Akihiro's Character Shift- From Counterculturally Queer to Marketable and Normative
Akihiro is one of the few bisexual, men of color characters in cape comics. He has a relatively lengthy history as an antagonistic character who has shown various dimensions of complexity and inner conflict over the years. Fans have historically been drawn to the nuances of the character and his queer identity has always been an important rarity the character brought to comics.
Part of recognizing those nuances is also acknowledging that historically, Akihiro’s bisexuality and attraction to men has not always been portrayed perfectly. The other part is also recognizing the cultural context during his inception and what that has meant for queer fans.
Yes, Akihiro was an antagonist, yes, he fit some unfortunate tropes. That said, there were aspects of his original characterization that resonated with queer fans and still matter today, aspects that have unfortunately been lost as his character has transitioned more into a “good” guy.
Over the past 5 years; Akihiro has been characterized more as a hero. Alongside this moral shift in the character…his queerness has also conveniently been sanded off. This post is meant to analyze Akihiro’s history and significance as a queer male character and how that has been lost since his “redemption” that started off in X-Factor (2021) and defines much of how he’s portrayed to this day.
With his redemption, Akihiro has become a consistent player in the x-books, constantly having a book appearance since X-Factor, unlike any other queer character at Marvel. Seriously, he hasn’t had a break. After X-Factor, he appeared in Marauders, Alpha Flight, Hellverine (a mini and then an ongoing), Spirits of Vengeance and as of writing, Inglorious X-Force. That’s a lot of push the character is getting, more than he ever has gotten before, across several different titles and creators.
He has consistently appeared monthly more often than any other queer character at Marvel right now, since his character shift. And yet…it’s with this same push that his queer identity has been stripped and he’s been modified into something more digestible and marketable to cishet male readers. This is a far cry from the essence of the character that defined his impact.
To demonstrate this, let's start by looking at who Akihiro was before his “redemption” era and how queerness was an active ingredient in framing him.
Akihiro was introduced as the “Anti-Logan” in many ways. A queer, antagonistic man with dark nail polish, tattoos and a penchant for power and hedonism, the perfect villain and foil for the broody, masculine and heteronormative protagonist that is Wolverine. It’s important to remember the cultural context here, much of his core characterization discussed here had occurred during 2007-2009.
During much of this characterization; explicit queer representation barely existed in comics. Upon Akihiro’s creation, there hadn’t even been a gay kiss in comics. Let that sink in.
Rictor and Shatterstar didn’t get to have their kiss until 2009 in X-Factor #45, this marked the first gay kiss in a mainstream superhero comic. Wiccan and Hulkling, arguably the most popular and impactful gay couple in comics, didn’t get to have their first kiss until Children’s Crusade #9 in 2010.
This timeframe is incredibly important when looking at Akihiro’s flawed but impactful writing as a queer man. We didn’t have much of anything, and yet here is this queer, mysterious, attractive and fae man, who is related to Logan. His writing at the time cultivated some negative stereotypes, but it was juxtaposed with subversive characterization that stuck with the character and his queer fans.
Not only was he one of the only openly queer characters in comics at this time, his overt, in-your-face and tantalizing approach to same sex desire, alongside his brazen and elegant aesthetic was refreshing, and all of this was deeply intentional.
Matt Fraction described him as “erudite, cultured and flamboyant” and as "the metrosexual Wolverine.” Marjorie Liu, a fan favorite writer of the character, described him as “elegant”, preferring to use his brain over his brawns, and that his sexuality is ultimately about control.
These traits are immediately divergent from the gritty, heteronormative and masculine ideals of Logan’s archetype. Logan would hardly be described as “metrosexual” and “elegant”, and his sexuality was always relatable and palpable to straight men. The loving man to the foreign and beautiful Mariko, or the brooding, misunderstood man to the gorgeous and ambiguously available Jean Grey, etc.
This divergent characterization “othered” Akihiro, and put him in a distinct category. This is essentially what made him resonate with queer fans. This symbolized a countercultural approach to male sexuality, especially pertaining to same sex desire. His willingness to unapologetically flaunt, seduce, and tease men in a narrative context where we were barely allowed to be shown two men kissing was refreshing.
