I never liked Northstar because he was a jerk to his sister, had ties to the FLQ, and his powers were really kinda "meh". And then you add to it that Aurora have the exact same powers? Why? They aren't identical twins, why do they have identical powers?
As for the Gay aspect to Northstar, as I said, that was added on to make the character more interesting:
"Creator John Byrne was reluctant to produce an initial run of the 1983 Alpha Flight comic series for lack of developed and compelling characters, which had no back-stories and were created as nothing more than a team to face the X-Men. So in order to make the team less two-dimensional and more developed, Northstar's sexual orientation was subtly introduced into the start of the new Alpha Flight series.[2][3] Although Byrne had intended the character to be gay, he was restricted to implied hints of this fact,[4] due to Marvel editor-in-chief Jim Shooter's policy against openly homosexual characters,[5] and by the Comics Code Authority.[6] Thus, Northstar's apparent lack of interest in women was implied to be due to his obsessive drive to win as a ski champion,[7] and writer Bill Mantlo's later attempt to reveal that Northstar had AIDS was squelched.[8] In Alpha Flight #106 (1992), writer Scott Lobdell was finally given permission to have Northstar state, "I am gay."" Source - Wikipedia Before Alpha Flight (the series) began I already had an opinion of Northstar from his appearances in other comic books, and it wasn't great. Finding out he's a gay former terrorist just made me think - WTF? Those are bombshells... and we're just going add that to make him "edgey"? The FLQ isn't fake - they actually killed people in real life. I don't like Northstar as a symbol for gay people. They deserve better. As for Guardian... I like his powers, his costume, and the character. You can't have Alpha Flight without Guardian - he's their leader and he's a symbol they can follow into battle. He has flaws, he has strengths, and he has history. How many superheroes had wives and problems with their jobs and trying to make ends meet in 1983? And I think that Alpha Flight doesn't work without him, or someone a lot like him (Heather Hudson).
RAMBLE
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