8th December 2015

by Josh Withey

This year Iceman, one of the original X-men, came out as gay in Bran Michael Bendis’ superb All-New X-Men #40.

Speaking at the 2015 Game Awards, Shawn Ashmore – who has played Iceman for the last 12 years in the movies – said that it’s one of the most interesting things to happen to the character, and that he’d be interested in playing Iceman again
Shawn told IGN:  “Obviously the comics and movies are separate. I wonder what the transition would be because we’ve sort of established Bobby as having a love interest in Rogue and having a love interest in sort of Kitty Pryde, but I think it’d be really interesting.
“I think it’d probably be the most interesting thing that could happen to Bobby in the films. If they decided to take the story that way, it’d be incredibly dramatic, it’d be an interesting storyline, and it would give Bobby a great character arc. I’d definitely be open to that, but again, I’m not sure if they want to take the character in that direction. I have no idea how they would play that out. I think it’d be very interesting.”
Last month, comic book writer and creator of X-men Stan Lee, discovered that Iceman was gay during a live radio interview.
While appearing on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, Stan said: “I wasn’t involved in that, that may have been after I stopped writing the books. I didn’t really have any gay characters. If they were gay I didn’t play up to the fact that they were. I wasn’t aware of my characters sexual proclivities.”
He then admitted: “In fact your telling me that is the first time I’d heard. Is Iceman really gay?

“Wow! I never knew that. I don’t care what happens as long as they tell good stories.”