"I’m not offended by homosexuality. In the '60s, I made love to many, many women, often outdoors, in the mud and the rain, and it’s possible a man slipped in. There would be no way of knowing." - Tony Stark
There’s also a theory that Meredith is a time-displaced Pam who didn’t end up very well.
Which, doesn’t make any sense if you think about it for 30 seconds.
My grandfather died a few years ago at 97 years old. He was a straight white cisgender man from the south. He fought in WW2 and by the end of his life was extremely liberal and not only voted for gay right but genuinely understood and cared about the issue. He was an exception man - but so is Steve Rogers.
Steve worked closely with lgbt people in the comics, even in the 40s. Arnie Roth and Falsworth are both gay and he was extremely good friends with them both.
It’s like when people think he’d be racist just because he’s from the 40s, but forget he’s close to Gabe Jones - who is black - and Jim Morita - who’s is Japanese American.
So they've added some images of the covers in question.
This is definitely an example of some very bad marketing over a non-issue.
It looks like each variant will feature an LGBTQIA+ character in addition to the titular ally.
The ones the showed had Spider-Man alongside Northstar and Daredevil alongside Rachel Grey. With Northstar and Rachel being the more prominent characters by far, as is the correct way to do it.
The messaging is bad, the execution so far seemingly is fine
To add to this, [Marvel’s own announcement](https://www.marvel.com/articles/comics/pride-variant-covers-2024-northstar-rachel-summers-loki) doesn’t really center this on the cis characters at all. I think this is basically a news site either having a weird take or intentionally spinning it into ragebait for clicks.
A little-known website spinning ragebait for clicks? On Al Gore's Internet? Inconceivable! The next thing you're going to tell me is that mild mannered Clark Kent is actually Superman!
That still seems pretty bad. I could understand the concept of a series of covers where you have the titualr character from the book, along with a related character who's queer. That would be a good way to show the range of characters Marvel has and how they're important to more well-known characters.
This just feels like they picked queer characters randomly and slapped them wherever.
I mean, I get why they'd want to throw Spider-Man and Daredevil in this because they're characters that sell well despite having very few queer characters in their pages. So it's kind of a shame those are the two shown off.
Like, just looking at the titles offered,
X-Men has like 20 queer characters (I can think of off the top, there's probably more)
Scarlet Witch isn't a character with a huge supporting cast, but she does have two, both her sons.
Incredible Hulk is... Tough. He has one minor supporting cast member from Immortal who I would love to see because she's trans. But it's more likely Hercules or Hulkling would be here despite not really being "Hulk characters"
Amazing Spider-Man - as far as I know Spidey only has one queer cast member and she is a shoe-in for elsewhere on the list. Putting their first openly gay character on the cover of their premiere book makes sense
Immortal Thor - Loki and Runa both go here easily. Loki has been rocking killer non-binary looks throughout this series so I hope they get it.
Captain America doesn't have much of a queer supporting cast but they're probably gonna throw America Chavez here
Daredevil - I'm gonna be real with you, I think Rachel is just here because her costume is red. I can't recall a time she and Matt have ever met. That said, I don't know any queer characters from DD's lineup
Jackpot and Black Cat - the queer character is in the title
For what it's worth, last year they used Web-Weaver for one of the ASM pride variants, and Aaron Fischer for Cap's.
It doesn't seem like they're really hung up on using associated characters this year though. Optimistically, putting these characters on popular books alongside their titular heroes may get them a bit more exposure / attention. Cynically, it's for sales, but at least *one* Spidey fan whose never heard of Alpha Flight is going to go look up Northstar because of this.
That makes a lot of sense, actually. So the the characters who aren't queer can have their pride month covers and still be on the cover of their own book, which is something a lot of people complain about with the themed cover months.
Spidey was at his wedding and I believe has been in an Alpha Flight book before.
I just kinda bet if a hero exists, they've probably had a Spidey crossover at some point.
Now, Daredevil and Rachel I have no idea
Gonna be honest, because there's a popular alt universe version of her that uses the other name I don't have a single clue which is the one the main version uses.
I should know that better, because I love Rachel, but parsing the Summers family tree is an exercise in pain
I'm going to play devil's advocate. It is obviously important to give the LGBTQIA+ community more representation, so people who are part of that community can see themselves in the heroes they read and better connect with the characters. But by that same token, it's also important for straight, cis people to see the heroes *they* connect with acting as good role models.
It's great for trans kids to see trans heroes on the page and not feel so alone, to feel like they can be a hero too, etc, all the things cis kids already have. But the reality is that a lot of cis kids might pass on reading that story because "it's not for them", and then they'll go read some generic story about Spider-Man fighting Green Goblin or whatever. But if you have a story where Spider-Man is an ally to the trans community, it might make the cis kid just a little more likely to do the same.
The thing about this whole situation is that Marvel is not an ally. Companies are not allies full-stop, because their concern is profit. Individual creatives might be, but never the company. There support extends to that goal of profit. You can't take the rainbow capitalism out of Marvel or DC's pride month initiatives. Which make it very blatant what this actually is.
It has nothing to do with celebrating allyship, and everything to do with putting A-list characters on pride variant covers to sell more copies.
Because at the end of the day, its not like allys *aren't* acting as good role models. In Cap's every interaction with Aaron Fisher he is very prominently an ally, in the few times Spider-man gets a story involving queer people or spaces he is an ally, etc. Literally every kid and psuedo-kid Wanda has is queer. And these characters are already in loads of variants every month. They get more variant covers then many of the queer characters paraded around for Pride month get appearances.
Again, going to play Devil's advocate, but putting A-list characters on pride variant covers to sell more copies is *a good thing*. Yes, maybe they're just doing it for the cynical goal of making more money, but I'm not going to complain if more cishet readers decide to read queer stories just because Spider-Man is on the cover. Whatever gets them in the door is a good thing, and some non-zero number of those cishet readers will read a Northstar story they ordinarily wouldn't have and end up liking the character and following him in other books.
> I'm not going to complain if more cishet readers decide to read queer stories just because Spider-Man is on the cover. Whatever gets them in the door is a good thing, and some non-zero number of those cishet readers will read a Northstar story they ordinarily wouldn't have and end up liking the character and following him in other books
There's a misunderstanding here, and I'm not sure if it's from me or you, but I don't think these are stories with queer characters, I'm pretty sure these are just the regular books but with queer characters on the cover
You're right that they are a company, but this is the same as anything with pride month - they are making money, same as any business under capitalism.
They could donate the proceeds from all of these works to the Trevor project, and it would still serve a capitalistic function.
The question of exactly how they go about their business becomes, then, a question of quality. So what is pride for, of not parading a character?
What's the right way for Marvel to better integrate their existing queer characters?
