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Iceman’s Queer History & Analysis- Northstar and the Glass Closet during the Early 2000s

Art by PoorlyDone-XMenSketches.

Welcome back, if you have not read the previous entries to this series, please read them first!

In this entry, we look at Bobby’s writing in the early 2000s; this is during Grant Morrison’s deeply influential tenure with the x-books, and during the peak of the Fox X-Men movies hype. It was a grand time for the X-Men fandom, as the stories of the late 90s were not very well received, and Marvel itself was on the verge of bankruptcy, which led them to sell the film licenses of their top brands to studios like Fox and Sony.

With the films, and Morrison’s run, the X-Men were given a major cultural spotlight which rivalled the early 90s craze of X-Men The Animated Series, and Jim Lee’s influential aesthetic of the early 90s comics. The series had a huge multimedia presence at this time with the first 2 Fox movies, a second animated series in the form of X-Men Evolution, and multiple video games in the form of X-Men Mutant Academy 1 and 2, X-Men Legends 1 and 2, and Marvel Vs. Capcom 2. It was truly an X-Men renaissance.

Some characters were not folded into Morrison’s vision, and needed a satellite X-Book to find their homes in; Iceman, Angel and Nightcrawler starred in a darker revision of Uncanny X-Men, written by Joe Casey. His run was short lived but the cast and title would be picked up by the infamous Chuck Austen.

Under Casey’s pen, Bobby had his usual snark and could be a bit of a jerk here and there, however he did not really receive much of a character arc, as it was a shorter run which focused on the mutant world post Morrison, and explored fringe mutant subcultures like a mutant brothel and a mutant underground in London. Austen, however, had a very character focused run, and more importantly, for this essay, an emphasis on queer themes and actual representation, that was unseen beforehand in mainstream comics.

He was tasked to reintegrate Northstar into the fold, as he had been an underutilized character who was also one of the only prominent gay characters amongst both Marvel and DC comics. He famously came out in 1992, however, the controversy around having a gay superhero during such a homophobic climate; still riddled by the effects of the AIDs epidemic, caused the character to be shelved, and his queerness would not be acknowledged or explored in any degree of depth again until Chuck Austen’s run.

Compared to the early 90s, the early 2000s presented a different climate for queer politics and visibility. Ellen DeGeneres had come out, which caused a shift in public discourse in Western culture and entertainment around openly gay celebrities. Additionally, the tragic hate crime and murder of Matthew Shepard caused a huge uproar and the conversation around gay rights became much more within the fringes of public discourse. Many wanted gay people to be depicted with more dignity and respect, and of course, this would be relevant in X-Men comics, which often directly mirror cultural discourses around whatever political climate they are positioned in; particularly around the rights and liberties of marginalized groups.

All of these factors likely informed and pushed the inclusion of Northstar as a main character to be used in Chuck Austen’s Uncanny X-Men.

With that in mind, one of the major character dynamics that Northstar develops in Austen’s run was with Iceman. Bobby’s story with Northstar was inspired by a gay friend that Austen had in real life, named Steve; Iceman’s inner conflict in this run is inspired by Steve’s experiences with other gay men that were self hating, closeted, and leaned on presenting as heterosexual in order to mask their self loathing (Graymalkin Lane, 2022. Around the 40:00 mark.).

Informed by these themes, Austen wrote Bobby as closeted, and not only that but in Austen’s mind, Bobby would actually end up in a relationship with Northstar, as he says verbatim in this clip:

This clip comes from Power of X-Men’s interview with Chuck Austen, which will also be linked in the References section (around the 1hr 19 min mark).

With this, Austen confirms that not only did he write Bobby as closeted, he was also written as both a foil and a love interest for Northstar, informed by the experiences of a real gay friend he had. He also mentions Bobby’s parents being a major force of his inner conflict around his sexuality, which confirms that his run is inspired by the closeted gay themes previously analyzed in Lobdell’s run.

Bobby’s writing during this time can be broken down into a few core themes that will be explored in this essay, and as written above, all of them are informed by queerness. Those themes include: passing as normal in order to not face your true self; and how concealing your true self causes you to become self loathing. This self loathing can then leak into your other relationships, characterized by Bobby being a jerk throughout this series, to people he otherwise cares about.

This relates directly to what Austen described with his gay friend; the notion that some gay men repress who they are in order to pass into heterosexual male culture, and how the end result of that is self loathing that pushes others away. Lastly, the build up between Northstar and Iceman as potential love interests, will also be explored in relation to these conflicts, but also in relation to the larger, queer fandom context.

To start, early in Austen’s run, Bobby gets impaled by Black Tom Cassidy. He recovers and reforms himself, however he is now unable to completely reform into his regular human self. He is slowly turning into a real ice person, and may never be able to look “normal” again. He desperately visits the school Nurse: Annie, who is tending to an injured Northstar.

