Fave Five: Books About Pride

Fave Five: Books About Pride

‘Twas the Night Before Pride by Joanna McLintick (text) and Juana Medina (illustration)
Small Town Pride by Phil Stamper (MG)
You Know Me Well by Nina LaCour and David Levithan (YA)
When You Get the Chance by Tom Ryan and Robin Stevenson (YA)
DC Pride by by Devin Grayson, Ivan Cohen, Tini Howard, Greg Lockard, Alyssa Wong, Stephanie Phillips, Danny Lore, Stephanie Williams, Jadzia Axelrod, Dani…

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I prefer strategy to heroics.

The modern Hulkling - As wrong interpretation became depiction(Part 3)

Hulkling as the boyfriend/husband

Another one of Hulklings modern characterizations is for him to only be regarded as some add-on love interest of Wiccan as his boyfriend or husband like he was not an equally important character during their original appearances and even in that function he is still commonly only allowed to be bland and perfect in a relationship way. A guy sharing all of Billys interests, making Billys issues his greatest priority, would never truly speak against him and has no traits beyond that. Or is supposed to be anyway, as we may really only be informed of it, while the actions are not really representing it.

This believe goes so far to suggest that Billy was like some sort of self-insert of his creator and Teddy by extension his perfect idea of a partner like that is fact, when it’s more likely that by the time he wrote Young Avengers the man had as a writer probably long evolved past the point where he would feel the need to live-out fantasies through his creations and the focus on Billy in the books is not exactly on the level where you would call him the main character beyond the other team members, aside from Childrens Crusade, where he in fact was the main character.

To put it simple. Teddy will either be the big strong man who weak little boy Billy has to rely on especially to make up for his own mistakes and shortcomings or the inferior lover he has to take care off, the latter being ironically more the story where Teddy might be considered a main character. It’s weird.

The mistake here is both seeing Hulkling placed in that intrinsically linked supporting role and the fact that their relationship is perfect to begin with.

Functional not perfect - their relationship according to Heinberg

Their creator Alan Heinberg pretty much admits that he did not write these two as a teenage couple, when he has Jessica Jones point out that they probably have that figured out more than her. For context she is at this point pregnant from Luke Cage and in a relationship with him, but not yet married.

True enough Runaways, which was another succesful teen superhero book at the same time, probably depicted much more realistic teenage relationships over its entire run and it had a gendershifting alien prince who wanted to marry Karolina on the first day. Gert and Chase get together or fight over the dumbest things, Nico is attracted to like half her team for reasons ranging from the superficial with Chase to mostly jealousy and loneliness with Karolina to ‘sure might as well why not’ with Victor, who falls for a different girl while he is with Nico and she is not even mad, but encourages him, because they weren’t that close. Not to mention the beginning of everyone having superficial crushes on each other and none of them working out.(I guess Karolina got Nico over a decade later, with multiple relationships inbetween for both of them.)

Heinberg pretty much writes these two as a functional long-term relationship, which is not really common for teens in high school or factual, because they can’t actually have been together for that long when the book begins.

And that’s probably all he aims for with it. Functionality. They were never meant to be some sort of shining example of how to do it, but just a steady relationship past the point were you have to prove anything to one another and once they already know each other very well, but Heinberg also understood what a functional relationship is, which I can’t say about writers like Tini Howard or Kieron Gillen who lean very hard into the perfect boyfriend Hulkling thing and I have yet to see write a healthy relationship.

There is later on this idea, like these two never fought or disagreed, primarily to pretend depicting a fight was the reinvention of the wheel in writing these characters. In truth in stories focused on one of them Heinberg had in fact have them take contrarian positions and oppose nearly all of the focus characters stupid decisions and mostly only go along with them because they were convinced the other idiot wass going to get himself killed if they didn’t, while berating them about how stupid they are.

Things somehow mostly worked-out and the one with the focus was commonly proven right in their assessment. And then they cry a lot, because none of Heinbergs YA books actually ends happy generally speaking. Each storyline is just shit happening, having terrible consequences, usually someone leaving the team or being dead, and then people continuing to go on, because that’s Heinbergs idea of superheroes. And considering the basic role of superhero is something writers these days refuse to let either Teddy or Billy be these days that’s also the only kind of superheroes these two have ever been.

