Marvel 616: Billy Kaplan/Wiccan

Full name: Billy Kaplan (Real first name: William; no one uses it)
Alias: Wiccan, used to be Asgardian
Fandom: Marvel

One day a few years ago, some pretty awesome people decided to start a series called "Young Avengers". My first reaction to it was that they spend two of the four first pages talking about Bucky and doing some exposition on him – who he was, how he died – and I liked that Bucky was getting some attention. I also immediately pinged Allan Heinberg as a Bucky fan and he got cookie point in my mind. And they hadn't bullshitted up Bucky's age to seventeen or whatever. I loved it.

I knew the series had a couple of gay teenagers before starting it; it was the reason I picked it up. So I was rather happy that the very first thing to make me smile wasn't anything to do with non-straight characters. It meant the series was probably going to be good, and not just keep my interest because of the LGBT characters. Series have done that before.

First... well, the first gay pairing to show up in that series is Captain America and Iron Man.



I remember seeing this picture with an arrow added, pointing to Iron Man's hand on Captain America's waist with the caption "Do you see this hand? Yeah, fangirls saw it, too." Yes yes, everyone knows they're not really together (except in that universe where they are), but the hand is still smirktastic.

Billy is, at first, known as Asgardian. He is the Thor Junior of the Young Avengers, wearing a costume that resembles Thor and going around flying and producing lightning.



He also takes a moment in the middle of battles to eye-flirt with another Young Avenger (Hulkling – Teddy Altman).



This is the first sign of Billy possibly being into guys (and with Teddy). In the same battle, Billy and Teddy look out for each other. There's a moment when Billy's thrown on the other side of the room and Teddy makes sure to catch him.

One issue of possible flirting was all that was needed for people to notice. At the end of the second issue of Young Avengers, there is already a fan letter that talks about Billy and Teddy and are-they-really-flirting-what-is-going-on?

Then, at the end of issue #3, you get not one but TWO fan letters out of five that ponder about Teddy and Billy. One is rather positive and hopeful, from a gay guy that wishes there had been gay teenagers in his superhero comic books when he was younger. The second includes the words "I'm not some anti-gay bigot" and we all know where this usually leads! Here's the letter in question and Heinberg's answer to it (the letter references to the first letter that brought up Teddy and Billy at the end of the second issue):


TRANSCRIPT:

Fan letter: Philip's statement about hoping that Hulkling and Asgardian are gay—and your promise to "explore the kids' identities—sexual and otherwise"—truthfully has me concerned. Now, I'm not some anti-gay bigot. I have no problem with people being who they are or living how they choose. But I do think that a super hero comic is not the platform for exploring "sexual identities", especially for characters that are teenagers. Make no mistake, I by no means condone closing off the topic to never being discussed, but I would hope that you and Marvel would not be so gung-ho to pander to every taste within society that you would forget that comics were never meant to be an outlet for changing society's view or forcing sensitive issues to be discussed among the readership. They are meant, first and foremost, to entertain in an all-ages type of manner. Sexuality issues were never needed in the past to make super hero comics exciting and interesting. I don't think they need it now to be so, either.
Signed: James Meely (via e-mail)

Heinberg's answer: Your point is well taken, James. But just as AVENGERS was about the super-heroic lives and loves of the classic Avengers—from Hank Pym and Janet Van Dyne (a heterosexual couple) to Scarlet Witch and the Vision (a mutant witch and a robot who married and had twins)—YOUNG AVENGERS is about the super-heroic lives and loves of the Young Avengers—black or white, mutant or robot, straight or gay. It is indeed an all-ages book, and one I hope will reflect the extraordinary diversity of the world in which we live.

It will not surprise many that I was cringing as I was writing up the transcript of that fan letter, and I am six years too late to answer it. Anyway, my answer would pretty much be "Hello moron, you do not deserve to read this comic, go away now" because I am so very bad at being polite when people say things like that. It will be obvious to most why it is an offensive piece of crap, so I am not going to dissect it or anything even though I sort of want to. All I want to say is that I've been told a lot of homophobic bullshit over the years and that variations of "I'm not homophobic, but I just think this is a family-friendly/kid-friendly situation so homosexuality shouldn't be there!" is the one I hate the most. When I have kids, my family will be family-friendly. Any love is kid-friendly.

