Archive for November 23rd, 2009

Lance Gardner

Monday, November 23rd, 2009

lancegardnerWriter Gerry Conway had given Diana Prince an apartment in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of New York City. After rescuing an airliner and sky divers, Wonder Woman returns to the rooftop of her apartment building, and with her magic lasso transforms into Prince. Diana almost makes into her apartment when she’s stopped by her neighbor Lance. Lance and his roommate Tod are throwing a party to which he invites Diana. Lance promises there will be interesting and creative people from the building (3 artists, 2 actors, a musician, and a professor) at his party. He follows Diana into her apartment, complimenting her on the decor, and mentioning that he’s a dancer, and he “almost had a part in ‘A Chorus Line’ Bob Fosse promised he’d use me in his new musical, after ‘Dancin’–”

In #260 Lance stops Diana in the hallway again, pestering her with some photos from his modeling portfolio. He refers to his roommate as Tom now, probably a simple lettering error. Either Conway wasn’t paying attention or was trying to make a comment. Diana is still suffering from a Berserker’s rage brought on her in some plot. Not in a humorous mood, she picks him up and tosses him away from her door. The big party takes place on the roof top in issue #262. Lance is drawn somewhat nerdishly with an overbite. This may be due to a change in artists from Jose Delbo and Vince Colletta to Ric Estrada & Jose Delbo. Lance appears in only a few panels and is consigned to supporting character limbo.

Tod also shows up at the party and he makes a play for Diana. They share a quiet conversation and a kiss. Diana backs off though. Alas, Diana is still mourning Steve Trevor’s second death. The last we see of Tod is in #269. Tod charms his way into Diana’s apartment by offering to cook her a romantic candle-lit dinner. Tod then proceeds to profess, “I think I could love you, Diana” and kisses her. Of course, Diana is still devastated over Trevor’s death and she tells Tod to leave.

Neither Lance nor Tod were officially outed; this story was printed in 1979, eight years before the Comics Code would be revised to openly allow identifying characters as LGBT. The subtext from his appearances in #259 and #260, as well as the necklace, bracelet, and ring in his introductory panel make it clear the character is intended to be gay. Perhaps there was some backpedaling on Conway’s part regarding roommate Tod making a play for Diana.  Or maybe Tod was completely seduced by the idea of Diana.

Thanks to Norman Tipton for bringing the character to my attention and his help.

© and ® DC Comics. Used without permission.

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Destiny & Mystique

Monday, November 23rd, 2009

mystiquedestiny04Contributed by Ronald Byrd

Mystique’s modern career began as an opponent of the first Ms. Marvel, but she later formed the second Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, which she led with the counsel of Destiny (Irene Adler). Eventually Mystique (Raven Darkholme) arranged a pardon for the Brotherhood, which was redefined as the government super-team Freedom Force; the group clashed with the X-Men and the Avengers in both incarnations. Following Destiny’s death at the hands of the cyborg Reavers, Mystique’s activities became more erratic, leading her to both lead Freedom Force back into crime and to ally herself with the X-Men and X-Factor, but she is at present active in the field of mutant terrorism once more.

Despite an unseemly amount of sidestepping around the matter, there is virtually no doubt that Mystique and Destiny were lovers; the two are seen dancing romantically in Marvel Fanfare #40 (with Mystique, suggestively, in the form of a man of about the same physical age as Destiny), and on one occasion the ancient power known as the Shadow King refers to Destiny as Mystique’s “leman,” an archaic term for “lover” (The word’s antiquity is probably what enabled writer Chris Claremont to slip it in). Mystique’s mourning for Destiny bears far more similarity to that for the loss of a mate than that of even the closest friend, and both women raised Rogue, formerly of the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants and now a veteran X-Man, from childhood as loving parents (The fact that Rogue is thus eligible to join COLAGE, Children of Lesbians and Gays Everywhere) has, needless to add, not been addressed.). The two were spouses; that is how Chris Claremont created them; don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.

It is known that Mystique and Destiny first met while the former was posing as a private detective; Destiny appears to be significantly older than Mystique, but given the latter’s shapechanging ability, that is hardly conclusive. As seen in the miniseries X-Men: True Friends, Mystique and Destiny’s relationship dates back to at least the 1930s, where Mystique exists in the masculine identity of “Mr. Raven” (see The Unofficial Wolverine Chronology for more details). Although one might assume that Mystique takes on male form in order to more freely show affection for Destiny in the presence of others, it is possible that, despite having given birth to at least two children (the X-Man Nightcrawler and the mutant-hating Graydon Creed), Mystique is in fact a man who simply assumes female form as the ultimate in transvestism; the notion of a man shapechanging into a woman to the extent that he is capable of bearing children is, after all, really no more outrageous than the notion of a woman shapechanging into a man in the first place. Either way, Mystique is clearly bisexual, although her liaisons with men were evidently only means to unspecified ends (She was apparently attempting to specifically conceive mutant children for some reason.) and lacked the emotional content of her relationship with Destiny.

