"HE'S NOT GAY, HE'S A FAIRY!!!"

[eliyes]

I inadvertently bought that issue of Alpha Flight today. Also the one where Walter gets turned back into a dude (note: it is still Snowbird's body!) which is just not very good at all. Of all the AF I bought today, the one where Kara Killgrave brings Northstar back to Mansion Alpha is one of my faves.

Regardless of the book, I did notice something. Everyone does a lot of ragging on JP all the time. Walter, yes, all the damned time. Heather. Puck. Maddie. The only one who likes him unreservedly is Kara, in fact.

Northstar: *saves Kara's mom from baddies*
Kara's Mom: Oh my -- you're Jean-Paul Beaubier! My daughter has posters of you all over her room!
Northstar: How flattering. -_-

It's no wonder he's a bitch to you guys, people! Try not being a complete jerk to him all the time! Fortunately things will get friendlier later.

The twins have this adorable "shouting something in unison" thing going on when Ernest St. Ives came back. X3

I look at the older issues, long long before JP was officially outed, and I wonder if the artists were told to draw his body language as coming across gay. I really do. There are poses and gestures he gets drawn doing that the other guys don't, but some of the girls do.

Comments

[serenity-ca4.livejournal.com]

I bought a stack of Alpha flight, I think the first couple of years, and hit the one where the original writer left, you know.. the one where they're in an epic battle, and Jean-Paul and Jeanne-Marie are sitting in a corner crying their eyes out over (a-not-even-dead-yet) Walter while everyone else is fighting for their lives.

Yeah... I was a bit disgusted... and it only got worse from there, so I never did finish reading the whole stack. Sigh.

As for the artistry and JP's sexuality, yeah, that was intentional. JP's artist and authors conceived him as gay long before they were ever allowed to actually say it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northstar (see the section on sexuality)

[eliyes.livejournal.com]

Oh, some of the older stuff is horrid, I agree. The art, the storylines, the interactions, the dialogue, the characterization -- one or more of these things is likely to be repellent. It was never a very popular title, and that's a big part of why, really. But still, you take what you can.

Oh, I know, it's just a little jarring sometimes to notice this really flagrantly obvious use of body language. A lot of the comics I read will randomly have some characters doing some action or caught in some pose that is very suggestive of (stereotypical) homosexuality, and it's often completely unintentional (or meant as a joke), so realising that yes, I'm seeing this, and yes, it's intentional... it's a little mind-blowing from time to time. ;3

It's funny, he came across as a lot more "gay" before they officially outed him -- but then, the artist for when they outed him was terrible.