Posted in: Comics, Current News, Marvel Comics | Tagged: al ewing, cloud, defenders, javier rodrigiez, marvel, pronouns

Pronoun Choice In The Middle Of A Marvel War (Defenders #3 Spoilers)

Cloud is a classic member of the Marvel Comics superhero team The Defenders, circa 1983. A nebula in space given human form, Cloud would take on the form of both male and female teenagers, jumping from one to the other. And in 1983 that was the most genderfluid thing that comic books had ever seen. Cloud can manipulate matter and energy on a planetary scale, can instantaneously travel across space, and has the ability to create a breathable atmosphere. But while relating to humans, Cloud found difficulty with the concepts of gender and explored them in a relationship with Moondragon.

Now in 2021, Cloud is a member of The Defenders again, as they battle from one interaction of the universe to another, taken jumps through time that are billions of years apart.

Almost forty years from being created by J.M. DeMatteis and Don Perlin, in Defenders, with a history that has usually seen Cloud depicted in a female form, including here, it's time to chat pronouns, courtesy of Al Ewing and Javier Rodriguez.

While the Masked Raider is free and easy with she/her in the midst of battle, it's something that Cloud has preferences in the way they are addressed.

"It's a small thing, in a battle. But who we are is all we have." I was just reading about the morale-raising effect of a supply of doughnuts on troops in the First World War, after a village offered eggs and sugar, with ammunition shells used as rolling pins and tin cans used as cutters, cooked on their knees in the trenches to keep the oil level. Anecdotal reports have the first soldier who took a bite say "if this is war, let it continue". It was a good line for the papers. But yes, a small thing in the relative context of a cosmic war played out across trillions of years. But to Cloud, and many others, it's who you are. And a lot more important than a doughnut.

DEFENDERS #3 (OF 5)
MARVEL COMICS
AUG211219
(W) Al Ewing (A/CA) Javier Rodriguez
THE DEBUT OF THE DEADLY MORIDUN!
Doctor Strange and his misfit crew land in a world of dark, primal magic – where our world's master of the mystic arts is just a magical morsel for countless hungry sorcerers. The most powerful entity on this plane, the maker of magic itself, already knows the Defenders and their mission. Their paltry abilities mean nothing to him, save one: The power to move between cosmos. All of existence lies vulnerable as the Defenders find themselves outmatched! RATED T+In Shops: Oct 06, 2021 SRP: $3.99

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