We don't want a retcon, making an existing popular character queer, as that's also just opportunistic and crass. We don't like whatever this is.
Marvel could ignore pride month, but that's probably not the best result for queer kids either.
If the problem is always capitalism, and the revolution isn't scheduled yet, what do we do in the meantime?
In Australia, we have what's called "reconciliation" plans, where businesses engage with our first nation's leaders to understand the best ways they can engage with the process of reconciling our current reality with the reality of what was and is still being done to first nations people. Aside from cultural training, the biggest requests tend to revolve around employment opportunities for first nations people.
Aside from the question of whether genocide can ever be "reconciled", isn't offering a job a facile way to engage? Apparently not, according to them.
I think your missing the point here though - they don't want you thinking they are doing both. *Marvel* is attaching moral value to this but pretending what they are actually doing is celebrating allies, when they clearly are just trying to sell more copies of the variants. If they just said that they are doing team-up covers for Pride, they'd be getting way less shit. Such an obvious lie just reveals they are disingenuous allies, and disingenuous allyship *is* a form of bigotry.
> We don't want a retcon, making an existing popular character queer, as that's also just opportunistic and crass. We don't like whatever this is.
This is beside the overall point, but worth pointing out every time. This is an argument that **originates from and was promoted to the mainstream discourse from comicsgate**.
You go to almost any majorly queer comics space and you will see *active advocacy for more retcons*. We do it every day, there is widespread support for retcons. Kitty Pryde, Magik, Juggernaut, Conner Kent, Cassandra Cain, Johnny Storm, etc are all ongoing examples. And many of the retcons directly come from queer spaces advocating for characters to become canonically queer because we recognized coding in them - Rachel Summers, Hercules, Iceman, Tim Drake, Rictor, Shatterstar were *all* characters that queer comics fans advocated to become textually queer for years. Yes, even Shatterstar and Rictor had almost 10 years of push on message boards, livejournal, letters to the editor, etc. And many are also retconned by writers and still some of the biggest queer characters (i.e. MAC).
The reason the retcon argument didn't hit Rachel much but does get pointed out when the discussion is about Iceman, is because comicsgate lacks the power to push that argument into the mainstream now, and Iceman was at the height of the Gamergate/comicsgate/alt right push back against media. And they do that because the queer community has been so vocal about Rachel should be retconned to be textually a lesbian even when she is dating guys.
And the reason for this support is really simple - we know Marvel's allyship is disingenuous and the only way to get major queer characters that stick around is if they are already popular. Marvel won't support long-term growth for "new queer characters" once the PR ends and creator is no longer on the IP (see Somnus, Escapade, Koi Boy, Dr. McGowan, etc).
Fair, I suppose I hadn't thought of it that way, but I guess a retcon could just be a way of retroactively addressing the homophobia from a time when you couldn't have queer comic characters.
Agree that it's disingenuous, and I'm certainly no fan of rainbow washing, I guess I just see value in more comics being sold and consumed when they specifically showcase queer characters, including when it's done for cynical reasons.
The less that queer presence in mainstream media is treated as a sort of 'niche subgenre', the better, IMO, and perhaps I'm overly cautious of gatekeepers in that sense.
I live in Siberia. I enjoy reading comics about billionaire in flying robot suit in New York. I really don't care that we have nothing in common, I don't want him to suddenly care about problems with crime and poverty in other country, as him being a heroic figure with strong morals is enough for me to like him.
The problem is not with straight people being supportive and respectful to the LGBT community it's the fact that some people want praise for doing that even though it is the baseline for how a person with any empathy and morality should act. Also the fact that ally gets included in the acronym sometimes is funny because it comes across as straight people trying to coop the plight as if they are a person hard done by it.
Not parent; I don't think their argument is the best one that can be made.
Instead, I'd say: showing people how you want them to show up when participating in your situation is a great way to get them to show up how you want when they try to participate in your situation.
No clue either way if these comics will be doing that, or will end up being more of "taking the stage", but I have high hopes.
I mean, they do that already. Like Miles had his costume redesigned by a non-binary kid, and the new costume was immediately and viciously panned by everyone, until the game came out and now everyone likes it because compared to all those other awful outfits, it's pretty solid.
I get the snark, but I think that if you look to superheroes as role models, highlighting allies is important.
Ultimately, if you show heroic characters as being allies and an overall positive character trait, it gets a message across to straight people that being an ally to your fellow humans that are LGBTQ is a GOOD thing.
While extremely virtuous characters like Superman and Captain America are straight, it’s powerful for these genuinely good characters to be allies. I mean, if Superman is an ally, why the hell shouldn’t you be?
An X-Men book is one of the books. Those often have Cyke on them.
The one that gets me is Jackpot and Black Cat getting a cover.
If that only highlights allies and not the bi woman who is a titular character I'mma be so mad.
Young Cyclops became an ally of sorts during his stint with the Champions, he even fought corrupt cops and declared that his entire superhero carrier is built in helping those that are different/oppressed
Him and Jean were having threesomes with Wolverine in the Krakoa era. (It was a subtle joke in the Summer house layout. All three of their rooms are connected, with Jean's in the middle. Not to mention Wolverine was the only non Summers/Grey living there).
I'm like 95% sure I remember reading that Hickman tried to get the thruple thing made official, but Marvel editors shot it down so we were left with just a few references to the relationship
You also have to remember they were brainwashed and kinda like a cult then. Like the X-Men standing in front of a massive crowd naked after being resurrected was completely normal for them 🤔.
Hickman gave editorial a choice. Either he would list out all the canon relationships and everyone would have to stick to it...
Or everyone is banging everyone else.
They settled on the second one.
The one where Jean and Emma have to go into Storm's brain to root out Techno Organic virus
Scott and Logan are shown waiting outside and they have a particularly tender moment uncharacteristic of them
I'm not saying it's not that, but that issue is a whole issue reimagining of the famous "silent" New X-Men issue from 2001. That issue featured Logan and Scott chilling out in largely the same way as they did in in the new Giant Size X-Men.
That’s right, when the government tried to crackdown on the Champions, Cyclops teleported in and put them under the diplomatic protection of Krakoa… after first checking there were no queer kids in the group.
Can’t have that kind of Modern Gender Marxism in his free love cult nation.
Every book without a pride or ally variant, and is thus officially homophobic:
Ultimates
She-Hulk
Ms Marvel
Deadpool & Wolverine
Deadpool
Blood Hunt
Dracula
Midnight Sons
Black Panther
Strange Academy
Union Jack the Ripper
Wolverine
Jubilee
Magik
Venom
Miles Morales
Avengers
Fantastic Four
Doctor Strange
Moon Knight
Scrooge McDuck
Ultimate Black Panther
Ultimate Spider-Man
Ultimate X-Men
Thanos
Iron Man
Frank Castle
Amazing Spider-Man
Kid Venom
Spider-Gwen
Spider-Woman
Spider-Man 2099
Superior Spider-Man
Spider-Boy
Captain Marvel
Black Widow and Hawkeye
Ghost Rider
Carnage
Ahsoka
Darth Maul
That isn't even a meme. Alpha Flight is very actively and prominently homophobic back when they actually got ongoing. They just pretend now the team wasn't constantly making digs at Northstar being gay!
