|
Yvonmukluk posted:If I ever am in the position to write X-Men (it'll never happen, but hypothetically) I'd probably retcon this down the line to Bobby actually being a (closeted) bisexual that Jean accidentally telepathically pushed into being gay because she didn't really understand and explain the Bobby/Kitty relationship as them bonding as both being bisexual mutants. Keeps LGBT representation in the book and also cleans up Bedis' continuity mess at the same time. Please don't ever write a comic. Please don't ever think that going from gay to bisexual is just a switch people can turn in their head. Space_Butler posted:Bendis is taking a bit of a beating on twitter/tumblr from the bisexual crowd over that phrase that comes off as marginalizing or discarding bisexuals, not to mention the outing. He keeps saying this is a long-term story and the full issue comes out tomorrow, but this certainly seems like his "M-word" moment in that if you take objection to how things were phrased or how actions played out, no amount of context is gonna make it okay. At some point, he's going to have to either give in that he's not as nuanced as he thought he was, or double down that this was a great way to handle things. It's phrased oddly but there's nothing inherityly wrong with what Bendis wrote. It's hamfisted to prevent someone else retconning it and it's not an "M-Word" moment. He hasn't told anybody to drown in hobo piss. Waterhaul fucked around with this message at 07:12 on Apr 22, 2015 |
# ? Apr 22, 2015 07:09 |
|
|
# ? May 18, 2024 03:35 |
Waterhaul posted:Please don't ever write a comic. Please don't ever think that going from gay to bisexual is just a switch people can turn in their head. The same can be said with going from straight to gay. And at this point Bendis should maybe take the first piece of advice there, too. Bobby being bi would at least make some amount of sense, while this whole thing is just a badly executed retcon. It's cool to see more representation in comics, especially with a major character, but it was done in about the clunkiest way possible here.
|
|
# ? Apr 22, 2015 07:20 |
|
Nobody yet has said present Bobby is gay and if he is nobody has said he was straight and turned gay or visa versa. Like a retcon or repression is one thing, flicking a switch in someone's brain is a completely other and wrong thing.
|
# ? Apr 22, 2015 07:34 |
|
Waterhaul posted:It's phrased oddly but there's nothing inherityly wrong with what Bendis wrote. It's hamfisted to prevent someone else retconning it and it's not an "M-Word" moment. He hasn't told anybody to drown in hobo piss.
|
# ? Apr 22, 2015 07:49 |
|
TheJoker138 posted:The same can be said with going from straight to gay. And at this point Bendis should maybe take the first piece of advice there, too. Bobby being bi would at least make some amount of sense, while this whole thing is just a badly executed retcon. It's cool to see more representation in comics, especially with a major character, but it was done in about the clunkiest way possible here. I get what you're saying in the sense that "He was into women in the past, so even if he likes men now, he has to at least be bi or else his old relationships with women don't 'make sense'," but what Bendis is trying to say here is that his old relationships with women were either overcompensation or else genuine attempts to try to figure out his sexuality. Which totally happens with gay people all the time. And, yes, that is absolutely a retcon for the character, it absolutely 100% negates prior storylines, and it's kind of executed shittily to boot, but not because it takes a character that people think is straight and reveals that he's gay.
|
# ? Apr 22, 2015 07:51 |
|
Space_Butler posted:As I am not bisexual or gay, I'm not about to speak for if people should be offended or not by it, but if you look for folks talking to him on the social sites, there are quite a few people in the community vocally upset with it. No, Bendis is not insulting people, but I laid out pretty clearly to what degree/similarity this is his M-Word moment and the comparison so far is apt. If he's smart, he'll just let it sit, but he's definitely coming across as shocked that a complex issue of sexuality has nuance and complexity to how people might take it. Bottom line, you should not devote four pages to set the character to "Full Gay"' in the same manner that most writers do their sneaky retcons. Acknowledging that bisexuality exists and is a thing instead of a dismissive "they say everyone is" (save for you, Bobby, you closeted loser!) would have been a way more positive take.
