Just a few hours left on the Dumbing of Age Kickstarter! And we got Shortpacked! Book 1 reprinted, too!
(Watch my entire readership read today’s strip, suddenly decide they’re homophobes, and pull out of the Kickstarter en masse.)
Oh, and hey, updates every weekday this week! See you tomorrow.
Gay people don’t exist! Are you crazy??
9_9
Also, good call getting Alfred…? Maybe? (depending on Gay-Basher’s behaviour)
Alfred’s AWESOME if you can find him. Amazing Michael Caine likeness. I just wish my DC Direct Comedian was properly in scale with him so I could have him punching him out without camera trickery.
Of course he’s awesome. Name one guy who can still talk gibberish under the influence of a truth serum?
Batman. (he has a tooth filling with antidote, whether there is such a thing or not.)
Miles Vorkosigan.
Though no one underestimates Miles more than once.
They tend to overestimate him afterward, which is just as detrimental.
Plus with Miles you can’t really tell the difference when he’s on truth serum. Or methamphetamines.
Or just being Miles. Wonder if his kids are as fun.
Gary Busey
I went to college with a girl who had recently come out, and told me her father simply didn’t believe her. He claimed lesbians don’t actually exist; they were invented by the porno industry.
And not to stereotype, but this girl was VERY obviously gay. If you saw her across the street you’d immediately think “that’s a lesbian” and then kick your self for making assumptions. I can’t imagine anyone was surprised by her announcement.
But her dad apparently just didn’t believe gay women exist. I don’t know if that’s better or worse than just being a hateful bigot; he was so ignorant he was actually too dumb to get angry about it.
To be fair, lesbians DO sound too good to be true.
http://moonoverjune.com/
yead through some of that, this is how lesbians really are
N-Not all of them, right? Because I’m a lesbian, and that sounds very… disruptive to the flow, if you know what I mean. *_*;;
A woman who is ONLY interested in other women sounds “too good to be true”? To a hetero male? To whom she would not in fact be attracted?
Yes, yes, I know, a lot of men think of “lesbian” as code for “kinky bisexual woman”… but that’s my point. It’s not actual lesbians that sound “too good to be true”, it’s the kinky bisexuals that sound too good to be true.
I blame the porn industry for not knowing the definition of “lesbian”.
Yes, because I obviously need to be able to personally bang a lesbian to find two ladies going at it attractive. Where’s my rolling eyes….?
I think you need to stop claiming to know how hetero male libido works.
That’s… I’m not really sure what that is.
Wow… Does her father live in Pleasantville?
What’s terrible is that I’ve actually heard that argument before…so he’s NOT ALONE.
Before I say anything else let me first say that the following is in no way meant to be in support or against lesbians. This is only biased on my understanding of what IS, not what SHOULD BE.
I do not want to go into what I think SHOULD BE at this time.
Believe it or not my first though after reading this was “Jedi”
Before the first Star Wars move was released there was no such thing as a Jedi, yet there are now thousands if not millions of people who say that Jedi is their religion. (I am not a Jedi or a lesbians , and as far as I know I have never met a Jedi, I have however met woman who told me that they were lesbians.)
The point here is that EVEN IF there were no such things as lesbians back in 1910, and lets say that they were created by the people who make pornos. It would still be possible for woman to watch those movies, mostly because the guys in their lives wanted them to, and then say to themselves “Hey, maybe that’s a good idea”. At that point lesbians would become real, just as Jedi have become a ‘real religion’.
Does this mean that I think that Jedi is a good choice for a religion?
Does this mean that I think that being a lesbian is a good choice?
No, it does not, because what I have said here has had nothing to do with what I believe is right or wrong, only what I believe is true.
I believe that there are woman who want to have sex with other woman and not with a man. Anyone who does not believe that people like that exist have not been given enough facts in this matter or are unwilling to believe the facts that are presented to them.
Also, good job picking up the toy before seeing your friend, she will never even notice the delay.
This is such a silly passive aggressive post.
Contrary to what some people might think, homosexuality isn’t new. I can’t even believe anyone would think that it is given how common it is in history. Most of our recorded instances are dudes, but that’s more than likely simply a matter of females being paid very little mind by society in general for much of history.
