Adam Basil: Bodybuilder, gay pirate, gay-subtext creature, gay-icon zombie. Are you getting the idea? With his mushroom, n*de Spartacus and Sherlock Holmes

   

Link to the n*de dudes

In the original stories, Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes shows no interest in women and a lot of interest in his "roommate," Dr. Watson.  But most film and tv versions aggressively heterosexualize the guys, sometimes with queerbaiting first.  So I had no faith in the new Amazon Prime series Young Sherlock Holmes. 

With good reason: he meets the Girl of His Dreams almost instantly.  Plus the reviews say that he's nothing like the traditional Sherlock; he's a gormless, idiotic, girl-chasing rapscallion.

The rapscallion's rear is on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends.

But there was something of definite interest in the first scene (top photo): Mycroft Holmes goes to Newgate Prison to spring his wastrel brother (set up for pickpocketing, although he always returned the wallets after swiping them), and finds him at fisticuffs with the shirtless muscleman Barney (Adam Basil, top photo).  

Pecs, abs, biceps...dude, you're breath-taking.  Why have I never seen you in anything before?

Turns out that I've seen him in a lot of things, but he's playing characters named The Beast, The Butcher, and The Demon, under heavy stage makeup, so you can't really see his face.  Or physique.

Pity.

I didn't find a lot of biographical information, just what is listed on the IMDB: Adam grew up in the east of England, studied acting, and performed traditional British theater.  His "unusually high levels of athleticism" (meaning his muscles?) led him to creature work.

After a few small roles, Adam became Disney-famous for the live action version of Beauty and the Beast (2017) -- as the Beast, before the spell is broken and he turns into Dan Stevens.

Disney today, Marvel tomorrow: in 2021, he starred in Venom 2: Let There Be Carnage as the sarcastic, gay-coded symbiote who shares the body of journalist Eddie Brock (Tom Hardy). Shares the body?  Tell me more.

But it was his role as The Bloater in The Last of Us (2023) that sealed Adam's popularity with gay fans.  

Wait -- The Last of Us is about a zombie Apocalypse caused by a mutated wheat fungus.   The Bloater is completely covered with fungal pustules, which act like iron plates, making him impervious to bullets -- and giving him super-strength, so he rips people's heads off their bodies, like the zombie Samson in 28 Years Later.  

They also make him so disgusting that I had to avert my eyes whenever he appeared.  How does a being like that gain gay fans?

But in interviews in Out and The Pink News, Adam states that the Bloater has become a s*x symbol in the gay community.  He gets DMs that call him Big Daddy Mushroom.

Are you sure that they mean the Bloater, and not your mushroom....

Adam's mushroom is on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends

More after the break

Doc Savage: The First Gay Superhero

When I was a kid, I never cared much for Marvel comics, other than the gay-subtext heavy Werewolf by Night, but in the summer of 1972, my eyes were drawn to the gleaming hard-muscle physique on the cover of Doc Savage #1, "the first superhero of them all!"

How was that possible?  We already had Superman, Batman, Spiderman....

Turns out that Doc Savage got his start as a pulp hero, first created by Lester Dent in 1933 (5 years before Superman). His adventures have been reprinted in paperback form from the 1960s through the 1990s.  There have been comic books, two radio series, and a 1975 movie starring Ron Ely of Tarzan fame.

Like Batman, Doc has no superpowers; he relies on his superb physique, scientific gadgets, and medical training to fight evil (when he catches villains, he gives them brain operations to cure them of their criminal tendencies).

Unlike Batman and every other superhero, he doesn't wear a spandex costume; he appears shirtless and bronze and gleaming.

He lives and works on the 86th floor of the Empire State Building in New York City, accompanied by his team, "The Fabulous Five."
1.-2. Chemist Monk (who has the build of a gorilla) and attorney Ham, who feud with each other.
3. Renny, an engineer with a massive physique of his own.
4. Long Tom, a long, thin engineer.
5. The egghead archaeologist Johnny.