|
# ? Apr 22, 2015 08:40 |
|
Space_Butler posted:As I am not bisexual or gay, I'm not about to speak for if people should be offended or not by it, but if you look for folks talking to him on the social sites, there are quite a few people in the community vocally upset with it. No, Bendis is not insulting people, but I laid out pretty clearly to what degree/similarity this is his M-Word moment and the comparison so far is apt. If he's smart, he'll just let it sit, but he's definitely coming across as shocked that a complex issue of sexuality has nuance and complexity to how people might take it. Yeah sorry I misread you. Unfortunately this is Bendis and the way he handles things regardless is that he's just going to keep digging until eventually after it's too late he says "he's done talking about things" and has blocked a few hundred people. He thankfully won't resort to hobo piss comments anyway.
|
# ? Apr 22, 2015 08:40 |
|
fatherboxx posted:Bottom line, you should not devote four pages to set the character to "Full Gay"' in the same manner that most writers do their sneaky retcons. I really don't think Bendis was trying to be dismissive there. Some people are gay, some people are bi and some people say they are bi in an effort to deal with coming out as gay. It's a thing that happens a lot and Bendis was just trying to say Bobby is 100% in the gay side of things and not the other two, no doubt to prevent retcons or worse messiness down the line.
|
# ? Apr 22, 2015 08:54 |
|
I mean, I was frankly shocked that bisexuality was even mentioned as a thing that exists. That's a step above the usual fare.
|
# ? Apr 22, 2015 08:59 |
|
Waterhaul posted:Please don't ever write a comic. Please don't ever think that going from gay to bisexual is just a switch people can turn in their head. Oh, I don't believe that's at all true in the real world. But to quote Bendis: Brian Michael Bendis posted:this is a story about fictional characters one who has psychic powers. Its a unique perspective Waterhaul posted:I really don't think Bendis was trying to be dismissive there. Some people are gay, some people are bi and some people say they are bi in an effort to deal with coming out as gay. It's a thing that happens a lot and Bendis was just trying to say Bobby is 100% in the gay side of things and not the other two, no doubt to prevent retcons or worse messiness down the line. And some people are actually bisexual and offended their orientation was dismissed offhandedly in the space of a single page (considering that people apparently regard all Bisexuals as homsexuals, this did not help). Especially when the character who actually is LGBT says he might be bi, only for his 'friend' who's currently rifling through his brain (against his wishes) to immediately shut that down. She may be a mind reader, but she doesn't get an opinion. It should really be something Bobby figures out on his own.
|
# ? Apr 22, 2015 09:33 |
|
Real world or not, actually switching peoples sexuality by mind control would be a million times worse than anything Bendis could write. And I'm not going into a people should or shouldn't be offended, that's for people to decide themselves. For this story If you remove the mind reading part lots of people have actually had the "you're not bi, you're gay" conversation and visa versa, whether coming out of their own free will or being forced too. Jean is being pushy, nosey and invading his privacy and she's also doing what she considers to be the best for her friend because she sees him hurting himself.
|
# ? Apr 22, 2015 09:43 |
|
Decius posted:Two closeted people looking for a beard! Kitty's still around, right? Having Kitty replace Jean here, and be the one who comes to him and tells him what she knows about his future self (while also making some allusions to her own sexuality) and that he doesn't have to make the same decisions he did, etc, could have been pretty interesting. Or just do a similar thing with Old Iceman being the one to confront Young Iceman, that coulda gone any number of much better directions.
|
# ? Apr 22, 2015 11:14 |
|
Cabbit posted:I mean, I was frankly shocked that bisexuality was even mentioned as a thing that exists. That's a step above the usual fare. we've gotten pretty used to grasping at straws! also, this whole thing sucks and I hate it, and in fact the more bendis talks it the more I don't like it
|
# ? Apr 22, 2015 15:18 |
|
The thing in All New X-Men wasn't as bad as I'd been made to believe but it still makes zero sense. It's definitely one of those "We'll have to wait and see" things. On the other hand the end of Black Vortex was awesome and really shocking and I can't wait for that spin off book now.
|
# ? Apr 22, 2015 15:24 |
|
Deadpool posted:The thing in All New X-Men wasn't as bad as I'd been made to believe but it still makes zero sense. It's definitely one of those "We'll have to wait and see" things. On the other hand the end of Black Vortex was awesome and really shocking and I can't wait for that spin off book now. I was really bored by the first couple issues of Black Vortex and didn't bother reading the rest of it. Mind spoiling what the end is?
