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| Art by Joe Jusko |
The terrorist turned good guy in Alpha Flight attempted suicide before joining the X-Men and ending up happily married. Here’s a look back at his long journey out of the closet and all the behind-the-scenes controversies and considerations about his sexuality.
Since legendary X-Men writer
Chris Claremont began writing the series in the mid-70s, the X-Men has included
many parallels between being a mutant and a gay person. Subsequent writers even
let themselves be inspired by the AIDS threat in the real world and created a
similar threat for mutants in the shape of the lethal Legacy Virus. So why not
just skip the metaphors and have an actual gay character on the team?
For many
years, Northstar seemed an obvious candidate as he was the only openly gay
mutant in Marvel Comics, but with the X-Men being the best-selling Marvel
series, the editors were hesitant to do anything that might create controversy
and jeopardize the series’ financial success.
When Northstar
was first introduced as a member of the Canadian superhero group Alpha Flight
in X-Men #120 and 121 back in 1979, he was also kind of a mean guy. During his
long stint in Alpha Flight, he did develop in a more sympathetic direction
before finally getting inducted into the X-Men, though.
French terrorist
Following his
debut appearance in the X-Men and a guest-appearance in Marvel Two-In-One #84, Alpha
Flight was awarded their own series in 1983 with Northstar included in the cast.
John Byrne, who had created Alpha Flight and wrote and drew the new series, later
revealed that it wasn’t until Alpha Flight #1 that Northstar was intended as
being gay. "The characters proved popular, and I began being pressured to produce an Alpha Flight title," he told Graphic Novel Reporter in 2010. "I didn't really want to, as I felt the characters were kind of two-dimensional, but eventually I relented and then set about searching for ways to give them that vital third dimension. This is how, as I have often stated it, Northstar became 'gay from day two'. The character was not homosexual when I first conceived him, but when I was looking for ways to flesh out the members of the group, that's the direction I chose to go with the character." However, his sexuality could not be stated outright because of the
comic book censorship that was happening back then, so John Byrne had fun trying
to see how clear hints of Northstar’s sexuality he could sneak past the
censors.
“The Comics
Code Authority would not let me come out, so to speak, and say in so many words
that Northstar was gay, so I had to be “clever” about it,” he wrote on his Byrne
Robotics internet forum in 2009. “Based on the number of people who guessed
what was going on, I would say I was successful.”
In an interview
with Gayleague.com which is sadly no longer on that site, Byrne said that if he
had continued on the series, he would not have let Northstar yell ”I am gay!” during
a fight with a homophobe as it happened in Alpha Flight #106 written by Scott
Lobdell, but would rather have introduced a boyfriend. Then the reader could
have put two and two together when Northstar kissed the boyfriend.
However, Byrne
wasn’t pleased with his work on Alpha Flight and left the series after 28
issues, but before that he had established that the French Canadian Northstar in
his youth had been involved with FLQ (Front de Libération du Quebec) – a terrorist
fraction of the Sepratiste organization which in the 70s fought for autonomous government
for the French speaking Quebec province.
Northstar, whose
civilian name is Jean-Paul Beaubier, has the powers of speed and flight and also
used his mutant abilities for personal gain as a professional skier, so when he
joined Alpha Flight, he wasn’t the typical boy scout superhero but had a questionable
morale. On top of that he was also arrogant and sarcastic, and his condemnation
of his twin sister Aurora’s sex life led to animosity between them. So, it was
probably just as well that homosexuality wasn’t immediately added to the list
of his “negative character traits.”
Saved from AIDS
Writer Bill
Mantlo took over from Byrne on Alpha Flight in 1985 and managed to develop Northstar
into a more likeable chararcter who also made up with his sister Aurora. It was
implied that the reason Northstar had been so judgmental about Aurora’s sex life
was that he himself felt attracted to their Alpha Flight teammate Walter
Langkowski (Sasquatch), with whom Aurora had a relationship.
