On Anole...

[angelophile]

So, this week CBR has revisits the ditched Anole suicide story from Nunzio Defilippis and Christina Weir's New Mutants.

It makes for an interesting read, since it adds a little detail to a story I already knew - originally Xi'an would be seen kissing another girl at Xavier's parents day. Some parents would be outraged, including Victor's parents and when Victor comes out as well, his parents, Josh and Julian all reject him and he would have killed himself.

Now, I've always been glad the story never happened. For a number of reasons - I like Anole and I've liked seeing him developed. I like Julian and Josh and they too have become worthwhile characters, which would have been destroyed if they'd been shown to be homophobic assholes and the characters would not have been redeemed.

But a comment after the article sums up perfectly why I disliked it. Thank you, Thom, for managing to put it into words perfectly:

"Thank god Anole wasn’t killed off for some stupid “intolerance” storyline. I’ve never read the “New Mutants” book, and I don’t know anything about the characters. I’m just sick of gay characters being introduced only to die in “social issue” stories.

In the 80s, if a gay character was introduced, you knew he was going to get AIDS and die. In the 90s, it was likely to be a gay-bashing story. We’re finally at a place where gay characters can just exist without being burdened by “messages of tolerance.”

Even though Marvel’s reasons for keeping Anole alive were reactionary, I’m glad the character was allowed to continue without having to MEAN so much or teach anyone a lesson about caring. Ugh."

Add to that Victor's death would have served only to give Josh a character moment when he realized what a terrible person he'd been, I'm glad the story was pulled, even if it was done at an incredibly late stage. It's bad enough in comics as it is without adding "gay in a refrigerator" to the parlance.