He was even drawn in ways that emphasized his attractive, and lean body. All with a dash of feminine elegance; his eyes were often drawn pretty, his nails were painted dark and his Mohawk flew around like a regal but daunting mane.
Again, it cannot be emphasized enough that queer characters weren’t even allowed to kiss during this period, let alone showcase much overt same sex desire. This context reinforced a culture of shame.
Akihiro stood out because he was anything but ashamed when it came to his desires and sexuality. This unabashedly queer point of view allowed for extremely memorable character interactions that challenged expectations around what interactions between men could be like.
Specifically, Akihiro’s overt and unashamed queer sexuality gave him the vantage point to deconstruct expectations amongst canonically cishet men like Johnny Storm and Bullseye. The former had been read as queer for years, and his interactions with Akihiro was the closest the character has gotten to explicitly express same sex desire.
Bullseye presented a unique interaction; Akihiro using his sexuality to get under the skin of a male character, causing sexual frustration and tension, leading to fun character interactions and conflicts.
These types of dynamics are usually reserved for femme fatale women like Catwoman, Black Cat or Emma Frost, but Akihiro being a man allows for a queer subversion of these expectations. The impact was massive, and both Johnny/Akihiro and Bullseye/Akihiro are popular dynamics that still receive fan content to this very day.
Akihiro was able to make straight men uncomfortable even, treating them the way they often treat women. While some may view this as offensive, it gives Akihiro a sense of power in relation to his sexuality and how he expresses it with different men, in different contexts.
In some ways, these interactions represented a bit of a power fantasy that many queer men never get to live due to the aforementioned culture of shame. A badass, sexy man, who was able to get under the skin of straight men, frustrate them, tease them, but still be the power player in control. He didn’t have to conform, or hide, or blend in. He tantalized the other men in the room, using his charm, confidence and presentation as “other.”
This added depth to the queer literature base in comics; Akihiro represented a countercultural intrigue that was distinct from his contemporaries, adding to the diverse pool of queer perspectives that existed in Marvel Comics. Other queer characters were less sexually charged, imposing or as open about their desires for the same sex. Those characters still matter just as much, but a diverse literature base is when different vantage points can co-exist. Akihiro truly was the “Anti-Logan”, and there was still so much potential with his character, especially with his meaningful connection with his sisters.
Fans got excited again when he appeared in Iceman’s solo ongoing in 2017, written by Sina Grace. The previews oozed sexual tension, and conflict. Male/Male dynamics that feature an anti hero/antagonist and a superhero like Bobby still do not really exist in comics.
Most of the standard gay couples in comics are idealized and lacked palpable tension, conflict or sexual energy. Akihiro and Bobby could represent something different and again; countercultural. Fanart and fanfiction began pouring in, similar to what had happened with Bullseye and Johnny Storm. Sadly, the two men didn’t end up together as the Iceman run ended too soon, but fans still create fan content of them to this day, imagining a chaotic, tense but fun and exhilarating dynamic between two openly queer men.
And then came the Krakoa era. Leah Williams is a writer with a…messy history of handling queer themes and non white characters. She received some backlash on her X-Tremists run for focusing on Betsy and Blob as a romantic pairing, despite advertising her book as queer. The book itself did explore some queer aspects near the end but “Blobsy” remained the main, multi issue romantic push. Due to this, and her questionable handling of an Asian character in the same book, some Akihiro fans were a bit worried when she mentioned she would be including the character in her X-Factor run.
For many of us, those worries quickly came to fruition. Like X-Tremists, Williams markets this book as queer but the romantic content predominantly focuses on a budding relationship between Akihiro and Aurora, completely changing Akihiro’s character in the process; from a complicated, countercultural antagonist/anti-hero, into a very buff, masculine, “himbo” who has random and shoehorned feelings for Aurora, a character he has never interacted with before and knows nothing about.
This is the beginning of the rebranding of Akihiro as a likeable hero, as his countercultural, queer qualities begin to strip away as he becomes more of a traditional, male hero, not too different from his father. Some art even has him looking exactly like him, a far cry from the “anti Wolverine” he originally started off as.