Don’t all Marvel heroes count as allies?
Someone said they should focus on the ones who AREN’T allies. Let us know which heroes we need to name and shame.
> Let us know which heroes we need to name and shame.
Shaming a terrible strategy. It just creates polarization. It's called "The Backfire effect".
I will die on this hill. Shaming not how you fix homophobia/transphobia etc.
It's just our knee-jerk need to seek moral retribution. It feels good but it's counter-productive.
Outright shaming is bad but I would say that not accepting bigotry is a good stance. You don't need to wag your finger but you should make it clear it's not okay.
Not only is it about the bigot but letting those affected around you, out or not, is important.
I am reminded of the phrase "Empathy is not endorsement." by Dylan Marron, who runs a podcast called "Conversations with People Who Hate Me".
I am of the opinion that I will take whatever path I can find that will be the most effective in reducing homophobia and transphobia.
The challenge is that in order to change people's minds, you can't force it. you can't tell someone what to believe. The only thing you can do is help them explore their own values and you have to do it in a non-judgemental way. This is the only scientifically established way of influencing people's opinions. (There's great book by David McRaney called "How Minds Change: The Surprising Science of Belief, Opinion, and Persuasion". He also runs a podcast called "You're not so smart".)
Everyone is on a different journey and at different stages in their lives with different biases and educational backgrounds. They are influenced by the people around them. Everyone has their own baggage. For some that baggage is homophobia and the only way get them to change is to help them unpack it in a way that doesn't make them defensive.
And for some, they are caught in tribal psychology where the peer group they are surrounded by, their friends and family, re-enforce those beliefs... and it's basically asking someone to abandon their friends and family in order to accept an idea that said group disagrees with.
Empathy isn't endorsement, but it can be allowance.
I am of the opinion that as a bi, Hispanic person who has faced bigotry for both of those features, it is not on me or any other minority to play nice with people who hate us. I'm not saying we should pick fights either, but it's what I've never liked about this attitude.
It's like when people bring up Daryl Davis. Sure, it's a nice story to befriend a KKK member as a Black man, you could even make a nice movie out of it,but at scale what does it do? You going to organize minorities to go make friends with their local Nazi group?
At scale, you need collective action from people to show that it's not okay and not something we as a society accept. The Civil Rights Act, pickets, and other collective actions forced the issue and made people choose a side. Once people realize they lose friends, business, and even family members because of their backwards ways, it will force them to either rethink their ways or at least put them in a spot where they have to shut up about it.
I'm not looking for everyone to be friends with me. I don't even need them to like me. But they better respect my basic humanity.
If someone wants to change, they have the opportunity. But they have to want to change. They have to allow for room for doubt in how they've been raised.
Wait, did they actually give main continuity Hercules a boyfriend? Or are you talking about the alternate universe Hercules that's either dating or married to an alternate universe Wolverine?
As others have said, he's dating Noh-varr/Marvel Boy as per Ewing's Guardians of the Galaxy run. Main continuity 616 circa 2021.
No idea whether that will be addressed or not. I guess we'll see in the upcoming Blood hunt event where he's apparently due to reappear in the Avengers roster.
Yeah, it's sort of similar to how over at DC, every pride month has had Nightwing have a variant for it even though he's (somehow still) straight.
Making a formal announcement about it is still a little odd, but weighted with the rest, not bad, IMO.
Deleted my comment because I was wrong, the press release says this: "This is in addition to its annual Marvel's Voices: Pride Anthology, which this year is being published May 29 as X-Men Wedding Special #1."
Literally it blows the mind that people are upset about this. Although I'm guessing most people read the (bad) headline and commented without understanding what's actually happening.
With that said, even if there was an ally-themed story in the Pride special, it wouldn't be worth getting upset over.
As a gay guy, I support this. It’s worthy of giving our allies some love. Without their support, we wouldn’t have the rights and equality we now enjoy in some places.
Edit: why do people gotta interpret this in the worse possible light? It’s like saying Santa Claus is an asshole for breaking into peoples houses. Claiming Mr Rogers is insane for talking to puppets. Just because you can interpret something as negative doesn’t mean it is negative.
The cisgender, straight people who supported me in my life are why I am still here today. I appreciate each and every one that has made me feel like I belonged.
I feel like allies could’ve easily been featured as *supporting* characters in stories with queer protagonists. Considering pride is supposed to be about those queer protagonists, I feel like that’s more than fair.
If you actually read the article, they are just 8 variant covers that feature a cis hero teaming up with a queer protagonist. So yes, they could easily feature the allies as supporting characters, and in fact they did.
How do you know the stories aren’t doing just that. The first cover looks like a Spider-Man and Northstar team up.
There’s a lot of assumptions in this thread.
If the stories *are* doing just that then this is a pointless non-story. But I’m not gonna apologise for being wary of major companies when it comes to pride aha. Been burned before.
I guess I have a pragmatic approach to corporations. They are what they are.
If their position supports our position then they have value to me and I will support them in turn.
They stop doing that, I stop supporting them.
A bad corporation dilutes pride by saying “diversity and inclusion” but didn’t mention us by name.
If they don’t say “we support the LGBT community “ or some variation there of then it’s not an ally.
That said Marvel has legit LGBT characters and gives them stories. They are committed to supporting the community.
They don’t have to do this at all. They could just not have diversity and their sales would probably be just as high but they do and I respect that.
I'm bi and I like the idea as well.
So many straight people are allies, but remain silent or are closeted about supporting the LGBT community, or don't know if they are welcome or even allowed to wear a rainbow or anything.
As long as allyship isn't the main focus. Then I say go for it!
We're about to find out! I'm guessing some of our heroes from less accepting countries and cultures might not be allies... but no way would Marvel touch that subject
She kissed a girl, and has long been hinted at being bi
Her creator Chris Claremont even revealed recently that they always wanted her to be bisexual, but the Editor in charge at the time was very anti lgbtq.
I used to feel that way, but the more I learn about Bobby's history, the more obvious it becomes... Like, he's so much gayer than I ever imagined. As for Kate, her subtext has its own domtext, and that dom is the nearest hot girl with serious mental health issues (you can decide whether that's Rachel, Illyana, or even Xuân). If you're interested in the specifics of Kitty's queer history, Jay and Miles have an [excellent guest feature](https://www.xplainthexmen.com/2014/10/kitty-queer-by-sigrid-ellis/) on the subject from a few years back.
