The Iceman Becometh Gay: Realism Over Diversity

Surveying the boards out there, it appears that many a young, heterosexual comic-book fanboy has become agitated by the recent news that Iceman of All-New X-Men is gay.

To these colicky fanboys I say: Aside from completely missing the point of the spectral pluralism that the X-Men themselves have come to represent, you're ignoring the time-travel element involved here.

The young Bobby Drake of 1963 didn't feel that, in 1963, he could live his life as a gay man, so he became the woman pursuer we've known his older incarnation to be all these years -- with even the film version of Iceman choosing for himself a woman (Rogue) whom he can't (and doesn't have to) touch.

However, that same young Bobby Drake of 1963, now newly living in the world of 2015, discovers that he can live his life as a gay man and doesn't try to change himself into someone he's not, as his original-timeline counterpart had done.

What would be the point of bringing 1963 X-Men into the present if nothing about any of them were to change?

Forgetting even the 10-percent figure that is often alleged, the complainers out there would suggest that not even one of the first 30 X-Men (that is, 3 percent of X-Men team members from 1963 to 1999) could or should or would ever evolve into being openly gay or bisexual before going to the grave.

Having Iceman be gay means exactly that: that a whopping 3 percent of the first 30 X-Men has now evolved into being openly gay.

And somehow this isn't realistic or legit?