Marvel Comics Outs A Founding X-Man As Gay

According to leaked pages from All-New X-Men #40, one of the original mutants from X-Men is gay.

Spoiler Warning: The following contains spoilers for the upcoming All-New X-Men #40.

Marvel Comics has been pushing hard for diversity among superheroes, whether introducing Miles Morales as Spider-Man or assembling an all-female Avengers team. Now the upcoming All-New X-Men #40 offers a major shake-up of its own – the revelation that Bobby “Iceman” Drake is gay.

Written by Brian Michael Bendis, All-New X-Men focuses on the original teenaged X-Men team cast forward in time to present day. According to leaked pages from Issue 40 – posted on sites like New Now Next – Jean Grey finally confronts Iceman about his sexuality after he continues to overcompensate with the team. Since Iceman can’t hide his true feelings from a telepath, he finally admits he’s not only bisexual – he’s “full gay”.

Here’s where it gets tricky – the adult Iceman is, from all appearances, completely straight. Jean Grey acknowledges, however, that the adult Iceman doesn’t have a great track record with women and the issue might be complicated. The young Iceman theorizes that “maybe he couldn’t handle being a mutant and gay in a society that had issues with both … and one is easier to ‘put away’ than the other”. There’s no clear answer within these leaked pages, but according to a prepared statement from Bendis, more will be revealed in time.

“There are thousands if not millions of stories of people who, for many different reasons, felt the need to hide their sexuality,” Bendis said. “The X-Men, with the conceit of time travel, give us a fascinating platform in which to examine such personal journeys … This is just the first little chapter of a much larger story that will be told.”

We’ll likely have to wait for future issues to learn more. All-New X-Men #40 hits comic book shelves on Wednesday, but you can also see the leaked pages below.

Source: New Now Next, via Comic Book Resources