But to get back on topic: We have Hulkling declare he would kick Billys ass if he decided to head-out alone after the team decided to come with him, before threatening the guys uncle and all but physically dragging Billy back, just for Billy to ignore it. We have Billy declare Teddy wanting to prevent Skrulls and Kree from slaughtering each other a mistake, because they are not even people, even when Hulkling is all of 0% human. We have Teddy refuse to help Billy get any closer to the Scarlet Witch, pointing out that he lost his powers because he did not listen to him. But neither of these guys ever stops. They just push straight ahead and are proven right for what they pretty much believe to be right out of pure instinct.

But that’s what I mean by functional relationship. The fact that these guys would snap at each other or disagree isn’t a threat to them being a couple, nor are they so up in arms about their partner blowing off their concerns that they refuse to help them when it’s literally a life or death situation.

Heinberg also understood that a romantic relationship is not peoples only way to evolve. None of the characters in his YA books needed a lover to evolve and if another character would be essential to their decisions it was not necessarily going to be their lover.

Perfect relationship aka melodramatic mess - What we now have to suffer through afterwards

Kieron Gillen

Enter the pioneer of rainbow capitalism over at marvel Kieron Gillen, who was seemingly not to happy with getting asked to write this team again and again and whose general attitude towards them was that they were all really lame, because they were like real people and regular teenagers at their heart. Gillens perception of the team was by all indications based on skimming Childrens Crusade and then checking tumblr pages so in his mind Young Avengers was a Billy centered book to the point he suggested adding Tommy would make the book too Billy centric, even though Tommy is his own character and Gillens entire run pretends to be Billy centric anyway. I guess he meant Tommy could overshadow America or Loki.

Anyways right off the bat Gillen throws us a scene that potrays a really toxic relationship if there ever was one. While Billy apparently uses his dead friends to force Teddy to promise not to superhero, Teddy has no problem doing so behind his back despite agreeing not to and then when caught throws around his own dead mom to guilt trip right back until Billy apologizes for not considering that. And then they kiss and Billy just leaves the room without establishing if this means Teddy is now allowed to continue superheroing or if Billy will do so with him again(the conversation suggests Billy should be a superhero).

Going forward in the story Teddy idiotically buys that he is just a perfect boyfriend created by Billy when the god of lies of all people tells him. And then after getting told all good things about his relationship are due to him - without tangible examples mind you - denies their relationship being perfect before splitting with Billy at least temporarily hoping to test that theory of him being Billys artificial construct, even if that theory completely depends on him being a perfect boyfriend suggesting he DOES in fact believe he is. After that in the books finale he states he can’t support Billy right now because he is not sure about their relationship at that point until the guy telling him to take a break with Billy and indirectly causing Teddys capture in the first place tells him he does.

So he guilt trips his boyfriend, considers himself the best lover the guy could even dream about and is unsure about them when things get tough… See why I mean that Teddy being a perfect boyfriend is an informed trait?

Even if we ignore what is basically written and bring this down to writers intentions behind these scenes. Then we’re left with Teddy hiding what he wants to do so he does not get into a fight with Billy or does not want to worry Billy and still doing it behind his back. Only reveals his real feelings and issues at his breaking point and has Billy at that point acknowledge this and want to help him, which would have been the only thing of value in a relationship either of these two does in the book. But going forward Teddy would have still again hidden his issues and true feelings from Billy, who had demonstrated already he would react supportive, while discussing them with complete strangers like Noh-Varr and Prodigy and still splits from Billy over this and still needed someone elses assistance for his love to be strong enough to help out in the end, which in itself should contradict him having been created to do so, but no that possibility is treated as valid to the bitter end.

Gillens work has everyone treat Teddy being a perfect boyfriend as fact when even beyond the toxic form any interaction takes on the conceptual level of author intention behind a scene the only one who ever does anything for the other is actually Billy. All Teddy does in the entire book is say he loves Billy at two separate points under circumstances where that would somehow solve an issue and he needed someone to convince him he even did the second time. So he is not actually written as a perfect boyfriend. He is given the trait of perfect boyfriend and therefore written so that his love alone solves problems. And it’s done at the expense of any other trait he could possibly have. He is a perfect boyfriend only without even being a perfect boyfriend.

