Alan Heinberg’s Young Avengers, which featured gay male supercouple Hulking and Wiccan, ended its first “season” in June 2006. The characters went on to co-star in the 2006 mini-series Civil War: Young Avengers/Runaways, a title that ruffled the feathers of some gay fans. (The mini-series also starred the characters from another series, Runways, that includes a lesbian character and her shapeshifter Skrull girlfriend Xavin.)

Hulkling and Wiccan return to form in Young Avengers Presents, a six-issue mini-series that gives each member of the team a moment in the spotlight. In the second issue (which hit comic shops Wednesday), Hulking takes the lead as he meets with his father Mar-Vell. Wiccan is there to support his boyfriend through the tough time.

I got to chat with Brian Reed, writer of Young Avengers Presents #2 to get his take on writing the team’s gay couple, stepping in the footsteps of Allan Heinberg and how alien cultures in the Marvel universe might view sexual orientation.

AfterElton.com: One thing gay readers found really satisfying about Allan's work on Young Avengers was that Hulkling and Wiccan were written very much the same way as opposite-sex couples have been written in the past, with an intimate, affectionate tone to their battle banter. I think you capture that really nicely in your issue of Young Avengers Presents...
Brian Reed: Well thank you.

AE: And I was wondering, was that a conscious effort or did you just write them the way you would write … say, Vision and Wanda?
BR: Yeah, it was how I would write my wife and I. It was, ‘These were two people who are in love, there we go.’ You know what I mean? When you’re in love with someone and you spend all your time with them, you pick up certain conversational cadences with them and that was how I approached it.

AE: Minority characters in comics are so rare that their fans tend to be very protective of them – sometimes plot points and storylines that are meant innocently give an unintended message – was that an extra concern tackling a diverse cast like the Young Avengers?
BR: No, I joke that I have two first audiences. The first one is me and am I having fun telling the story I’m telling because if I’m not then you’re not going to have any fun reading it. The very next audience is whatever editor I’m working with – that’s because it’s their job to tell me, “Yes, you’ve entertained yourself but you’re the only one you’ll entertain.”

So when I approached the Young Avengers stuff, I sat down, I re-read the Young Avengers series, familiarized myself with who everybody was, how they behaved and just tried to match personality with my own storytelling.

AE: I think that shows, and the thing I enjoyed about this issue was that it felt like going right back into the series.
BR: That was the goal, yeah.

AE: Hulkling comes from two different alien races, the Kree and the Skrulls. In Runaways, we learn from Xavin that the Skrulls have a rather fluid view of sexuality and gender. Since Teddy is Kree and Skrull, have you thought about how Kree culture would view Teddy’s sexual orientation and his having a relationship with a teammate?
BR: I didn’t really think much about the Krees because working that into the story was going to feel like I worked that into the story. It was very much the story of a father and son meeting for the first time and honestly in my initial outline about ‘find out about the boyfriend’ and then I just went ‘Why?’ I’m so totally forcing that, it would have come off as a bad sitcom joke and that’s not what this story is – that’s forcing something in – and one of the first things to come off the list, too.

AE: If he had the chance, what do you think Mar-Vell would have thought of Wiccan?
BR: He would have seen another warrior, honestly. His great pride in Teddy in that Teddy has chosen to be a warrior and that Mar-Vell was conscripted as a child. He got to the point where it was ‘You’re 12 years old, now you’re in the army. Off you go.’ because that’s how the Kree worked. He was very proud of Teddy for saying ‘Hey, look, I need to stand up for what I think is right and what is good.’ and becoming that warrior. I think if he saw Wiccan he’d say, “You found yourself another warrior. Congratulations.”

AE: I read that you’ve said that you wanted to tell the story of Teddy and Mar-Vell meeting in the Captain Marvel mini-series but that didn’t work out. Was it satisfying to give that meeting a full issue?
BR: It was incredibly satisfying. When I originally pitched the Captain Marvel mini-series, Steve Wacker, the editor on the book, came back and said, “You’ve pitched five story arcs worth of plot and you have five issues. Let’s pare this down, let’s find what that story is and let’s do that five issue story.” I had Rick Jones, I had Teddy, I had time travel problems, all that stuff and Teddy was one of those things – because all those things kept getting trimmed away – I kept leaving in, I kept wanting him to be in there. And it finally came down to, ‘Wow, he’s just not part of the story that was being told.’ When I was given the chance to not only tell the story about Teddy but to do it from Teddy’s point of view, I couldn’t be happier.