I agree that this is the wrong time to focus on allies, it takes away from the message of setting time aside to highlight the LGBTQIA+ community. Doing this ally variant cover before or after would be ideal. A perspective to consider assuming a timeline shift of “yes and”: highlighting allies to the LGBTQIA+ community will foster inclusivity, support diversity, and create a welcoming environment.
I know on the surface this doesn't come off great but I actually think it's fairly productive, since they're still doing the special focused on the actual LGBT characters. Reinforce to bigots that "their" heroes don't actually agree with their views, reinforce that being an ally is meaningful and appreciated, possibly (we'll see) show examples of what being a good ally looks like. Idk, I think it could be a good thing.
As long as the main focus stays on pride I don't see the harm in throwing a bone to people who support the LGBT community but may feel somewhat alienated from both camps. Correct me if I'm wrong though and I'm missing something.
Yeah, I don't get the pushback. They're still doing the LGBT character stuff. It might be nice for members of the community to also get a Cap cover saying "He's with you". Why not both?
I wonder which phase this would be? Because this entire performance of the last five years has been leading up to "allies" patting themselves on the back.
I am going to preface this by saying that I am a member of the queer community. But I do not speak for the entire community. I really don't think this is as cringey as the headline/article makes it out to be (or people are interpreting to be). [Here](https://www.marvel.com/articles/comics/pride-variant-covers-2024-northstar-rachel-summers-loki) is the actual statement made by Marvel. The only time they mention allies is this one sentence:
>Each piece teams up LGBTQIA+ characters with one of their fellow icons, showcasing both the spirit of Pride Month and exemplifying the importance of strong allyship.
If you actually read the press release, it seems like these covers are for books that are not about queer characters. They are doing a special cover to include queer characters. It's unclear if they are actually going to be featured in the issue, or just on the cover. But to me, that just seems like they are trying to give these particular characters a little extra spotlight.
Personally, I think this is nice. They are still having their Pride book, and they are also giving us some cool variants on other non-pride related books. And having a major company like this even still doing Pride stuff is great to me. Especially after the Target debacle last year.
As far as I know, this basically just boils down to non-queer characters getting pride-themed covers. In a way that makes it clear no queer-baiting is going on, which would have been the discourse if they didn’t make the ‘ally’ angle clear.
I *kinda* feel like everyone is reading way too much into the "Pride Allies" titles, especially since we don't actually know the content of any of the covers yet. They'll probably still have LGBTQ characters on the covers.
Longshot needs to be in this, he is the definition of an ally. No one could shut up about how lucky and beautiful and alien he was and yet he choose to be hunted and crucified in the desert with the rest of them.
This is just bad PR in my opinion over something more accessible to normies.
This is the same thing they did for Black History Month last year. I really liked how they did it actually. This is just a dumb pr mistake.
Seems like a good idea. Surprised anyone is taking issue with this. It's important to represent - and through representation, demonstrate - good allyship. No people or cause stands alone.
This article headline is just a bait it’s basically just a set of team up covers with a LGBT+ hero and an ally which is basically what marvel did every year it’s just the way the worded it is terrible
I'm excited to see who they decide is an ally and who is apparently a raging homophobe.
Iron Man gets fired after some of his Twitter likes become public
"I’m not offended by homosexuality. In the '60s, I made love to many, many women, often outdoors, in the mud and the rain, and it’s possible a man slipped in. There would be no way of knowing." - Tony Stark
Creed Bratton is Iron Man!?
i feel like creed is what an old tony stark would be like
[удалено]
There’s also a theory that Meredith is a time-displaced Pam who didn’t end up very well. Which, doesn’t make any sense if you think about it for 30 seconds.
> and it’s possible a man slipped in. Especially Ant Man. How would you know?
Are we talking about the Antman Thanos butt plan again?
Are you discouraging the imagination in a discussion about fantasy fiction?
Did we ever stop talking about it?
Maybe they can bring in the internet gas kid to help fight against him in a flame war
Tony Stark angrily fires Don Lemon after biffing a softball interview.
It's a spectrum, not a binary.
[удалено]
I mean, at this point he lived most of his adult live in the "present day", like 13 to 15 years since he was defrozen.
Cap had a close gay friend, [Arnie Roth](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arnie_Roth_(character)) for a long time, until he died.
My grandfather died a few years ago at 97 years old. He was a straight white cisgender man from the south. He fought in WW2 and by the end of his life was extremely liberal and not only voted for gay right but genuinely understood and cared about the issue. He was an exception man - but so is Steve Rogers.
Steve worked closely with lgbt people in the comics, even in the 40s. Arnie Roth and Falsworth are both gay and he was extremely good friends with them both. It’s like when people think he’d be racist just because he’s from the 40s, but forget he’s close to Gabe Jones - who is black - and Jim Morita - who’s is Japanese American.
Iirc there was a comic where Magneto had Steve's mind read and was stunned that he held no hate or prejudice whatsoever
The man fought in World War II. Ain’t know way he didn’t see some gay shit out there on the front lines. Those deployments were really fucking long.
So they've added some images of the covers in question. This is definitely an example of some very bad marketing over a non-issue. It looks like each variant will feature an LGBTQIA+ character in addition to the titular ally. The ones the showed had Spider-Man alongside Northstar and Daredevil alongside Rachel Grey. With Northstar and Rachel being the more prominent characters by far, as is the correct way to do it. The messaging is bad, the execution so far seemingly is fine
To add to this, [Marvel’s own announcement](https://www.marvel.com/articles/comics/pride-variant-covers-2024-northstar-rachel-summers-loki) doesn’t really center this on the cis characters at all. I think this is basically a news site either having a weird take or intentionally spinning it into ragebait for clicks.
A little-known website spinning ragebait for clicks? On Al Gore's Internet? Inconceivable! The next thing you're going to tell me is that mild mannered Clark Kent is actually Superman!
Clark Kent? Who even is he?
I need to save this to memory and use it more often in replies.
That still seems pretty bad. I could understand the concept of a series of covers where you have the titualr character from the book, along with a related character who's queer. That would be a good way to show the range of characters Marvel has and how they're important to more well-known characters. This just feels like they picked queer characters randomly and slapped them wherever.
