The Week in Gay Geek: Discussing "Ultimate X-Men", "Buffy" gets an MMO and more!

SLAYERS, SLAYERS EVERYWHERE:
One of the more intriguing bits of video game news to come out last week was the announcement that an MMO set in the Buffyverse is in the works. The downside? This means a Firefly MMO coming from the same people is being shelved.

Wait, there was a Firefly MMO in the works? Yeah, that's the LA Weekly's reason for expressing cynicism about our chances of actually getting to play slayer.

The Buffy cast, as we last saw them.

While I see more MMO potential in Buffy than Firefly ("Another mission where we have to take the long route to avoid the authorities and barely make any profit?") I'm really having a hard time imagining it ... or rather, I'm having a hard time imagining how one would translate the Buffyverse into a variety of balanced character classes. This one will be interesting to watch ... that is, if we actually get news of how the game is developing, something we didn't get with that Firefly MMO.

APPARENTLY IT TAKES DECADES FOR A CAMP CLASSIC TO MAKE IT OVERSEAS:
Here's some exciting and surprising news for gaymers who appreciate the obscure and campy. This week, Cho Aniki (long pegged as the gayest videogame of all time) became officially available to American customers for the first time thanks to the Wii's Virtual Console. In light of the recent discussion on how the iPhone could revolutionize gay gaming, I wonder if there's a similar potential in outlets like WiiWare (where another gay-inclusive game, Eternity's Child, debuted) and the Virtual Console, which lessens the financial risks that might make a publisher wary. It'll be interesting to see if it sells well enough for more Cho Aniki games to hit the Virtual Console.

Cho Aniki

Deep down, tho, I'm hoping that this makes that final Eternal Champions game a possibility. (The original EC is a WiiWare title.) Sure, it wasn't a great fighting game, but Shadow Yamato is one of my favorite fighting game characters: gotta love a corporate spy who managed to remain covert despite dressing as The Huntress instead of working a cute business-casual number.

Eternal Champions' Shadow Yamato

ROCKIN' MOVE ON HIS PART:
The original rock & roll rhythm game, Guitar Hero is getting a new edition, Guitar Hero: World Tour soon and the new version boasts plenty of real life stars as playable characters, including:

One of Guitar Hero: World Tour's playable characters

Hey, cool, it's Neil Patrick Harris in video game form! No, wait, I've just been handed a note telling me that's not Neil Patrick Harris, that's actually Sting you can play as in the game. I guess I'll go back to hoping that I'll be able to play as Keith Strickland in some rhythm game:

The B-52s' Keith Strickland: Still dreamy

Excuse to post a picture of Strickland aside, wouldn't The B-52s be awesome in a Guitar Hero game? I know you can download a few B-52's tracks into Rock Band, but wouldn't it be neat to have them as playable characters?

After the break: What other gay sites are saying about Ultimate X-Men...

ULTIMATE X-AFTERMATH:
The talk about Northstar and Colossus in the recent Ultimate X-Men arc continued last week as gay comics site Pink Kryptonite chatted with writer Aron Coleite while Gay League co-founder Joe Palmer offered his analysis of the story.

Palmer breaks down the storyteling problems with the arc but he also nicely sums up the double standard with the way Northstar and Colossus are treated:

"Coleite commented that he wanted to tell an epic love story with Peter and Jean Paul and that’s what he delivered. Still, there are details missing. Lovers develop a body language. Lovers embrace – and not just when one of the pair dies. Lovers kiss. Peter and Jean Paul, like his 616 counterpart and teenagers Wiccan and Hulkling, have yet to kiss while Karolina and Xavin (in female form) have and more than once. I don’t think this is indicative of any homophobia, but rather of its corporate culture and still being cautious years after the ensuing conservative backlash over Rawhide Kid. In stark contrast, Marvel didn’t stop Jeph Loeb from confirming the incestuous nature of Scarlet Witch’s and Quicksilver’s relationship in Ultimates. Teenaged lesbian heroes kiss … check! Incestuous siblings … check! Gay heroes kiss … hold on there, especially if they’re male teens!"

The Ultimate Marvel universe's incestuous couple, Quicksilver and The Scarlet Witch

Meanwhile, in chatting with Pink Kryptonite, Coleite brings up a few points wort discussing, like the topic of Northstar's iconic status:

"When they take on 'iconic' status, that's something that can't be helped, but it's also something that can't be held onto, necessarily. There's been a lot of debate, just what I've read, that because they're iconic they can't be touched, that nobody can do anything with them. That they have to stay positive role models who can do no wrong. They can't be human beings, in that sense. Which I think is the wrong thing to do with characters. They need to be able to have their foibles and have to be able to make mistakes, whether they're icons or not."

"I just wanted to tell a love story, from the perspective of how far Colossus would go, what he would do, for this person he loves. It just so happened that for Ultimate Colossus this person was Northstar, and that's ok, and it's ok to tell that story and the character shouldn't be 'hands-off', just because they are icons or that they are gay. The X-men tell stories like this over and over again, but it's always Scott and Jean, or Scott and Emma, or Rogue and Gambit. But I don't want to tell those stories again. It's un-interesting. It doesn't push the boundaries of what we can do as storytellers, of what we can do in media. I don't think comic creators should be scared off because someone is an icon, I don't think anyone is untouchable. Anyone should be fair game to act as human beings, to have stories where they can be normal people."

I've been thinking a lot about Northstar and how gay comic readers feel about him lately: One dynamic I think you can pick up from the Women in Refrigerators and Who Cares About the Death of a Gay Superhero Anyway? lists is the frustration and frequent sense of disappointment for fans. History tells us that a gay hero will get marginalized (either killed, depowered or just forgotten by writers) at some point or another. The years have conditioned us to expect disappointment. Compared to other gay characters, Northstar has largely managed to escape those fates, though that success is entirely relative, leaving gay readers constantly bracing themselves for yet another punch to the gut. I don't think that means characters like Northstar should get some kind of special, protected status but that writers need to keep in mind that everything that happens (including cliffhanger endings) is magnified.

That concern lessens the more that is done with characters like Northstar. While women of color are still sadly underrepresented in superhero comics, a cliffhanger putting Storm in jeopardy doesn't raise the same worries because decades in the spotlight have left fans feeling secure that she'll continue to be an important part of the Marvel Universe.

Coleite has some good news/bad news about the future of Northstar and Colossus in the Ultimate Universe:

"Ultimatum is gonna shake up the Marvel Ultimate universe, in big, huge, tremendous ways. I wanted to keep those two out of a lot of the shakeup that's going on. They've been through enough already, as it is right now ... I have plans for them, I have ideas for where they are going next. But I don't know if that will be seen in the immediate future."

So, the good news, they're safe for now but they do risk joining Lyle Norg on the list of gay stories writers never got around to telling ... yes, I'm still bitter about that one.