The only regular female character was Doc's cousin Pat, who tagged along on adventures in spite of being told to "wait here where it's safe."

Here are some of the plotlines:

Johnny finds a prehistoric egg that may have hatched into a dinosaur.
Monk runs afoul of the mind-controlling Lucky Napoleon.
Ham witnesses "the rustling death" that drops men out of airplanes.
A naked man is fished out of the Atlantic and hailed as a prophet.

Quite a lot of captures and nick-of-time rescues going on, and not a lot of hetero-romance.

Other members of the team occasionally get girlfriends, but as Monk explains, "There won't be any women in Doc's life."  He has a female companion in the 1975 movie, but doesn't kiss her.  Many rescued damsels-in-distress have tried to snare him, but he tactfully rebuffs their advances.  He has, you see, "no time for women."

Yeah, right, no time.

Philip Jose Farmer's A Feast Unknown (1969) gives Doc Savage and Tarzan an abusive sexual relationship.

Heterosexual fans have faced the "accusation" of Doc's gayness for many years, usually with shrieks of "No way is Doc gay!"  But a surprising number of gay kids found a role model in the Doc

.

Jack Russell's Boyfriend: Werewolf by Night

Speaking of werewolves, the only Marvel/DC comic I read regularly in the 1970s was Werewolf by Night, which appeared from 1972 to 1977.

I bought the first issue because I figured it would the first time the character appeared in print, as opposed to other Marvel characters who moved in and out of each other's books at random.  Wrong -- Jack Russell had been around for a couple of years.

Why name a werewolf after a breed of dog?  

At least the first issue had an origin story. 

Jack Russell turns 18 and inherits the family curse; during the three nights of the full moon, he turns into a ravaging werewolf. Afterwards, of course, his clothes are gone, revealing an amazing physique.  In the second issue, he tries to explain his dilemma to the man he lives with -- "more than a friend" -- a middle-aged writer named Buck Cowan.






Buck also has an amazing physique and is allergic to shirts.

There is a "damsel in distress" being threatened on most covers, but surprise!  It's not some girl, it's his sister.  Jack doesn't have a girlfriend, girl admirer, or female crush, at least not in the issues I read.  

In 2013, he appeared in a guest spot on The Ultimate Spider-Man, voiced by Disney hunk Ross Lynch.

See also: Jim Steranko

Jim Steranko: Escape Artist turned Comic Book Artist

Jim Steranko (born 1938) started out as a stage magician and escape artist, following in the footsteps of Harry Houdini.

With a beefy physique to match.

In the late 1960s, while Frank Frazetta was busily revitalizing Conan the Barbarian, Steranko revitalized Marvel Comics, drawing The X-Men, Captain America, Strange Tales, and Nick Fury: Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D.  He also wrote one of the first histories of comic books (1971).

I didn't read Marvel comics much when I was a kid, but I knew Jim Steranko's work from the covers of many paperback sword-and-sorcery novels that he illustrated during the 1970s.

His covers differed from the usual Conan and John Carter of Mars stuff: they usually pictured the mighty-thewed barbarian heroes without naked ladies attached to their thighs.

And the stories inside were often free of "rescuing the princess" hijinks.  David Van Arnam's Lord of Blood buddy-bonds barbarian hero Valzar and his servant Lynor.


Isn't Kelwin a rather silly name for a barbarian hero?  He should be winning science fairs, not battling the "yellow-skinned wizards of Hunan."

I bought The Mighty Swordsmen at a used bookstore in Paris without realizing that there was a naked lady on the cover.

Apparently I missed a lot of the ladies in Steranko's work.

I didn't notice his compendiums of pin-up girls, or his comic book art, crowded with shirtless, muscular men and ladies in skintight leather outfits, like that of Mrs. Peel on The Avengers. 

But at least he was an aficionado of the male form.

And recent versions of his Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. title feature a lesbian character.

See also: Werewolf by Night; and Kamadi.

The Wolverine: In a World of Evil, Backstabbing Men and Kind Supportive Women, Who Are You Gonna Date?

