Recently in the pages of Marvel Comics, founding member of the X-Men and mainstay of the Marvel Universe Iceman came out as gay. For some readers, this was a big shock, since the character has been portrayed as heterosexual since day one. For others readers (especially gay readers) who have been reading between the lines of Iceman’s romantic adventures, many theorized that Bobby Drake had actually been gay for decades. As with most things of this nature, it created quite a bit of controversy among fans.
Of course, to the non-comics reading masses, they mostly know Iceman from his portrayal in the live-action X-Men movies, as played by actor Shawn Ashmore most recently in X-Men: Days of Future Past. So does this turn of events in the comics mean the movie version of Iceman has been hiding a gay secret all this time, too? Recently, IGN caught up with Ashmore, and asked him if he’d be down to portray a gay version of Iceman on screen. Here’s what he had to say:
“Obviously the comics and movies are separate. I wonder what the transition would be because we’ve sort of established Bobby as having a love interest in Rogue and having a love interest in sort of Kitty Pryde, but I think it’d be really interesting. I think it’d probably be the most interesting thing that could happen to Bobby in the films. If they decided to take the story that way, it’d be incredibly dramatic, it’d be an interesting storyline, and it would give Bobby a great character arc. I’d definitely be open to that.”
Of course, Iceman also dated Rogue and Kitty Pryde in the comics as well, and we all know how that turned out. And it is kind of telling that his most prominent relationship in the film series is with a woman who can’t ever be touched. Not to mention, Iceman’s “coming out” scene in Bryan Singer’s X2 is the most on-the-nose parallel to mutants and LGBT in the entire series. It doesn’t seem likely that the original series X-Men will be making a comeback any time soon, but if they do, here’s hoping Fox has the chutzpah to give Iceman the storyline he deserves.
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HT: IGN
IMAGE: Twentieth Century Fox
