Anole (comics) - Sexuality and Reception

Sexuality and Reception

Early in the character's publication history, Anole's sexual identity was alluded to by his close relationship with his squad mentor Northstar, one of Marvel's most recognized openly gay superheroes. After Northstar's "death," Anole's conversations with his former mentor Karma, an openly lesbian character, discussed how he felt it was important for him to have someone like Northstar, who "understood him," to talk to in particular. His sexual orientation was later confirmed by DeFilippis on an online forum, who stated that the dialogue intentionally alluded to this, and was reaffirmed in The X-Men: 198 Files. However, his sexual orientation continued to be mentioned indirectly, and other allusions included him pointing out that Young Avengers characters Wiccan and Hulkling are gay before being cut off and Anole attacking Rockslide for calling him a "sissy," Rockslide shouting that he "didn't know" and that he "shouldn't be so sensitive." In the following issue, Anole's sexuality was officially stated outright for the first time when Rockslide announces, "Anole's gay!" in an attempt to quickly get the remaining students to bond with each other by opening up about their secrets. Despite Rockslide's vocal acceptance of his sexuality, Anole was outraged, though Loa stated that his classmates already knew.

Since then, Anole's sexual orientation has been handled more openly, being directly referred to as "gay." When discussing further story development of Anole's sexuality during their run on New X-Men, Yost and Kyle stated that they had no plans to further cover the issue, emphasizing that Anole would be able to work out any issues he had regarding his sexuality or his lack of reconciliation with his former mentor Northstar by covering them off-panel with teammate Rockslide. Anole would later confront a rehabilitated Northstar in the X-Men: Divided We Stand vignette "Blend In," revealing that contrary to Jean-Paul's assumptions, he experienced no difficulties being accepted as a mutant or gay from his family or residents of his hometown, and instead experienced posttraumatic stress disorder and a sense of being used and abandoned after his time with the X-Men.

During his review of X-Men: Divided We Stand, writer Dustin Christian of For the Love of Comics Reviews expressed pleasant surprise upon realizing Anole's sexuality and praised writers Yost and Kyle for their handling of the character during their creative run on New X-Men, stating, "It’s cool to see a gay character depicted in a non-stereotypical fashion so that their orientation doesn’t define everything they do and someone like me wouldn’t even know that about them."

In the vignette "Abomination" featured in X-Men: Manifest Destiny, Anole and his Young X-Men teammate Jonas Graymalkin have a talk where Graymalkin discusses his past and reveals that he too is gay and was a victim of a near-fatal homophobic attack at the hands of his father. Anole reassures him that he will be all right and the two form a friendship. Lyle Masaki of Logo's AfterElton.com expressed interest in this development, stating that, "ith the small number of gay superheroes out there, camaraderie between gay characters is as rare as same-sex couples."