Northstar

For other uses, see Northstar (disambiguation).Template:Superherobox Northstar (Jean-Paul Baubier) is a Marvel Comics superhero, a member of Alpha Flight and the X-Men. He is best known for being one of the first openly gay superheroes in American comic books. Created by Chris Claremont and John Byrne, Northstar first appeared in X-Men #120 (1979).

Contents

1 Character history 2 Northstar's homosexuality 3 Powers and abilities 4 Trivia 5 External links

Character history

Jean-Paul Beaubier was born to a French Canadian family, but his parents died in an automobile accident when he was a young child. He and his twin sister Jeanne-Marie were separated. Jean-Paul was adopted and became an angry and rebellious youth.

As a young adult, Beaubier joined the Front de Libération du Québec, a terrorist group that fought for Quebec’s separation from Canada. He soon became disgusted with the group’s techniques and renounced terrorism.

Beaubier then joined Alpha Flight, a superhero group financed by the Canadian government, where he reunited with his sister Jeanne-Marie, who had taken the name Aurora. He took the name Northstar and had a lengthy career with Alpha Flight. Beaubier is often stubborn and hot-tempered and he often clashed with his teammates, especially Aurora’s love interest, Sasquatch. This drama was complicated by Aurora’s struggles with dissociative identity disorder.

For a brief time, Northstar quit Alpha Flight and became an Olympic skier, but was forced to return his medals when it was revealed that he used his mutant powers to beat his opponents.

After returning to the team, Northstar adopted an orphaned baby named Joanne, who was infected with AIDS. After the child died, Northstar revealed to his teammates and the public that he was gay.

After Alpha Flight disbanded, Northstar wrote a memoir called Born Normal about his experiences as a mutant and a homosexual. Afterwards, the X-Men’s Jean Grey recruited him for an emergency team of X-Men, formed in to rescue Professor X from their arch-enemy Magneto.

At the request of Professor X, Northstar later joined the X-Men on a full-time basis. He is still stubborn and often clashes with his teammates, but continues to be a member of the team. He has formed an extensive friendship with Annie Ghazikhanian, a nurse at the Xavier Institute.

HYDRA formed an alliance with the cults the Dawn of the White Light and the Hand. The groups had been recruiting new agents from the superhero community by killing and resurrecting them, brainwashing them in the process. The X-Man Wolverine was one of their victims; brainwashed into becoming a HYDRA assassin. Wolverine went on several terrorist missions before attacking the X-Men. During the battle Northstar was killed when Wolverine tried stabbing Kitty Pryde, who phased through his claws. Wolverine was then subdued and turned over to SHIELD.

SHIELD wanted Northstar to be decapitated, (the only way to prevent a resurrection), but the X-Men were against it; wanting to contact Northstar's family first. Before anything could happen, Northstar's body was stolen by Elektra (another brainwashed victim, though it would later be revealed she was faking it to infliltrate the cults) and the Hand. Later, a resurrected Northstar led an attack with Elektra on the SHIELD Helicarrier, crippling SHIELD and putting Nick Fury in critical condition.

Wolverine, who had been deprogrammed of the brainwashing, went on a killing spree to take down the cults and kill all the active members. Realizing that Northstar's predicament was his fault, Wolverine tried helping his former teammate. Northstar refused, and Wolverine was attacked by the other Dawn of the White Light mutants and taken to their base. There, Wolverine activated a trio of decommissioned sentinels from SHIELD and had them kill all the mutants except for Northstar. When Northstar refused to tell Wolverine where HYDRA’s command center was, Wolverine knocked him out and called SHIELD to pick him up and get him some help.

Northstar's homosexuality

On his website's message board (http://www.byrnerobotics.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=2044), comic book writer and artist John Byrne said that, while planning the Alpha Flight series that was launched in 1983, the characters had little to no depth at the time, and so he decided to flesh them out.