I agree. Not a Christian but even the Bible mentions “women lying with women as they do with men” in there, and that’s close to two thousand years old. Plus there’s documentation (wall art etc) going back even further than that in India, China, and Crete. Probably Greece as well, and other places, I’m sure.
Christianity even used to have a couple of rituals for uniting same-sex couples in marriage, back in the 10th and 11th centuries. And one of them was for uniting two women.
So, yeah, not new, and manifestly not something that the porn industry cooked up.
While I generally agree with you, you probably underestimate how old the porn industry really is: What was this about “wall art” again? What do you think its purpose might have been? (SCNR)
The main fallacy in “Wikipedia”‘s post though is the assumption that people choose their sexual preferences rather than discover them. While it might be a (conscious or unconscious) choice for some few, it certainly isn’t for most. (Suppressing one’s sexual preferences, or just not acting them out might be a choice, though.) So what if porn helped some lesbians to discover their preferences? That’d still only make it the trigger, not the cause.
You were quite right about ancient Greece, by the way. Just look at the etymology of the term ‘lesbian’.
YES THIS THANK YOU.
There’s… some amount of truth in that. The homosexual identity in Western society hasn’t been around for very long, historically speaking. For a long time, homosexuality was just something you did, not who you were. According to Foucalt and the like, the actual gay identity didn’t come into being until the Victorians decided dudes sexing up dudes instead of ladies endangered the upper class, and decided it was a pathology to study. Previous to that point, it had just been an illegal activity, but after that, it was something people were afflicted with. We’ve come a long way to reclaim that identity as something more positive than a mental disorder to be studied, but that original attitude has far from disappeared.
Homosexual behavior has been around for a long, long time. But prior to the idea of there being gay people (or bisexual, or queer, or what have you) Westerners didn’t think of it as an identity. In that sense, it’s hard to go back in history and say, “Oh, this lady obviously would have identified as a lesbian, if she knew what that was.” So, technically speaking, the idea of being LGBT is somewhat of a recent social invention.
Sexin’ up people of the same sex is totally not recent, though. And I doubt a lady who had no inherent interest in other ladies would see porn and go, “Oh hey, I should try that.” If you like women, you’re going to find out one way or the other, and it doesn’t have to be porn that does it. (I actually find lesbian porn made for straight men really off-putting. Fake nails? God, no, aughh ow.) So as one of aforementioned leslie beans, I find the notion that I was ‘invented’, so to speak, by porn somehow pretty hilarious. What actually did it for me was figuring out why my heart was racing too fast to even speak to one of my attractive female Drawing teachers. Plus, Boston Marriages were a thing long before porn got anywhere near as racy as it is now.
TL;DR: the “gay” identity/label IS a social invention, but not one that was invented by porn — it was first used by psychologists to describe what they thought of as an ailment. Lady-lovin’ ladies in general though are probably as old as ladykind.
Why don’t you look up Sappho on Wikipedia and rethink that response.
“Does this mean that I think that being a lesbian is a good choice?”
Excuse me, but you’re wrong. You think it’s a choice. Your entire point has been invalidated.
I so love that response ^_^
So you’re saying Furries didn’t exist before the internet made it possible for young, impressionable people go “Hmm, that’s a thing which exists. I could be that!”?
(Note: I happen to believe this.)
((Note^2: The PC term is ‘Therianthropic.’))
actually “Therianthrope” refers to any sort of anthropomorphic creature, including werebeasts, and does not specifically mean the fetishistic behavior and such that you’re referring.
though accurate, you could have specified.
That poor girl’s dad is certainly not alone. I met a metrosexual ‘alternative therapy’ practitioner (what does that even mean?) who told me he didn’t REALLY believe lesbians existed. This is DESPITE living in hope that his wife would be willing to explore her ‘lesbian side’ *rolls eyes*.
Am I alone in betting he’s a really bad therapist?
Wow, this dude’s wrong about EVERYTHING.
Well you have now! Ohhhhh!
So there are more gays than GL readers.
The more you know…
It’s possible there’s more then comic book readers in general to be honest. It’s seen something of a decline, probably why they keep trying to pull different things to draw in new demographics.
Sounds like they need some new blood working at DC & Marvel.
Probably, I don’t profess to know too much about comic books myself.
They could probably use some more women artists for sure.
Then again, webcomics is increasingly where it’s at.
Now THOSE I happen to know a thing or two about. Well… I read them anyways.