 I'm having a bad week in mass media, looking for gay representation and finding heterosexism or homophobia: Pass the Light,  A Babysitter's Guide to Monster Hunting, Redneck Roots, The Queen's Gambit...and now it's Saturday night, when we watch the X-Men movies in order (Bob's idea, not mine).

The X-Men are mutants with an X-gene that gives them varying types of superheroic powers.  Tonight: The Wolverine (2013) features the hard-drinking, hard-fighting, annoyingly surly Logan (Hugh Jackman), whose ability to instantly regenerate cells makes him immortal.  And depressed.  Plus his hands sprout Freddy Krueger-style blades whenever he's angry or upset, or sometimes at random and inopportune moments.

Logan still feels pain, so one would expect him to spend his immortality in quiet contemplation of the Divine, or take a nice teaching job at Dr. Xavier's X-Men Academy, but no, he enlists in whatever war is going on at this moment: American Civil War (even though he''s Canadian), World War I, World War II.  

Scene 1:  Logan in a pit, a prisoner of war in Nagoya, Japan on July 26th, 1945.  Everyone is evacuating or committing ritual suicide as the Enola Gay approaches with nuclear bombs.  Young soldier Ichiro (Ken Yamamura) tries to release Logan, but he states that the pit is the safest place, and shields Ichiro with his own body.  

A homoerotic buddy bonding scene!  Things are lookng up. Maybe Ichiro will stick around, and they will go on adventures together.   Wouldn't that be great!  Even if they're not a gay couple, just heterosexual life partners.

Scene 2: Logan in bed with a woman, kissing and hugging.

Way to burst my bubble in the first five minutes!  Ok, same-sex relationships are trivial and disposable, heterosexual romance eternal.  I get it!

Scene 3: After some machinations to demonstrate that he likes woodland creatures, Logan looks up with a kick-ass babe, who tells him that the now-elderly and dying Ichiro wants to see him again, to "say goodbye."

So he has fond memories of their time together, after all these years?  Memories of a homoerotic buddy-bond?  Things are looking up.

Scene 4: Logan and Kick-Ass Babe fly to Japan on a private jet.  Turns out that Ichiro is a multi-billionaire electronics mogul, and also a bit of a kook: he likes to pretend that he's living in traditional Japan, with rice-paper walls, samurai swords, and women in kimonos.  

He actually doesn't want to say goodbye: he wants to modify Logan's X-gene so he can experience cellular decay.  He will therefore age normally and eventually die, and in the meantime "fall in love, get married, raise a family."

Ok, ok, the sole purpose of existence is heterosexual marriage and reproduction.  Same-sex friendships are worthless.  I get it.

Scene 5: Logan meets Ichiro's snarling, surly, ninja-fighting son Shingen (Hiroyuki Sanada) and quiet, passive, impossibly virtuous granddaughter Mariko.

Uh-oh, Ichiro is dead.  That means that Mariko inherits everything, and everyone wants to kill her, including her dad.

And her fiancee, corrupt finance minister Norobuku Mori (Brian Tee)

Geez, are all the men in this movie evil, and all the women good?  

Well, slinky Bond Girl scientist Dr. Green is evil, a mutant whose super power involves poisoning men to death by kissing them.  Fortunately she's not attracted to men, so she doesn't have to worry about kiss/killing someone she likes.

No heterosexual interest means evil?   This is getting very close to stereotyped gay villain territory. Do we have to keep watching?

To be fair, I got the "no heterosexual interest" from the line "I'm immune to men."  In the comics the character is heterosexual, and even marries Logan at one point.

Kenouchi Haruda (Will Yun Lee) may be the only male character other than Ichiro who isn't evil.  According to Wikipedia, he's a ninja "sworn to protect the Yamada family."  I don't really remember him, though.  I stop paying attention.

I wish I was watching whatever movie this photo is from, instead.

I start paying attention again in the final scene plot twist: 

Spoiler alert:

Ichiro is alive!  He has transformed into a man-machine supervillain, Logan's arch-nemesis.

