. There is at present no Marvel solo series starring a LGBT character.

I think that has to do both with not having found the right character who could potentially hold their own series, combined with the additional pressure that any LGBT-led comic is going to face. Because you are underrepresented, each representation becomes more crucial, and more about the demographic as a whole than about a specific individual. And that’s a tough place to exist as a series. The sort of outcry that might follow if we treated such a character in the same way we treat Thor or Iron Man or Captain America is a daunting proposition—because an iron Man story or a Thor story can simply be about those characters, whereas the same story about a LGBT character is interpreted as a commentary on the LGBT community as a whole, positive or negative.

I think it’s only a matter of time before we get there. but I’d want to do so with a committed creative team who were invested in the material and who were prepared to deal with the sort of harassment that, for example, Rick Remender experienced when some people didn’t like his CAPTAIN AMERICA stories—only more so, and more regularly. And I think that if we foul it up, if the book isn’t as good as you’d want it to be, regardless of its orientation, that would do a whole lot more damage to the movement than the average title launch that doesn’t catch on.

So it’s maybe a bit of a cop-out, but that’s how I see it at the moment. We’ll get there, we just don’t yet have the MS MARVEL situation for a LGBT-led series, and I wouldn’t want to go out with anything we felt less confident in. We’ll continue to feature LGBT characters throughout the Marvel Universe in various titles, and hopefully the right opportunity will present itself sooner rather than later.

rottenbrainstuff:

glassgears:
glassgears:
Okay, I hoped to ask brevoortformspring this directly via the Ask box, but word limit got the better of me. Hope he sees this.
In response to your answer to turknip about LGBT characters at Marvel.
I appreciate the comments and there is much I agree with there, but things can only change if proactive methods are made to change things and improve representation. Ms Marvel is a great example of one that has been taken to heart by the audience at large, but you guys at Marvel had to make it and put a lot of faith in the project to begin with. What I, and I presume turknip, would be wondering then is why that can’t be done with an LGBTQ character too? Why can a queer character not also have the full weight of Marvel’s support behind it and take the risk, and with the write creative team, potentially see the incredible success of Ms. Marvel too?
And to be honest, Marvel did technically have an essentially LGBTQ led and focused book for some time, and the sort of outcry you mentioned possible with such a book didn’t occur. I am of course talking about Young Avengers’ most recent run, where ultimately it was revealed almost every character was in some way LGBTQ.
For me, personally, my worries are not limited to an LGBTQ solo title. Lately, what LGBTQ characters Marvel does have haven’t been terribly visible of late. Wiccan, Hulkling, Anole, Northstar, Rictor, Shatterstar to name but a few have not had an awful lot to do of late, and maybe appear for just one issue. In three Avengers books, totaling over twenty Avengers, not a single one is LGBTQ - having an openly LGBTQ character in an Avengers book would be a HUGE thing for LGBTQ representation in comics.
So for me, having more representation doesn’t just mean a solo book. It means being a bit more present in any books.
Representation and getting to that time that you talk about when it is better will only come if we work at it. It is something I try to do myself with my own self-published, indie comic The Pride, which is about a team of LGBTQ superheroes. I made it because I wanted to, because it’s a labor of love AND because if I want to see a change, sometimes you have to push for that change yourself.
So again, Mr. Brevoort, I agree with a lot of what you said and the sentiment behind it, but respectively, I argue that more can be done by Marvel (and DC) right now to improve LGBTQ representation and diversity in comics and other media (and by other media, I mean it would be REALLY nice if there was an LGBTQ character in the Marvel Cinematic Universe or Agents of SHIELD too (though I realise this isn’t something in your power, as such))
Tumblr user rayegunn pointed out that there is technically an LGBTQ solo book by Marvel atm: Loki: Agent of Asgard.
Certainly, the writer, Al Ewing, made a big deal of the fact that Loki is canonically bisexual and can be viewed as trans or non-binary gender at times, and I had a lot of hopes that this would be explored for the character in the book.
Sadly, it hasn’t. All romantic elements in the book have been so far members of the opposite sex, including old romantic interests and new characters. Also, Loki briefly became a woman in the Original Sins crossover, for reasons I still don’t fully understand (I figured there’d be some explanation as to why Loki suddenly changes gender in the series, but if there was I must have missed it) but was immediately back to male in the series when it returned proper.
The problem with this kind of representation, it’s all well and good to say that they are LGBTQ, but to not show it still means that technically there is no VISIBLE representation. A young LGBTQ reader who missed any of the out of the comic conversations surrounding the character/series, or who didn’t previously read Young Avengers, would not know from this series that Loki is LGBTQ at all, and will still feel like they are invisible in their beloved media. If they’re new, then all they may know of Loki is the movies, and he certainly isn’t LGBTQ there (in the movies, I’d kind of like Loki to be asexual actually, as a bit of an aside).
To take another example, let’s consider the inclusion of Victoria Hand in the TV show, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Hand, in the comics, is openly gay. There was a lot of hope that this would carry over to the show, essentially bringing the MCU’s first canonically LGBTQ character (at least one who isn’t a joke/’prison gay’) and would be a massive step towards great representation.
Sadly, the character appeared for less than a handful of episodes before being killed off unceremoniously, and without confirming or denying her status as LGBTQ or straight in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
This leaves LGBTQ representation in the MCU in a nebulous state: technically, they could argue that they have been diverse and represented LGBTQ; but if it is not confirmed, then it is not VISIBLE representation, but INVISIBLE representation….which is like saying to LGBTQ viewers, you can be who you are as long as you’re not SEEN TO BE who you are.
(another sidenote: I had hopes that Mac would turn out to be gay in AoS, so that we’d have a non-stereotypical gay POC in the show and also a friendship between a gay man and a straight man in his relationship with Fitz, but I don’t think this is the way they are going after all)
Personally, I would love to count Loki: Agent of Asgard as an LGBTQ solo book, but clearly, Mr. Brevoort does not consider it to be, and until Loki is visibly represented as such (even if he just talks about it briefly), we can’t really include it as true, visible representation.
This is an excellent conversation. Seriously can we all just take a second to appreciate how awesome Young Avengers was for queer representation?