I haven’t bought a comic in years, manga on the other hand…
But I read webcomics most of all.
Ah manga, I do buy those from time to time.
Primarily webcomics as well though.
I could never get into American-style comics because they weren’t self-contained stories. You had to follow too much to follow anything.
So as a kid, I didn’t have enough money to buy the whole catalog, and as an adult I just read manga, webcomics, (and some of the one-story American stuff like Sandman, Preacher, Walking Dead, etc.)
If they’d just make it easy to follow, I *might* give a damn about some of it.
I buy American (And occasionally Canadian.) comics, but I only ever buy series that have already concluded. Which means I pretty much never pick up the long running flagship titles. Just don’t have the money or the time.
Webcomics are a myth created by furries.
I KNEW IT.
This is why I like Dark Horse. They seem to have, while certainly not an equal number of female artists, certainly a large number of female artists and even writers. A wonderful example is Rebekah Issacs, who is the main penciller on “Angel & Faith”. Her art is FANTASTIC – includes likenesses of characters that were originally portrayed by living actors, without the expressions looking off or wrong and without shortchanging the rest of the art, all of which is wonderfully expressive, good for both drama and humor. It may not be their biggest hit of a title, but that’s largely because it’s a relatively new series and had to be pushed into bookstores recently. Those who do read it, regardless of their reaction to the writing (a lot like it, some have nitpicked certain issues), seem to universally love or have no complaint with Isaacs’ art.
Mind you, Dark Horse is, er, the dark horse of the major comics companies – it’s the one that your average, non-comics-reading person might easily have never heard of, unlike Marvel and DC – but they’re still pretty big, fairly successful from the looks of it, and they seem to be including more women, at least at first glance.
Then again, Dark Horse is known for “unusual” and sometimes edgy comics; they carry most of Joss Whedon’s comics work for instance, they made Buffy sequels “Season 8″, “Season 9″ and “Fray”, Angel & Faith, the Dollhouse and Doctor Horrible comics, and a one-off of his called “Sugarshock” that was… quite offbeat to say the least. Not that a living Danger Room isn’t a weird concept, but I think a good chunk of Whedon’s comics through Dark Horse are odder or more unusual than his work on X-Men and Runaways.
They also have been reprinting old horror comics, and of course, they originated the BPRD comics that the Hellboy movies were based on, and, yeah, they’re an unusual company if you’re comparing them to the more visible outputs of companies like Marvel and DC. (Note: yes, I realize DC owns Vertigo, and thus the Fables series; however, outside of comics communities and bookstore folks, who the hell has heard of Vertigo or Fables? Yeah, my point exactly).
About 1-3% of the population is gay, which give you between 3 and 9 million gay people in the United States. A very generous estimate of the U.S. comic book reading audience would be about 2 million, which is about 10 times the sales of the best selling comic book of the last year. So, yeah, there are more gay people than regular comics readers in the U.S.
And those numbers are ridiculously tiny, poorly-sampled, don’t take into account the many people who have gay or bisexual thoughts and feelings but are incapable of admitting it to themselves let alone a survey taker, etc. etc. etc.
Basically, even at the most conservative estimate for the existence of gay folk, we still outnumber comic book readers.
On the other hand, give America a format for easily digesting comic book mythos, and we appear to turn out in droves. /admires The Avengers’ box office takings so far
3% is a useful figure for debating with “the other side” because it’s not widely contested. (Even if the actual numbers are 6-9%, and some evidence supports the idea that it would run as high as 20% in the absence of societal disapproval.)
Using the big-and-probably-accurate numbers tends to derail a conversation.
…not relevant here, just making conversation.
Would he be happier if they reinvented Aquaman as gay?
Everyone hates Aquaman. Apathy is better than hatred… sometimes.
You did not just said that.
Yeah, yeah I did just say that
Dude, the guy chopped off his own arm to save his son and the fact that he can summon zombie fish made him a lot more awesome in my book.
Cool story, bro.
TL;DR
It was either that, or “Yeah? Well, you know, that’s, like, your opinion, man.”
I love the Brave and the Bold Aquaman though. He’s OUTRAGEOUS!
