Mon. April 16, 2012
Save the date. Marvel's first gay nuptials will happen June 20, 2012 in Astonishing X-Men #51, just in time for Gay Pride Month.
The first gay marriage in comic book history happened in 2002 between Apollo and Midnighter in WildStorm's The Authority. More recently, Kevin Keller and his boyfriend Clay had the first gay wedding in Riverdale in Life With Archie #16. And now, Marvel Comics will add one more happily wed gay couple to comic book history when Northstar marries his boyfriend Kyle in Astonishing X-Men #51.
Jean-Paul Beaubier (a.k.a. Northstar), the mutant speedster of the X-Men and Alpha Flight, was always intended to be gay but was not allowed to openly say it in print until 1992's Alpha Flight #106, more than thirteen years after his first appearance. Since coming out, he's had story lines where he has come to terms with his sexuality with his family, adopted a baby with HIV, and served as mentor to a gay student while teaching at Xavier's Institute for Higher Learning. He's had a subsequent unrequited love for fellow X-Man Bobby Drake (a.k.a. Iceman) and a brief flirtation with Hector of the Pantheon, yet it wasn't until 2009's Uncanny X-Men #508 that he gets a proper love interest And while his relationship with boyfriend/manager Kyle Jinadu suffers some strain when Jean-Paul splits his time between San Francisco with the X-Men and Vancouver with Kyle, the two have beat the odds. Marvel will officially announce the nuptials on May 22 and it is speculated that the official proposal will occur in Astonishing X-Men #50 (on sale the next day.) Already anticipating an overwhelming demand for the wedding issue, Marvel has offered incentives to retailers who bump their orders with small discounts and customizable variant covers.
Article written by: Danny Bernardo, ChicagoPride.com's official geekologist. Read Danny's GeekOut! blog on ChicagoPride.com and the GoPride.com Network.
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