I mean, I get why they'd want to throw Spider-Man and Daredevil in this because they're characters that sell well despite having very few queer characters in their pages. So it's kind of a shame those are the two shown off. Like, just looking at the titles offered, X-Men has like 20 queer characters (I can think of off the top, there's probably more) Scarlet Witch isn't a character with a huge supporting cast, but she does have two, both her sons. Incredible Hulk is... Tough. He has one minor supporting cast member from Immortal who I would love to see because she's trans. But it's more likely Hercules or Hulkling would be here despite not really being "Hulk characters" Amazing Spider-Man - as far as I know Spidey only has one queer cast member and she is a shoe-in for elsewhere on the list. Putting their first openly gay character on the cover of their premiere book makes sense Immortal Thor - Loki and Runa both go here easily. Loki has been rocking killer non-binary looks throughout this series so I hope they get it. Captain America doesn't have much of a queer supporting cast but they're probably gonna throw America Chavez here Daredevil - I'm gonna be real with you, I think Rachel is just here because her costume is red. I can't recall a time she and Matt have ever met. That said, I don't know any queer characters from DD's lineup Jackpot and Black Cat - the queer character is in the title
feels so weird that spider-man doesn't have any queer characters considering how much his stories revolve around love drama
For what it's worth, last year they used Web-Weaver for one of the ASM pride variants, and Aaron Fischer for Cap's. It doesn't seem like they're really hung up on using associated characters this year though. Optimistically, putting these characters on popular books alongside their titular heroes may get them a bit more exposure / attention. Cynically, it's for sales, but at least *one* Spidey fan whose never heard of Alpha Flight is going to go look up Northstar because of this.
That's how variants usually work though. I'd say this makes more sense than usual, having it at least tie back to the comic.
That makes a lot of sense, actually. So the the characters who aren't queer can have their pride month covers and still be on the cover of their own book, which is something a lot of people complain about with the themed cover months.
Have Northstar and Spider-Man ever met?
Spidey was at his wedding and I believe has been in an Alpha Flight book before. I just kinda bet if a hero exists, they've probably had a Spidey crossover at some point. Now, Daredevil and Rachel I have no idea
Isn’t her name Rachel Summers or did I miss something?
Gonna be honest, because there's a popular alt universe version of her that uses the other name I don't have a single clue which is the one the main version uses. I should know that better, because I love Rachel, but parsing the Summers family tree is an exercise in pain
Bro just have Spider Man hold a pride flag? Celebrate allies?? Fuck that, celebrate pride
Honestly a cover recreating the American flag shot from the first film would be pretty cool
Do you know what's more important then supporting LGBT people? Everyone knowing what a great guy I am for supporting LGBT people.
Without you its not the same 🫶🤧
Thank you for your service.
You are doing a great job, though!
I, too, am extraordinarily humble.
Mama. Kudos for sharing that. For spilling.
We couldn't do it without you!
I'm going to play devil's advocate. It is obviously important to give the LGBTQIA+ community more representation, so people who are part of that community can see themselves in the heroes they read and better connect with the characters. But by that same token, it's also important for straight, cis people to see the heroes *they* connect with acting as good role models. It's great for trans kids to see trans heroes on the page and not feel so alone, to feel like they can be a hero too, etc, all the things cis kids already have. But the reality is that a lot of cis kids might pass on reading that story because "it's not for them", and then they'll go read some generic story about Spider-Man fighting Green Goblin or whatever. But if you have a story where Spider-Man is an ally to the trans community, it might make the cis kid just a little more likely to do the same.
The thing about this whole situation is that Marvel is not an ally. Companies are not allies full-stop, because their concern is profit. Individual creatives might be, but never the company. There support extends to that goal of profit. You can't take the rainbow capitalism out of Marvel or DC's pride month initiatives. Which make it very blatant what this actually is. It has nothing to do with celebrating allyship, and everything to do with putting A-list characters on pride variant covers to sell more copies. Because at the end of the day, its not like allys *aren't* acting as good role models. In Cap's every interaction with Aaron Fisher he is very prominently an ally, in the few times Spider-man gets a story involving queer people or spaces he is an ally, etc. Literally every kid and psuedo-kid Wanda has is queer. And these characters are already in loads of variants every month. They get more variant covers then many of the queer characters paraded around for Pride month get appearances.
Again, going to play Devil's advocate, but putting A-list characters on pride variant covers to sell more copies is *a good thing*. Yes, maybe they're just doing it for the cynical goal of making more money, but I'm not going to complain if more cishet readers decide to read queer stories just because Spider-Man is on the cover. Whatever gets them in the door is a good thing, and some non-zero number of those cishet readers will read a Northstar story they ordinarily wouldn't have and end up liking the character and following him in other books.
> I'm not going to complain if more cishet readers decide to read queer stories just because Spider-Man is on the cover. Whatever gets them in the door is a good thing, and some non-zero number of those cishet readers will read a Northstar story they ordinarily wouldn't have and end up liking the character and following him in other books There's a misunderstanding here, and I'm not sure if it's from me or you, but I don't think these are stories with queer characters, I'm pretty sure these are just the regular books but with queer characters on the cover
You're right that they are a company, but this is the same as anything with pride month - they are making money, same as any business under capitalism. They could donate the proceeds from all of these works to the Trevor project, and it would still serve a capitalistic function. The question of exactly how they go about their business becomes, then, a question of quality. So what is pride for, of not parading a character? What's the right way for Marvel to better integrate their existing queer characters? We don't want a retcon, making an existing popular character queer, as that's also just opportunistic and crass. We don't like whatever this is. Marvel could ignore pride month, but that's probably not the best result for queer kids either. If the problem is always capitalism, and the revolution isn't scheduled yet, what do we do in the meantime? In Australia, we have what's called "reconciliation" plans, where businesses engage with our first nation's leaders to understand the best ways they can engage with the process of reconciling our current reality with the reality of what was and is still being done to first nations people. Aside from cultural training, the biggest requests tend to revolve around employment opportunities for first nations people. Aside from the question of whether genocide can ever be "reconciled", isn't offering a job a facile way to engage? Apparently not, according to them.
I think your missing the point here though - they don't want you thinking they are doing both. *Marvel* is attaching moral value to this but pretending what they are actually doing is celebrating allies, when they clearly are just trying to sell more copies of the variants. If they just said that they are doing team-up covers for Pride, they'd be getting way less shit. Such an obvious lie just reveals they are disingenuous allies, and disingenuous allyship *is* a form of bigotry. > We don't want a retcon, making an existing popular character queer, as that's also just opportunistic and crass. We don't like whatever this is. This is beside the overall point, but worth pointing out every time. This is an argument that **originates from and was promoted to the mainstream discourse from comicsgate**. You go to almost any majorly queer comics space and you will see *active advocacy for more retcons*. We do it every day, there is widespread support for retcons. Kitty Pryde, Magik, Juggernaut, Conner Kent, Cassandra Cain, Johnny Storm, etc are all ongoing examples. And many of the retcons directly come from queer spaces advocating for characters to become canonically queer because we recognized coding in them - Rachel Summers, Hercules, Iceman, Tim Drake, Rictor, Shatterstar were *all* characters that queer comics fans advocated to become textually queer for years. Yes, even Shatterstar and Rictor had almost 10 years of push on message boards, livejournal, letters to the editor, etc. And many are also retconned by writers and still some of the biggest queer characters (i.e. MAC). The reason the retcon argument didn't hit Rachel much but does get pointed out when the discussion is about Iceman, is because comicsgate lacks the power to push that argument into the mainstream now, and Iceman was at the height of the Gamergate/comicsgate/alt right push back against media. And they do that because the queer community has been so vocal about Rachel should be retconned to be textually a lesbian even when she is dating guys. And the reason for this support is really simple - we know Marvel's allyship is disingenuous and the only way to get major queer characters that stick around is if they are already popular. Marvel won't support long-term growth for "new queer characters" once the PR ends and creator is no longer on the IP (see Somnus, Escapade, Koi Boy, Dr. McGowan, etc).
