X-Factor Spoiler Alert: Things Get Steamy!

Sorry for my sudden disappearance, but a terrible storm ripped through my neck of the woods yesterday and I've been sans electricity for awhile. I got to catch up on some reading (started AND finished The Long Walk by Stephen King er... Richard Bachman) and take a look at the glut of good comics that came out this Wednesday.

I'll be reviewing the choicest of the bunch a little later, but for now, let's talk about a little book called X-Factor.

First of all, if you haven't been reading this book you are missing out. Oh sure, it's got an "X" in the title, which usually means its mediocre at best. And yes, it shares the name of a 90's comic that wasn't always the greatest. But under the mindful hand of legend Peter David, this self-proclaimed "noir" take on mutants is constantly entertaining and oozes wit, charm and above all else-- characters worth reading about.

Second of all, if you haven't been reading this book you might want to go home because we're in SPOILER territory from here on out.









Okay, are we alone now?

Good.


Let's talk about THIS PANEL for a second.


For those of you just joining the game, that is indeed Shatterstar and Rictor, finally locking lips after all of these years. Is Marvel finally letting this relationship come out of the closet, or is this just a big hoax at our expense?

If you need a recap, Shatterstar and Rictor were once teammates in the pages of X-Force. While the two were always that special kind of close, the official word was that they were just good friends and did not have romantic feelings for one another.

Meanwhile, in the pages of the new X-Factor, Rictor has gone through some hard times after losing his powers in M-Day. He broods, he gets depressed, he even thinks of suicide, but somehow he keeps going. The most recent story-arc has Rictor and Guido tracking down a duplicate of Jamie Madrox in order to get some answers as to where he currently is. They're attacked by Shatterstar, who is being possessed by some new villain named Cortex. After breaking off the possession, Shatterstar is surprised to see Rictor and greets his "good friend" with a steamy kiss. Guido's like "WTF" and we fade to black.

Consider me both shocked and giddy to see where this goes. There are two possibilities. One, that they're finally ready to make this OTP a canon thing. Two, that they're just waiting to retcon the whole thing away at the beginning of next month's issue. Maybe Shatterstar was still possessed, or maybe he was coming onto Rictor and the feelings were not shared.

Either way, I trust Peter David. Whatever angle he's playing here, it's going to make for some interesting storytelling. Was all of the brooding and suicidal tendecies just a result of Rictor's sexual identity issues? Is this just Shatterstar's asexuality coming to the surface? Anyway you look at it, the next few months are going to be interesting over at X-Factor Investigations.

Gay Kids Love X-Men or Why I'll Read Nearly Any Book That Has a Certain Letter in the Title

As I discussed in my last post, one of the earliest comics that got me into the medium was the first issued of little gem called "X-Men Adventures." While I had been familiarized with comics before that point, it wasn't until I met Marvel's merry mutants did I get fully hooked. They had the coolest characters, the brightest colors and had the biggest adventures. But the x-factor that kept my interest and sparked an obsession inside of me was the ideas of persecution and otherness that a young confused gay kid like me could relate with.

To this day, I still can't imagine how some gay men and women can go nearly half their lives before realizing who they really are. I feel lucky to have been wise enough to not only realize it at an early age, but to have the X-Men around to show me that, hey, being different isn't only okay, it's kind of cool too.

And during those days, I lived and breathed X-Men. I collected all the toys, including the characters I didn't even know anything about. I saved up money over the course of a summer so I could buy a Sega Genesis, solely because of the X-Men game that was released for the system. My playground days were spent with the "X-Men Club," pretending to fight Magneto and getting in trouble with authority when our play battles got too realistic. It's amazing to find out later on in life how a few of my fellow recess teammates ended up being gay themselves.

In recent years Marvel has only played up the whole gay analogy when it comes to the X-Men. When the first movie was being made, they tapped openly gay director Bryan Singer, who then brought in openly gay actor Ian McKellen. Gay characters have now been integrated into the cast in the forms of Northstar, Anole, Greymalkin and the Ultimate Universe version of Colossus. And let's not forget the AIDS anaology with the Legacy Virus from the 90s comics.

If you open up an X-Men comic today, you'll find the group has relocated to San Francisco, which has a history of being a gay friendly place. The pages are filled with the mutant characters being "out and proud," going shopping or clubbing and doling out the smackdown on anybody who tries to mess with their good time.

And it's that rebelness, that strength and conviction that has helped me to cope with growing up gay. I knew I'd face hard times, just like the X-Men had to face the intolerance and bigotry of the people they tried to protect. These were some real heroes to look up to and so to this day, I'll have to admit, I'm kind of still obsessed with them.