While this was a welcome development for LGBT fans who’d insisted there were hints and clues all over the place for years that Iceman was gay, this was still a fairly major character revelation, if not a retcon, of a character who’d had more than 50 years of published appearances by that point. Did it really make sense with his previous depictions?
On this question, I’m gonna take as guidance what Paul
O’Brien wrote about the House of X Moira retcon on his House to Astonish
blog: It doesn’t really matter, as long as it feels like it makes
sense. And yet, if nothing else, this revelation changes the way Iceman’s old
stories will be read going forward. So, to what extent does it fit?
To that end, in this series of blog posts, I’m going to read
through Iceman’s previously published appearances and report on how the
knowledge that he’s gay changes the story, if at all. And there’s a LOT of
material to go through.
I’m going to follow roughly publishing order on a thematic
basis, rather than go through strict chronological order, since I’m trying to
assemble Iceman’s published history, rather than his personal chronology. So
I’m going to start with 1963’s X-Men #1 and work forward, rather than starting
with the roughly 60 or so issues of chronologically earlier appearances the
Marvel Chronology Project records – but don’t worry, we’ll get back to them.
It’ll probably run like this:
The original silver age stories and guest appearances
The origin stories and flashbacks
X-Men: First Class
X-Men: The Hidden Years
The Champions Era
The Defenders Era
X-Factor Vol. 1
The Lobdell era
And so on…
I’ll also be skipping non-continuity appearances in books
like What If…? or inter-company crossovers.
So read along, as I dive into the Stan Lee and Jack Kirby Era.