REAL STRAIGHT MALES DO NOT WANT GAY GUYS IN THEIR SUPERHEROES-IN-TIGHTS COMICS! They just want to... look at their muscled bodies! Bodies that look like they're covered in paint!... yes...

That said, let's get back on topic.

The first six issues of Young Avengers are not actually about Teddy and Billy's relationship, even if the letters might make you think that! The amusing thing is that, in all seriousness, this first arc is 100% action and plot. There is little to no character study for any of the teenagers. We don't know anything about Billy as Billy Kaplan (other than the fact he has parents, so we're not facing an orphan trope, here) and basically only see him as Asgardian. He spends more time with Hulkling than the other Avengers (he's on his way to flying him home at some point in the second issue when they encounter drug dealers) but it's all pretty limited. The one responsible for putting together the team says he's part of the Avengers fail-safe program and that it means he's probably somehow related to one or several Avengers. Nothing gets more specific than that.

Oh, also he's a superhero fanboy and a geek. He knows all of the Avengers when he meets them – including Jewel who is pretty obscure – and starts basically reciting Growing Man's stats when they encounter him.

It doesn't take very long before Billy has to start using his other powers because they're all in danger and things are going to hell. Turns out that Billy isn't a mini-Thor, he's a witchboy and can do magic, which includes a lot of random things that he can't control very well.

In the midst of things going to hell, Teddy gets hit pretty badly and guess who's the one who freaks out instead of just going "oh my god"? Yes, that would be Billy.



He's also the first one by Teddy's side and they're touching more than most superheroes would. Still nothing official but that's still a lot of hints for all of four issues – especially considering Heinberg's answers to the fan letter. By the fourth issue's fan letters, everyone had a comment to add about homosexuality in their fan letter. ALL THE LETTERS have a couple of lines about it. The ones in the fourth issue are pretty good, some of them simply stating they disagree strongly with the letter I've posted up there, which was nice. Overall, let's just say we all knew they were gay by the fourth issue. By then, the discussions about "Are they gay? Are they not gay?" were really all over the place on the Internet, too. Billy and Teddy weren't subtle, but they weren't out, after all. Discussions were Needed.

More things explode, Billy gets hurt, Teddy takes care of him in the background. And then, time travel does its worst by making the Avengers not exist. And we have our proof that Billy is somehow related to some Avenger because the Avengers' history changing makes him vanish from the timelime.

He calls for Teddy for help as it's happening and then Teddy freaks the hell out.





And then everyone ever just knew. And I guess Heinberg knew it because they come out at the end of that issue, when everything's better again. It's also when Billy changes his alias from Asgardian to Wiccan. It's a suggestion of the girls because "Asgardian" can make really bad puns, considering Billy's gay and all that.



I really enjoy that it's not brought up in a dramatic manner. It's not a declaration and doesn't have to be spelled out, either. They all know and "hey, since you and Teddy are together, you should change your alias". It's a great example of the concept of the character just happening to be gay, but it's not a big deal.

Now, Billy just needs to come out to his parents. AS A SUPERHERO of course!



Which he will try doing the following issue.



So that doesn't work quite the way it was supposed to, but Billy's parents are rather fantastic.

Billy's background is explored a little in the Special that doesn't take place at any moment in particular, but it's been published between issue #6 and #7, and then a little more in following issues when Vision joins the team and has magical knowledge of everything. Billy also gets a twin (magic-twin!) in issue #9. His name is Tommy Shepherd, aka Speed.

The current series, Avengers: Children's Crusade is pretty much centered on Billy and on his quest to find his biological mom (it's not quite biological... magical mom? It doesn't really matter all that much). I have issues about this series because Billy keeps insisting that it's so important to him because she's his real mom and... just... no. Billy's real parents are in New York. The concept of "real parents" in the series so far is not one I agree with and I don't like it. Billy's parents aren't even his adoptive parents since they don't know about the history of Billy's soul going around... but even if we decide they count as adoptive parents, adoptive parents are real parents. And yes, Billy is a teenager, but he's a gay teenager. He's in a category of teenagers that should know that adoptive parents are real parents if he's ever considered having kids ever – which he probably has.