The problem with Aquaman is he’s limited to the oceans. He’s powerful there, but everywhere else he’s just a man with above average strength and skills so he falls down several tiers where he’s comparable with other Justice League members of his caliber. That’s a let down for the king of the seas. On top of that is his name which is largely a symptom of DC still using archaic names. In short he gets no respect and he’d be the only character most fanboys would be fine with reinventing as gay. Sometimes it can be a shameless attempt to get more readers by making things more interesting or controversial, but as long as they tell a good story I don’t care.
Aquaman is… very specialized. His powers are limited to one location, and only to a certain degree. Take him out of that scenario, and you have to bend over backwards to get him to stand alongside the other heroes.
On the converse, there are characters with far too much power, as well. Most fanfiction centering around Raven (usually in the Teen Titans cartoon, although some do cavort with the comic concepts) very quickly hit upon the fact that as soon as she starts getting full control of her power, the entire rest of the Titan team has little to do but twiddle their thumbs when any of their default rogues gallery shows up.
Writers usually either crank up the rest of the team and give them a new batch of equally powerful opponents, or pile on reasons for her -not- to be involved in conflicts for an extended period; her overall power level reaches levels seen elsewhere when Batman was challenged to shoot fish in a barrel with a satellite-fired nuke with “This End Toward Target” at the wrong end of the laser guidance system.
Some writers can do these things, and do them well; others can’t. That boils more down to general creativity and nitpicking, however. No matter how you arrange the chard around the plate, a salad is a salad, and there’s only so much you can do with it. If you know the boundaries and are willing to, you can throw on a few big steaming hunks of sirloin, a handful of tomato chunks, some shredded cheese and a drizzle of raspberry balsamic vinegar, and you’ve got a kickass salad, but it’s still a salad.
Rather than go with that, most writers would rather just order the cheeseburger, so everyone says salad sucks because they’ve never had a good salad.
…now I’m hungry.
In the first issue of Aquaman’s new 52, he leaps over tall buildings with a single bound, flips an armored car over his head to land on its roof and has bullets bounce off his chest.
Basically, they duplicated a scene from Action Comics #1 (1938 version) to show that Aquaman is largely at early Superman levels of power.
Then he ordered fish and chips at a restaurant because what else is someone who lives under water going to eat besides seafood?
they do seem to be trying to rectify that in the DCNU52, with aquaman’s story having him repeatedly do stuff with bare fists and his trident. he still has done underwater things, but i dont think he’s talked to a fish once since the relaunch last year
He has specifically said that he doesn’t “talk to fish”. They’re not intelligent enough to talk to (excepting dolphins). He uses his telepathy to force them to do what he wants, often using them as cannon flounder. Only absolutely overwhelming self-preservation instinct can allow them to refuse to do what he commands, and it’s only happened once so far. I suspect in the vast majority of cases they don’t comprehend what they are doing enough to know it will lead to their death.
Even before the n52, Aquaman was a badass regarless of what environment he was in. Underwater he was pretty much unstoppable, but even on land, he was still super-strong, virtually invulnerable, and you know that fish-talking power that everyone gives him crap about? Did you know that if he tries to use it on humans it causes freaking seizures?
Anyone who thinks Aquaman is lame is likely basing that opinion off of entirely on the old Superfriends cartoon. Aquaman is a stone cold badass, and anyone who argues that is just wrong.
I find that statement outrageous.
*Attempts to filk the Made In Wales jingle thusly*
Plays With Wha~ales!
Plays With Wha~ales!…
It honestly wouldn’t be too much of a stretch. I honestly don’t have much proof aquaman is straight.
Other than his wife and kids.
A half-dozen Republican Senators who frequent airport bathrooms say a wife and kids mean nothing.
More like 3, at least confirmed. http://gayhomophobe.com/
I stopped counting after the second one. The point stands.
There are only 49 Republican senators. 3 o them is 6%.
And the fact that he was one of a small handful to retain both after the reboot.
I got confused re the answer threading and thought for a moment that someone had rebooted the republicans.
I’m going back to bed.
I wish.
The Republicans need a reboot, at the very least. I think their problems may run deeper, though. Memory failures abound, and we all know they’ve got a ton of bad sectors.
*Is crying tears he’s laughing so hard*
*inserts random sperm while joke*
How about a Northstar movie instead?
green lantern’s gay?…Ethan’s right..I can’t feel anything but apathy…
I find it more offensive that they picked the least-important Green Lantern in an alternate universe.
Never mind they went and picked the guy whose canonical weakness is WOOD.