To Williams’ credit, she still references Akihiro’s bisexuality, but she has changed every other aspect of who he is in order to fit a rather gendered relationship with a straight, white woman. His appearance, framing and mannerisms are completely different from before. His lean, feminine features are gone away with and he is suddenly quite broad and muscular.
His antagonistic qualities such as his selfishness, need for power and control, and his hedonism are gone away with, and his new, quirky and likable qualities are only shown in the context of Aurora, as if he just needed to find the right girl this whole time.
After Williams’ book is unceremoniously cancelled, Steve Orlando’s era with the character begins and is overall much, much better. He sadly retains Williams’ Aurora relationship but he introduces a male lover into Akihiro’s past, though the whole thing is still ultimately a flashback relationship that won’t really be referenced again. Additionally, Orlando actually references and builds a bit on Akihiro’s antagonistic past. His stint with the character was short lived however. Unfortunately, he still continued with the baggage of Williams’ run as opposed to doing away with it, which leads into the next storyline.
After some hijinx involving death and rebirth, Akihiro becomes the Hellverine and Benjamin Percy first writes a mini series and then a 10 issue ongoing featuring the character. This was Akihiro’s first solo feature since Marjorie Liu’s run with the character in 2009. None of this resonated with readers in comparison, as it was cancelled very quickly. Thankfully, the Aurora relationship seems to have ended but the damage has been done.
Continuing from Williams’ sanitization of the character, Akihiro becomes even more of a Logan lite. All of the things that made him countercultural are completely filtered out.
He is inelegant, broody, and masculine, through and through. His interest in men is not referenced even once throughout the run. His nail polish is now completely gone, and as are the flashy and eye catching looks. In essence, he has regressed full circle from the “anti-Logan” to “Logan-lite”, with no more distinct voice or characterization. He’s the broody, cool man with claws.
This was convenient for Marvel, as “Hellverine” is a brand that can market to the same cishet male audience that enjoys Logan, a demographic that is not particularly accepting of countercultural, queer narratives. Look at this:
This is who Akihiro appeals to now, and this transition began in 2021 with Williams’ X-Factor.
Continuing the trend, Tim Seeley included the character in his current run of Inglorious X-Force, and right away, from the first issue, he is clearly setting up a relationship of some kind for Akihiro with the one, available woman in the team: Boom Boom, a character who he has never had any interest or interaction with before.
But hey, she’s hot and available and that’s all it takes to show a man/woman relationship right? As of writing, his attraction to men has not been referenced in roughly 2-3 years. It also should be noted that Tim Seeley is known for creating erotic works such as Moneyshots, and the choice for him to write books that target cishet men at the expense of everyone else, such as Rogue: Savage Land and Psylocke: Ninja is no mere coincidence.
It’s overtly marketing to the same audience that Akihiro once was countercultural against, in a very queer way. Him getting with Boom Boom was about as predictable as paint drying on the wall.
It’s obvious to say that none of this is coincidental. Akihiro’s same sex desire, his flamboyance, his theatrics, his self confidence in his sexuality and autonomy over his countercultural desires are all fundamentally linked. If one of those qualities get stripped away, they all do, and we are left with a character with no distinct voice or perspective, but is easily marketable to Logan’s straight male fans.
And that’s where we are at. As previously mentioned, it’s his countercultural traits that make Akihiro a distinct and important piece of the queer literature base of comics. Without that, his writing would have much less impact. Look at the fan content that existed and still gets produced that features his pre 2021 characterization. We all know whatever modern relationship or character tick he received won’t have the same impact as the countercultural icon from the past. That’s my Akihiro. And I grieve what he once was and could have been.
I hope we get to see that Akihiro again, and even if we won’t, well it’s clear which one is living on amongst the fandom and which one isn’t.
As threatened, this ship has become my entire personality. I've embarked on a truly insane research frenzy in order to write the many thousands of words of porn fic they deserve, but in the meantime, I noticed when I first discovered them that it's really hard to find any information about their actual interactions. Like, harder than Johnny and Daken, even though that's only subtext and Bobby and Daken is actual (hilariously disastrous) text.
