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Though he was created in 1979 it wasn’t until 1992 that Northstar was allowed to be openly gay. Creator John Byrne had intended the character to be gay since the beginning but was restricted to hints as Marvel’s EIC at the time, Jim Shooter, had a policy against openly gay characters. Scott Lobdell, however, was finally given the go-ahead to out him (by a new EIC) and did so in this issue.
The story revolves around Northstar (while battling Mr. Hyde alongside the rest of Alpha Flight) finding an abandoned baby girl in a trash can. He takes her to a hospital and discovers that she has AIDS. He adopts her, names her Joanne Beaubier and he and his team do a variety of charity events to raise AIDS awareness.
All the media attention leads to a fight with Major Mapleleaf, more or less Canada’s answer to Captain America, who lost his son, Michael, to AIDS. Though the fight (and art) are ridiculous, his point is a good one: as a gay man, Michael was just a statistic and, in some minds, brought his death on himself.
The fight culminates, of course, with Northstar uttering those three infamous words. Mapleleaf chastises Jean-Paul for having stayed in the closet, arguing that as a superhero and Olympic champion he could have done good by talking about his sexuality, that he’s just as responsible for his son’s death as “the homophobic politicians who refuse to address the AIDS crisis.” Northstar disagrees, saying that he’s no more responsible for Michael’s death than the young man himself. He does, however, agree that more attention needs to be brought to the crisis, its victims and the people who are left behind. The baby dies and Alpha Flight holds a press conference where Northstar tells the world that he’s gay.
This was groundbreaking stuff in 1992 as Northstar was one of the first openly gay characters in mainstream cape comics. Even though Marvel proceeded to sit on their hands and do nothing with this new facet of his character for the almost twenty years that followed, this moment did open the door for the characters who came after. And though there have been many low points over the years regarding gay characters, I think this issue should be recognized for setting the precedent for having gay superheroes (or villains or sidekicks or friends or family or whatever) in American comics. This was just one more step towards telling more inclusive stories with a broad range of characters.
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