The jokes write themselves, people.
So much so that I must’ve heard that one twenty times already.
To be fair, he’s the most important Green Lantern in real life, being the original who got reinvented to produce all the others.
More that they picked the only GL with kids. Wtf, DC? I liked those characters.
Only in DC’s mind does making an alternate-universe version of a real character gay ‘count.’
Did making Superman Black in Final Crisis count? NO. BECAUSE IT’S AN ALTERNATE UNIVERSE.
I really like the way you’re doing this birth storyline. It’s clever.
Think of it as material for your stage act, Ethan!
Wrong green lantern. This is Alan Scott, in the earth 2 series. But I agree with your basic point.
The whole thing is overblown, really. Especially considering how DC is hyping this up as much as they can while neglecting to mention that Alan Scott’s a fifth-stringer nowadays among the human GLs.
Now way he’s a fifth stringer. Maybe a sixth stringer. I mean, there are at least five GL’s more popular than Alan. Lets see here: Jon, Hal, (or Hal then Jon, whatever), Kilowog, Guy, Kyle, (I like Kyle more than Guy, but Guy’s more popular I believe), then the other 6k+ GL’s, [i]then[/i] Alan.
I don’t think DC hyped it at all. It was mentioned off-handedly at a comic convention panel in response to a question. It was Comics News that took the ball and ran with it.
Yeah, but they could’ve just kept their lips shut until the issue actually hits the store shelves. You know, let it be a non-chelaunt surprice and let word of mouth get out that way.
Pffft. People will still get up in arms about it being a stunt, because a guy is gay. Characters merely being gay is still considered a “stunt” by jerks, marketing or no. All that mentioning the character trait ahead of time does is give those jerks something safe to attack other than the gayness itself. Because you can’t attack the gayness! You’ll get yelled at. But you can attack how it happened! That’s still safe!
See, Dan Didio was just doing these folks a favor.
Yeah, I literally couldn’t care one way or another. The things I was hearing from my fellow comic book readers about them turning a male DC character gay was appalling.
I wouldn’t have cared if it was Batman or Superman. For one thing, Superman’s not even human so him being with Lois is little more than the Kryptonian version of bestiality anyway.
Batman being gay, again just would not faze me. If anything, it might help answer why he’s so terrible with relationships with women, and might help bring to light part of why he’s so broody and depressed all the time.
But really, I think the main reason so many homophobes were scared about the thought is that if they made one of their favorite heroes gay, it would make them feel like DC was calling THEM gay for liking said hero. Because this is how a petulant child thinks.
Oh, and they all thought it would be ok for them to turn a girl character gay, just not a guy character.
Seriously made me embarrassed to call myself a comic fan.
I’m not too familiar with GL lore. Is Alan Scott a pre-existing character or new guy? My first thought when they said someone would be gay was that it would be a Green Lantern, ’cause it’s a legacy role. They can slip in a whole new guy with a whole new personality without any ret-conning at all.
Or a whole new girl. I hear rumor that ladies can be gay now too.
Alan Scott is the first Green Lantern, from the Golden Age. Since forever, he’s been depicted as an old dude, but in this new reboot, he’s a young guy again.
Alan Scott was actually the first Green Lantern. He was a golden age character and the mythos was changed a lot by Hal’s time. I think in the original backstory, the lantern and ring were made from a meteorite that crashed in China 300 years ago and his weakness was wood not the colour yellow.
Hehe. I’m sorry, this clearly means I’m mentally twelve years old, but I can’t stop giggling at the implications of that last statement.
I just thought about that. If the wood thing is still in continuity in the new series, I am going to laugh. However, previews have suggested that he’ll actually be a member of the corp, rather than the wielder of the Starheart.
From what I heard, he’s going to be that world’s only Green Lantern. So if it has anything to do with the Corps, then maybe it’ll be a Kyle Ryner sort of deal.
When I first hear that someone was going to come out as gay it was still a question of who it was going to be. The group I was with came up with Wonder Woman, Booster Gold, and Green Lantern: Guy, as the most likely.