Anyway. In hopes of dragging some of you down with me, I present to you: their whole deal.
Kevin Wada knows what's up.
So those two issues above tragically encompass fully 40% of their interactions ever. They're from the unfortunately short-lived 2017 Iceman series by Sina Grace, and I do recommend reading the whole thing whether you ship this or not, because it's just a lovely series and I'm sorry I slept on it when it originally came out.
You probably already know who Bobby is: Bobby Drake, Iceman, one of the original five X-Men, can turn into ice, he's in the movies but maybe ignore all of that. At this point in time he had very recently (2015) come out as gay after DECADES of subtext, in a story that was highly controversial at the time but which I actually love, fight me. This series is very much about him exploring that aspect of his identity for the first time.
Daken, as covered in the Johnny post, is Daken Akihiro, Wolverine's half-Japanese, canonically bisexual son, with basically the same powers as his dad plus pheromone powers. He was introduced as a villain but around this time was at the very beginning of what would end up being an extremely drastic face turn, mostly because of his relationship with his sister, Laura/X-23. So like...still mostly a villain here but has done a couple of heroic things, and much less likely to slaughter dozens for no reason.
Prior to Iceman (2017), these two had appeared in exactly one comic "together," in that Daken was pretending to be Wolverine on an evil X-Men team led by Norman Osborne, and Bobby and a bunch of other good guys stood on a hill some distance away and watched them. It's basically nothing.
But then we get Iceman #4. At this point, Bobby is a teacher at the Xavier School, and this one extremely obnoxious kid named Zach has run away. They figure out that he's at a very upper crust club in Manhattan, so Bobby puts on a tux and goes looking for him...and that's when he discovers who Zach has run away with:
I say "run away with," but to be clear, there's never any indication of a sexual relationship between Zach, who is 15, and Daken, who is in his 70s, though you could certainly read Zach as having a crush. Anyway it's extremely funny to me that Daken won him over by basically being Kronk's shoulder devil from The Emperor's New Groove. "Don't listen to that guy! He's trying to lead you down the path of righteousness. I'm gonna lead you down the path that rocks." - Daken, probably
Anyway, please enjoy Daken flirting, although admittedly he does that with everyone. We will come back to that incomprehensibly comic book-y line about the Apocalypse seed later. I also don't know why Bobby says he hates Daken when unless I missed an issue they have literally never met, but I do love that you could cut the sexual tension on this page with a knife.
Oop. Bobby's pose in the second panel always makes me laugh, it's so goofy.
His line about the charm powers is interesting, because there's two interpretations here: either Daken was using them and they clearly didn't work for some reason, presumably having to do with Bobby's powers...or Daken wasn't using them, but Bobby assumed he was, presumably because for all his sarcasm, he is actually attracted to Daken. Well, or he's just being annoying on purpose (likely, this is an annoying x annoying ship).
Bobby finds Zach and tries to talk him into coming home, but Zach isn't having it - and because his powers allow him to turn other mutants' powers up or down, Bobby can't force him. Daken thaws out and attacks:
Their fights are so fun. They're both functionally immortal so they always just seem like they're really enjoying cutting loose? (I mean, I say "functionally immortal" but Daken's died like three times. Comics!)
A consistent through-line with these two is that Daken is absolutely no match for Bobby (unless he can make Bobby fall in love with him, apparently) (we'll get there). Look how hard he's fighting! And Bobby's not even trying. (To be fair, Bobby is an Omega-level mutant (lol) which is the most powerful classification. Also it's Bobby's book so he gets to look badass, that's just how it works.)
But also can we talk about Bobby's dialogue in the first panel? "I know that what he's offering you sounds exciting, but Daken will hurt you." Are you talking to Zach or yourself, Bobby? Please recall that at this point in time Bobby has never even kissed a boy.
