Single Issue Showcase: All-New X-Men #40 – "Utopians"

The cover of All-New X-Men #40

In a year that was full of works of artistic genius and infamous missteps for the comics medium, All-New X-Men #40 was perhaps the most famous single issue comic of the past year. It is the issue Iceman is outed as gay and was released way back in April. Much has been written on it, and it has been celebrated as much as it has been derided. It’s taken a while for me to gather my thoughts on it because I didn’t want to react blindly. Also, there were other comics about which I wanted to write that I felt were more deserving of attention. I realized, though, that I wanted to share my thoughts and close out my first year with a Single Issue Showcase that could also serve as a retrospective of sorts.

It would be superfluous for me to write about Brian Michael Bendis’s writing for this issue or Mahmud Asrar’s art, though both have plenty of merit. In all honesty, I haven’t read a mainstream comic since 2012, the last time an event like this took place, when gay comics fans were treated to the Big Two celebrating Pride month with the double feature of Northstar marrying his boyfriend in Astonishing X-Men #51 and Alan Scott being outed in an alternate universe in Earth 2 #2. I barely recognized any of the characters in All-New X-Men #40, including ones I should have known since childhood. I still bought the issue, and the next one, and Uncanny X-Men #600. The significance of Iceman coming out cannot be overstated, but not necessarily for the reasons being touted by the fans, detractors, or press agents.