Moral: All men are evil, they wiall same-sex relationships are destructive and dangerous. But women -- at least heterosexual women -- are unfailingly good, kind, and supportive.

I suppose you're going to tell me that this director is gay

Avengers: End Game: "I Couldn't Save Her." Times Eighteen

I have seen Avengers: End Game (2019).  Sort of.  I was completely lost through most of it, and kept asking "Who is he?" until Bob said "Just read the synopsis on Wikipedia."  So I did, and I was still lost. But here are my takeaway points:

At the end of the last movie, a Gray Guy used a glove embedded with magical gems to vanish exactly one half of all sentient beings.  On every planet in every solar system in every galaxy in the entire universe!

I don't know why he would do such a thing.  It's random, so he couldn't specify people he didn't like.  And he didn't try to take over afterwards.  Maybe it was explained in the previous movie.

FIve or ten years later (the timeline is all jagged), San Francisco and New York seem completely depopulated.  I guess many more than the half died  in the ensuing economic collapse and civil unrest.  Everyone is trying to move on; at a support group, a guy talks about his first date since the Event.  The other guy cried during the entree, he cried during desert, but they're seeing each other again..

A reference to same-sex romance!  Score!

The superheroes are all drunken, over-eating wrecks due to guilt over not stopping the Event, and the loss of "her."  (About 18 of "I wish I could have saved her.").  They come across a way to maybe reverse the Event by going to the past and creating alternate timelines, then borrowing the stones and...well, the story mostly involves visiting superheroes in their funk and convincing them to join the team.

They do -- after a lot of boring chitchat about "not saving her," every Marvel superhero you've ever heard of, and lots that you haven't, from various timelines:  Iron Man, Captain America, the Hulk, the Black Widow, Hawkeye, War Machine, Captain Marvel, Ant Man, Nebula, Rocket, Dr. Strange, Black Panther, the Destroyer, and a cameo from Stan Lee (his last screen appearance).  Except no X-Men.

A climactic battle involves both magical and science fiction superheroes, so ray gun zaps and magical zaps, flying horses and alien spaceships.

And they reverse the Event.  Almost everyone comes back.  It's 5 or 10 years later, but they haven't aged, so how are they going to re-inteegrate into a society that has gone on without them?  And the civil unrest and economic collapse still happened, right?

No matter, everyone just hugs.

Same-sex hugs:
1.  Iron Man reunites with Spiderman (who apparently was vanished), and they hug.

2. At the end, Thor and a guy I don't know become co-leaders of the Guardians of the Galaxy, and fly off with the raccoon, the tree person, and the rest

3. Two high school boys hug.  Wait -- how can the one who stayed behind still be in high school?

But those glimmers of same-sex desire are inundated by 18 scenes where a superhero is depressed because "she" didn't reappear.  He saved the universe, but couldn't save "her."

One after the other, until you are yelling "Get on with it!" at the screen.

Captain America has to go back to the alternate  timelines and return the gems.  Everything has to be precise, gauged to the microsecond.  But then that plot point is forgotten: after returning the gems, he decided to stick around in tthe post-World War II world  (where he came from originally) and spend thirty years with "her" before returning. They dance to 1940s music in a post-War  suburban house.  They kiss  The end.

I sat through three hours of depression, "I couldn't save her," and clobbering  for a boring, cliched She is the Meaning of Life ending?  I am disgustipated!

There isn't even any beefcake, in spite of all the hunks in the cast.

"Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse": How Is This Not a Coming-Out Movie?

Spider-Man, introduced in 1962, was one of the first in Marvel Comics' stable of flawed superheroes, a welcome counterpart to DC's indefatigibly stalwart square-jaws:  high schooler Peter Parker is bitten by a radioactive spider, gets spider-powers, and doesn't know how to save the world while negotiating teen angst.  Many high schoolers in the Vietnam-Nixon-Kent State era could relate.

Since then Spidey has spun off into comic books, movies, a tv series, a Broadway show, and dozens of "what if?" alternatives, some of whom come together in the gay symbolism-packed Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse.