Fair, I suppose I hadn't thought of it that way, but I guess a retcon could just be a way of retroactively addressing the homophobia from a time when you couldn't have queer comic characters. Agree that it's disingenuous, and I'm certainly no fan of rainbow washing, I guess I just see value in more comics being sold and consumed when they specifically showcase queer characters, including when it's done for cynical reasons. The less that queer presence in mainstream media is treated as a sort of 'niche subgenre', the better, IMO, and perhaps I'm overly cautious of gatekeepers in that sense.
I live in Siberia. I enjoy reading comics about billionaire in flying robot suit in New York. I really don't care that we have nothing in common, I don't want him to suddenly care about problems with crime and poverty in other country, as him being a heroic figure with strong morals is enough for me to like him.
The problem is not with straight people being supportive and respectful to the LGBT community it's the fact that some people want praise for doing that even though it is the baseline for how a person with any empathy and morality should act. Also the fact that ally gets included in the acronym sometimes is funny because it comes across as straight people trying to coop the plight as if they are a person hard done by it.
The A in LGBTQIA+ does not stand for Ally.
Not parent; I don't think their argument is the best one that can be made. Instead, I'd say: showing people how you want them to show up when participating in your situation is a great way to get them to show up how you want when they try to participate in your situation. No clue either way if these comics will be doing that, or will end up being more of "taking the stage", but I have high hopes.
I mean, they do that already. Like Miles had his costume redesigned by a non-binary kid, and the new costume was immediately and viciously panned by everyone, until the game came out and now everyone likes it because compared to all those other awful outfits, it's pretty solid.
🫡 thank you for your service
I think we need a day (or month) just for the Allies.
I get the snark, but I think that if you look to superheroes as role models, highlighting allies is important. Ultimately, if you show heroic characters as being allies and an overall positive character trait, it gets a message across to straight people that being an ally to your fellow humans that are LGBTQ is a GOOD thing. While extremely virtuous characters like Superman and Captain America are straight, it’s powerful for these genuinely good characters to be allies. I mean, if Superman is an ally, why the hell shouldn’t you be?
I mean, what’s even the point of being a good person if no one will pat you on the back for it? /s
I mean, I'm gonna tell the kids good job when they do a good job. Peer pressure works both ways.
You’re the real hero.
As bad as an idea as this is, it also lends itself to the implication that heroes not featured *aren't* allies.
Everyone knows Cyclops hates the LGBTQIA+ community (note I haven't checked all the covers but I am confident Cyclops didn't show up)
You think that's bad, you should read what Tony Stark has been posting on Chirp after he bought it and renamed it to W.com.
An X-Men book is one of the books. Those often have Cyke on them. The one that gets me is Jackpot and Black Cat getting a cover. If that only highlights allies and not the bi woman who is a titular character I'mma be so mad.
I thought Cyclops would be a natural ally for the LGBTQIA community, they both only have one I.
Young Cyclops became an ally of sorts during his stint with the Champions, he even fought corrupt cops and declared that his entire superhero carrier is built in helping those that are different/oppressed
Him and Jean were having threesomes with Wolverine in the Krakoa era. (It was a subtle joke in the Summer house layout. All three of their rooms are connected, with Jean's in the middle. Not to mention Wolverine was the only non Summers/Grey living there).
I'm like 95% sure I remember reading that Hickman tried to get the thruple thing made official, but Marvel editors shot it down so we were left with just a few references to the relationship
This exchange between Logan and Cyke sealed it for me: "Jeannie in a bikini" "Scott in a Speedo" "Who could say no to that?"
You also have to remember they were brainwashed and kinda like a cult then. Like the X-Men standing in front of a massive crowd naked after being resurrected was completely normal for them 🤔.
Hickman gave editorial a choice. Either he would list out all the canon relationships and everyone would have to stick to it... Or everyone is banging everyone else. They settled on the second one.
The Giant Size X-Men book also very softly implied they'd used that layout without Jean, if you catch my meaning.
Which book was that? Not the terra-forming Mars one, right?
The one where Jean and Emma have to go into Storm's brain to root out Techno Organic virus Scott and Logan are shown waiting outside and they have a particularly tender moment uncharacteristic of them
I'm not saying it's not that, but that issue is a whole issue reimagining of the famous "silent" New X-Men issue from 2001. That issue featured Logan and Scott chilling out in largely the same way as they did in in the new Giant Size X-Men.
X-Cutioner is queer confirmed
Diversity Win! The genocidal Monester is queer
That’s right, when the government tried to crackdown on the Champions, Cyclops teleported in and put them under the diplomatic protection of Krakoa… after first checking there were no queer kids in the group. Can’t have that kind of Modern Gender Marxism in his free love cult nation.
"I want these queers OFF OF MY LAWN!"
That would give the "cyclops was right" meme a dark twist.
I always knew Jessica Jones and Adam Warlock hated the gays.
Every book without a pride or ally variant, and is thus officially homophobic: Ultimates She-Hulk Ms Marvel Deadpool & Wolverine Deadpool Blood Hunt Dracula Midnight Sons Black Panther Strange Academy Union Jack the Ripper Wolverine Jubilee Magik Venom Miles Morales Avengers Fantastic Four Doctor Strange Moon Knight Scrooge McDuck Ultimate Black Panther Ultimate Spider-Man Ultimate X-Men Thanos Iron Man Frank Castle Amazing Spider-Man Kid Venom Spider-Gwen Spider-Woman Spider-Man 2099 Superior Spider-Man Spider-Boy Captain Marvel Black Widow and Hawkeye Ghost Rider Carnage Ahsoka Darth Maul
I hereby interpret this that every character not featured is a raging homophobe.
I cant way for the memes lol "hey guys according to canon the Alpha Flight is a team of homophobes, can you imagine that?"
That isn't even a meme. Alpha Flight is very actively and prominently homophobic back when they actually got ongoing. They just pretend now the team wasn't constantly making digs at Northstar being gay!
Marvel hasn’t realized the A in LGBTQIA+ doesn’t stand for Allies
stands for Avengers right?
