This is somewhat old news (from a few weeks ago) but worth posting.
From The Mary Sue:
Marvel Comics has decided to take their characters in a new direction, one that hasn’t been explored in their pages before. Today, the publisher announced that their character Northstar would be proposing to his long-time boyfriend Kyle in the pages of Astonishing X-Men #50. And ABC’s The View had the exclusive.
Behar’s lame attempt at a joke aside, I wish the ladies had gotten more time to talk about this momentous move. Northstar, aka Jean-Paul Beaubier, was the first Marvel character to be revealed as gay but not the first in comics altogether. The first is most often credited to Extrano from DC Comics back in the 80s. Coincidentally enough, DC is planning to reveal one of their previously existing male, iconic characters as gay in a story this June. You may also remember Archie Comics getting the jump on this particular issue with the marriage of their gay character Kevin Keller to his significant other last year.
In a press release Axel Alonso, Marvel Editor in Chief, said, “The Marvel Universe has always reflected the world outside your window, so we strive to make sure our characters, relationships and stories are grounded in that reality. We’ve been working on this story for over a year to ensure Northstar and Kyle’s wedding reflects Marvel’s ‘world outside your window’ tradition.”
Read the rest here: link.