In a trippy near-Earth,  Miles Morales (voiced by Shameik Moore, top photo) is a outsider (gay) kid, obsessed with comic books, street art, and his hero, Spider-Man.

His (homophobic) straight-laced father, police officer Jefferson Davis (Bryan Tyree Henry) doesn't like (gay people) Spider-Man.

Time out:  who decided to name a black guy after the President of the Confederacy?

Miles (realizes that he's gay) is bit by a radioactive spider, joins a gym (gets muscular overnight), and excretes sticky webs  (you figure it out).

He sneaks out to visit his Uncle Aaron (Mahershala Ali, who played a gay character in Green Book and the father of a gay kid in Moonlight).

Aaron is estranged from Dad because he's (gay) a screw-up.  He gives Miles lessons on how to talk to girls (guys): hand on shoulder, intense gaze, sultry "Hey."

Spider-Man dies, and Miles must take his place.  He negotiates high school, not telling anyone that he is (gay) the new Spider-Man, wishing that he wasn't the only (gay person) Spider-Man in the world.

Due to a space-time vortex created by the (heteronormative) Big Bad, Spider-People living in alternate worlds  are swept away from home and  end up in Miles' world.

Miles bonds with Peter B. Parker (Jake Johnson), a middle-aged Spider-Man who married his girlfriend Mary Jane, but now is divorced because he is (gay) a screw-up.

The other (gay people) Spider-People include Gwen Stacey, a (lesbian) female Spider-Man; Spider-Man Noir, from a film noir world; Peter Porker, aka Spider-Ham; and Peni Parker, a girl from a distant future world.

The  (gay club) secret Spider-Man group works together to defeat the (heteronormative) Big Bad and (assimilate) get back to their home dimensions.

Miles now accepts his role as a Spider-Man (gay person).  Still in disguise, he rushes up and hugs his Dad, who is shocked by his (gay) affection. Dad says "I don't approve of your (lifestyle) methods, but I respect you."

Miles concludes:  "When I feel alone, like no one understands what I'm going through (as a gay teen), I remember my friends who get it. I never thought I'd be able to do any of this stuff, but I can. Anyone can (be gay) wear the mask. You could (be gay) wear the mask. If you didn't know that before, I hope you do now. Because I'm (gay)  Spider-Man. And I'm not the only one. Not by a long shot."

Gay Men....Um, I mean X-Men: Apocalypse

Gay people are divided into the two basic camps: two camps.  

There are two basic camps in the mutant community:

1. Separatists: The straights will always think of us as a threat, so don't associate with them.  Embrace your difference!  Live in your own neighborhood!  Have your own clubs and churches, have only gay friends, read only gay literature, and say "Being gay is who I am."  Loudly, every chance you get.

2. Assimilationists.  If only they got to know us, the straights would discover that we're not a threat.  Minimize your difference!  Live among them, join their clubs and churches, have only straight friends, read straight literature, and don't mention being gay.  If you are outed, tell them, "Being gay is only a small part of who I am."

We've had many Assimilationist-Separatist battles in the gay world, too, starting right at Stonewall, with the Mattachine Society (keep quiet!  don't make waves!) vs the Gay Liberation Front (be loud and proud!), and most recently, same-sex marriage: "We have our own ways to express love and commitment, and they're much better than yours" vs. "Please, please let us get married!  We want to be just like you, because you're so much better than us!"

X Men Assimilationists/Separatists:

In the Marvel Cinematic Universe movies about the X-Men, mutants with superpowers, the Assimilationist camp is led by Dr. Xavier (James McAvoy, Patrick Stewart, Harry Lloyd, David Kaye, and many others).  He runs a school for mutants on his vast estate,where they learn to control and hide their differences so they can teach "normal" society that "we're not a threat.  We're just like you."  