Zach gets in the helicopter and leaves. Daken tries flirting again, but Bobby isn't having it:
Ouch. Don't feel bad for Daken, though, he's mad but basically unbothered:
"You ruined my suit" lol. Bobby leaning on the snowflake also never fails to make me laugh. Also, Daken's line about charming Bobby seems to imply that he did attempt to use his pheromones earlier and it didn't work, even on Bobby's depowered form, which is interesting.
More flirting! More being extremely mean to each other! More Daken calling Bobby "snowflake!" (He does so four times in this issue alone.) I am eating this issue with a spoon.
Anyway. Daken and Zach go to Madripoor and do crimes, whatever. Meanwhile, over the next few issues, Bobby goes to LA and meets a cute guy named Judah, who is canonically the first man he kisses/sleeps with (if we don't count his time-displaced teen self's boyfriend, which we won't right now because that's confusing). They agree not to try a long distance relationship, but Bobby comes home and immediately starts talking about moving to LA...and Judah impulsively shows up on his lawn:
I SEE YOU, SINA GRACE. I SEE YOU EXPLICITLY PARALLELING BOBBY'S CANON LOVE INTEREST WITH THE SEXY BAD BOY WITH HIS SHIRT UNBUTTONED. I like Judah a lot - he's the best of the NPC queer love interests of which we have so many these days - but come on.
And then we get Iceman #9.
So. Bobby has indeed decided to move to LA for a guy he has known for 48 hours, and the X-Men throw him a going away party even though Kitty loudly tells him he's being a dumbass. (Love u, Kitty.) But! Zach sneaks back into the mansion and lures the students into a death trap in the Danger Room, and the adult X-Men are lured outside to fight fake Purifiers.
Bobby is not supposed to be part of the fight, he's supposed to be going to a nearby bar with the NPC love interests, but he decides to put Judah in his room where he'll be safe. Which of course is when Daken pops up:
"Oh no, I always unbutton my shirt halfway to my navel and put on a shoulder holster that doesn't have anything in it but makes my pecs and biceps look amazing when embarking on a completely idiotic plan to obtain ultimate power." - Daken, again
Of course, Daken's big evil plan involves...messing with Bobby's new boyfriend:
And then he makes a supervillain speech:
So. Okay. Remember in #4, when Daken said something about Bobby having an Apocalypse seed in him? So the very short version is that Apocalypse is an X-Men villain who likes to pick four mutants to be his Horsemen (Death, War, Famine, and Pestilence) and he amps up their powers but also enthralls them to a degree. A couple years before Bobby came out, an evil version of Beast stuck a Death seed in Bobby for safekeeping and he went evil and nearly destroyed the world, in a story that's, uh...not not a metaphor for being miserably closeted, I'll just say that. (In case you're curious, they did eventually get the seed out and um. Mystique ate it. And grew tentacles.)
Anyway, I don't know why Daken says he saw it because a) he and Bobby had never met at that point and b) Daken was dead at the time. (Wolverine drowned him in a puddle. Amazingly, Logan and Daken's relationship is better than Bobby and his dad's.) Maybe he watched it on YouTube or something. The point is, Daken was resurrected with a different Death seed, and it's still inside him.
It is at this point that we learn what all of this nonsense was about: Daken semi-kidnapped Zach because he wants Zach to use his power-enhancing/suppressing abilities to trigger the Death seed, while also suppressing it enough that Daken stays in control. Bobby, who turned into an ice kaiju and nearly destroyed the world when he was all Death-seeded up, is like "That is a terrible plan, do not do that," although I guess in Daken's defense, he's not nearly as dangerous as Bobby even with Death powers. But it's still a dumb plan.
Anyway Daken gets so powerful that his shirt explodes:
Daken's fun because I understand all the signifiers in his design telling me that he's supposed to be really hot but 90% of the time he looks like a dingdong.
Daken stabs Judah, and then tells Zach to give Bobby his powers back, mostly because he thinks it'll be fun to fight Bobby:
"There's my snowflake!" Daken this crush is embarrassing.
