The Politics of Wiccan and Hulkling

[Hero Girl]

literally everyone who has any taste in comics was reading batwoman until the art chores changed last month
everyone

Respectfully disagree. The art is pretty, but the whole series just strikes me as dull and trying way too hard

[Jabare]

Give the people what they want

[finfangfool]

If'n Cap is going to swing that way, it's going to be with the Falcon buddy.

[deathcry]

What implications? There are no implications here. What implications does two guys kissing have, or need to have?

Mutual razor burn, I would imagine.

[Wren]

Give the people what they want

I cannot get past the fact that 1) poor Tasha has that pathetic little attempt-at-romance veil going on ("hold on Steve I know we gotta blast off to a fight after this but let me at least put the veil on...!")
and 2) she's apparently bald. Knowing Marvel's happy couple history, next issue she dies of cancer.

[flapjaxx]

Was this really the first time they've kissed on panel? I'm pretty sure I've seen it before.

I don't see this as comparable to the Archie situation at all. So the lack of press/outrage on Wiccan and Hulkling kissing doesn't surprise me. For one thing, Marvel didn't build the whole comic around this one moment and then go around to different media outlets to advertise what they were selling. Which is what Archie does every three months. And, also, this is an Avengers comic whose target audience is about 30. Meanwhile, the Archie issue was in Toys R Us. So of course some people are going to complain about it.

I fully support Archie (and Marvel) having comics with these themes, but the outrage shouldn't surprise anyone. I mean, religious people don't like to see homosexuality advertised to them. Period. If you had a culinary magazine that advertised "ALL PORK RECIPES!" on the cover, and you distributed that magazine to grocery stores frequented by a mostly Muslim or Judaic customer base, then you'd get complaints about that too. I'm not trying to downplay that "Million Moms" organization, because it is truly despicable. But religious people just not wanting to see this stuff is hardly surprising. To a degree, it's even "understandable", as long as you're not apologizing for the more extreme religious people who don't have a live-and-let-live philosophy.

I'm really sick of intolerance. Intolerance of gays is probably more harmful and widespread than intolerance of people's religious beliefs, but as an agnostic who just sort of stands on the sidelines, I frankly think that some people's lack of tolerance for religious people is pretty hypocritical. They're not all "Million Moms"-types who hate anyone different from them. Most religious people who don't "approve" of homosexuality are more like Jewish people who just don't approve of pork. They don't care if other people eat pork, but they don't eat it themselves and can't be expected to actively enjoy seeing magazines that say "Pork Recipes! Buy me or else you're a bigot!"

[Rasputin9977]

If'n Cap is going to swing that way, it's going to be with the Falcon buddy.

That's not Tony Steve is kissing.

[aNamored]

Good article. The big deal here is that it's not treated as a big deal. There's no reason two people kissing should involve politics at all, unless bigots make it about politics. The page was a big splash page moment, I'd like to think, because it was a big moment for the characters in that it expressed that they care about each other. I don't think it was a big splash page because they're both guys. At this point, even reacting to the bigots as though they deserve a reaction treats them as though they have a valid point to make in the discussion that's worth debating with them. They don't.

Quoted in agreement. I don't see why this is such a big deal.

[finfangfool]

My bad, I saw the quote about giving fans what they wanted and I didn't think they meant an alternate reality female Iron Woman I'd never heard of. Just saw the armor and assumed (still kind of assume) he meant Iron Man. I still stand by my statement about the Falcon.