Even though I love the series and keep recommending it to everyone, it has flaws. It tends to skip over a lot of issues and doing so damages continuity pretty badly. I know, I know, who am I to expect continuity in superheroes comics? I realise that, but still... When they find Tommy, they break him out of a government prison in which they kept him and used him as a super-powered test subject for who knows what experiments. No one ever talks about it again. It's like "oh good! We've got another Young Avenger, let's move along!" and it bothers me. Are there other kids being tested on in there? Is Tommy traumatised forever and no one cares? He shouldn't be nothing else than fire power, but fire power was what the plot needed. That, and for Billy to run into his twin. It's not the only occurrence of important things being ignored because the plot needs to keep moving, but the other ones would be huge spoilers and this contains enough spoilers already.

Billy and Teddy, even though they've been officially together for six years, have never kissed. The closest they've ever gotten to a kiss was in September 2010 in Children's Crusade #1, and they were interrupted by Tommy.



We're not talking about two characters turning around each other without being together, here. We're talking about an established relationship that is now more than six years old and they still haven't kissed. I can't think of a heterosexual established relationship not including kisses within four months. A lot of people are saying that other writers than Allan Heinberg don't want to write their first kiss and that we're pretty much waiting for Heinberg to do it right now. I don't know what's going on, but I know it started being annoying quite a while ago, and that people will flip out if they don't get a kiss before the end of Children's Crusade. It feels like a case of But Not Too Gay, and TV Tropes agrees with me, too: when I looked up the article to link it here, I realised Billy and Teddy are the only ones in the "Comics" section of the examples.

If they kiss, we'll make a post right away!

You will be able to read more about Billy in the companion entry on Teddy that will be here soon.

Recs: Young Avengers (#1-#12, Special, Presents #1-#6), Avengers: Children's Crusade (#1 - #7, ongoing).
If you are a Marvel reader already, the Young Avengers have minis related to Civil War (a crossover with Runaways, 4 issues), Secret Invasion (3 issues) and Dark Reign (5 issues).

Marvel 1602: Angel (Werner)

Full name: Werner
Alias: Angel
Fandom: Marvel

For my first official post, I figured I'd spend a bit more time talking about my first queer superhero.

Like I said in my official introduction, Marvel 1602 was my first comic ever, and I'm really lucky that I got to have a queer character in my first foray into the world of comics. I won't go into the larger plot of 1602, but the basic premise is that, due to a time traveler, the 17th century Marvel world has started to create people with super powers- Elizabethan era counterparts to classic Marvel characters, and they have to band together to save the world. Neil Gaiman, when writing the book, used the characters he read as a kid- the Fantastic Four, Nick Fury, Spider-man, the Hulk, and the X-men. Obviously, there will be spoilers from here on out.

The main queer sub-plot of the storyline- not including King James of Scotland hitting on 17th century Quicksilver- is the love triangle between 1602 Angel, Cyclops, and Marvel Girl, but with a Shakespearean twist (read: crossdressing).

Our introduction to Angel, who's been dubbed Werner in this incarnation, is as he's chained up in a tower by the Spanish Inquisition, waiting on his impending death by being burned at the stake, ruminating in captions about the deaths preceding his. He's the reader's introduction to the term "Witchbreed", Marvel 1602's terminology for mutants. From the very first page he's on, he's established as feared and hated for who he is, for wanting to fly, even if that doesn't even effect, much less hurt, anyone else. Subtle! But the "mutants = LGBT" theme is a pretty obvious leap to make, and anyway, Werner isn't established as a dude who loves dudes until the end of the book. Most of his identity revolves around being a mutant- sorry, witchbreed- with awesome bird wings, and wanting to not have to hide that, damnit!

Anyway, near the end of the first issue, Werner is being escorted to his scheduled fiery death- after refusing the chance to repent his wicked, witchbreed ways- and is actually chained to the stake, with the torch about to light the wood- when BAM. X-MEN RESCUE. Scotius Summersisle and Robert Trefusis, Cyclops and Iceman respectively, bust in and allow Werner to make an aerial escape, and in Scotius's case to establish his relationship with Werner. A relationship where he ends up being an asshole- seriously, Scotius, what was the point of letting the flame nearly light up the pile of wood before the rescue? The panel doesn't really show a reason for Scotius waiting for the last possible second, so I'm going to assume he doesn't think a rescue is any fun unless the rescuee has peed themselves out of fear.

