UNCANNY X-MEN #414

By: Tony Whitt
Date: Monday, October 07, 2002

The comics world seems slowly to be catching up with the real one once again in its sensitive depiction of gay characters, especially this month. First Judd Winick brought us the story of Kyle's gay friend getting beaten nearly to death by homophobes in this month's GREEN LANTERN over at DC, and now Chuck Austen is bringing back a character who seemed to lose some coinage after it was revealed he was gay some years back: the ever-frosty ex-Alpha Flight member, Northstar.

Perhaps Northstar lost some of his popularity because the revelation of his sexuality allowed us to explain away his most interesting qualities as stereotypical. Before coming out, Jean-Paul fascinated us because he was everything the typical male superhero was not: abrasive, disagreeable, self-serving, arrogant, vain. After coming out, Jean-Paul became just another representation of the media's image of the gay man, one which wouldn't be terribly out of place on a series like Showtime's QUEER AS FOLK. It didn't help that, without Alpha Flight, even a mutant like Northstar seemed homeless in the Marvel Universe. Including him in a superhero team would have been as difficult as, say, putting Puck in the Avengers.

But Austen has managed to integrate Jean-Paul into the team, and he's done it very well. Xavier asks Jean-Paul to come teach at the Institute, not only because the French Canadian mutant is well versed in business and finance, but because he's gay. Xavier sees homosexuality as determined by the same genes that give his X-Men their mutant abilities, and Jean-Paul's not the only one who's gotten a "double-whammy" on that score, nor does mutancy make any of Xavier's students more open-minded if they were homophobic to begin with. But before accepting Xavier's offer, Jean-Paul must help out a fellow Canadian mutant with an explosive power, a boy whose attitudes towards people like Northstar needs some correction.

Northstar's race to save the life of a kid whose power is destroying both of them is almost secondary to the conversation they have en route, in which Austen manages to tie together the issues of homosexuality and mutancy, two subjects that have often stood in for one another, usually on a symbolic level, for decades. The idea that coming out to a parent as a mutant would garner much the same reaction as coming out to a parent as gay is one barely touched on in these titles, but Austen handles it with sensitivity, in the process giving Jean-Paul himself some much needed character development. At the beginning of this issue, Northstar is much the same as he always was, a guy we loved to hate because he was so rude, so difficult...so full of attitude. By the end-and an amazingly tearjerking one it is, too, given how little time Austen has to build up to it-Northstar has become Jean-Paul, a human being capable of feeling pain, sorrow, and compassion.

The only real drawback to the issue is the artwork, which sometimes feels just a bit too rough for a story that should soar on all levels. It probably doesn't help that Austen lets himself go with the word count a bit, as if showing his awareness that issues like these need time, and as a result the paneling is far more cramped than usual. Otherwise, this is an "issue" issue worth reading, and not just for the return of a character whose time has finally come round again.

Questions? Comments? Let us know what you think at
feedback@cinescape.com.