In 1987, Bill
Mantlo intended to write both Northstar and Aurora out of Alpha Flight to make
room for new characters. But when Marvel’s then Editor-in-Chief Jim Shooter heard
that Northstar’s failing health was caused by Mantlo intending for him to die
of AIDS in Alpha Flight #50, Shooter intervened and forbid it.
According
to an exposé by Andy Mangels in the Advocate #530, August 1989, Shooter simultaneously
made an edict that there was to be no gays in the entire Marvel universe at
all. Since then, the positive result of this homophobic ruling turned out to be
that not only was Northstar saved from dying, but also lived to become an
openly gay X-Man during more liberal regimes at Marvel in the new millennium.
A convoluted mess
Instead of
dying in Alpha Flight #50, it turned out that Northstar’s failing health was
caused by his unknown birth mother being a fairy, which should also explain the
reason for him having pointed ears. Pure blood of Alfheim in Asgard ran through
his veins and such purity was not meant for an earthly existence.
So far Northstar
had managed well because he and his twin sister Aurora shared the ability to
project a pure light when they were in physical contact. However, during their
time of enmity, Aurora had her genetic structure changed so she didn’t need to
be in contact with Northstar to project that light. Instead, it now turned out
that they short-circuited each other’s powers when they touched.
That Northstar
would become ill from no longer being able to project pure light when in
contact with his sister did not seem logical, considering they had been raised
separately and did not learn about each other’s existence until they both
joined Alpha Flight as adults.
Simultaneously,
living on Earth with pure blood of Alfheim in her veins should have caused Aurora
psychological problems where it was causing Northstar physical problems, but
she also had those psychological problems while they shared the ability to
project the light that had kept Northstar healthy.
It didn’t
make much sense, but all it took to cure Northstar was that Aurora transferred
the ability to project light to Northstar after which he left for Alfheim, where
he stayed until Alpha Flight #81 in 1990. Then it was suggested that Northstar and
Aurora did not have a mother from Alfheim after all, but that that it was just
a lie told them by Loki, the villainous half-brother of the thunder god Thor.
In Alpha
Flight #85 Northstar chose to share the ability to project light with Aurora. This
was accomplished by them hugging each other and wishing it true, after which
the twins were once again able to project a blinding light by touching each
other. Now they even had the ability to project light on their own, although
only at half strength, but Northstar subsequently only seldom used this ability.
After this
complicated mess, subsequent writers continued to have Aurora suffer from
psychological problems and have not tried to solve the question of the twins’
biological parents.
Back in the closet
In 1992, Alpha
Flight was written by Scott Lobdell and he wrote a story for Alpha Flight #106,
in which Northstar came out as gay to the assembled press of the Marvel universe.
The press in the real world also reported about Northstar coming out, however,
and Marvel drowned in letters from various interest groups and individuals who
had never read Alpha Flight before, but who now wanted to either praise or
condemn the event.
According
to a 1994 exposé in Hero Illustrated, Marvel’s then President Terry Stewart got
very upset about Alpha Flight #106 in which Northstar came out, because he was
called up on the phone by a woman who was angry that her son who read Alpha
Flight now had asked her what a “gay” was. Terry Stewart instructed the editors
of Alpha Flight that the words “homosexual” and “gay” in no way could appear in
future issues of the series. Marvels PR-department was also told to turn down
all media inquiries about Northstar.
And so Northstar
was kicked thoroughly back in the closet and stayed there until the Alpha
Flight series was cancelled with Alpha Flight #130 in 1994. Even when Northstar
subsequently got his own four issue limited series, it happened without the use
of the forbidden words, although a man named Raul appeared in Northstar #1. He
was present in Northstar’s bedroom and Northstar later thought of him as being
among the people who was closest to him, so it is possible to assume that Raul
was Northstar’s boyfriend.
