Russo Brothers Confirm Another Gay Character in Upcoming Marvel Studios Film

Avengers: Endgame has brought a lot of changes to the character landscape of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but not all of those changes involve the heroes. In addition to bring an end to some character arcs and setting up new opportunities for other heroes, Endgame also introduced the first openly gay character in the MCU and while the character may have been minor, more LGBTQ characters are coming, according to the Russo brothers.

In an interview with Sirius XM, Endgame directors Anthony and Joe Russo opened up about a lot of burning questions about blockbuster film, including its introduction of an openly gay character. In case you missed it, early in the film Joe Russo has a cameo as a member of Steve Rogers/Captain America’s (Chris Evans) support group and talks about how he’s finally started dating again five years after The Snap. He refers to his date as a man, a mention that reveals that the character is gay. It’s a small moment — too small from the perspective of some who are hoping for larger representation — but according to Russo, more is coming and sooner than we may think.

“There is a gay character coming up in one of their films,” Russo said. “I think Kevin [Feige] will make that announcement, I’m sure, pretty soon.”

Fans have suspected for some time that one of the upcoming characters in The Eternals, one of Marvel Studios‘ next films, will bring the first gay lead character to the MCU and while Feige didn’t specifically confirm that suspicion, he has spoken about increasing diversity within the MCU in a recent interview with io9.

“Well it’s accurate in that we’ve talked about [it for] a long time,” Feige said. “You look at the success of Captain Marvel and Black Panther. We want the movies to reflect the audience and we want every member of our global audience to see themselves reflected on the screen. And that’s what we’ve been doing for a long time. And certainly, that’s what we’re focusing on going forward.”

It’s the importance of representation that prompted Russo to, when they opted to have a gay character appear in Endgame, play the character himself.

“Representation is really important for us in these movies and I think the thing we are happiest most about Marvel moving forward is it’s becoming incredibly diverse,” Russo told The Hollywood Reporter. “We’ve done four of these films and it was incredibly important to us to have a gay character represented somewhere in one of these four movies. We felt so strongly about it that I wanted to play that character in the film.”

Avengers: Endgame is in theaters now.

Are you excited for the MCU to have more gay characters? Let us know in the comments below.