Astonishing X-Men #51 pg 12 (Liu story, Perkins pencils, Hennessy inks) - Northstar wedding - Warbird pt1

From the 1st Same Sex Marvel Marriage issue, comes a page from Astonishing X-Men #51, the historic X-Men comic that features the wedding of Jean-Paul Beaubier (Northstar) and Kyle Jinadu.

When Northstar first came out in Alpha Flight #106 (March of 1992) it made some shockwaves of finally revealing a mainstream character to be gay. A little over twenty years later, August 2012, the character of Northstar finally married his love interest, Kyle Jinadu in Astonishing X-Men #51, which also seemed to make news on-air and in print. This issue was also a San Diego Comic Con Marvel mainstream exclusive in 2012, when it came out it came out big.

This page, pt 1 of a two page sequence between Northstar and Warbird, was a test of all sorts. Throughout this issue you see characters from all over the X universe come together for this marriage. It was a mixed bag of characters accepting this Union of two people as a Marriage and others not comfortable with it or unable to understand it. It’s a great example of where we were even as a culture just 12 years ago. In some ways, Marvel came out big with this issue, but also with this storyline a bit reserved and cautious just in case it tanked. Not an issue like we see today that is fully loud and proud. And for me and my taste, I loved it. Made it feel more real and a proper sign of the times.

This page, #12 (along with #13), features Warbird telling Northstar that she will not attend her fellow teammates wedding, if she did, it would be a lie. It’s harsh, but real, something I’ve always enjoyed from Marjorie Liu. It’s beautiful character art and inking by the pair Mike Perkins (penciller) and Andrew Hennessy (inker), raw with mixed emotions. This book also has lots of fun exchanges between random sets of characters like Jubilee and X23, Havok and Puck to name a few. I love getting the top panel of Kitty and Lockheed together with Kyle’s parents. I definitely have an affinity to Kitty and her “marriage” pages, so this one fits in well with that collection as this is another marriage book. Very happy to have a page (or two) from this monumental issue (especially having a same sex partner in my life), that really hit it out of the central park. It’s history, great art and X-Men characters at a wedding, so much to love here.