In more recent years, however, LGBTQ+ superheroes in comics have exploded into the spotlight, thanks in large part to marginalized creators doing the work. Gay writer Allen Heinberg made big waves in 2005 when he partnered up teen heroes Wiccan and Hulking in the pages of Young Avengers, a duo that remains a fan favorite today. Northstar married his boyfriend Kyle in a 2012 story written by Taiwanese-American writer Marjorie Liu, and trans characters like Marvel’s Sera and Koi Boi have been moving from one-offs to regular in-universe players. This year, Marvel also published Marvel’s Voices: Pride, an oversized special issue featuring short stories about queer characters by LGBTQ+ creators including Lilah Sturges, Tamra Bonvillain, and Steve Orlando.
This has all contrasted rather heavily with the MCU, which Feige has promised for years will integrate more LGBTQ+ characters — with few tangible results, unless you count Joe Russo’s weird decision to play a grieving gay man for thirty seconds in Avengers: Endgame. In fairness, Feige was always hyping Phastos and The Eternals, which was delayed due to the pandemic, but the fact that it took over a decade since Iron Man to get a single gay superhero… well, Feige is right: it’s past time.
Now that Phastos is poised to make his big pop culture debut when the film drops next month, we hope we can take Feige at his word and expect a lot more queerness from the MCU going forward. We’ve already got bisexual Loki as of earlier this year (for the pedants out there, the god of Mischief is not a superhero), so who might we see next? Given that so much of Phase 4 has been about legacies and the fallout from Endgame, I’ve got a good feeling that we might catch a glimpse of some Young Avengers in love on the horizon.
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