Jetlad - Made of Squee

 

Superquick introduction no jutsu!  My name is Cally and I am a genderqueer butch dork who likes good comic books, bad punk pop, and pretty ladies.  I am here to introduce you to a supercool fictional queer each month.  I was going to start off with someone obvious, like Dumbledore, or Captain Jack Harkness, but sensible order be damned!  I've read the Forty-Niners four times in the past month and Jetlad is adorable so I am going to write about him instead.

 

 

It is 1949 and the war is over and Steve Traynor, aka Jetlad, is out of a job.  He is sixteen years old and a scrawny little red-headed "science hero" responsible for shooting down more German fighter planes than Biggles or Snoopy or any of the millions of actual real life allied war heroes I can't think of right now.  And he did all that shooting down at the age of eleven.  Because he is a boss.

 

He is also the most adorable human being on the face of this particular universe's planet Earth, and I kind of just want to take him home and wrap him up in a blanket and feed him hot pumpkin soup and toast.  That is how adorable he is.

 

 

His superpower is never actually stated, so if he has one at all, I reckon it's actually unbelievable adorableness.  Adorableness and great talent at flying fighter planes: the recipe for success and wooing bad ass mustachioed airplane pilots in Neopolis, USA.

 

Because woo bad ass mustachioed airplane pilots, he does.

 

So.  You're chilling out with a good superhero comic.  You know it's going to be good, because Alan Moore wrote it, and Alan Moore is a 100% quality comic book author.  Even his bad comics are good.  He is like Stan Lee turned up to eleven and I am a comic book fan of the kind that believes Stan Lee can do no wrong.  That is how good he is.

 

Anyway, you're flipping through this comic, and there are all the usual things that superhero comics have to offer - thrilling fight scenes, superpowered nazi scientists, time travel, spandex.  Sexual tension.

 

And oh, is there tension.

 

It crackles.  It is so thick you could cut a chunk of it and use it in a sandwich as a vegan alternative for cheese.  You, the unsuspecting reader, think something along the lines of "Oh, they'd make a good couple" or "Good lord, that is hot as hell, I am writing some fanfiction tonight" or "Hahaha, superhero comics are so homoerotic."

 

And then - suddenly - or not so suddenly, the build up is magnificently subtle to the point of coming across as subtext, but if you know it's there, it's obvious - it happens.  The tension snaps.  Wulf, the bad ass mustachioed airplane pilot you have been shipping with Steve all along, does not mince his words when he says it:

 

 

Angels sing, fireworks explode, and everything is queer and nothing hurts.

 

I just.  I kind of want to ramble for days about how happy the Forty-Niners make me, as a comic book fan and as a queer kid and as a very un-secret hopeless romantic.  Steve is awkward and unsure of himself and turns out to be a total boss who knows exactly what he's doing when push comes to shove.  That he gets one of the best love stories in comic book history is just a bonus.

 

I feel bad for the massive amounts of spoilers already, but here, have one more:

 

The last page just seals the deal.  Steve and his bad ass mustachioed airplane pilot boyfriend are standing on a balcony overlooking the city.  Steve, who is young and naive (I'm allowed to say that, I'm a whole year-and-a-bit older than him), is waxing romantic about how he and Wulf should be together forever.  Wulf, being the bad ass mustachioed airplane pilot that he is, tries to let him down gently.

 

"Do you really think that we could find love, after a war like that?  Or that this madhouse city will last?  Nein, mein liebling... I give us six months."

 

It just so happens that the Forty-Niners is a prequel to a comic book called the Top Ten.

 

In the Top Ten, the head of Neopolis' police force is an older man by the name of Steve Traynor.

 

Who is married.

 

To Wulf.

 

I give you permission to die of the squee.  I know I did.

 

Excelsior!  (Haha, I've always wanted to say that!)

Posted by Editor on 09/14 at 12:42pm
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