|
# ? Apr 22, 2015 15:40 |
|
A Tin Of Beans posted:I was really bored by the first couple issues of Black Vortex and didn't bother reading the rest of it. Mind spoiling what the end is? Well they wrap up the rest of the story pretty quickly and then Gamora and Angel both decided to keep their cosmic powers while the rest (Beast, Cylcops, Iceman, Groot, and Kitty) gave them up. And then the majority of the rest of the issue deals with the relationship between Peter and Kitty and Peter proposes to Kitty and they all celebrate. So Peter and Kitty are now engaged and are going to have space adventures together after Kitty has gotten over her fear of space.
|
# ? Apr 22, 2015 15:57 |
|
I was much more bothered by the lazy copied panels than anything else on that "big reveal" page.
|
# ? Apr 22, 2015 16:17 |
|
Waterhaul posted:Real world or not, actually switching peoples sexuality by mind control would be a million times worse than anything Bendis could write. And I'm not going into a people should or shouldn't be offended, that's for people to decide themselves. I don't have a problem with an established character being gay. I have a problem with 2 versions of a character that are supposed to be the same person, and they have wildly different sexualities.
|
# ? Apr 22, 2015 16:20 |
|
Barry Convex posted:There's an, um, very interesting spoiler circulating for ANXM #40. Huh. Well, fair enough. Edit: I suppose I should elaborate. I don't have much of a problem with Iceman being gay. I've been an Iceman fan since I was a kid watching Spider-Man and his Amazing Friends. I've been using BobbyDrake as my online identity since probably about 1999-2000. However... I wish that Bendis hadn't shut down the possibility of him being bisexual so hard. I myself am bisexual, and as such, I'd love to have more representation that is "huge slut that bangs everyone" in fiction. Also, drat, that's a lovely thing to do, Young Jean. Stay the hell out of people's heads! BobbyDrake fucked around with this message at 16:53 on Apr 22, 2015 |
# ? Apr 22, 2015 16:29 |
|
Deadpool posted:Well they wrap up the rest of the story pretty quickly and then Gamora and Angel both decided to keep their cosmic powers while the rest (Beast, Cylcops, Iceman, Groot, and Kitty) gave them up. And then the majority of the rest of the issue deals with the relationship between Peter and Kitty and Peter proposes to Kitty and they all celebrate. So Peter and Kitty are now engaged and are going to have space adventures together after Kitty has gotten over her fear of space. I saw someone else talking about this and apparently I missed a couple of very key things on my read through Kitty Pryde does not give up her cosmic powers either. She's all blue at one point but after she's not so I assumed she gave it up but she didn't. Also it mentions that the ones that do give it up also take on some kind of change in exchange for rejecting the gift. It can be a good or bad change. Iceman and Groot are changed physically in that they both look different. Iceman has his ice form and Groot looks a bit more streamlined. Cyclops and Beast both undergo changes that are not physical. Storm immediately tells Jean not to scan Cyclops for any mental changes but she says it's too late. She says whatever changed in him is not in his mind but it in his heart, whatever that means. Also rejecting the power apparently puts you on the shitlist of the Celestial that created the Black Vortex so they've all gotta deal with that somewhere down the road. With all these things to keep in mind I would not be surprised if Humphries is going to be the one to take over the X-Men books after Bendis as he's set a number of things into motion here. X-O fucked around with this message at 16:40 on Apr 22, 2015 |
# ? Apr 22, 2015 16:36 |
|
Deadpool posted:I saw someone else talking about this and apparently I missed a couple of very key things on my read through Kitty Pryde does not give up her cosmic powers either. She's all blue at one point but after she's not so I assumed she gave it up but she didn't. Also it mentions that the ones that do give it up also take on some kind of change in exchange for rejecting the gift. It can be a good or bad change. Iceman and Groot are changed physically in that they both look different. Iceman has his ice form and Groot looks a bit more streamlined. Cyclops and Beast both undergo changes that are not physical. Storm immediately tells Jean not to scan Cyclops for any mental changes but she says it's too late. She says whatever changed in him is not in his mind but it in his heart, whatever that means. Also rejecting the power apparently puts you on the shitlist of the Celestial that created the Black Vortex so they've all gotta deal with that somewhere down the road. Maybe they'll go extra cop out with Iceman and the Black Vortex and say he's gay because being gay was one of the unseen changes made by the Black Vortex. Which would explain why young Bobby is and older Bobby isn't. Although that would be extremely stupid.