I haven’t read
many offline comics for years, but back in the early Nineties I was a massive JL fan, so that’s the Guy Gardner I remember: the obnoxious, porn-loving jerk without a heart of gold.So if it ended up he was gay, I would be lolling forever. XD
Wonder Woman I could see, but I’d also kind of be disappointed if they did make her gay. Like, in an “Oh so she’s a strong, competent woman who can easily beat up most male supervillains let alone ordinary crooks, so she MUST be a dyke bitch, amirite? *eyeroll*” sort of way. I suppose you’d have that issue making any female superhero gay, but I think it would only really be problematic with Wonder Woman, simply because she’s so iconic and is like the female superhero. As in a “Name three superheroes? Uh, Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman…” kind of way.
Can’t offhand think of any alternatives, though, although I could totally see ’90s-era Wally West being gay.
Wonder Woman being gay would make some measure of sense in my books though, so I’d be fine with it. Keep in mind she grew up on an island with no men.
That said, her being bi could make sense too. It’s one of those things I’d accept due to how much logical sense it makes, though.
Oh god, I am -so- not venturing into the comment sections of this one.
Though I do think that having Obsidian’s dad take his place as “The Gay One” post reboot is… Eeeeeegh…
(Please note: Gay dude, married to another dude. Repeatedly.)
(And good god, the number of times I’ve had to explain the difference between the Old/Original Green Lantern and the Space Cop Green Lantern to friends over the past few days…)
I seem to recall reading the writer’s intent in making Alan Scott gay was to not lose that attribute of Obsidian, given him and Jade no longer exist.
From what I understand that’s why too. The idea was “DC won’t let me use Obsidian so Alan Scott is gay now instead and I’ll just write him.” Because Robinson has written quite a bit of Obsidian hasn’t he? He seems to like the character at least.
Personally I still think Alan Scott is one odd choice. He had two kids. One of whom was somewhat popular before she was killed off. Also this is on Earth-2 and not Earth-1. Why bother hyping it? Well because of Northstar’s marriage obviously but still seems kind of redundant even with that.
But yeah he was also my last guess. Vibe was my first since he’s reappearing in Justice League soon. Ryan Choi was my second guest, Hawkwoman was my third since that would have been an incredibly interesting plot even if it would have just mostly rehashed the early Kendra stories. Alan Scott didn’t even register as a possibility for me.
Tim Drake was my first guess. Well, no, Supergirl was my first guess, because even before the rumor of A Gay Among Us started, I couldn’t read that bit with her and Silver Banshee as anything but a prelude to a very interesting romance. But then they said the character was a male and iconic, so…Tim Drake.
I mean, Batman’s got four more or less identical Robins. You’d think maybe one of them might play for the other team? Eh, Maybe Damian, when he’s old enough to start caring about that at all (I could also buy Damian as asexual, except for how adorable it would be to see him trying to flirt when he gets older).
But yeah, when people started guessing Alan Scott, I thought they were so off. It just smacks a bit of “replace one gay with another, it’s all good.” Obsidian’s story got a little heavy-handed from time to time, but there was something positively heartwarming about a guy with a father who is the very definition of Old Fashioned All American who has to get over his own hang-ups and loves and supports his son, regardless of his sexuality. It’s not quite the same.
But, well, Robinson’s trying. And that’s nice.
Pre-reboot Tim Drake did kinda give off the gay vibe sometimes, didn’t he? I mean, he had that super-serious bromance with Superboy (that resulted in him obsessively trying to re-clone Superboy when he was dead and crying a lot about Superboy, which he didn’t do with his “dead” girlfriend), and then there was the fact he turned down the chance for sex with three different girls (Ariana, Spoiler and Ravager) at different times. Post-Reboot… well, yeah, he was possible too mostly as he hasn’t had too much personal development yet, but as he’s now RED Robin, he’s kinda not AS iconic of a super-hero as he used to be when he was just Robin the Boy Wonder.
I was holding out hope for Tim Drake myself. It just makes SO MUCH SENSE.
Damian, like Mike, is whatever you don’t want him to be.
IIRC one of the writers of the Bat-books said we were getting a gay character in Gotham in the next few months too. (During the same conversation about new-vs-old homos too.)
…I’m not holding out hope for Tim Drake though, even if he deserves it.
Personally I still think Alan Scott is one odd choice.
DC reboots its universes chronically. Which means sometime in the next 8 years Alan will probably get un-gay’d.
And that’s six kinds of tacky.
I’m just looking forward to when a character being gay doesn’t have to have this kind of fanfare. When it’s normal.
Agreed.
Ditto.