AE: The worrisome thing about a Young Avengers Presents for me is that because Young Avengers has mostly been in the hands of Allan, when a new writer take it on you worry “Is this going to change the course of the character?”
BR: Marvel has that concern as well. All of our stuff got bounced by Allan. I read notes on how my story went. There were certainly things that – every writer, any artist coming into an artistic project has a tendency to go ‘I would have done it this way’ but that’s human nature. There was some of that in the notes, some of ‘I like this’, ‘I like that.’ So, it was nice we were able to run things by him and make sure it was in the vision.

• It's another list for us to obsess over:
  The guys at GayGamer.net have announced their 2007 Video Game Awards. If you want to get straight to the gay in the gay geek, Nathan Drake from Uncharted: Drake's Fortune is their hottest male game character while the Chopin-themed RPG Eternal Sonata and the lesbian-inclusive Mass Effect are tied for Gayest Game of the Year. I can't disagree with the assessment of Nathan Drake, he was easily a contender for my list of sexy video game guys. To put it simply:
  
  
  
  
  
  
• It's nice to be invited, at least:
  During our winter break, Marvel had a video interview with gay writer Allan Heinberg recorded during the Marvel Creative Summit. Unfortunately, Heinberg has no new Young Avengers projects for us to get excited over (he does discuss the upcoming Young Avengers Presents miniseries, which has different writers tackling the characters) but it's great to see Marvel promoting Heinberg's work.
  
  
• Where every day is 'Talk Like a Pirate Day':
  The highly-anticipated pirate MMO game Pirates of the Burning Sea is wrapping up its open beta, opening up to customers who pre-ordered the game on Monday. According to GayGamer, the game has a romance aspect that includes same-sex couples, which I believe gives PotBS another unique distinction over most other MMOs.
  
  
• Hey, there was a video game for The Restaurant:
  One of the ways that video game blog Kotaku wrapped up 2007 was a funny look at the missed chances to make movie-inspired video games. I have to admit, that has me thinking about some of the movies we discussed at AfterElton in the past year. Considering how much I loved the film, anything related to Hot Fuzz could catch my attention. Than again, they could probably catch my interest if they slapped a Hot Fuzz label on the ET video game.
  
  On the other hand, if we were to look at television, since That Mitchell and Webb Look is coming to BBC America, I think Numberwang: The Home Game would be just grand:
  
  

• Link of the week:
  Let me introduce you to the next thing to drain away at your productivity. Chain Factor is the latest addictive little webgame to grab my attention. Chain Factor actually manages to find a new dynamic for puzzle games: you have to put numbered tokens in rows or columns with the same number of tokens as the number on the token. A moment to learn, a lifetime to master...
  

• It's still too late for Wonder Woman, however:
  With all the grim news about the Writers' Strike, comic fans have a silver lining to hope for -- TV writers who dabbled in comics (only to leave their stories running late) might now have the time to return to those projects (reported in a variety of spots including Lying in the Gutters). Hey, if that means Allan Heinberg returns to Young Avengers (home to two of the coolest gay superheroes you haven't heard of), I could momentarily stop missing my Heroes.
  
  
• A new mayor in Paragon City:
  NC Soft buys out City of Heroes, taking most of the game's staff with it. (Jack "Statesman" Emmert isn't part of the transition. Judging from some of the comments he made on the game boards, I'm not sure if I'll miss him.) Considering how NC Soft has been incredibly supportive to the game's community of gaymers, I think CoH will hold onto its reputation as one of the most gay-friendly MMORPG games.
  
  
• Fighting evil by disco ball light, Winning love by disco ball light:
  The Absorbascon turns a snarky eye to Dazzler, one of the Marvel universe's most fabulous heroines. (That wimpy Jem wishes she were half as cool as Alison Blaire.) I loved Dazzler back in her day. I mean:

• Who wants to be a Fable?:
  Lionhead Studio is conducting a charity auction to become a supporting character in their upcoming game Fable 2. Will that make you one of the many characters your protagonist will be able to romance and marry?
  
  

• Link of the week:
  There's a new gay geek blog in town: enter DoorQ.com, which is chock full of reviews, news and previews. Now if I could get the webmasters to give me an RSS feed for Christmas, everything would be peachy.