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7/1/2025, 12:13:15 PM
Bill wanted Northstar to get AIDs at one point.
>As Mantlo had planned it, Northstar would get sick after fighting a supervillain called Pestilence… and would have simply stayed sick for a period of some months. It would be a small thing at first — an inopportune cough, a bout of weakness — growing slowly but surely across months before the truth was finally revealed: Northstar would be revealed to have AIDS, and would ultimately die from the disease. In the process, both the Alpha Flight cast and the readers would have the opportunity to learn more about the reality of AIDS and the way it affected people physically and emotionally, and Northstar would finally be given the opportunity to come out… just before he passes away forever, one of the few Marvel heroes to die what was intended to be a permanent death. In hindsight, it’s far from the perfect queer narrative, but it’s also, undeniably, a story that was intended to mean something with good intentions.
>It’s hardly surprising that The Powers That Be at Marvel refused to go along with it. As the story goes, Mantlo’s immediate editor got cold feet at the idea of, basically, outing a character as gay just to immediately kill him off. At roughly the same time, Marvel’s editor-in-chief (again, Jim Shooter, the mind behind Dewey and Luellen from before) finds out what Mantlo is planning for the first time and steps in to be far more emphatic in his objection: as far as he was concerned, Northstar was going to stay in the closet as long as possible, death or no death.
>As Mantlo told The Advocate again shortly after all of this had gone down, “When the company found out what we were doing, an edict came down declaring that not only could Northstar not die of AIDS, but we couldn’t even have a gay character because it was too controversial! They were afraid too many people in the Bible Belt would stop buying the book and there would be all sorts of protests.”
>As Mantlo had planned it, Northstar would get sick after fighting a supervillain called Pestilence… and would have simply stayed sick for a period of some months. It would be a small thing at first — an inopportune cough, a bout of weakness — growing slowly but surely across months before the truth was finally revealed: Northstar would be revealed to have AIDS, and would ultimately die from the disease. In the process, both the Alpha Flight cast and the readers would have the opportunity to learn more about the reality of AIDS and the way it affected people physically and emotionally, and Northstar would finally be given the opportunity to come out… just before he passes away forever, one of the few Marvel heroes to die what was intended to be a permanent death. In hindsight, it’s far from the perfect queer narrative, but it’s also, undeniably, a story that was intended to mean something with good intentions.
>It’s hardly surprising that The Powers That Be at Marvel refused to go along with it. As the story goes, Mantlo’s immediate editor got cold feet at the idea of, basically, outing a character as gay just to immediately kill him off. At roughly the same time, Marvel’s editor-in-chief (again, Jim Shooter, the mind behind Dewey and Luellen from before) finds out what Mantlo is planning for the first time and steps in to be far more emphatic in his objection: as far as he was concerned, Northstar was going to stay in the closet as long as possible, death or no death.
>As Mantlo told The Advocate again shortly after all of this had gone down, “When the company found out what we were doing, an edict came down declaring that not only could Northstar not die of AIDS, but we couldn’t even have a gay character because it was too controversial! They were afraid too many people in the Bible Belt would stop buying the book and there would be all sorts of protests.”
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