The fight continues into the next issue. Zach loses control and thus Daken also loses control, exactly as Bobby warned him he would. They fight some more, with Daken looking even stupider, and hilariously going for the "no one understands you the way I do" angle (they have been in three entire comics together):
Daken asks if Bobby's friends saved him from the Death seed with "fwiendship and miwacles" (no, they did it by Kitty calling him a punk bitch). But that's not gonna work on Daken, no sir!
They sure do like penetrating each other.
And then this happens:
I did not know that kiss was coming and the way I SCREAMED when I turned the page??? Also that little kick is hilarious.
Anyway Daken just...vanishes from the story at this point, all of his everything completely unresolved. Zach is captured. Judah is alive, but he breaks up with Bobby because getting "stabbed by some sexy Asian biker guy" just for hanging around Bobby actually wasn't fun.
I want to point out a couple of things. First, Daken's plan was objectively terrible, because it apparently relied on a 15-year-old never losing his concentration. When was Zach supposed to sleep?
Second, and more importantly, none of this required Bobby's presence. Zach could have triggered the seed in Madripoor. There was absolutely no reason to show up at the mansion and potentially have to fight all the X-Men.
So to recap, Daken:
returned to New York for no reason, coincidentally just in time to stop Bobby from moving across the country with his new boyfriend,
unbuttoned his shirt several extra buttons,
waited until Bobby was isolated and then manhandled him,
kissed and then stabbed his boyfriend,
exploded his own shirt off,
called Bobby his favorite pet name again,
told him no one understands him like Daken does,
let's fight all night together, Bobby,
love won't save me, Bobby,
whatever you do, don't try to save me with the power of love, Bobby!
omg he kissed me 😳
Like, look. I know Daken's "plan" didn't succeed. But Judah broke up with Bobby, so didn't it? DIDN'T IT??
(I also think it's worth asking...did you really have to kiss him to freeze the seed, Bobby? Hm?)
Unfortunately, the Iceman series was cancelled after only one more issue. Bobby and Daken did interact four months later, in X-Men: Blue #30...but it was time-displaced Teen Bobby, not regular Bobby:
This is Daken's version of cute aggression. Anyway, being like 15 does not stop Bobby from being able to effortlessly kick Daken's ass and someone else's at the same time, which is hilarious:
There is only one more actual interaction between these two, in Uncanny X-Men: Winter's End, and once again it's not the present day versions. Bobby's future self, who is a...space ice wizard...of some sort...comes back to the present to warn Bobby that he's going to fuck Daken and it's going to end very poorly:
Future Bobby describes this relationship as "a love that feels so real that it redefines every sense or feeling you had before." Intense. This, by the way, is literally centuries in the future because again, both functionally immortal.
Alas, Future Daken betrays Bobby and the X-Men in yet another bid for ultimate power, and Future Bobby comes back in time to kill his past self to prevent it from happening. Regular Bobby is like "Okay first of all you need to own your own mistakes, and second of all if I want to fuck Daken that's my choice to make." (Okay he doesn't say that but he does say "If I do somehow make your mistakes, just let me live my damn life!") So...never say never, I guess!
There is one other moment to note and that's this very cruel-to-me-personally bait-and-switch in Marauders Annual #1. Daken, who is pretty firmly a good guy at this point (it's 2022, well into the Krakoa era), disappears while on a mission. He's in a very cute relationship with Aurora at this time, so Bishop and Tempo ask her if she's seen him:
And on the next page:
I'm not going to try to explain everything that's happening on this page but the point is it's set up to make you think Aurora is talking about Bobby, when actually she's talking about Somnus, the guy in the last couple of panels, who was Daken's lover a million years ago. Sigh.
And that is the extent of Bobby and Daken's appearances together, not counting several crowd scenes and pinups in Pride specials where they always seem to be as far apart from each other as possible. 😭
But none of that changes what's important here, which is that Bobby kicked Daken's ass one time and it got Daken so embarrassingly down bad that he tried to take over the world about it. Sexy scary immortal knifehands bisexual assassin absolutely losing his cool over some dorky little accountant from Long Island, I can't.
ANYWAY EVERYONE COME SHIP THIS WITH ME PLEASE AND THANK YOU 🧊❤️🔪
