[KingLouie731]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jason Abbadon

Regarding your highlighted text, I referring to the Brotherhood's first appearance as Avengers baddies (Avengers Annual 10), not the Rom appearance, which was after their X-Men fight....but then maybe not, since Claremont wrote Avengers Annual 10...he might have had some big plan for her.

That fairy crap was allll Marvel editorial (Jim Shooter had a strict ban on any gay characters in Marvel).
Comic Book Resources had an article explaining Shooter in particular had fought against Northstar being revealed as gay forever, then Marvel finally, years later (and after Mantlo left), relented they did not use the original Mantlo story - which was supposedly more mature in tone- and instead went with some crap Scott Lobdell wrote involving (I shit you not) a Canadian stereotype version of Captain America called Major Maple Leaf...and they certainly did not give him HIV/AIDS.

...and though a lot of fans undrstood exactly what Northstar's illness was foreshadowing, Marvel editorial would have none of it and came up with that fairy idiocy.
Really, did they not get that giving Marvel's first openly gay character a "fairy" disease would be offensive?

Northstar was always intended to be gay- Byrne never gave him any romantic subplots and had him change the subject whenever his sister would talk about him "finding a wife" or whatever. After his "coming out" issue the topic was never brought up again in the first AF run and has only recently been explored with the most recent run.

Amazing how stuff we think of minor was such a chore to write back then betwen the Comic Code and Editorial bigotry (or unfounded fear of the CCA).
Hell for decades there was a complete ban on black people in DC's Legion of Superheroes- artists actually quit because that writer was such a tool. DC had a utopian future Earth with no crime or disease or war...or black people.

A lot of (but not all) the facepalm decisions you see in comics come from the top- hell they tossed out two years of Doctor Strange character development and cool stories (and fired the creative team) because a new EIC wanted a reset to 60's classic for Marvel's core characters.
Same with stuff like Spidey's marriage- a writer gets told the direction he has to take a character and ends up with his name on crap, or quitting and possibly hurting their career.

Sadly Bill Mantlo was severely injured in the 90's and cant write any more.


Here's some of Mantlo's greatest Marvel hits- like creating Cloak & Dagger, Micronauts, Rocket Raccoon, and establishing that Magneto was the father of Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver!!

I figured it was Editor related but I just felt let down by his run on AF, which might have been his way of retaliating for not being able to tell his own story. When I read it I was aware of Byrne's intention and so I guess that colored my view. Either way he has written some golden books, and I didn't know about Cloak & Dagger excellent duo btw. that sucks about his injury