Marvel has finally had its first ever on-screen same-sex wedding – but it’s not quite what you might expect.
Hulu original Marvel series Runaways features the studio’s first ever same-sex wedding in a new episode in its third season – but sadly, the wedding turns out to be a fantasy taking place in one of the character’s heads, Digital Spy reports.
In the episode, Karolina is trapped inside one of Jonah’s pods alongside Chase and Janet. Viewers quickly learn that Jonah has trapped her in an algorithm where her deepest desires are played out in a fantasy version of real-life.
Karolina’s fantasy in Runaways is to marry Nico.
Karolina’s fantasy is to marry Nico, and viewers get to watch the wedding play out on screen. Bud sadly, that’s all it is – a fantasy. Karolina subsequently starts to realise that things aren’t quite right and establishes that her betrothed, Nico, isn’t the same as she is in real-life.
By the end of the season’s second episode, Karolina is back in the real world and firmly not married to her love interest.
There are some aspects of the story that are groundbreaking. Showing viewers that Karolina’s greatest desire is to marry Nico is radical in itself – but Marvel fans might have preferred if the studio’s first on-screen same-sex wedding wasn’t a fantasy sequence that was quickly erased.
Of course, the characters are actually too young to marry anyway, so it couldn’t have been real – but some fans may feel robbed by the attempt at representing LGBT+ people’s lives.
The Marvel series has since been cancelled.
Sadly, Runaways has since been cancelled – so fans won’t be seeing Karolina and Nico tie the knot in the future either.
Marvel’s TV output tends to get considerably less attention than its big-budget cinema outings. While Marvel films have come under fire repeatedly for an almost complete failure to represent LGBT+ people, there have been a number of queer characters in its TV offerings.
Following extensive criticism over the lack of queer characters in its films, Marvel has finally decided to make some changes. Marvel producer Kevin Feige confirmed earlier this year that Valkyrie, played by Tessa Thompson, will be visibly queer in the next Thor film.
Feige also confirmed that there will be a gay character in upcoming superhero film The Eternals.