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Tuesday, April 01, 2008
This post explains Legion of Super-Heroes fandom for the past three decades
So since I'm making myself reacquainted with the whole X-franchise (in a few months I'll read eight issues of the 90's X-Force in a row and lose my grasp on reality) I decide to check up on an old Comics Journal interview Chris Claremont a.k.a. The 'Mont did. He sounded a bit irked that readers were always looking for romantic and sexual subtext in character interactions. The interview was from 1979 or 1980. Even then you could see the avalanche of slash and shippers fans the stories would inspire.
I'm certainly sympathetic to Claremont not wanting his writing to be misinterpreted. But I see superheroes this way: these are gorgeous people defined by their physicality. In the books that means they're always fighting, with villains or each other. Between the pages the other side of the equation has to realize itself. These people have to be having mind-blowing sex. I don't want this to appear on the page in any graphic detail. I have no interest in seeking out the aforementioned slash fiction so readily available in this day and age. But, to echo certain observations Michael Chabon made in The New Yorker recently, sexuality oozes from these characters. That's especially true for Marvel's Merry Mutants. Claremont had to know, it certainly seemed to inform his later work in the books, that the lives these characters lead lends itself to a certain seductive libertine spirit.
I was thinking about this reading New Avengers #39. It was a good depiction of "superhero sexuality." A Skrull invasion plotline is bookended by the romantic adventures of deaf ninja Echo. She and Wolverine review their past affair in the book's beginning. By the book's end the lady and Hawkeye have started something new. As a whole the book explains the psychology behind this. These people are constantly in danger of getting killed. Right now they don't know, as Marvel's publicity department loves to tells us, whom they can trust (at least I subscribe to the rules of grammar). You think the latter fact would put the kibosh on the knocking of boots but its the former that supersedes all. There's a go for broke feeling with these people. Some more than others. That's why for those of us who follow long form superhero storytelling we're going to imagine a bond between the characters greater than what can and really should be shown.
Admit it, if you repelled Galactus from the planet you wouldn't be so pumped you'd fuck the first thing that said "hello" to you? Please.
Permanent Link: 6:17 PM |
1 comments
Comments:
Considering how blatantly Claremont has worked his...um, let's say his symbols and his enthusiasms into his work for all these years, most especially with but not limited to the X-franchise, for him to quarrel with the same tendency in his audience was maybe a little bit disingenuous.
However, if there's one thing I know it's LSH fandom, and your headline is right on the money.
# posted by RAB : 11:18 PM
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