Mystique also has a history with the sorceress Margali Szardos, who raised Nightcrawler from infancy, but there is no reason to believe their relationship was a romantic one; various minor details of Mystique’s activities over the decades (including service as a government operative many years prior to modern times) have been revealed over the last several years, but the full tale of her past, both with Destiny and alone, has yet to be told.

Mystique has the ability to change her form into that of any other person. Destiny had the mutant power to foresee the future, with the potential to perceive several alternate timelines; at last report she apparently existed on some level of the Astral Plane, where her capabilities are unknown. Both had access to various weapons and other paraphenalia as both terrorists and government agents.

The pair are arguably outed in Uncanny X-Men #265. Marvel’s Destiny entry notes that the pair are lovers.

© and ® Marvel Comics. Used without permission.

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Kismet

Monday, November 23rd, 2009
Art by Jerry Bingham

Art by Jerry Bingham

Contributed by Ronald Byrd

The being now known as Kismet began life under quite a remarkable set of circumstances, the second attempt by the geneticists and would-be conquerors known as the Enclave to create an artificial life-form intended to be the prototype of an army of super-beings. However, like their first creation Adam Warlock (initially known as Him), the being who would become Kismet proved rebellious and dangerous; also like Warlock, Kismet was in this initial form male, an Arabian-looking man called Paragon. After destroying the Enclave’s Citadel and clashing with the heroes Doctor Strange and the Hulk, Paragon placed himself within a cocoon of suspended animation; learning via the Enclave’s computer systems about Adam Warlock, Paragon concluded that as unique beings it was their destiny to mate and produce the perfect race envisioned by their creators. He emerged from his chrysalis months later, having solved the inherent procreative incompatability via a transformation into the golden-skinned woman later to be called Kismet but known, originally and awkwardly, only as Her, one of comicdom’s earliest transsexual super-heroes and perhaps the only character, in comicdom or real life, to make the gender change for the express purpose of procreation. What this move implies about Paragon’s initial sexual outlook is, of course, left for the readers to deduce rather than to learn; for the 1970s this was radical enough.

Unfortunately for Her, Adam Warlock had apparently died in the interim, so she set out for space to find another mate. Evidently having no luck at this endeavor, her adventures later brought her back to Earth, where, as it happens, Adam Warlock had returned to life; however, the brusque Warlock disdained Her’s talk of destined offspring, leading her to seek out other mates among Earth’s super-heroes. These chosen few were implanted with pods of genetic material intended to combine Her’s genes with their own to produce super-children, but the male super-heroes, unwilling to serve as incubators, had the pods destroyed, and the heroic Quasar convinced Her that she was doing herself a disservice by her obsessive desire to procreate, noting that “biology is not destiny.” Her, now renamed Kismet, became attracted to Quasar and for a time accompanied him in his duties as Protector of the Universe before again setting off for adventures in space.

As a postscript, in one alternate future, Kismet became pregnant with Quasar’s child, presumably through the traditional method as opposed to the use of reproductive pods, but her efforts in protecting Earth against invading Martians during the War of the Worlds weakened her, and Quasar entrusted her to the care of the Sisters of Mercy, an intergalactic holy order on the planet Vesper. The child was wrested away from Kismet at birth by the cosmic malevolence Era, who, having already manipulated Quasar to his death, for his own purposes left the child, named Stakar, to be raised by the human-like inhabitants of Arcturu. In a truly bizarre variation of his mother’s early gender-bending life, and one which occurred years before the writers revealed that Kismet was his mother, as a young man Stakar and his foster sister Aleta were combined into the form of the cosmic-powered Starhawk; until late in his career with the Guardians of the Galaxy, Starhawk could either exist in his male form or allow Aleta to assume his place in existence, but the two could rarely exist at the same time. This gave the impression that Starhawk could assume a female form at will, but the two were in fact separate individuals, even having children during brief periods of co-existence. The situation was complicated but did not actually involve any genuine transsexuality. As for Kismet, she spent a millennium as a sister on Vesper before finally being reunited with
Starhawk.

© and ® Marvel Comics. Used without permission. Art from Marvel Two In One #61, 1980.

