The thing about Uncanny X-Men under Chuck Austen is that it's perfectly competent, but it doesn't seem to have much going on that's new.

The purpose of issue #414 is to bring Northstar into the cast.  Quite reasonably, the story is all about establishing the character.  And for Austen, that seems to involve two dominant personality traits: he's grumpy, and he's gay.  Grumpy, gay Northstar.

Poor old Northstar.  There was a time when he was a character, you know, not just The Gay One.  God knows I don't want to go back to the days when gay characters could only be hinted at, but at least in those days it was possible for Northstar to turn up in a story without at least one scene entirely devoted to reminding us that he's gay.

I know he's gay!  I get the point!  Doesn't he have anything else to do?  Why does that have to be the focal point of everything the character does?  Granted, he's going to be put on the regular team, and presumably (please god) not every issue is going to go out of its way to remind us that he's gay.  But this is a worrying sign.  I have a nasty suspicion that I'm going to be sitting here in six issues time, reading stories with dialogue like "My god, we're under attack from eight-limbed aliens from Planet Quarg!  Northstar, what's the gay perspective on this invasion?"

Incidentally, Austen also seems worryingly keen to emphasise that homosexuality is not a matter of choice, in terms suggesting that this Makes It Okay.  Whether homosexuality is genetic or socially determined is very interesting question for biologists and psychiatrists, but completely irrelevant to the moral argument.  I really wish people wouldn't get drawn into that argument, since it implicitly concedes that there's something about homosexuality which requires moral justification.

There's also a story in here.  It's largely about Northstar being gay, and a kid not liking him because he's gay, but coming round to the idea.  He's gay, you know.

He's gay.

Rating: C+

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