"One of the things that popped immediately into my head was to make one of them gay," Byrne stated. "I had recently read an article in Scientific American on what was then (the early 80s) fairly radical new thinking on just what processes caused a person to be homosexual, and the evidence was pointing increasingly to it being genetic and not environmental factors. So, I thought, it seemed like it was time for a gay superhero, and since I was being 'forced' to make ALPHA FLIGHT a real series, I might as well make one of them gay." Byrne went through the cast members deciding which character would be an appropriate choice. "I settled on Jean-Paul, and the moment I did I realized it was already there. Somewhere in the back of my mind I must have been considering making him gay before I 'decided' to so so. Of course, the temper of the times, the Powers That Were and, naturally, the Comics Code would not let me come right out and state that Jean-Paul was homosexual, but I managed to 'get the word out' even with those barriers."

Marvel editor-in-chief Jim Shooter had decreed that there were to be no gay characters in the Marvel universe, and prevented writers from having their characters be gay. Byrne implied that Northstar was gay, but could never actually come out and say it. Another writer, Chris Claremont, was prevented from revealing that Mystique and Destiny were lovers.

Byrne’s successor Bill Mantlo wrote a storyline in which Northstar became inflicted with a strange illness. Mantlo intended to reveal that the illness was AIDS and then kill-off the character in Alpha Flight #50. But Marvel’s editors stepped in and Mantlo changed his plot to reveal that the illness was a magical curse, due to the revelation that Northstar was really a fairy. This was most likely an intentional double entendre, since fairy can also be a derogatory term for men who are gay. This incident was later retconned.

In Alpha Flight #106 (1992), writer Scott Lobdell was finally given permission to allow Northstar to utter the words “I am gay.”. The event generated some publicity in the mainstream press and Alpha Flight #106 sold out in a week, despite the fact that the series was not a very popular title.

While Northstar was not the first openly gay superhero (three background characters in the classic 1986 mini-series Watchmen were gay), he was the first to play a permanent role in an ongoing series. Also, while Watchmen was the first series to feature openly gay characters, the characters Northstar, Mystique, and Destiny were all created years beforehand. And while the editors at Marvel would not let it be openly stated, these characters were intended from almost the beginning to be gay or bisexual.

Northstar’s coming out was controversial and, as a result, little mention was made of his sexual orientation for the remainder of the first Alpha Flight series, which ended in 1994. A subsequent mini-series starring Northstar, which dealt with his search for the missing Aurora, also dodged the issue.

By 2001, society’s views on homosexuality had changed considerably. In that year, Northstar’s sexual orientation played a large role in the storyline in which he joined a temporary team of X-Men and faced another recruit, Paulie Provenzano, who was extremely homophobic. Though the two began their mission as enemies, they eventually made peace with one another.

When Northstar joined the X-Men as a regular member in 2002, writers were less hesitant to address his sexual orientation. Northstar even experienced a crush on the long-time X-Man Iceman, though he soon dropped it when it became obvious Iceman was heterosexual. Northstar was soon downgraded to a teaching position, and a far less notable role in the series.

Powers and abilities

Northstar's mutant powers include the ability to utilize the atomic motion within his molecules to propel his body at superhuman speeds. While doing so, he can avoid most bodily harm and survive temperature extremes. He also emits a soft, blue light.

Originally, when Northstar made physical contact with his twin sister Aurora, they generated a cascade of blinding light. However, after she had her powers altered so that she could produce light on her own, physical contact between the two actually cancelled this ability.

Trivia

Marvel once killed Northstar in three separate timelines within the space of one calendar month, between 16 February and 9 March 2005 (as well as Wolverine #25, the new version of the Age of Apocalypse and X-Men: The End). This is believed to be unheard of in Marvel Comics, but considering the circumstances it was most likely just a coincidence.

Northstar was resurrected the next month in Wolverine #26.

Northstar leads the training squad "Alpha Squadron" in the New Mutants series.

External links

• UncannyXmen.net, spotlight on Northstar (http://uncannyxmen.net/db/spotlight/showquestion.asp?faq=10&fldAuto=71)fr:Véga (Division Alpha)