This picture seems to depict Spiderman on the subway looking at his cell phone, while his seatmate leans his head on his shoulder. A romantic gesture. Are we seeing a gay Spiderman and his boyfriend?
It's from a September 2018 article in Polygon magazine about the Spider-Man PS4 Video Game. As Spidey goes about his adventuring, he gets phone calls from family and friends, but his voice sounds different depending on whether he's swinging or standing. Voice artist Yuri Lowenthal recorded different versions of the same phrases to create the effect.
I don't know anything about video games, but I googled "Spider-Man PS4 Game": it advertises Spider-Man in an "all-new adventure"! Here Peter Parker is an experienced crime-fighter, not a sallow youth, and the iconic characters have been "re-imagined."
1. Mary-Jane and Peter have a romantic history, but are not dating.
You may recall Miles Morales from the gay-subtext film Into the Spider-Verse. He stars in his own PS5 game, with no Peter Parker. Apparently that game is gay-inclusive
But Spidey's seatmate is Yuri Lowenthal, not Mike Morales.
Yuri Lowenthal is a Jewish boy from Tennessee who majored in East Asian languages at the College of William and Mary. He has voiced many characters in anime and American animation, such as Ben 10. He's also written a book on voice acting.
As far as I can tell from his "wife and kids" bio, he's heterosexual.
No beefcake photos on his Instagram, but here's a cute guy waiting to see him at a convention.
The word "gay" appears twice in Yuri's Twitter account: first he explains that a three-way involving two guys and a girl "isn't gay" (of course not: it would be bisexual for the guys).
Scond, he responds to an unknown comment by screenwriter Zack Stenz: "What's a gay."
So probably not an ally.
The intended meaning of the picture remains a mystery, but I'll take gay subtexts wherever I can find them, especially with iconic characters like Spider-Man.
Spider Man and the Human Torch were room mates in the comics - now that's bromance that I would love to see in either a movie or tv show- but let's make both of them gay .
ReplyDeleteIt's been proposed that Spider-Man and his Amazing Friends were a threesome. Bobby being, well, Bobby.
DeleteQuesada axed his marriage to Mary Jane some time ago, and for stupid reasons (superheroes need to be in their teens or twenties) and a stupid storyline where Aunt May is dying and this is the price Mephisto asks to save her.
ReplyDeleteFor good measure, Quesada also decreed that Gwen Stacy fucked the Green Goblin while Peter was on assignment in Quebec (tracking the Hulk and Wendigo, introduction of Wolverine) and had twins. Must've been a wild couple of weeks.
Man, and here I thought Andreyko's Nightwing annual was ludicrous.
Oh, Miles was introduced in Ultimates, a darker and edgier take on the usual Earth-616. Basically that Peter dies.
ReplyDeleteEnter Secret Wars 2015. It's basically Marvel's take on Crisis on Infinite Earths. The tl;dr is the Beyonders destroy the multiverse, Doctors Strange and Doom salvage enough of a world, each giving themselves one aspect of the divine. (Doom is omnipotent, Strange is omniscient), and in the end, Franklin Richards rebuilds the multiverse. (Shades of Zero Hour...)
Ultimates doesn't survive, but Miles does because of a gesture of kindness we all forgot about, (Aaaaaand Infinite Crisis Batman stopping Golden Age Superman's cosmic genocide with a name. Though Miles is more Tim Drake. Hey, that's a name you haven't mentioned.)