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Hello and welcome to Bobby Drake, where I talk about Iceman and my name is Drake.
Iceman is a founding member of the X-Men, an omega level mutant, and one of the most
famous characters in the entire X-Men mythos.
He’s a lovable wisecracking goofball and he was a complete lady’s man.
And this is one of the many reasons why it came as a massive shock to some people that
he’s gay.
So, this is naturally going to be a contentious topic, but I’d like to give my two cents
and discuss where I fall on this “issue”.
I guess let’s just… go.
I want to get this out of the way first and foremost so there is no confusion.
Along with the rest of the original X-Men, Iceman made his first appearance in X-Men
#1 in 1963.
The reveal that he’s gay on the other hand came from All-New X-Men #40 in 2015, over
fifty years later.
I am by NO MEANS saying that Bobby Drake was conceived as a homosexual character or that
every writer that has touched the X-Men wrote Iceman as a closeted gay man.
I am not the writers so I don’t know for sure, but I think most of us agree that would
be HIGHLY improbable and frankly would be ridiculous to think.
Second of all, I believe that the reveal was bad.
Really REALLY bad and super poorly handled.
In fact, if the reveal wasn’t done like this, I don’t think that this page would
have gone down in infamy and the backlash wouldn’t have been nearly as bad.
But hey, at least we got this super memeable Jean Grey face out of it.
Don’t worry, for those who haven’t read the book and don’t have context, we’re
going to touch back on this later.
The third thing is that I am not a comic book reviewer.
While I will give my opinions on smaller beats like the point mentioned earlier, I’m not
here to speak about the overall quality of the writing in these books because that is
100% up to your own personal opinion and your mileage might vary.
Okay, so let’s jump into the nitty gritty.
In the X-Men series, Cyclops fell more into a villain/anti-hero role and Beast thought
he that was moving away from the ideals of Professor Xavier.
In an attempt to show him how far that he had strayed, Beast went back in time, gathered
the original team of X-Men from when they first formed, and brought them into the future
so they could have a talk with their fallen leader.
Well this ended up not working out and the young X-Men ended up not being able to return
to the past because of time travel shenanigans.
In the aforementioned All-New X-Men #40, young Jean Grey confronts young Iceman about him
being gay since she read his mind.
You have to remember that as an omega level telepath, she is extremely skilled at mind
reading and sometimes glimpses hidden away thoughts without meaning to.
That is what led us to this EXTREMELY awkward reveal.
At first, Bobby wouldn’t admit to being gay, but after knowing that he couldn’t
hide it from her, he came out.
The dialogue is really clunky and the jokes are in my opinion, in poor taste.
Following that reveal, the young Jean and Bobby talk to the older Iceman to see what’s
up in Uncanny X-Men #600 where it’s revealed that yeah, the current Iceman is gay too.
That makes sense considering that the young X-Men are literally the same people as their
older counterparts despite making significant changes post-time travel.
So in continuity, why did the older Iceman stay in the closet?
Well you have to remember that in the Marvel universe, mutants are largely hated and persecuted
despite their amazing powers and being a proud mutant already puts enough of a target on
Bobby’s back.
Iceman didn’t want to live outside of the closet and double down on that hatred, wanting
a part of his life that he wasn’t being actively persecuted for.
As time went on, he buried that part of himself so deep within that it became easier and easier
to repress.
If we look to the real world, there are many homosexuals who don’t want to admit to themselves
who they are.
After all, not many people actively WANT to be in a group that is heavily marginalized,
especially if it’s something that isn’t super noticeable on the surface with something
like gender or skin color.
Hell, there’s been documentation of homosexuality throughout all of history and in some cases,
people hid who they were out of fear of being literally hunted being down and killed, something
not too far off from the Sentinels of X-Men lore.
Also, current Bobby was absolutely not ready to come out of the closet, but the younger
him sort of forced his hand.
In fact, we get to see in Iceman Vol 3 #11 how he reacted to his younger self being outed
when nobody was around.
Granted, this came out years after the original reveal, but it does show that he was NOT about
happy with being outed like this.
You have to remember that the original X-Men are characters from the sixties.
Granted though, that’s kind of in flux because of how Marvel handles their sliding timescale.
Regardless, there’s no doubt that young Iceman was transported to a time period where
the LGBT community is a LOT more accepted and that alone makes for a pretty good reason
why he is more able to admit his identity to himself.
I think that’s a pretty comprehensive look into the in continuity explanation and character
development, but let’s turn to some of the criticism.
For full disclosure, I want to clarify that I am a straight guy.
Well, maybe like 90% straight because handsome men like Jason Momoa and Michael B. Jordan
exist and you have to be pretty blind to not appreciate that those are some good looking
dudes.
However, while I’m not a member of the LGBT community, I have several close friends and
family members that are and I’ve spoken to them in great detail about their experiences
and thought processes.
I am by no means saying that the people I have spoken to are representative of the LGBT
community as a whole, but I want to do my best to explain my point of view from the
working knowledge that I have to go on.
One of the main criticisms leveled against Iceman’s coming out is that it felt forced.
I stated earlier that the reveal was pretty poorly handled in my personal opinion, but
while there were hints/offhand remarks about Bobby being in the closet in other prior series
for decades (more on that later), this reveal would have more gravitas if it was something
more built up to regarding young Iceman and it would feel more earned as opposed to more
or less coming out of left field.
I totally understand where people are coming from when they say that it feels forced, but
for me, that doesn’t make this story beat inherently bad in and of itself.
Common criticism number two is that Bobby being gay is out of character since he was
a notorious womanizer.
I wouldn't agree since it’s pretty common for closeted homosexuals to have been in heterosexual
relationships in the past.
