Legendary comic book publisher Marvel has announced the cancellation of the label’s title Guardians of the Galaxy after just 18 issues. At least one major comic book critic has speculated that the abrupt snuffing is a direct result of several characters in the book coming out as queer.
Marvel relaunched Guardians in 2020 under the leadership of writer Al Ewing. During his tenure, several characters, including Star Lord/Peter Quill and Nova came out as either bisexual or gay. The lesbian couple Moondragon and Genis-Vell even married.
Now critic Mark Lynch, of the website FanSided, asserts that the queering of the characters directly resulted in Marvel nixing the book.
Related: Marvel confirms: Chris Pratt’s ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’ character Star Lord is bisexual
How about we take this to the next level?
Our newsletter is like a refreshing cocktail (or mocktail) of LGBTQ+ entertainment and pop culture, served up with a side of eye-candy.
“Peter Quill came out as bisexual (Guardians of the Galaxy No. 9), Richard Rider (Nova) admitted his love for Quill, Moondragon and Genis-Vell were married, and Hercules and Marvel Boy started a relationship,” Lynch wrote in a Sept. 24 article on the site. “It was clear that Ewing cares about these characters and it spilled out in his writing and it’s unfortunate that the series is ending after so much thoughtful storytelling.”
Lynch notes that Marvel Studios has a third Guardians of the Galaxy film in the pipeline, once again set to star Chris Pratt as Star Lord. In the films, Pratt has played the character as heterosexual; Marvel has a history of canceling its titles in response to the treatment of its characters on screen.
With a third Guardians on the way, and with the Guardians characters set to appear in the upcoming Thor sequel, we have a feeling the characters will be returning to the pages of Marvel in the near future. We also suspect most, if not all, of the characters that came out during Al Ewing’s tenure will return as heterosexuals.
This is just the most recent assertion involving Marvel cancelling one of its properties over the depiction of queer characters. Earlier this month, writer Kevin Biegel accused Marvel Studios of cancelling its New Warriors television series for being “too gay.”
Prinny
The answer is no because guardians of the galaxy was never popular also its phyla-vell not genis-vell and its billy and teddy that are the married couple.
Cam
Yeah, it’s so unpopular that they made two movies from it.
Prinny
Cam I was talking about the comic not the movies
jw8890
@cam the comics really werent that popular. The characters, much like the avengers, were b to c list in terms of popularity.
Cam
No shock, they hired a guy, Chris Pratt, who belongs to a rabidly homophobic church to play Quill in the movie. I have no doubt he flipped out when the character in the comic books came out.
Chrisk
This was actually being talked about back in December. How Pratt would feel about playing a queer character. He totally flipped out.
h ttps://www.buzzfeed.com/stephenlaconte/star-lord-bisexual-chris-pratt-reaction-twitter
Selverd
This article is a joke; there’s no way Ewing would have been allowed to make any of the characters queer in the first place without Marvel’s approval, and it’s not like Gotg was the only comic with gay characters either.
And nowhere in Lynch’s piece is there any suggestion that was why the book is ending.
dhmonarch89
it’s probably more because Chris Pratt’s popularity has sild into the gutter not queer characters.
nm4047
simple economics at play, supply and demand. Just publishing under the Marvel banner isn’t a licence to print money, the interest wasn’t there, very limited fan base that buy to read comics, whereas a film is a not brainer.
Prax07
Yeah, the comic was pretty bad. Even the Starlord storyline about he and the married alien couple was only a few pages long. Not surprised it got cancelled.
Toofie
Marvel restarts it’s titles every 18 months or so. Usually for the next creative team.