|
# ? Apr 22, 2015 16:46 |
|
Elucidarius posted:Maybe they'll go extra cop out with Iceman and the Black Vortex and say he's gay because being gay was one of the unseen changes made by the Black Vortex. Which would explain why young Bobby is and older Bobby isn't. Although that would be extremely stupid. Could go with "one you've experienced the entirety of the cosmos at once, coming out feels a little more manageable."
|
# ? Apr 22, 2015 18:26 |
|
Elucidarius posted:Maybe they'll go extra cop out with Iceman and the Black Vortex and say he's gay because being gay was one of the unseen changes made by the Black Vortex. Which would explain why young Bobby is and older Bobby isn't. Although that would be extremely stupid. I don't know why this is a "cop out", though. Bendis never promised some deep exploration of the underlying causes of human sexuality, no matter what the last few pages of angry spoiler bars say. Grey Area fucked around with this message at 21:04 on Apr 22, 2015 |
# ? Apr 22, 2015 20:59 |
|
Grey Area posted:This seems to be what happened. I don't know why this is a "cop out", though. Bendis never promised some deep exploration of the underlying causes of human sexuality, no matter what the last few pages of angry spoiler bars say. It's a cop out because it is the equivalent to "because now I said so." Seems like a really boring way to change a well established character. No one said it needs to be deep, hell I'd prefer it be shallow but to just kinda hand wave it because he wanted is a cop out. Maybe it'll make sense in a larger story but if it isn't explored deeply it will not have added anything to the character other than being 'that one time Bendis made someone gay cause reasons.' Also, what possible reason could he have for changing a character's sexual orientation if not to explore it?
|
# ? Apr 22, 2015 21:03 |
|
Elucidarius posted:Also, what possible reason could he have for changing a character's sexual orientation if not to explore it?
|
# ? Apr 22, 2015 21:08 |
|
Bendis is only writing one more issue so I imagine whoever comes on the book next is going to be the one exploring it.
|
# ? Apr 22, 2015 21:10 |
|
Deadpool posted:Bendis is only writing one more issue so I imagine whoever comes on the book next is going to be the one exploring it. One more New X-men plus Uncanny 600
|
# ? Apr 22, 2015 21:11 |
|
I don't know if I'm understanding this conversation right because I totally skipped out on Black Vortex, but I don't think even Bendis would make it so that a character is only gay because of cosmic interference. I didn't get that impression from the issue, anyway. It's not clear if Bobby's sexuality was something Jean only just now realized or something she's suspected for a while, but I think she would've noticed if Bobby was attracted to girls before they went to space and isn't anymore now. Or else Bendis wouldn't have stuck in the [unfortunate] "full gay" thing.
|
# ? Apr 22, 2015 21:20 |
|
I think it was pretty clear from the conversation that Jean has known this for a while but she's just now saying something. I don't think it's from the Black Vortex at all.
|
# ? Apr 22, 2015 21:21 |
|
Is anyone reading Amazing X-Men? The Juggernaut story wrapped up and it was solidly good but not great. I dunno the spoiler rules around here, so here's some stuff for this arc/issue of Amazing XM Marko is the forever Juggernaut now with more power than ever. Colossus is learning not let himself get beat up and sacrifice himself for the team over and over. I briefly thought Colossus was actually gonna die. Colossus has always been my favorite X-Men and I'd love for this to continue into a Daredevil-esque story of a man not letting depression beat him up all the time. I hope X-Men can find their footing again after Secret Wars.
|
# ? Apr 22, 2015 22:04 |
|
Welp, having seen the issue... ...eh. It turns out that there's really not much more context for the leaked pages than we've seen, so actually seeing the pages in the context of the full issue really isn't any more illuminating than the spoiler-barred discussion we've been having for the past couple of days. I look forward to another month or so of argument. Joy.