That same
year, however, Jean-Paul Beaubier could be seen enjoying the company of the
heavily implied gay Hector of the Pantheon during a guest-appearance at a
wedding in the Incredible Hulk #418 written by Peter David. The two gentlemen
also shared a pin-up in Marvel Swimsuit Special #4 in 1995, so it is possible to
assume that Northstar and Hector met each other at that wedding and then subsequently
had a relationship.
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| Art by Jan Duursema |
Northstar’s suicide attempt
Scott
Lobdell, who wrote Alpha Flight #106, went on to write Marvel’s bestselling
title, the Uncanny X-Men, and in an interview by Clifford Lawrence published in
Wizard - the Guide to Comics #41 in January 1995, he said that: “Northstar may
end up joining the X-Men. He’s one of the new candidates.”
To the question
if Lobdell would then pick up the gay issue, Lobdell replied: “If he appears in
the book, yes. I don’t think it would be fair to introduce him into the book
and not explore every facet of the character.”
However,
Northstar did not appear in the book at that time. His next appearance would be
two years later and not yet in the pages of the X-Men. Although he was not in
the immediate cast when Alpha Flight vol. 2 was launched in 1997 with stories
by Steve Seagle, Northstar began to appear from issue #6 in an ongoing sub-plot
where he stated he was gay for the first time since Alpha Flight #106. In vol.2
#8, he said that being gay was not “a CHOICE. If it were, then NO ONE would
choose to be something that would immediately make them hated and feared by the
ignorant majority of this callous and intolerant world.”
And then it
was strongly suggested that he had attempted suicide by “trying to escape Earth’s
gravity” well knowing that he could not breathe in outer space. But he had
fallen back to Earth and had been picked up by a fishing trawler. Northstar
then set out to find his twin sister, but only succeeded in time for the series
to get cancelled in 1999 after only 20 issues.
This time Scott
Lobdell was allowed to then use Northstar, although only for a temporary team of
X-Men. Now 100 percent out of the closet and having written an autobiography
entitled Born Normal, Northstar guest-starred in Uncanny X-Men #392 and 393, as
well as in X-Men vol.2 #113 in 2001. The very entertaining story even had Northstar
beat up his homophobic teammate Paulie Provenzano.
Finally, an X-Man
Chuck
Austen became the writer of Uncanny X-Men in 2002. Since Northstar’s “test-run”
as an X-Man had gone over well with readers, the editors offered Austen to get Northstar
as a full-fledged X-Man. “Northstar was offered to me, and he brought with him
a wealth of opportunities for things I hadn’t seen done in comics,” Austen told
Alex Segura Jr. in a 2003 interview with News@rama,com.
“I have a
lot of gay friends, and many acquaintances, so it’s no big deal to have that
different viewpoint represented in my life,” Austen said. “I liked the idea of
adding that dynamic to the X-Men. Not that he’s flamboyant and harps on
his sexuality, but that he gives a different point of view. Juggernaut says he doesn’t understand what
women see in Gambit, and Northstar says, “I’D sleep with him”. And Juggernaut
laughs, because he forgot for the moment that Northstar is gay. Didn’t
see it coming. It’s like in my
life when a gay friend makes a remark about Brad Pitt. “Oh, yeah. That’s
right, you think that way.””
And so, in
Uncanny X-Men #414, Professor Xavier head-hunted Jean-Paul Beaubier to teach
Business and Economics at his School for Gifted Youngsters. The purpose was to
have Jean-Paul as a counselor for students of gay orientation and to have Northstar
on a team of X-Men, who besides Juggernaut also counted Archangel, Iceman, Havok,
Polaris, Wolverine, Nightcrawler, Jubilee and Husk.
Northstar’s
adventures as a genuine X-Man could be followed every month in Uncanny X-Men
for a while. At first, Northstar felt attracted to the unattainable, heterosexual
Iceman, which in hindsight was amusing, because years later writer Brian
Michael Bendis had Iceman turn out gay too, but at this point Nortstar was suffering
an unrequited crush.
