The reason people were saying don’t forget fandom history isn’t because anyone thinks Stucky is the oldest MLM ship, or the biggest MLM ship, or the only MLM ship of its time. It’s because it was 2014 and gay marriage was still illegal. It’s because it was 2015 and MAGA was flying everywhere. It’s because it was 2016, people took to Twitter and trended #givecapaboyfriend. Mere weeks later, comics Steve Rogers was written into a Nazi.
It’s because it came at a turning point not just in superhero history but American history. MCU Steve Rogers was a return to a more sincere worldview after two decades of grim dark cynicism. The MCU, previously the domain of (mainly cis white) dudebros — you only have to look at the way Nat and Peggy were written in the early movies to know that women and other minorities, whether as characters or audience, were a distant afterthought — has gained traction with the mainstream audience. The advent of social media and internet accessibility meant a blossoming abundance of fan content that previous generations didn’t have.
This coincided with a time of intense ideological clash between progressive and conservative voices. Unlike what dudebros say, very few people believed the MCU would actually give Cap a boyfriend, but it did squarely place Captain America on the side of the LGBT community. Up until this point, MCU Steve in both canon and fanon has often been portrayed with hazy nostalgia for “the greatest generation” and the white picket fence dream. The hashtag trend was a reclamation of a character who was written by a minority, whose origin was a marginalised group for his time, and whose moral code was always supportive of people sidelined by history.
There will always be older ships, bigger ships, “more canon” ships, but you’ll never get another ship that rode the nexus of social media growth, genre popularity, LGBT recognition and political tug-o-war to breach containment the way Steve-Bucky did.
Don’t forget the history of #GiveCapABoyfriend, the BBC Steve-Bucky fan video, the “of course it’s a love story”, the “we went a little Brokeback” and the “Bucky is his home”. All of these were acknowledgement of the sheer size and international reach of the fandom. With a character many people thought of as the face of conservative America, it brought gay romance into the mainstream consciousness…and yes, without Steve-Bucky and several other concurrent massive MLM ships laying down the ground work, many of the newer canon gay romances would not have been green lit by profit-hungry studios.
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