At the coast, in the getaway boat, Werner stands there with his wings out, displaying his own character trait of loving to walk around with his gleaming, lovingly drawn naked chest thrust out. Now I can think about it and realize that Werner's shirtless-at-all-possible-times policy makes sense, since he doesn't want to have to confine his wings. The first time I read it though, I didn't realize that so much as I noticed the distinct lack of shirt, and as a preteen I was not very discriminating or analytical when it came to ogling.

Oh, also in the boat we're introduced to "John" Grey. Spoilers: John Grey is actually Jean Grey, which even I was able to recognize, considering that the X Men movie came out maybe two years before the comic came out. Jean actually doesn't get a single line in the issue- it's explained away by Scotius saying that "John" doesn't speak very much, before he explains a bit of Jean's powers. And then Scotius and Werner have a moment, where they both get to bond for a moment over their separate but shared pain of being different in a world where that gets you murdered. It's not the most typical beginning of a love triangle, but the Werner-Jean-Scotius triangle is the most defining plot for Werner and Scotius.

The next time we get to see Werner, it's briefly, at Master Carolus Javier's Select College for the Sons of Gentlefolk, before and after training with his fellow witchbreed. We don't actually get to see him fight, but considering that Nick Fury is pissed Javier even showed him the army he's training, presumably he's got enough camaraderie with his teammates to at least fight well with them. He's found a place. He can even fly freely on school grounds- okay, not freely, as Jean points out, he can't fly too high. But at the very least he can go flying in a kilt- seriously, a kilt, and he seems pretty unconcerned that "John" can see straight up it when he's on the ground and Werner's in a tree. They discuss the witchbreed, the ones unlucky enough to be stuck in a world without a place to be themselves, and Werner tells Jean how lucky they are not to have to hide.

Jean, who has just been referred to as "friend John", is obviously feeling as awkward as mutantly possible, and manages to hesitantly offer an "I wish to God-" before Scotius interrupts with all the subtlety of a jealous, cycloptic elephant, telling Werner to put some pants on, because it is time for church. I am not even making this up.

That pretty much cements the rivalry between Scotius and Werner. There's some plot relevant action- King James of Scotland ascends the English throne after Elizabeth's death, and send his spymaster, Nicholas Fury, to arrest Javier and his witchbreed and to take them to the Tower. While the X-men are cooling their heels, Jean makes the mistake of talking to another guy in front of Scotius, and asks Werner why he's not playing cards with everyone else. After five speech bubbles worth of conversation, Scotius storms over, ignoring Jean, to ask Werner why he's talking to the person who started a conversation with him. Werner is having none of it, and Scotius asks him if he wants to fight, despite his girlfriend standing there going "oh god please don't do this again".

Luckily, their fight is cockblocked by the arrival of Dr. Strange, who is there to discuss plot relevant stuff (beyond love triangles) with Javier and Fury. It's decided that the group is going to desert England and head to Latveria to rescue the Fantastick Four, and then to save the world. Fury arranges for himself, 1602 Dum Dum Dugan, and his witchbreed group of misfits to be taken out on a ship, which is supposedly going to be scuttled so the witchbreed will all drown. What actually happens is that Scotius uses his optic blasts like a rocket, sending it flying into the sky. And then it's up to Jean to keep it aloft and moving until they reach Latveria.

Jean worries that she's not up to it, but Javier reassures her that "to whom much is given, much is demanded" and that he'll be beside her the whole time, giving her strength. So she flies the ship, unceasingly, until they reach Latveria.

In his next scene, Werner is once again half naked, this time in tasteful striped boxers, and flying around and providing helpful exposition. When he lands back on the flying ship, he looks towards Jean and Javier, and Scotius will not allow that. So he walks over to scold Werner for flying around and attracting attention, to which Werner points out that they are kind of on a flying ship. So Scotius yells at him to put some damn clothes on, and then goes to give Javier directions.

Werner asks Fury why Scotius hates him so much. Fury replies that he's jealous, because he thinks "she" likes Werner.