In Wizard’s
X-Men Special 2003, Chuck Austen was asked if Northstar would ever find true
love. “Actually, Northstar WILL find
true love,” Austen answered. “It’s going to take him a while, because he has to
go through some changes to be ready for a serious relationship but stay tuned!”
And then, not an X-Man anyway…
However, as
things turned out there wasn’t much to “stay tuned” for after all. With Uncanny
X-Men #422, Northstar had his last inclusion as a full-fledged X-Man. From that
point on there were issues in which Northstar didn’t appear at all, and when he did make an appearance, it was usually as a supporting character.
In Uncanny X-Men
#425, Northstar was along for the bride’s bachelorette party when Havok and Polaris
were about to get married, and in Uncanny X-Men #431 to 434 he accompanied Juggernaut
on a trip to Canada, and then he disappeared completely from the series.
For a while
it added extra excitement to an already great series that Marvel had let their
gay readers have their very own superhero who was now completely out of the
closet after almost 20 years of hesitation, but the joy turned out to be short-lived
for fans of Northstar.
Northstar turned
up in New Mutants vol.2 #2, 7 and 8 in his capacity as a teacher at Professor Xavier’s
School for Gifted Youngsters, and in 2004 the school principal decided in X-Men
vol.2 #157 to restructure the different teams of X-Men, and at that occasion it
was made official that Northstar was no longer an active X-Man, and that he would
only continue on as a school teacher. When Xavier’s school came under attack
from enemies of the X-Men in X-Men vol.2 #163 and 164, which were Chuck Austen’s
final issues as writer of the X-Men, it also became Northstar’s final appearance
in the X-Men for now, when he helped defeat the bad guys.
Northstar’s death and resurrection
Writer Mark
Millar used Northstar in Wolverine vol.3 # 25-28, 30 and 31 in 2005. In the
story, Wolverine was killed and then resurrected by the underworld ninja-organization
The Hand. They brainwashed him into working as their assassin, and during an
attack on Professor Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters, Wolverine killed Northstar,
who then too was resurrected by the Hand and brainwashed into working as their
agent.
At the end
of the story, the espionage organization S.H.I.E.L.D. succeeded at bringing Wolverine’s
sanity back, but Northstar was left in S.H.I.E.L.D. custody as a drooling
lunatic after several failed attempts to break The Hand’s control of him. The
official cover-up story was that Northstar had died, which his former teammates
in the X-Men believed right up until X-Men vol. 2 #189 and 190 in 2006, in
which some bad guys brainwashed both Northstar and his twin sister Aurora into
attacking the X-Men. The twins now had a concussive element to the dazzling
burst of light they created upon touching each other, and the healing aspect of
that light healed their minds in X-Men Annual vol. 2 #1 in 2007, bringing
Northstar back to normal.
An X-Man again
In 2008, X-Men
leader Cyclops called Northstar to have him check up on one of his former students
in X-Men: Divided We Stand #1 and then, a year later, in Uncanny X-Men #508 writer
Matt Fraction had Wolverine approach Northstar and ask him back on the team.
Northstar, who was now a popular star of extreme snowsports and had a boyfriend,
accepted the offer although he didn’t want to be the X-Men’s gay mascot. Wolverine
admitted that having an out gay man on the team might buy them some good P.R.,
but they wanted him because tactically and strategically he’d be invaluable to
the team.
Writer Matt Fraction found Northstar especially compelling because of
the character's lack of self-doubt. "He's extremely confident in who he is
and what he can do,” Fraction told Dave Richards in an interview for CBR.com, published
16 April 2009. “Having someone positive and assertive is kind of nice in a team
full of people wracked with angst and self-doubt. And to write a guy who
believes in himself supremely is a lot of fun. It's not Namor-like arrogance,
it's just Northstar's biggest fan is himself. I think he earns that in this
story. He's got a lot of great moments.”
