Evil mutants, Age of Apocalypse X-Men, journeys to Hell and book cancellations can’t stop this marriage.
It’s GLBT Pride Month, a time to celebrate victories and visibility of gay, lesbian and transgender. When it comes to visibility – an X-Man getting married to a man in New York City and on the cover of a major Marvel comic is big.
Pride 2014 is a time to celebrate the second wedding Anniversary of Northstar and Kyle Jinadu! It was nearly two years ago the X-Man married in Astonishing X-Men #51.
The marriage was heavily promoted, protested and celebrated. Openly gay X-Man Northstar married Jinadu with the X-Men and Alpha Flight watching in New York’s Central Park. The big event inspired some gay X-men fans to tie the knot…in a comic book store on the day of the wedding issue’s arrival. Jean-Paul and Kyle’s nuptials was huge for comics but continued the tradition of diversity in X-Men history.
Northstar’s wedding was a major milestone in comic books. Back in the 1980’s John Byrne (Jean-Paul’s creator along with the rest of the Canadian supergroup Alpha Flight) wasn’t allowed to let Northstar be an openly gay man because of editorial policy at that time. In 1992 Jean-Paul finally came out under writer Scott Lobdell’s Alpha Flight run. Northstar and Kyle’s relationship became a central element of the Alpha Flight run by Greg Pak and Fred Van Lente. Marjorie Liu wrote the wedding issue and continued to tell their story until Astonishing X-Men came to an end with issue 68.
Northstar joined the cast of Amazing X-Men by Jason Aaron. Jean-Paul and Wolverine went through their own hell in the Quest for Nightcrawler and helped Kurt defeat his father and return to the land of the living. We haven’t seen much of Kyle but Jean-Paul is part of the team at the Jean Grey School.
Astonishing X-Men: Northstar collects the first arc of Marjorie Liu and Mike Perkins on the book. Along with the wedding – this team of X-Men (Gambit, Northstar, Wolverine, Iceman and Warbird) are in New York City when a new version of the Marauders attack. This arc brought back Cecelia Reyes and Karma of the New Mutants. Karma is a lesbian mutant hero but is currently on the back burner.
What I remember most about the event was the wedding album variant cover showing Jean-Paul and Kyle with other famous heterosexual super couples like Reed and Sue of the Fantastic Four. The gay X-Man wedding made headlines and was a powerful vision in Pride month. The right editor and writer will come along with a story that explores their relationship but right now Northstar is too busy fighting demons, monsters and anti-mutant foes along with his fellow X-Men.
By Editor
Here’s a link to Astonishing X-Men: Northstar if you missed those issues or would like to have the entire collection in this hardcover edition.