|
# ? Apr 22, 2015 22:15 |
|
I wish there was a "throw across the room" button for digital comics because I just got done reading ANXM and that was awful. That terrible Bobby and Jean scene, that terrible Angel and X-23 scene, just uggghhhh I never thought I'd want to go back to not reading Xavier's will but here we are. Fritzler posted:Yeah, I see what you're saying. I haven't read the issue yet, full disclosure, but from the summaries I have read I don't have the biggest problem. My one concern is that DEPENDING on what they do with current Bobby, or if current Iceman is straight and past Iceman gay or one is bi or whatever, that they're kind of saying people aren't born with their sexuality, but instead it is decided by factors when they grow up. This is something I, and hopefully other people, would have a big problem with. I dunno, I'll read along and see. I think we're safe to drop the spoiler bars, it's Wednesday after all. They're going to make current Iceman gay. There's no way they won't, because as much homophobic hate mail that Marvel's surely getting right now, there is no one at Marvel who is stupid enough to risk a backlash from gay fans by letting current Iceman run around and date girls sending the message "being closeted is a-ok". Mahasamatman posted:Is anyone reading Amazing X-Men? The Juggernaut story wrapped up and it was solidly good but not great. I dunno the spoiler rules around here, so here's some stuff for this arc/issue of Amazing XM Yeah, people should read Amazing X-Men. You know, for a good X-Men comic. It's even got Iceman in it! And he's written well! TwoPair fucked around with this message at 22:43 on Apr 22, 2015 |
# ? Apr 22, 2015 22:35 |
|
TwoPair posted:I wish there was a "throw across the room" button for digital comics because I just got done reading ANXM and that was awful. That terrible Bobby and Jean scene, that terrible Angel and X-23 scene, just uggghhhh I never thought I'd want to go back to not reading Xavier's will but here we are. Well, apparently all will be revealed in Uncanny Xmen #600 so I guess we'll have to wait and see how it is handled. I'm definitely interested in seeing how this plays out. Source: http://www.comicbookresources.com/article/bendis-on-icemans-outing-says-im-not-done-with-this-story-yet
|
# ? Apr 22, 2015 23:11 |
|
It was so dumb. Like they flicked a switch and now Bobby is gay. If they had wanted to make someone gay, make it Magik or someone else who everyone has suspected forever. Hell, the issue would have meant more if Jean had taken Bobby aside and been like "hey, Magik is having problems because the person she loves is getting married, so you shouldn't talk to her like that". Bam, much more compelling than "Dude your gay!!!". I bet its going to be a side effect of the Black Vortex transformation. Who was that at the end? Only Random did i recognize.
|
# ? Apr 22, 2015 23:44 |
|
twistedmentat posted:It was so dumb. Like they flicked a switch and now Bobby is gay. If they had wanted to make someone gay, make it Magik or someone else who everyone has suspected forever. Hell, the issue would have meant more if Jean had taken Bobby aside and been like "hey, Magik is having problems because the person she loves is getting married, so you shouldn't talk to her like that". Bam, much more compelling than "Dude your gay!!!". People have absolutely suspected Iceman for a while. Like there is straight-up a scene in X-Men 2 where Bobby has the "have you tried not being
|
# ? Apr 22, 2015 23:47 |
|
I don't really care about Iceman either way but the whole younger self thing just makes it so stupid no matter how Bendis decides to write it. I feel that there were several better options available if he wanted to diversify some old-school X-men.
|
# ? Apr 23, 2015 00:07 |
|
It seems like it would have been better had they not used the time traveling characters to confuse the issue.
|
# ? Apr 23, 2015 00:36 |
|
I miss Scott Lobdell.
|
# ? Apr 23, 2015 00:46 |
|
Seriously, if they just did a story of current Iceman coming out, that would be fine, and I guess fit in with established character, and you could spin all his prior relationships failing as having been the result of self-sabotage without it being too much of a retcon. Making it Young Bobby just makes things confusing for everybody. It really boils down to Bendis wanting to "leave his mark" on the brand. I don't want to be too cynical... but I will, and I'd be willing to bet that the thought process behind the decision was "I'm going to turn Bobby Drake gay" --> "poo poo, Bobby Drake's in books I'm not writing" --> "Maybe I can just use Young Bobby and let the next guy sort it out." Also even though the government is always bad in X-Men stories, Bendis has done some weird thing where the character I sympathize the most with of anyone is Maria Hill because she's right, they are just responsible for so much bullshit. TwoPair fucked around with this message at 00:53 on Apr 23, 2015 |
# ? Apr 23, 2015 00:50 |
|
|
# ? May 18, 2024 03:35 |
|
twistedmentat posted:Who was that at the end? Only Random did i recognize. Okay yeah Random, that's the guy. I knew I recognized him, but I couldn't remember his name.
|
# ? Apr 23, 2015 00:57 |