Northstar is attracted to Bobby early on, and seems to have a big crush on him. He is usually snarky and sharp tongued, but around Bobby, Northstar is a bit awkward and shy, as pointed out by Nurse Annie, who is then able to put two and two together:

After stepping out with Nurse Annie, and nervously showcasing his solid ice chest to her, the two walk back into the medical room and Bobby makes a playful jab at Northstar, which leads to Annie suggesting he take Northstar out to get something to eat. Bobby is actually down for this, showcasing that he does actually have some interest in Northstar. As the two make their way to dinner, Bobby is stopped by an estranged mutant woman, who uses her pheromone powers on him; this was just a lure and Bobby ends up getting attacked. Northstar comes to his rescue, and Bobby recites this famous line:

This is very overt flirting and this whole dynamic between Northstar and Bobby set off a thousand ships in the fandom. It cannot be understated how influential this was at the time; the first time a canon gay character in Northstar being conveyed as a superhero, with blatant shipteasing with the long theorized to be closeted Bobby Drake?

Queer fans really latched onto this and it only continued in later issues of the run. This dynamic was so influential to queer readers at the time, that Batman and Amazing X-Men writer, James Tynion IV recalls the feeling while reading it when he was younger: “it felt revelatory and strange, and it meant everything for me, because I finally EXISTED in the fictional world that I was always escaping to.” (Tynion IV, 2015). This really encapsulates how influential it was at the time, there was nothing else like it that would occur until Alan Heinberg’s Young Avengers.

Despite the flirting, Northstar concludes that Bobby is straight, but he never realized that Bobby was only pulled away from him due to the renegade mutant girl using her pheromones. Despite his presumption, the two continue to have a bit of a dynamic, this will be revisited soon.

As stated, Bobby’s core character conflict in this run revolves around the fear of no longer being able to pass as a human, this amplifies Bobby’s self loathing, and causes a desperate attempt for him to latch onto the glory days of the past. His self loathing seeps into all of his friendships; he pushes away his friends; he threatens Northstar, dismisses Kurt, makes light of Warren’s conflicts, makes uncalled for comments about Stacy X and about Rogue to Gambit, and dismisses the idea that Juggernaut deserves a place amongst the X-Men, despite Charles Xavier himself accepting the ex-villain.

Lorna and Alex also return to the X-Men, and get engaged, which triggers Bobby’s feelings of inferiority. He becomes obsessed with wanting a girlfriend, in order to still feel “normal” despite his changing body. This demonstrates that he conflates “normalcy” with “heterosexuality”, and that he can only be happy and loved if he accomplishes this, even if he can no longer pass as human, it’s the one shred of normalcy and happiness he can latch onto.

Where the contradiction for Bobby lies is that he treats Lorna and his other love interest, the aforementioned Nurse Annie, like interchangeable objects to make him feel loved, without ever considering who they are as people. This hilarious panel of him having photos of both of them by his bedside screams compulsive heterosexuality, as he just wants whatever girl Alex is with, and treats both women as interchangeable ideals:

They are trophies for him to win and feel normal around during a time of desperation and depression. They aren’t real people for him to love, but ideals for him to live up to because he hates the reality of himself.

Lorna’s bachelorette party also offers some hugely iconic panels that were posted all over gay comic forums for years:

Northstar and the girlies gush over how hot Gambit is, and then Jean comments on how Lorna has gotten more bold and open with her sexuality lately, to which Lorna reveals that she and Bobby never even slept together while they were dating, which shocks Northstar. The emphasis on Northstar’s reaction is telling, as we know he has a thing for Bobby, but convinced himself that Bobby was straight.

On the other side of the lounge, Bobby is sitting by himself and is joined by Nurse Annie, there they talk about school gossip and Annie slips out that Northstar is gay, which shocks Bobby, and his immediate response is to get flustered and think of his own perceived sexuality, and how that relates to Northstar:

This is extra telling because Annie never even accused him of being gay or linked Bobby with Northstar in any way. It’s a connection Bobby himself makes, as he gets visibly uncomfortable with the conversation.

Annie also directly calls out Bobby’s need to pass as normal, and to fit in with larger society, confirming to the reader Bobby’s core conflict during this arc.

This pressure to pass as normal does not come from nowhere. We can see how abusive Bobby’s father was, as analyzed in the last entry of this series, and the huge amount of self loathing this kind of pressure causes gay men, often rooted in childhood. As stated previously, we know this is directly what Austen was drawing from, as per this story being inspired by his gay friend, with intentional closeted subtext.

According to Lu A (et al., 2019) the pressure placed on gay men to pass as straight and “normal” is a malignant, every day ordeal that has cumulative effects on mental health, and directly correlates to higher levels of shame and self loathing. As stated throughout this series, the pressure to fit into typical scripts around heterosexuality and masculinity harms gay men in a unique way, and this is at the core of Bobby’s conflicts in this run; as we see with his self loathing, his need to win a woman in order to grasp the last remnants of “normalcy” that is quickly evading him due to his developing mutation.