Plenty have actually. In fact most of them didn’t get any attention. Grace, Thunder, any one from Secret Six, Pied Piper, Obsidian, and a good number of other characters received none of this fanfare as far as I’m aware.
I know Batwoman got a ton of it since she was a Bat, and Bunker got a bit. Who else besides those two and Alan Scott?
Alan Scott probably only got it because he has the Green Lantern name and Northstar just got married. Also he’s somehow ALSO DC’s first gay character according to some news sites…
Renee Montoya was a fairly popular Batman character even before she became the new Question.
Most of them don’t get any attention because most of them aren’t important or well-known in the slightest
But that’s not the point. The point is they received no fanfare. They were introduced into their respective series without mainstream media proclaiming anything. Without a single line of PR from DC. They were just introduced or made gay. Were they as important as Batman or Superman? No. Does that really matter in the long run? Not a bit.
It’s strange being gay now?
Strange to mainstream media/culture/society. Not strange to me.
This was more because it was a change to an established and apparently ‘iconic’ character.
welp, you’ve met one now random DC fan who’s apparently dying to share his opinion with strangers. Must be a long line.
Ah, that brings back memories. The ones that I look back and said to myself “Man, what an asshole I was”.
I’m not sure that either one is right. Of those 90,000, how many are gay? Of the millions of gay non-comic readers, how many will pick up a comic with an obscure (now) GL just because he’s gay?
I’ll read “Earth 2″. Because I find the story interesting so far, and I like alternate worlds. But if it was not for that, no amount of catering to my various sociopolitical persuasions would make me buy a comic. I don’t read comics to have my opinions confirmed. I already know I’m right.
Gay character, straight character, Jack Harkness, whatever. It’s all good as long as the story is good. And I suspect it will be, though I tend to think they’re playing catch-up with the Northstar marriage.
“I’m not sure that either one is right. Of those 90,000, how many are gay? Of the millions of gay non-comic readers, how many will pick up a comic with an obscure (now) GL just because he’s gay?”
The point is that “comic readers” is more of a “fringe group” than “homosexuals”. It has nothing to do with how the groups overlap or how much effect the change might have.
1) Northstar’s marriage was announced after it was leaked that DC was makin’ a gay dude. You got your correlation backwards.
2) I don’t think “gay folks will pick this up now” is why it happened. Sometimes writers just, y’know, write a variety of people, or characters that interest them. For many people, homosexuality isn’t a “gimmick,” it’s just a facet of reality.
Are you sure THEY(the comic book writers) don’t see it as a gimmick to increase sales?
Lord knows that’s the only reason Ethan is gay. I just wanted to have more traffic. There are no other possible reasons.
I always thought it was
1:latent homosexual desires
2:an excuse to write more male characters because men>women
3:to win the “best gay character” award multiple times
Also
4: To hear the lamentation of the
ir womenEthan/Amber shippers.
Come on man, he’s talking about the DC writers specifically, employed by an (obviously) profit-focused corporation, not comic writers in general. If DC managers have a fair amount of control over a writer’s story, then obviously decisions believed to be financially advantageous will be made.
You have your own reasons for having a gay protagonist, which I think can be summed up as your own artistic inclinations and a healthy, progressive outlook which you are entirely free to express, and the DC writers are presumably *not* in a comparable position. Therefore it isn’t fair to assume his guesses about DC creative actions, (which are presumably financial actions as well) can just as easily be applied to *your* creative actions.
In all honesty, I’m really, *really* glad storytelling and character writing has taken a step in the right direction, regardless of motive. I Absolutely, without exception, want to see fair, varied and numerous representations of Gay, Lesbian, Trans and every less-privileged group in our society, as heroes and villains. However, even if this social progress happens, we cannot discount the motives of corporations as therefore being similarly progressive and good-hearted. They may well be, but I’m simply not ready to take any responsibility-diminishing organisation at its word.
TL;DR What’s said here isn’t applicable to you. Just because a corporation’s *actions* are good, doesn’t mean their *intent* is altruistic, but we should still be happy with good actions and hope and ask for more.
[Disregard all of the above if Comic book writers for the Big Two are usually allowed to make as big a character decision as making a major hero LGBT without corporate oversight]
How many Trans superheroes are there out there?
I only know that one Avenger.
