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21.06 / 22:19
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Joss Whedon Almost Ruined Marvel’s First Gender-Fluid Character
The character Xavin from The Runaways was ground-breaking for being Marvel's first gender-fluid hero, but Buffy the Vampire Slayer creator Joss Whedon almost undid that progress. In the mid-2000s The Runaways, along with the New X-Men and Young Avengers, were Marvel’s first earnest attempts at new socially diverse teams of young people of varying, backgrounds, body types, races, and sexual identities. Proper representation can be a rocky road, but when Brian K. Vaughan introduced the gender-fluid Skrull character Xavin midway through the series' second volume, they seemed like a natural fit. Unfortunately when Whedon took over The Runaways in 2008, he made a change to Xavin’s identity that, while intended to be celebratory, wound up making the book look tone-deaf and reductive.