"Plus, there's a reason why I wanted him to be in the extreme
sports milieu (…) It's seems like he'd be an adrenalin junkie and that would be
the kind of thing he'd be into. I also want to exploit that and have that in,
of being famous. And I like that he's an unapologetic, out-of-the-closet gay
man. That's great to write too."
A neglected X-Man
Despite Fraction’s
good intentions, Northstar didn’t leave much of a mark in Fraction’s run on
Uncanny X-Men beyond the initial appearance. Fraction’s cast was very large,
and Northstar didn’t even make it to a cover appearance. As with his previous
membership, there were once again issues in which Northstar didn’t appear at
all. He got lost in the crowd.
And so Northstar
fans had to look for an eight-page story published in Nation X #2 in 2010 for
further development of his character. It was a fun story written and drawn by
Tim Fish in which we learned that Northstar’s boyfriend’s name was Kyle and
that Northstar split his time between his sports activities in Canada and his
duties as an X-Man. When Northstar and Kyle were reunited for a visit, there was a cut to them getting out of bed after assumably having had sex.
Then
Northstar was selected for inclusion on a team of X-Men that went on a mission
to the alternate dimension of Limbo in the 2010 X-Men: Hellbound three-issue limited
series written by Chris Yost, after which he played an acceptable part in
Fraction’s final Uncanny X-Men story-arc in #530-534, 2011. But when Fraction left as writer of
Uncanny X-Men, so too did Northstar disappear from the series,
although only to reappear a couple of months later in an Alpha Flight limited
series written by Greg Pak and Fred van Lente.
Getting serious with his boyfriend
Northstar
was seen kissing his boyfriend Kyle for the first time in Alpha Flight vol. 4
#0.1 in which readers also learned that Kyle was also Northstar’s PR
representative. In issue #1 it was furthermore revealed that Kyle had a sister
named Stevie and in #2 that his last name was Jinadu.
Although
Northstar wasn’t an official member of Alpha Flight, he joined up with the team
when not only his boyfriend, but the entire country of Canada was threatened by
the team’s arch-villain, the Master of the World. The limited series presented
the best portrayal of Northstar so far in the history of the character, so it
was a little sad when it ended with #8 in 2012, but luckily Northstar was
destined for an even more prominent starring role.
Only a
couple of months after the Alpha Flight series ended, writer Marjorie Liu used
Northstar for her exciting new team of X-Men debuting in Astonishing X-Men vol
3 #48 in 2012. And once again, Northstar and Bobby Drake, Iceman, were on the
same team, which also included Wolverine, Karma, Gambit, Cecilia Reyes and Warbird.
Marjorie
Liu’s X-Men stories portrayed the personal lives of the X-Men outside of the
mutant school setting, and Jean-Paul’s relationship with Kyle was the subject
of the first story-arc. The couple was settling into an apartment in Hell’s
Kitchen in New York City, beginning a new life living together after having
dated long distance for “years.”
Northstar proposes to Kyle
Kyle continued
managing Northstar’s business brand, and Jean-Paul, Northstar had promised
Wolverine that he’d help out if there was any trouble at the school or if he
needed a French teacher, and of course trouble immediately came knocking at
their door.
Writer Marjorie
Liu explained her view of the relationship between Jean-Paul and Kyle to
Rolling Stone’s Matthew Perpetua in a 22 May 2012 feature published online: “I looked at relationships between police
officers, soldiers, etcetera, and their spouses,” she said. “You have, for
example, one partner who is always going off into dangerous situations, whose “team”
at work is an important, integral, part of their lives, and then you’ve got the
person left behind. Like Kyle, who has a perfectly wonderful life, a great job,
but is a human man who has to watch his partner go fight aliens or giant
robots, or insane supervillains at the drop of a hat, and there’s nothing he can
do to help. On a bad day, he might even be a target himself. So, thinking about
Kyle in those terms, empathizing with him, I’ve had to mull the strains and
stresses that being with Northstar would put on him, those parts of his life
that he feels are lacking, what he wants long-term that he’s afraid he can’t
have, and so on.”