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Living Lightning

Monday, November 23rd, 2009

Contributed by Michael McDermott

Miguel Santos’ father was involved with a radical organization called the Legion of the Living Lightning, who planned to take over America for its own good, to eliminate war and hatred. The Legion ended up in conflict with the Hulk, who blew up half of their mountain headquarters killing many of the Legionaires in the process.

livinglightning02Eventually, Miguel went to the remains of the headquarters, to learn more about the Legion, and perhaps to try and follow in his father’s footsteps. While examining the leftover equipment, he accidentally triggered the lightning machine, and its power ran through his body, transforming him into a being of living electroplasma, calling himself the Living Lightning. The surge of power overwhelmed him and drove him temporarily insane. He went on a rampage through Fullerton, and clashed with members of the West Coast Avengers. He was finally stopped when Dr. Hank Pym grounded his electrical form, and the Living Lightning was apparently destroyed.

What none of them knew at the time was that his energies had actually been siphoned by the machines of the villainous Dr. Demonicus, and reconstructed into his human form. Demonicus planned to recruit Living Lightning into his team of Pacific Overlords. Miguel agreed, since Demonicus provided him with a special suit, which was the only thing allowing him to return to human form. Demonicus also had a control to deactivate the suit, if Living Lightning ever tried to turn against him. However, Miguel’s first test of loyalty came after the Overlords had captured the West Coast Avengers and planned to execute them. Miguel refused to allow the executions to take place. Before the argument could continue, some of the Avengers allies arrived to effect a rescue. A fight broke out between the Avengers and the Overlords, and during the battle, Living Lightning switched sides to assist the Avengers. When Demonicus threatened to deactivate his suit, Miguel destroyed the deactivator with an electric blast.

Once the battle was over, Living Lightning was offered a spot on the Avengers roster and joined the team. He returned home to check in with his family, after being missing for weeks, and found out that his sister had been killed in a drive-by shooting while he was gone. He also learned his younger brother had joined a gang, and they were looking for revenge against the Vietnamese gang that was responsible for the shooting.

He managed to intervene before a full-scale gang war broke out, and got his brother out of the gang. While Miguel was gone, his girlfriend Asuka left him for one of the Vietnamese gang members, but Miguel soon found a new relationship with a young woman named Mona, who worked at a movie studio. The two of them dated for a while, and she even slept over at Avengers Compound on occasion.

Living Lightning served as an active member of the West Coast Avengers for a few months, but after the apparent death of Iron Man, Miguel started to re-evaluate his future. Miguel decided to step down from active duty, and go to college to get an education. He continued to serve as a reserve Avenger when needed, until the West Coast team was eventually disbanded and reabsorbed into the main Avengers membership.

Miguel grew up with a strong religious background, strong enough that he was one of the many deeply spiritual or religious heroes “recruited” by the cosmic being known as the Goddess for her Infinity Crusade. Miguel and the others were eventually released from her control.

Many months later, the Avengers decided to take a more aggressive approach to their pursuit of superhuman threats, and established a number of field missions in addition to the main team. Although Miguel’s college studies prevented him from returning to duty full time, Miguel did agree to serve on the Avengers asteroid base with Quasar to serve as an early warning post for threats from outer space. Miguel was able to continue his courses from the base through communications link, and figured that the solitude would help him to focus on his studies.

After the Avengers entire organization was disbanded, due to a series of disasters, Living Lightning returned to Earth. When the unofficial associate team, the Great Lakes Avengers (known as the GLA for short) were looking for new members, Living Lightning was one of the heroes that their deputy leader, Flatman, approached. Miguel said that he had been meaning to join the GLA for some time–but he thought that Flatman was from the Gay/Lesbian Alliance, not the Great Lakes Avengers. Once he realized his error, Miguel apologized and left. Miguel’s admission of his own sexuality inspired Flatman to come out of the closet himself.

Miguel’s coming out of the closet was something of a surprise to many readers, given his prior relationships with women in Avengers West Coast. This is what GLA writer Dan Slott had to say on the subject in an interview: “He’s gay. Get over it. Previous girlfriends? Beards. Or relationships that just didn’t work – because Miguel hadn’t come to terms yet with who he really is. Miguel is a gay superhero and a wonderful role model.”

It is possible that the strong Catholic background of Miguel’s family may have played a part in his delay in accepting his sexuality.

This revelation may also put a different spin on his decision to live all alone with Quasar in their remote asteroid base. Perhaps all that time alone in close quarters with another man forced Miguel to confront his own attractions. Although Miguel’s field of study at college was never specified, a fantasy sequence shown through telepathic probe revealed that Miguel has political aspirations.

Living Lighting has the ability to transform his body into electroplasma energy. In this form he can fly, project electrical bursts, and travel through the vaccuum of space without the need for oxygen. Miguel can also project electric bursts and fields in his human form. He can control the intensity of the voltage, although his control is not always completely precise. Miguel has also displayed the ability to manipulate electronic equipment.

Living Lightning first appeared in Avengers West Coast #63 and outs himself in GLA (Great Lakes Avengers) #2.

© and ® Marvel Comics. Used without permission.

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