It does not help that by the end of the book even Billy continues to question whether a different relationship would be better for Teddy rather than him, as it fails to find any sort of reason why he would want to. It then handwaves this by basically saying “They’re in love whatever.” But honestly what is presented is that the only thing keeping the universe safe from the threat of Billy Kaplans emotional state is Teddy sacrificing himself to be in that relationship. Whether you look at the terror of that in-universe or at what it would be a metaphor being forced to be with someone due to them not being able to cope alone due to a mental condition. That’s just miserable writing considering the writer supposedly wants to say love conquers all or these two are a great couple.

And yeah, this is because Gillen based it on readers perception. And in the fandom moments like Teddy helping Billy cast a spell in the battle with Kang are solely treated as this sweet moment of support and Billy being helped by his boyfriend like this is the only thing that matters. Ignoring that a) Billy does the same thing all the time like after Teddys mom dies and is not just the guy freaking out when Teddy gets hurt or tortured and b) Teddy apparently not only realized how Billys powers work, but also came up with an impromptu method of spellcasting based on selfsuggestion from a selfhelp book for him. Kid helped him by being smart as hell himself is what I mean. It was not a one way road and Teddys support of Billy was certainly not just telling him that he loves him. Similiarly when Teddy is ready to surrender to Kl'rt in a later issue people only wanted to see or talk about him loving Billy so much he would do it, ignoring both that he literally does it for his not love interest Eli just a few pages later and that it was a ruse to begin with since we’ve seen him do it transformed into Iron Lad to save Kate in an earlier issue and then just punch Kang like he did with Super Skrull during the Billy instance. And now we have storylines in which Teddy will constantly be shown to surrender or despair at any adversary.

A lot of “perfect romances” in written books or movies have relationships composed of big gestures that overshadow and supposedly make up for the pointless drama in-between and then pretend that last big gesture in the story is a sign of everything going forward being perfect and when guys are a mess over dramatic moment X they have perfectly sexy five-o'clock shadows their sweat smells somehow manly and not disgusting, their clothes are dirty and crumbled in just the attractive way and them being rude and wanting to fuck simultaneously is somehow not terrifying to people who could not fend them off if they tried to force themselves on them, before their lovers dramatic or loving reaction fixes them almost instantly, but that is just a romantisation of bullshit. Partners helping each other through terrible moments is a beautiful thing of course, but none of those terrible moments is beautiful for it.

Yet that is where the first writer to really dig into this perfect husband nonsense begins and ends with it. And that might just be because he knows nothing about relationships or at the very least does not consider using that knowledge in any way. He has no real life inspiration for a conflict between lovers to make a dramatic fight betwen them so he just takes a scene from any TV-Show or movie were someone cheated on their partner and it leads into some discussion about how the relationship has not been working for a while and the cheated on party refused to also take the cheating partys feelings into account. And if you consider that Gillen is the blue print for both Tini Howard and Al Ewing on how to write this couple we end up with the photocopy of a photocopy, which may make things less aggregious at the very least but also unbelievably bland and boring. Granted despite Ewing deciding that a future version of Teddy married a possessed Billy who acted like a monster and built a family with them he is barely worth mentioning in this context, because he really only ever used them as a rainbow colored publicity stunt to advertise his books before removing them from any actually important plot or in Empyres case to distract from the insanely pro-imperialist message and the fact it attacked Fridays for future of all things, but those are different issues

Tini Howard

Now if there is one thing afforementioned Tini Howard - a later writer who digs into perfect partner Hulkling hard - nailed. It’s these guys intended relationship in Gillens work. In fact she did it far better than he did.

In her works Teddy is in fact constantly and actively shown to consider Billys state first and foremost. His only flaw as a romantic partner is to be too considerate and hide his own gripes primarily focused on Billy not being less frustrating.

All criticism about how utterly wrong this is from the perspective of actually first seeing this relationship in the books or as a general relationship constellation remain valid of course, but at least she is actually showing what she is trying to portray, rather than lose herself in her own pretentiousness. No, her pretentiousness is lowkey.