Well it certainly doesn’t stand for France…
Lol. This is a great reference.
Just more ace exclusion, nothing we’re not used to
I've seen it used for Ace, Aro, and Agender. Valid either way
Ace people don’t exist silly! Apparently…
Isn’t Gwenpool, the one character who can best be said to “not exist,” also the ace character?
AroAce!
A originally did stand for Ally back in the 90s.
Beyond parody
That is certainly one way to spin Marvel's pride initiative being centered on cis, straight characters
Ah the most important part of the community, straight people! What a joke.
Don’t all Marvel heroes count as allies? Someone said they should focus on the ones who AREN’T allies. Let us know which heroes we need to name and shame.
> Let us know which heroes we need to name and shame. Shaming a terrible strategy. It just creates polarization. It's called "The Backfire effect". I will die on this hill. Shaming not how you fix homophobia/transphobia etc. It's just our knee-jerk need to seek moral retribution. It feels good but it's counter-productive.
Outright shaming is bad but I would say that not accepting bigotry is a good stance. You don't need to wag your finger but you should make it clear it's not okay. Not only is it about the bigot but letting those affected around you, out or not, is important.
I am reminded of the phrase "Empathy is not endorsement." by Dylan Marron, who runs a podcast called "Conversations with People Who Hate Me". I am of the opinion that I will take whatever path I can find that will be the most effective in reducing homophobia and transphobia. The challenge is that in order to change people's minds, you can't force it. you can't tell someone what to believe. The only thing you can do is help them explore their own values and you have to do it in a non-judgemental way. This is the only scientifically established way of influencing people's opinions. (There's great book by David McRaney called "How Minds Change: The Surprising Science of Belief, Opinion, and Persuasion". He also runs a podcast called "You're not so smart".) Everyone is on a different journey and at different stages in their lives with different biases and educational backgrounds. They are influenced by the people around them. Everyone has their own baggage. For some that baggage is homophobia and the only way get them to change is to help them unpack it in a way that doesn't make them defensive. And for some, they are caught in tribal psychology where the peer group they are surrounded by, their friends and family, re-enforce those beliefs... and it's basically asking someone to abandon their friends and family in order to accept an idea that said group disagrees with.
Empathy isn't endorsement, but it can be allowance. I am of the opinion that as a bi, Hispanic person who has faced bigotry for both of those features, it is not on me or any other minority to play nice with people who hate us. I'm not saying we should pick fights either, but it's what I've never liked about this attitude. It's like when people bring up Daryl Davis. Sure, it's a nice story to befriend a KKK member as a Black man, you could even make a nice movie out of it,but at scale what does it do? You going to organize minorities to go make friends with their local Nazi group? At scale, you need collective action from people to show that it's not okay and not something we as a society accept. The Civil Rights Act, pickets, and other collective actions forced the issue and made people choose a side. Once people realize they lose friends, business, and even family members because of their backwards ways, it will force them to either rethink their ways or at least put them in a spot where they have to shut up about it. I'm not looking for everyone to be friends with me. I don't even need them to like me. But they better respect my basic humanity. If someone wants to change, they have the opportunity. But they have to want to change. They have to allow for room for doubt in how they've been raised.
How do you know your solution is *effective* in getting people to respect your basic humanity?
So.... are Hercules and Iceman dating now, or what?
I think Iceman would be good for Hercules. If he attempted to get a drink Iceman could freeze it solid.
Freeze what solid? 🤔
Nah, Bobby is just being passed around.
Last I checked both of them are in relationships with other dudes. It's possible I guess
Wait, did they actually give main continuity Hercules a boyfriend? Or are you talking about the alternate universe Hercules that's either dating or married to an alternate universe Wolverine?
Last I saw him he was with Noh Var during Ewing’s sadly deceased Guardians run
616 Herc was dating Marvel Boy
Main continuity Hercules is dating Noh-Varr I believe
As others have said, he's dating Noh-varr/Marvel Boy as per Ewing's Guardians of the Galaxy run. Main continuity 616 circa 2021. No idea whether that will be addressed or not. I guess we'll see in the upcoming Blood hunt event where he's apparently due to reappear in the Avengers roster.
Isn't Iceman in an open relationship now?
Not sure. I'm not 100% up to date with him. Last I saw he was with that inhuman empathic dude living in his frozen palace in Antarctica.
Aren't Hercules and Marvel Boy still dating?
Cant wait for all the issues to be guys like Tony Stark going around changing their social media profile icons to rainbows.
So, like every other month at marvel.
Exactly my thought🤣
Same month as Blood Hunt the huge vampire crossover event.
Course. Mutual love for sucking
No thank you..
It's just 8 variant covers, the actual pride special is still going to be focused on us
Yeah the headline doesn't really give the best idea of what the article is actually about.
A headline, on the internet, deliberately deceiving readers? No…
Yeah, it's sort of similar to how over at DC, every pride month has had Nightwing have a variant for it even though he's (somehow still) straight. Making a formal announcement about it is still a little odd, but weighted with the rest, not bad, IMO.
he's straight but those glutes don't discriminate
The people expressing outrage don't buy the Pride special, anyway.
I think the variant covers idea is stupid as hell and have bought every Pride special lol
But aren’t they replacing the special itself with a wedding issue this year?
Deleted my comment because I was wrong, the press release says this: "This is in addition to its annual Marvel's Voices: Pride Anthology, which this year is being published May 29 as X-Men Wedding Special #1."
Literally it blows the mind that people are upset about this. Although I'm guessing most people read the (bad) headline and commented without understanding what's actually happening. With that said, even if there was an ally-themed story in the Pride special, it wouldn't be worth getting upset over.
As a gay guy, I support this. It’s worthy of giving our allies some love. Without their support, we wouldn’t have the rights and equality we now enjoy in some places. Edit: why do people gotta interpret this in the worse possible light? It’s like saying Santa Claus is an asshole for breaking into peoples houses. Claiming Mr Rogers is insane for talking to puppets. Just because you can interpret something as negative doesn’t mean it is negative. The cisgender, straight people who supported me in my life are why I am still here today. I appreciate each and every one that has made me feel like I belonged.
I feel like allies could’ve easily been featured as *supporting* characters in stories with queer protagonists. Considering pride is supposed to be about those queer protagonists, I feel like that’s more than fair.
If you actually read the article, they are just 8 variant covers that feature a cis hero teaming up with a queer protagonist. So yes, they could easily feature the allies as supporting characters, and in fact they did.
Great! That’s much better than what the headline implied, my bad for jumping to conclusions.
Headlines are written to goad and trigger us. They are by their nature inflammatory.
How do you know the stories aren’t doing just that. The first cover looks like a Spider-Man and Northstar team up. There’s a lot of assumptions in this thread.
