Kevin Feige On When We Will Finally See A Gay Character In The Marvel Cinematic Universe
We saw a landmark ruling last week as the Supreme Court ruled by a 5-to-4 vote that the Constitution guarantees a right to same-sex marriage. This was on my mind as I sat down with Marvel Studios head Kevin Feige over the weekend. I put the question out there: when will we finally see a LGBT character in the Marvel Cinematic Universe? Get his answer, after the jump.
When Will There Be a Gay Marvel Cinematic Universe Character?
Here is what Marvel Studios head Kevin Feige told me when I asked him "When will we finally see a LGBT character in the Marvel Cinematic Universe?"
"The answer is, there is no reason why that can't happen any time soon. You know, we pull the characters from the comics, for the most part, and they've been forging new ground for decades in the comics. They've been very progressive in the comics. And even more recently in a very important and progressive way. And we keep track of all of those things and are inspired by all of those things, so I'd love it to find an organic, meaningful and natural way for that to happen at some point in the not so distant future."
So it sounds like the Marvel brain trust will be working to make this happen sooner than later. Disney has always been a very progressive company, so I don't doubt it will happen. And Feige is right, the comic books have been very progressive for years. The Marvel Wikia lists 129 homosexual characters who have appeared in the Marvel comic books. And yes, while this is a very small number compared to the 7,000 characters in the company's comic book history, they have been trying.
Recently Marvel revealed Iceman/Bobby Drake to be gay in a storyline in All New X-Men #40, which is nothing new for the series. Alpha Flight's Northstar came out in 1992, and in 2012 they had a mainstream newsworthy cover featuring Northstar's wedding (see header image).
On the television side, fans were disappointed that Marvel's Agents of SHIELD featured the character Victoria Hand but refused to acknowledge the character's sexuality from the comic books. It certainly sounds like the theatrical team at Marvel Studios is more proactive and is hoping soon to bring a more diverse set of characters to the big screen.