She does come with her own new problems thought. These however are primarily about her handling of Billy. As bland as Teddy is in her writing the only issue beyond that is that to be perfect he will essentially adjust to fullfill that in whatever role he takes and that she just does not have him do a whole lot beyond worrying about Billy.

What’s her issue with writing Billy? Well essentially Billy is a selfish ignorant and whiny crybaby that has to be entertained by his hubby, requires his permission to do things and whose biggest worry is to be scolded by him for his failure to hide the trouble he accidentally cause when doing something selfish. He is infantilized to the point you want to forget Teddy is not his overworked single dad or Billy the wife in some decades old show where the wife not getting anything and being a nuisance to her husband was considered factual.

If this woman pitched an ongoing - and pray this never happens - it would not be a superhero book but something like Fairly Oddparents or that old Sabrina cartoon. The plot is character has some random problem, refuses to solve it in any reasonable way and uses magic instead, it backfires, they spents the whole episode fixing it maybe while unsucessfully hiding they screw up and learn nothing by the end of it. That’s like every episode of either show.

That Howard does not go before Gillens Young Avengers when writing these characters is pretty clear, too. Especially with the hilariously incompetent scene of her having Teddy inform Kate of his and Billys engagement and her responding like it is a new thing she found out from their relationship status online.

Because due to Gillen effectively ignoring the ending of Childrens Crusade to keep Billy in a state of constant depression and their engagement never being mentioned in the book even when their break up would make it absolutely ludicrous for nobody to bring it up, he effectively retconned it out of existence. Al Ewing would then just casually bring up the two being engaged years later clearly in reference to the scene from Childrens Crusade everyone knows. But with Howard referencing it as a new thing in Death’s Head afterwards technically the canonical marvel comics point of Billy and Teddy getting engaged is off-screen between Young Avengers Volume 2 and New Avengers, even though everyone knows the scene of them getting engaged as teenagers… that’s how bad the writing of this romance has gotten after that scene.

Anthony Oliveira

Anthony Oliveira… does not fall into the trap of trying to follow Kieron Gillens depictions… he does not fall into the trap of making Teddy a perfect boyfriend/husband… he does not even fall into the trap of following a wrong interpretation rather than how Teddy was depicted for the most part… no, he never gave a fuck about how Teddy was depicted or who these characters are. No, Anthony Oliveira is perfectly capable of writing his own personal type of toxicity. But it still relates to Teddy being this add-on love interest so I’ll cover it anyway.

I went into this in a previous post, but Oliveira needs to tear Teddy down and push on Billy being a superior being Teddy has to aspire to be like because secretly Teddy is exactly like him and all differences are a result of Teddy denying himself of being himself due to external pressure to fit a masculine role model. Because gay men have no right to have any classical masculine traits or likes they have to be nerdy and quirky and feminine, because the only real way to be gay is the way Anthony Oliveira tells you it is. They have every right to their gay journey, but boy you better believe he decided were the destination of that is already.

But I went into that in part 2 and most of points about Oliveira feels the need to make Teddy for the slightly more jock like appearance into some insecure follower trapped in toxic masculinity he needs to be liberated of by the guidance of further evolved lgbt characters and the always positive influence of all things female around him and his culture. And can only be his true self while naked pre- or post sex with his hubby.

Even though Oliveira essentially had an assignment for a Teddy solo story with his lords of empyre hulkling book, which essentially existed to tell readers of Empyre who the skrull leader was and why they should root for him and fans of the character how he came to be in his current position(and why he would deserve it?), he could not allow Teddy to succeed at any point and rather showed him getting led around by Tanalth with no resistance and be saved by Billy solving his issues.

The whole thing becomes only more absurd once you realize what kind of lgbt character the man is willing to defend. Noh-Varr is a canonical faschist who brainwashes people, and likely also murdered the skrull species of his universe and had a subordinate bomb disney world once and Loki a canonic mass murderer on many occasions who has betrayed just about anyone whoever genuinely wanted to help him, yet Oiveira will write them to be both capable and ask for sympathy for them.