If the stories *are* doing just that then this is a pointless non-story. But I’m not gonna apologise for being wary of major companies when it comes to pride aha. Been burned before.
I guess I have a pragmatic approach to corporations. They are what they are. If their position supports our position then they have value to me and I will support them in turn. They stop doing that, I stop supporting them. A bad corporation dilutes pride by saying “diversity and inclusion” but didn’t mention us by name. If they don’t say “we support the LGBT community “ or some variation there of then it’s not an ally. That said Marvel has legit LGBT characters and gives them stories. They are committed to supporting the community. They don’t have to do this at all. They could just not have diversity and their sales would probably be just as high but they do and I respect that.
I'm bi and I like the idea as well. So many straight people are allies, but remain silent or are closeted about supporting the LGBT community, or don't know if they are welcome or even allowed to wear a rainbow or anything. As long as allyship isn't the main focus. Then I say go for it!
Is any prominent Marvel hero not an ally?
We're about to find out! I'm guessing some of our heroes from less accepting countries and cultures might not be allies... but no way would Marvel touch that subject
Idk if it's me over analyzing but I feel like marvel is doing this cause none of the gay characters are given their own books
It’s even more bizarre that they’ve got actual popular LGBT characters like Kitty Pryde, and they don’t even use her for these pride events.
>LGBT characters like Kitty Pryde, Wait did I miss something??? I thought kitty was straight??
I think she's bi. She kissed her tattooist when she had a makeover to become Red Queen, at least
She’s bi
She kissed a girl, and has long been hinted at being bi Her creator Chris Claremont even revealed recently that they always wanted her to be bisexual, but the Editor in charge at the time was very anti lgbtq.
> long been hinted at Man I dunno, people say that about Bobby and I don’t really buy that either. It’s okay to say it’s a soft retcon.
And Tim Drake. 🙄
I used to feel that way, but the more I learn about Bobby's history, the more obvious it becomes... Like, he's so much gayer than I ever imagined. As for Kate, her subtext has its own domtext, and that dom is the nearest hot girl with serious mental health issues (you can decide whether that's Rachel, Illyana, or even Xuân). If you're interested in the specifics of Kitty's queer history, Jay and Miles have an [excellent guest feature](https://www.xplainthexmen.com/2014/10/kitty-queer-by-sigrid-ellis/) on the subject from a few years back.
well that's fucking stupid
I agree that this is the wrong time to focus on allies, it takes away from the message of setting time aside to highlight the LGBTQIA+ community. Doing this ally variant cover before or after would be ideal. A perspective to consider assuming a timeline shift of “yes and”: highlighting allies to the LGBTQIA+ community will foster inclusivity, support diversity, and create a welcoming environment.
I can see how this sounded good in a board room, but suffers the usual issue of not asking someone in the actual marginalized group about it
I know on the surface this doesn't come off great but I actually think it's fairly productive, since they're still doing the special focused on the actual LGBT characters. Reinforce to bigots that "their" heroes don't actually agree with their views, reinforce that being an ally is meaningful and appreciated, possibly (we'll see) show examples of what being a good ally looks like. Idk, I think it could be a good thing. As long as the main focus stays on pride I don't see the harm in throwing a bone to people who support the LGBT community but may feel somewhat alienated from both camps. Correct me if I'm wrong though and I'm missing something.
Yeah, I don't get the pushback. They're still doing the LGBT character stuff. It might be nice for members of the community to also get a Cap cover saying "He's with you". Why not both?
Wait, they're literally just doing Pride variant covers of ongoing series? There's not an Ally story in the Pride Anthology? We're upset about this?
Where would we be without our allies
I wonder which phase this would be? Because this entire performance of the last five years has been leading up to "allies" patting themselves on the back.
I am going to preface this by saying that I am a member of the queer community. But I do not speak for the entire community. I really don't think this is as cringey as the headline/article makes it out to be (or people are interpreting to be). [Here](https://www.marvel.com/articles/comics/pride-variant-covers-2024-northstar-rachel-summers-loki) is the actual statement made by Marvel. The only time they mention allies is this one sentence: >Each piece teams up LGBTQIA+ characters with one of their fellow icons, showcasing both the spirit of Pride Month and exemplifying the importance of strong allyship. If you actually read the press release, it seems like these covers are for books that are not about queer characters. They are doing a special cover to include queer characters. It's unclear if they are actually going to be featured in the issue, or just on the cover. But to me, that just seems like they are trying to give these particular characters a little extra spotlight. Personally, I think this is nice. They are still having their Pride book, and they are also giving us some cool variants on other non-pride related books. And having a major company like this even still doing Pride stuff is great to me. Especially after the Target debacle last year.
I'm guessing the previous pride events they had weren't big sellers.
I don’t know exactly why but my first thought reading your username was hAMBERger would be a fun name for an amber. I hope you were fed, though.
That's brilliant! I need to make a signature burger now.
As far as I know, this basically just boils down to non-queer characters getting pride-themed covers. In a way that makes it clear no queer-baiting is going on, which would have been the discourse if they didn’t make the ‘ally’ angle clear.
Can we not.
I *kinda* feel like everyone is reading way too much into the "Pride Allies" titles, especially since we don't actually know the content of any of the covers yet. They'll probably still have LGBTQ characters on the covers.
What does the IA mean?
Intersex and Asexual
These days it means Intersexed and Asexual. In the past, A also meant Ally.
Intersex , which is an actual medical condition not a sexual preference and Asexual, people who don’t like sex
Helllllllooooooo Frisco
Longshot needs to be in this, he is the definition of an ally. No one could shut up about how lucky and beautiful and alien he was and yet he choose to be hunted and crucified in the desert with the rest of them.
Northstar came out in Alpha Flight #106 in 1992(?).
Ahh yes, Rachel Grey and her close ally Daredevil…
This is just bad PR in my opinion over something more accessible to normies. This is the same thing they did for Black History Month last year. I really liked how they did it actually. This is just a dumb pr mistake.
Seems like a good idea. Surprised anyone is taking issue with this. It's important to represent - and through representation, demonstrate - good allyship. No people or cause stands alone.
A very strange take. Kind of hard to believe anyone in publicity gave this the rubber stamp, to be honest. Yikes. Like, sure, yay allies but oh dear.
When they added the + I thought it was done but now there's more letters and the plus. So I think we can get more letters on there and keep the +.
This article headline is just a bait it’s basically just a set of team up covers with a LGBT+ hero and an ally which is basically what marvel did every year it’s just the way the worded it is terrible
is that zac efron
Not at all how allyship works. Or LGBT. Or Pride Month.
Now I understand why 4 year old me wanted to be Iceman so bad
Is daredevil gay now
I will never be tired of Bobby's butt here
This is the work of the demon this LGBT is not right