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ron bailey
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 16 October 2016
Location: United States
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| Posted: 21 March 2025 at 3:34pm | IP Logged | 1
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Wasn't that more interesting to play with narratively, having to work around that restriction? Didn't it ultimately say more about the status quo at the time?
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
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| Posted: 21 March 2025 at 3:56pm | IP Logged | 2
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No.
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Dave Kopperman
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Joined: 27 December 2004
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| Posted: 21 March 2025 at 5:01pm | IP Logged | 3
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I’ve gone back and forth on the nature of Northstar’s coming out over the years. It’s still all tied up in how little I cared for Scott Lobdell as a writer. I’m ultimately glad the character was allowed to be who he was, and I even kind of think that having it happen in the middle of a fight conveys something of the turmoil and potential drama that major life moment no doubt has for some. But unlike JB - who I think had a remarkable ability as comics writer of that era to breathe life into characters and give them real interiority and agency, Lobdell himself was a writer of zero nuance with a remarkably bad ear for dialogue and seemingly zero empathy for his characters.
It gets back to my earlier point (and an area where I agree with the original essay); because this is probably one the most pivotal moments of the character’s life, and certainly a major point in the fictional presentation of that character - not to mention the history of the medium - where it suddenly becomes about the character’s specific identity, it moves over that line from thoughtful representation (which is the right and responsibility of any writer) to a minority experience with which the writer in question had no real conception.
Edited by Dave Kopperman on 21 March 2025 at 5:02pm
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John Byrne
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| Posted: 21 March 2025 at 6:02pm | IP Logged | 4
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Meanwhile, I have had to tolerate decades of Lobdell being given all the credit for making Northstar Gay.
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Dave Kopperman
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| Posted: 21 March 2025 at 10:48pm | IP Logged | 5
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JB: I don't suppose you've ever had a conversation with either Lobdell or the editor of the book about it?
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John Byrne
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| Posted: 21 March 2025 at 11:51pm | IP Logged | 6
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Of course not.
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Mark Haslett
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| Posted: 22 March 2025 at 1:57am | IP Logged | 7
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JB's whole run on Alpha Flight was long over before I realized Northstar was gay. But when I did learn this was true and that it was the intent all through JB's run, it clicked into place with an "AH-HA! So that's what I was sensing!"
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Steven Myers
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| Posted: 22 March 2025 at 2:27am | IP Logged | 8
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It was something missing when the reveal was news. They never said if Northstar had always been written as gay or was intended to be so. I think that's a big deal.
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John Byrne
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| Posted: 23 March 2025 at 11:59am | IP Logged | 9
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It can be argued that Northstar was not “intended” to be Gay. Often I’ve said he was Gay from Day Two. When Alpha Flight were about to get their own series, I began looking around for elements that would make them more than a group created to survive a battle with the X-Men. One thing that came almost immediately to mind was a short article I had read in SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN, detailing how German researchers had determined that Homosexuality was genetic in origin. It wasn’t a psychosis brought on by childhood trauma. (Amazing that we used to think that way!) Reading that article I had decided there should be Gay superheroes, and now I had the chance to create one. By a process of elimination, I chose Northstar.
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Dave Kopperman
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| Posted: 23 March 2025 at 2:17pm | IP Logged | 10
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As a gay, silver-haired Canadian mutant who is a twin and professional skier, Jean-Paul definitely exists as a minority of one (though he and Pietro would have a lot to talk about). That haughtiness was earned.
This thread has reminded me how much I dug the new types of characters in Alpha Flight at that time, another thing that made the book a standout in my monthly pile. Guardian and Sasquatch were kind of aligned with prior tropes (g man with tech battle suit and scientist transformed by experiment with radiation), and they were both straight-ahead, no-nonsense white guys. But Snowbird, Aurora, and Northstar felt really new to me. Shaman was kind of in the middle; native mystics had been around in comics for a while but the presentation of his culture felt similarly thoughtful and sensitive to Jean-Paul’s. And when Elizabeth and Heather started to come into focus, they were also something new.
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John Byrne
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| Posted: 25 March 2025 at 11:43am | IP Logged | 11
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Minor point, but Aurora and Northstar are meant to have shiny BLACK hair. A surprising number of artists have failed to pick up on this, over the years. I recall one instance where their hair was left completely open, and the colorist made them BLONDE! At least Randy Bowen got it right!
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James Woodcock
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Joined: 21 September 2007
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 8043
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| Posted: 25 March 2025 at 1:55pm | IP Logged | 12
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I often point out that Northstar being gay is possibly the best example of all
ages writing.
I totally missed it when I first read Alpha Flight.
On subsequent readings, being older, I am staggered that I missed it.
Writing for all ages. Byrne the master of such
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