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Gays in Superteams
Jun. 15th, 2007 01:26 pmSome current percentages, for the Marvel teams I currently read:
The Fantastic Four: 25% (subtly) bisexual.
(Storm is currently in a happy heterosexual marriage, but my interpretation of her relationship with Yukio is that Claremont was hinting Storm was bi, but wasn't allowed to outright say it.)
The Young Avengers: 29% gay.
The Runaways: 17% lesbian, 17% androgynous shape-shifting alien who's a lesbian in romantic situations and a guy in combat situations.
(Not counting the dinosaur as a member of the team.)
Hmm . . back in the 1960s, the formula when you were creating a superteam was "a smart guy, a big strong guy, a young hothead, and a woman". The notion being that "woman" wasn't, y'know, half the human race, but rather a role that could be adequately filled by one person per team.
(This is an improvement over the 1940s, of course, where the formula was "all guys -- oh, I suppose Wonder Woman can be our secretary".)
These days (modulo the fact that many writers are still working with characters created prior to 1970) a superteam is more likely to be gender-balanced (like the Runaways, who have been about 33% male for most of their history). The new role that must be filled when you're creating the team is apparently "GLBT". Fortunately, percentage-wise, this works out a lot better, since one or two GLBT people per team actually more than matches their presence in the general population. We've even reached the point where it's treated as largely incidental . . .
The Fantastic Four: 25% (subtly) bisexual.
(Storm is currently in a happy heterosexual marriage, but my interpretation of her relationship with Yukio is that Claremont was hinting Storm was bi, but wasn't allowed to outright say it.)
The Young Avengers: 29% gay.
The Runaways: 17% lesbian, 17% androgynous shape-shifting alien who's a lesbian in romantic situations and a guy in combat situations.
(Not counting the dinosaur as a member of the team.)
Hmm . . back in the 1960s, the formula when you were creating a superteam was "a smart guy, a big strong guy, a young hothead, and a woman". The notion being that "woman" wasn't, y'know, half the human race, but rather a role that could be adequately filled by one person per team.
(This is an improvement over the 1940s, of course, where the formula was "all guys -- oh, I suppose Wonder Woman can be our secretary".)
These days (modulo the fact that many writers are still working with characters created prior to 1970) a superteam is more likely to be gender-balanced (like the Runaways, who have been about 33% male for most of their history). The new role that must be filled when you're creating the team is apparently "GLBT". Fortunately, percentage-wise, this works out a lot better, since one or two GLBT people per team actually more than matches their presence in the general population. We've even reached the point where it's treated as largely incidental . . .