Werner then asks who this mysterious "she" is. Fury makes this face in reply:

-and then quickly excuses himself. But not before telling Werner to put his shirt on.

They reach Doom's castle in Latervia and head straight into a fight scene, which I'm going to skip, except for the brief interaction between Werner and Scotius. Javier tells Werner to fly Scotius down to the ground, and Werner lets Scotius know that he's not going to drop him. Meanwhile, Javier's powers are needed in the fight, so Jean has to take over flying the ship by herself, and it's taking an obvious toll on her.

Doom's castle, forces, and face get wrecked thanks to a combination of the Fantastick Four, an ice storm courtesy of Bobby, and the God of Thunder, but not before Jean passes out from the strain of using her powers so much.

The second to last issue finds the witchbreed, the Fantastick Four, Nick Fury and Thor on board a ship, heading to the New World. Jean is below deck, in grave condition. Werner asks Scotius about "Master" Grey's condition, and Scotius yells at him to just stop it, that in fact Mistress Grey is bleeding inside and doomed to die soon.

Werner reacts with understandable shock, and Scotius realizes for the first time the Werner genuinely had no idea about what was in Jean's tights.

Below deck, Jean knows she's dying. She gives Javier a few instructions, the most important two being to let her die as a woman, and not to give her body to the sea.

After Jean's death, Scotius takes a moment to ask Werner to talk. He calls himself out on what a jealous, raging butthole he's been over the whole Jean thing, and apologizes, since god, he'd thought Werner was in love with Jean, but Werner thought Jean was a guy! Man what a wacky misunderstanding.

But Werner says Scotius has nothing to apologize for. He was in love with John Grey.

Despite the love triangle ending with Scotius making the dumbest face ever known to human- or mutantkind, there's a happy ending to the book itself, and more than one character talks about establishing America as it's own country, where difference is welcomed, and strange isn't a barrier to being part of society. So whatever happens to Werner afterwards, at the very least he'll have the freedom to fly.

Werner's a really interesting character to me, and I wish we'd gotten to see a bit more inside his head. Was his interaction with Jean Grey the first time he realized he could fall in love with a man, or did he know that about himself before he ever found himself in a cell in the Palace of the Inquisition? Was he only able to admit to loving Jean once it was "safe" to, knowing she was really a woman, or had he been actively trying to court a young man he thought was interested? Werner seems pretty confident and at peace with himself while he's talking to Scotius, so I tend to lean towards thinking that the queer part of his identity is something he'd come to terms with before Jean's death.

I don't remember how much of this I thought about on my first read through- I've probably reread the book over a dozen times by now. So I can't say exactly how deeply I thought about this as a twelve year old who was years away from identifying as queer, and who was more interested in Werner's shirtlessness than what he represented. But now I can sit here and analyze individual panels and choice of word for hours, thinking about what makes them problematic or profound. In retrospect, Marvel 1602 shaped my ideas about what a superhero comic was supposed to be. It made me assume there would be moral ambiguity without it sliding into grimdarkness, and permanent character death (not that that assumption has been lived up to). It made me love continuity, how it made me seek out old characters and stories, and how it made me grin when I spotted a reference I knew. And it made me- not demand, but expect, there to be queer characters in comics. Not only did I assume I'd be able to find queer characters, I took for granted that they'd have backstory, joys and traumas beyond their identity or their sexuality, and that they'd get to have romances. Comics haven't always lived up to that expectation, either. But I don't think that expectation is wrong, either- Marvel 1602 not only didn't punish me for being a queer girl who'd sought out comics, it made me look for characters who were like me.

Angel (Werner) recommendation list:

Marvel 1602

author's note: I'm determined that all of my posts are going to have captions of all of the comic panels and pages I use, to make my posts accessible for visually impaired readers. Unfortunately, I suck at html, and am going to have to consult with one of my more html savvy co-writers to figure out a way to make the captions unobtrusive. Sophie wanted to have a real, big girl post up, but I'll be editing this post later on to make sure all the pictures get captions, so please bear with me until a little later this week.

edit: Alt text has finally been added to all pages and panels. This is why no one whose preferred method of writing is a type writer should be allowed to blog.