Gay men in a heteronormative society often develop a form of cognitive dissonance; the inner conflict between what they actually feel versus what society expects them to be; this can lead to the internalization of both shame and homophobia, and overcompensation by repressing your true self (Cheves, 2023).

Compulsive heterosexuality, or the expectation to live an exclusively heterosexual life, can also occur due to these social contingents, reinforcing shame and the need to conceal or repress traits that do not fit the heterosexual status quo (Pachankis et al., 2020). All of this encapsulates Bobby’s struggle in this era. Northstar is a brilliant foil because he is out, proud and unapologetic of who he is, but is still brand new to the team, whereas Bobby has been an X-Man since the very beginning.

Consequently, Bobby is in a very dark place in this era, his sense of autonomy is gone and he is used to having others tell him how to live his life, whether it be his parents, Professor Xavier or other authority figures. He genuinely does not know how to move forward on his own with all of his self loathing and internalized conflicts, especially as the truth about his secondary mutation gets revealed to his worried friends:

Bobby also loses both Annie and Lorna to Alex, which is not surprising and is in line with most of his relationships with women; in which something is not clicking, and they end up picking a man who is more passionate and has real chemistry with them. Considering Bobby has a theme now of being inattentive, and wanting to be with women due to a compulsive need to be seen as a normal guy, it’s not too surprising that they would leave him.

One of the only genuine points of happiness we see for Bobby is actually with Northstar. Northstar is killed in Mark Millar’s Wolverine run, and it is revealed that X-Men members usually have to write out their wills before joining. A sad reality of being a mutant soldier. Northstar wrote that he specifically wanted Bobby to recite a prayer for him during his funeral.

This is a rare and tender revelation for Bobby, as Dani Moonstar and Lorna let him know how highly Northstar thought of Bobby. This is the first time that Bobby himself is seen as respectable, capable and meaningful by someone else during this run, and it is coming from a gay man who he only got to spend a short time with, and is now gone. For the first time in the run, Bobby actually cries, which shocked Lorna to see, since he had been so macho and detached this whole time:

(This same scene is shown twice, once in Wolverine and again in Uncanny, hence the similar but slightly different panels above).

On a more wholesome note: the shippers feasted on another, earlier scene in Mark Millar’s Wolverine run, of Bobby leaning onto Northstar during a team meeting:

This shows a playful chemistry between the two, and it seems to go both ways.

As I said before, the impact this pair of characters had on queer comic fans at the time cannot be understated. As I mentioned earlier, it deeply impacted comic writer James Tynion IV, and caused thousands of fans to create fan content of the two, much of which has sadly been lost to time, due to the censoring of many fan works that feature m/m pairings.

I’m going to share some of that history which has been preserved.

First, here is a low quality example of a fanwork I always loved, from 2004/2005:

There is an old live journal community with posts and fics shared since 2004:

A Northstar/Iceman ship manifesto written all the way back in 2005:

This manifesto also goes into detail about Bobby’s general gay subtext and how it directly related to him being the most popular character to use in slash fics at the time.

And lastly, a fan mailing list and fic sharing hub for Northstar/Iceman, that has been archived:

The dynamic between Northstar and Iceman was one of the first meaningful depictions of gay identity, subtext, pining, conflict and potential love in mainstream superhero comics, and it had lasting impacts on queer readers. The Austen run further galvanized the idea that Bobby was closeted, and produced a popular queer fan pairing.

In conclusion, Bobby was written as a closeted gay man in this run, this is what many of us always felt, but now the writer has confirmed it. Therefore, Austen’s work deserved a critical re-examination on how it presented queer themes and how that informed a larger queer reading that would lead to Bobby canonically coming out.

References

Cheves, M.(2023). Afraid to Come Out: A Qualitative Examination of Concealing and Negotiating Gay Sexual Identity. Retrieved from: https://mavmatrix.uta.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1066&context=communication_theses

Graymalkin Lane Podcast. (2022). Interview with Chuck Austen! Retrieved from: https://redcircle.com/shows/graymalkin-lane-the-podcast/ep/63618fe1-c3a3-4b57-bc50-acf719aef448

Lu A, LeBlanc AJ, Frost DM. Masculinity and Minority Stress among Men in Same-sex Relationships. Soc Ment Health. 2019 Jul 1;9(2):259-275. doi: 10.1177/2156869318773425. Epub 2018 Jun 6. PMID: 32864183; PMCID: PMC7451237.

Pachankis JE, Mahon CP, Jackson SD, Fetzner BK, Bränström R. Sexual orientation concealment and mental health: A conceptual and meta-analytic review. Psychol Bull. 2020 Oct;146(10):831-871. doi: 10.1037/bul0000271. Epub 2020 Jul 23. PMID: 32700941; PMCID: PMC8011357.

Power of X-Men. (2022). Interview with X-Men Writer Chuck Austen. Retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=laqylJj61-Y Tynion IV, James. (2015). COMICS GET QUEER: James Tynion IV on his GLAAD Nomination.

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