Dark Reign: Young Avengers #4

[colonel_green.insanejournal.com]

The solicit and cover for August's YA story.

The solicitation:

DARK REIGN: YOUNG AVENGERS #4 (of 5)
Written by PAUL CORNELL
Pencils & Cover by MARK BROOKS

The New New New Young Avengers have found that they can't live with what the Young Avengers are asking of them. And so they approach Norman Osborn once more, and get their deal with the devil. So now the question is: do the Young Avengers want to be part of *their* team? And how much more pressure will it take before someone throws the first punch? 



1)  Sorry, Sylvie or whoever you are, but your usual way of handling things is probably not going to work here.

2)  I'm not sure that even counts as a skirt (though it does make for easy access).

Comments

[felinephoenix.insanejournal.com]

Okay, I know they're probably not going to straighten Billy, but that's still a damn unfortunate cover.

[colonel_green.insanejournal.com]

Why would it be "unfortunate"?

[felinephoenix.insanejournal.com]

I think having one of Marvel's few gay characters pose with a Sexy Woman on a cover to have some Unfortunate Implications (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/UnfortunateImplications), personally, although I'm sure it wasn't Marvel intention.

[colonel_green.insanejournal.com]

They're the team's magic characters, and she's a seductress type; if anything, it's a bit humourous if he's in a magic thrall (something that would normally have sexual connotations if he was straight); not that Wiccan's showing any particular interest here.

[felinephoenix.insanejournal.com]

Except that, thanks to how she's posed, this cover's still "sexier" than anything Billy's done on-panel with his boyfriend.

I get the logic behind the cover, I understand they're similar power-wise and that she's not trying to turn Billy straight. I'm sure, like others have suggested, that if there is any "seducing" here it's going to involve power and not sex... but I still find the cover irritating.

[sessile29.insanejournal.com]

Well, I dunno - I haven't been keeping up with the YA lately, so the first thing I thought when I saw the cover was "Oh, Christ - are they going to make Billy straight for this story or worse, in general?" Since Billy and Teddy don't get prominent indications that they're together in the first place, and de-gayifying characters has happened before (in general media), it's not that far of a stretch to fear that it might happen to these two, and that cover really does not help.

[colonel_green.insanejournal.com]

Given that Marvel's pretty desperate for popular diversity characters, I doubt it.

If Marvel wanted them straight, they'd have told Heinberg to stick to his original plan.

[sessile29.insanejournal.com]

they'd have told Heinberg to stick to his original plan

Oh? What was that?

[long_silence.insanejournal.com]

Make Hulkling a girl who only shapeshifted into a boy.

Basically a reverse Xavin.

[colonel_green.insanejournal.com]

Heinberg's original idea was for Hulkling to be a girl whose "Hulkling" form was very male-looking (which was, incidentally, the prevailing fan theory about him until he was revealed to be clearly male), which Heinberg felt was the closest he could get to homosexuality. But he mentioned this to Quesada and Brevoort, and they told him to go ahead and make them actually gay.

[sessile29.insanejournal.com]

Huh... that's actually pretty cool of Marvel to do that. :)