A Separatist leader arises, the Big Bad of the episode (played by Peter Dinklage, Kevin Bacon, Michael Fassbinder, and many others).  He gathers a group of followers, and engages in a big, flamboyant stunt to let the "straights" know that they're not going to be victimized anymore. Embrace your difference!  If you have purple hair, have purple hair.  If you can fly, then fly!  Be loud and proud!

 The Mutant Liberation Movement goes terribly wrong: the straights hate them more than ever.

After a few changes in loyalty and second-guesses, there's a gigantic battle between the Assimilationist and Separatist groups.  The Assimilationists win.

There's a rather disturbing moral there.  

But this is actually a review of X-Men: Apocalypse (2016).

This time around, Assimilationist Dr. Xavier is played by James McAvoy, and the Big Bad Separatist is En Sabah Nur (Oscar Sabah, left).  He's a mutant with godlike powers who ruled Egypt in 3600 BC (I won't go into the historical inaccuracies).  Trapped in his pyramid for 5000 years, he emerges in 1983 to gather some followers and restore the Mutants to their rightful place in the food chain.

It's a different Separatist-Assimilationist line-up from the last X-Men movie, so there are several trumped-up stories to explain why characters have changed sides, but it boils down to:

En Sabah Nur's Separatist Crew
1. Magneto, the Big Bad of the last episode (Michael Fassbender)
2. Psylocke (Olivia Munn)
3. Angel (Ben Hardy, top photo)
4. Storm (Alexandra Shipp)

Dr. Xavier's Assimilationist Crew
1. Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence)
2. Beast (Nicholas Hoult)
3. Quicksilver (Evan Peters, below)
4. Cyclops (Tye Sheridan)
5. Nightcrawler (Kodi Smit-McPhee)

I might have missed some.  Frankly, I found it hard to keep track of the changing alliances, the character reboots, the shifting backstories (and forward stories, since some installments take place later).

Cyclops has an origin-story subplot in which his eyes start giving off laser beams, effectively making him blind.  Enrolled at the school by his big brother Havok (Lucas Till), he gets goggles made of "ruby quartz" which allow him to control his powers.  Unfortunately, he also starts a romance with the Girl Who Thinks He's Arrogant.

Heterosexist tripe!

I was mostly in it for the beefcake, the 1980s references (very few), and the queer vibe that Quicksilver gives.  He can move so fast that bullets seem to be standing still.

As he gleefully saves all of the residents of the school (and a dog, some goldfish, and a pizza) from an explosion, he expresses disgust at a boy and a girl about to kiss, but rather likes a boy preening in front of a mirror.

Otherwise for gay subtexts you have to go with metaphor.  Everybody here is heterosexual.

Bring on the Spider-Men

I'm not a big fan of superheroes in general, and Spider-Man is at the bottom of my list.  I walked out on the first movie (2002) starring Tobey Maguire, and I've never seen The Ultimate Spider-Man, in spite of its 10 Ultimate Hunks.

So the Broadway musical Spider-Man: Turn Off the Night (2011-2014) was not high on my must-see list.

It was one of the most expensive musicals in history, riddled with production accidents (Spidey has a lot of web-swinging to do).

It was panned by critics, who complained that it combined the worst set-pieces of the 2002  with pretentious Greek-chorus stuff, and ignores Spidey's comic book origins.

It was certainly heterosexist, with Mary Jane being captured and melting into Spidey's arms every five minutes.

But it has something that the comic book never had:  multiple Spider-Men.

You need a lot for all the stunts, and because they keep getting injured.

Spider-Men include man-mountains like Matthew Wilkas (top photo), Reed Kelly (left), Adam Ray Dyer (below).










Jake Odmark, Justin Matthew Sargent, Matthew James Thomas, Marcus Bellamy, and on and on and on....






And the Spider-Men's costumes seem particularly bulge-worthy.  Apparently being bitten by a radioactive spider adds considerable bulk beneath the belt.  How many can you count in this curtain call of four Spidermen sans mask?

How about now, with nine Spidermen strutting their stuff on Times Square?

New productions are being planned for major cities in America and Europe, so you may yet have a chance to gawk at your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Men.