Northstar’s
solution to Kyle’s dilemma was to propose to him in Astonishing X-Men vol. 3
#50 to ensure him of his love, but Kyle wasn’t immediately sold on that
proposal, rejecting Jean-Paul at first because he felt the proposal was a
band-aid on their problems and not out of a sense of committed love.
After being
brainwashed by a villain into almost killing Northstar, Kyle changed his mind
and – convinced of Jean-Paul’s love for him – accepted the proposal after all in
the very next issue.
The first gay superhero marriage
Obviously
not believers in long engagements, Jean-Paul and Kyle tied the knot in
Astonishing X-Men vol. 3 #51, August 2012, with members of both Alpha Flight
and the X-Men present, as well as some of Northstar’s students at the Jean Grey
School for Higher Learning. Kyle’s sister seemed absent from the wedding, but
Jean-Paul’s sister Aurora attended, although her more conservative Jeanne-Marie
persona was in denial of Northstar’s sexual orientation in the recent 2012 Alpha
Flight limited series.
And once again,
Northstar managed to cause quite the stir in the real-world press by entering
into the first gay marriage in the superhero community. “When gay marriage became legal in New York State, it
raised obvious questions since most of our heroes reside in New York State,” Marvel
Comics editor-in-chief Axel Alonso said in the Rolling Stone feature. “Northstar
is the first openly gay character in comics and he’s been in a long-term
relationship with his partner Kyle so the big question was – how would this
change his relationship? Our comics are always best when they respond to and
reflect developments in the real world. We’ve been doing that for decades, and this
is just the latest expression of that.”
In Astonishing X-Men vol. 3 #53, Jean-Paul and Kyle
Beaubier-Jinadu were seen in bed together on their wedding night, and in
Astonishing X-Men vol. 3 Annual #1, 2013, readers even got to follow them on
their honeymoon. Times – and the climate at Marvel - had certainly changed for
the better since the great Northstar coming out controversy of twenty years past.
And they lived
happily ever after?
For the rest of the duration of the Astonishing X-Men
series, writer Liu had the American Immigration Council breathing down the
Canadian Northstar’s neck for being in the country illegally. He hired superhero
lawyer Jennifer Walters to handle his case, which got settled just in time for
Astonishing X-Men vol. 3 getting cancelled with issue #68 at the end of 2013.
The series was immediately relaunched at the beginning
of 2014 as Amazing X-Men vol. 3, but with new and changing writers and artists,
as well as a new cast. Only Northstar, Iceman and Wolverine carried over onto
the new team, with Warbird as a supporting character in the first story-arc,
and the action now spinning out of the Jean Grey School for Higher Learning.
Alpha Flight guest-starred in Amazing X-Men vol. 3
#8-12 with Aurora now in her Jeanne-Marie persona and having forgotten her
participation in her brother’s wedding – either that, or the writers, Craig
Kyle and Chris Yost, hadn’t paid attention, cause Aurora said, “They told me
you were married, Jean-Paul,” even though she herself had been present at the
wedding.
And guest-star Thor said about the origin of the Beaubier
twins: “They claim not to be of Alfheim, but I sense it within them. That, and
the arrogance.”
However, nothing more was said about Northstar’s origin
before the series was cancelled with issue #19 in 2015, and his husband Kyle
didn’t even get to appear in the series. But Amazing X-Men vol. 3 #13 did feature
a great story by guest-writer James Tynion IV about dating considerations for
freakish-looking mutants like gay teen Anole and the swashbuckling Nightcrawler
as opposed to a photo model-looking mutant like Northstar.
Replaced by Iceman?
Following Iceman admitting to himself that he too is gay
in Uncanny X-Men #600 in 2016, Northstar appeared as a guest at a party in Iceman’s
honor in Iceman vol. 3 #9 in 2018. It would appear that with the higher profile
X-Man character Iceman out of the closet, Northstar has taken a backseat as the
gay mutant icon in the popular X-Men universe.