In fact, there are instances of some people literally getting married and having children
before coming to terms with their sexuality.
I can understand if that doesn't make sense from an outsider’s perspective which is
totally fine.
The point is though, it does actually happen.
Now while I said at the top of the video that I think it would be highly improbable for
Iceman to have always been written as a closeted gay man, there have been hints at it over
the years which was actually noted by the writer of the reveal, Brian Michael Bendis.
One of the most overt examples is this scene where Bobby pretended to be Angel’s boyfriend
as a joke.
I mean yeah, it’s a joke, but it’s a little coincidental that following the reveal of
young Iceman being gay, both versions of Bobby immediately make remarks about how hot Angel
is.
It’s also worth noting that in the very next issue after the gay joke, Bobby starts
flirting with one of his teammates, Cloud.
A character that he would sort of date that is both a man and a woman.
While Iceman ends up breaking things off with Cloud since he couldn’t handle her dual
sexes, I think this is still worth noting if we’re looking at previous signs.
Outside of Cloud, a lot of the bits people tend to point out regarding Bobby being closeted
over the years are in my opinion vague enough that you can see whatever you want in them,
but how could we overlook that mutant coming out scene in X2?
“When did you first know you were a…”
“A mutant?”
“It’s just… this mutant problem is a little-”
“What mutant problem?”
“Have you tried not being a mutant?”
Clearly, this is allegory for mutants being a stand in for homosexuals which admittedly
is nothing new.
After all, the X-Men have ALWAYS been a stand in for minority groups as a whole and yes,
this is an alternate universe so these are alternate characters, but it just strikes
me as an interesting choice that it’s Iceman of all people that’s given this scene out
of all the X-Men movie characters.
There’s also some critics of Bobby coming out as gay that say that it would make more
sense if he was bisexual.
Personally, I feel that writing him as bi doesn’t work if that’s not what his character
is.
While not everybody feels the same, I personally subscribe to the mindset that sexual orientation
isn’t a choice.
Bisexual people exist and homosexual people exist.
Now being bisexual has its own hurdles unique from the other letters in the LGBT acronym
since many bisexual people experience hate from INSIDE the LGBT community and I feel
that this isn’t often explored in media and it would be very fascinating to see here,
especially if it was being tackled by a well known character like Iceman.
So, while I think that that would be a more interesting topic than when we currently have,
it doesn’t change the fact that in canon Iceman is gay, and since that’s what he
is, that’s what we should focus on when we’re looking at the narrative.
In regards to Iceman’s recent solo series, there’s been some complaints about how it
almost exclusively focuses on Bobby exploring his sexuality.
That’s also up to personal taste, but I completely understand that being Bobby’s
focus in life if he was a real person.
He lived a life well into his 30s not allowing himself to experience a significant part of
who he was so of course he’d want to focus on it.
Maybe I just relate to it more since I absolutely HATE being single and when I’m out of a
relationship, I can be obnoxious to be around since going out and meeting women is basically
the only thing on my mind.
A book that’s mostly about Bobby using dating apps and going on dates is pretty damn relatable
to my own life and I also adore comics that dive into interpersonal relationships and
interactions just as much as I enjoy action.
Besides, how many Spider-Man storylines focus on Peter Parker actively pursuing love interests
and villains kind of acting like background characters?
Now I’ve seen some people hate the change in Iceman’s sexuality so much that they’re
demanding that Marvel change it back.
That would be extremely tacky.
Sure, it COULD be done, but it is WAY harder to write a compelling "I thought I might be
gay, but I'm actually not."
story over a compelling "I've been lying to myself since I didn’t want to be further
demonized considering I already had to deal with the persecution of being a mutant.”
story.
The whole point of fiction is to experience stepping into someone else's world, even if
their experiences are alien to the reader.
Because of this, I’m actually kind of glad that the Iceman solo book seems to have made
some readers a bit uncomfortable since it is clearly exposing people to new ideas and
helping paint a better understanding of what other people go through while being written
in a realistic and respectful manner at the same time, something I think can be chocked
up to it being written by Sina Grace, an openly gay man.
At the end of the day, if you absolutely can’t stand reading a book starring a homosexual
lead character or if Iceman is somehow “ruined” for you because of his sexuality, then you
don’t have to read the books.
Not everything is going to appeal to everyone and that’s okay.
People like what they like and in theory, there shouldn't be anything wrong with that.
I'm not looking to change anyone’s mind or say that people have to like a book that
they clearly don't.
I just want to provide context where I can.
This is the kind of healthy conversation that I want from the comic book community, and
one that I think it would benefit a lot from.
Something that’s a bit more open minded, respectful, and at the very least a community
that's willing to agree to disagree.
If you’re new to my channel, then this is not my normal type of content.
I mostly try to stick to doing strictly lore based videos.
However every so often, I want to give my opinion on topics like this since I have a
little bit of a unique perspective in that I actively keep up with comic books on a week-to-week
basis, and I like to think that I am pretty versed in lore, so I can give a little bit
more of a historical perspective on things.
However, if you don’t agree with my opinion on things, then there’s a good chance that
you might find like 95% of my content a lot more refreshing and up your alley.
So, if you at least enjoy the quality of the editing, the storytelling, and the historical
aspects, maybe you might want to give those a look.
And if you’re interested in where that live action bit earlier in the video is from, it’s
actually from a video I did on the Marvel Swimsuit Special series.
There’s actually four of these and I go into pretty interesting detail.
It’s a nice little tidbit of Marvel history that isn’t often talked about.
So if you liked this, maybe you’ll like that.
Anyway, I hope you learned at least a little something new and maybe I’ll see you next
time!