Miss Martian (the Young Justice version, anyway) functions as a metaphor for transgender individuals, in that who she presents herself as is who she feels she is inside, rather than letting others dictate her “true form.”
Sir Ystin, the Shining Knight, from Demon Knights.
Doom Patrol has had Danny the Street, Coagula, and Rebis.
They can’t. Gail said recently that even if they wanted to characters like Batman and Superman can’t just be made gay. WB has to approve certain things they do with the true big guns. Not sure who qualifies as one of those though. Batman, Robin, Batgirl, Superman, Wonder Woman, Flash, Green Lantern, and Aquaman I’d assume. Those are the best known heroes DC has to offer.
While a few years ago I’d have said Marvel could make those choices of their own freewill I have a feeling Disney has to approve certain things now. Disney absorbed Marvel for profit reasons and if they feel turning Captain America or Spider-Man gay will lose them money they can probably put a stop to it.
It’s just how this stuff works. Everything for both parent companies is about profit in the end because the big two are a business first, a brand second, and a way to tell stories third. If even third. If you asked someone at WB in charge of overseeing DC and their associated brands to tell you about the Night of Owls event I bet they’d have no clue. You might get lucky but chances are they wouldn’t even care. But ask them for an estimated percentage of how many woman buy comics compared to men or other sales-related questions and they probably have it ready.
Same would probably go for Disney. Who did openly admit they only acquired Marvel for profit reasons.
They could probably get away with making aquaman gay. Though he’d have to lose the orange and green suit, amirite? (Also, when is aquaman getting his own crappy movie?)
I KNEW IT!!
Regarding point 1, Northstar’s wedding was known as early as April 20th, while DC’s announcement of a gay character was at Kapow in mid-May. So Marvel was first.
What Zach and ALostProphet said.
My avatar changed! That is what I get for logging on from both home and work.
If they want to write a variety of people or characters that interest them, why take a previously existing character and gayificate him? Particularly since he’s a barely-known who’s hero identity is a legacy one which could be slapped on a fresh new variety of gay character without raising so much as an eyebrow. It literally makes no sense to alter a previously-defined character here.
Thus I presume the dictate came from above, as nonsense flows downhill.
That’s what they did here: create a new character who was gay and put a familiar name on him. Gay Alan Scott is a character that hasn’t even existed for a month now.
That could be said of virtually every DC character post-reboot who isn’t a Bat-character or a member of the GLC. Superman isn’t the old Clark Kent, Booster isn’t Booster, Huntress isn’t Helena B. Bunch of new characters with old names but not really the old personalities.
Eh. It happens.
Well, I usually approach these characters from the cartoons, where we get a brand new Batman and Robin and the like every five years or so, so I really find it hard to connect with the people complaining about the reboot simply for the lost continuity.
Actually Booster has been more or less continuing his character evolution from his solo book. JLI and his last solo book even have the same writer.
Yes, but to be honest, Jurgens was always the least impressive of the Booster Gold writers. And yes, I know that he created the character, and I will always love him for that, and I very much enjoy reading the original Booster Gold. But DeMatteis and Giffen pretty much defined him, Johns upped his wow factor exponentially with “52 Pick-up” and Giffen and DeMatteis made his solo series a thing of fun and excitement and character growth. Jurgens character growth falls flat. I get the feeling that he isn’t thrilled that other people have defined his character (or maybe that he just wishes Booster wasn’t primarily remembered as part of a duo, but as his own character), because every time he gets Booster back, he pulls away from that characterization.
At any rate, I dropped JLI after awhile. It was just…boring. And watching Batman be Booster’s cheerleader was painful, out of character, and didn’t make sense.
And that’s the thing. It doesn’t make any sense for Booster’s character growth to continue from where the pre-reboot left off. Booster’s character growth came almost entirely from his friendship with Ted–firstly, the wacky antics and Bwa-ha-ha that a lot of people remember, but starting with his second solo series (the one that started with Johns at the helm), Booster was increasingly defined by the loss of Ted. Before Ted’s death, he’d been kind of a slacker superhero–still wanted to do good and help people, naturally, but he wanted acclaim and he was kind of a goofball about it. Ted died, and it sobered Booster. Then Rip came in and offered Booster a very slim chance to save his best friend. And the price Booster would have to pay for that chance was to literally give up on what had been his one real driving goal and dream since his college days–that is, to be rich and famous and well-liked, and to risk his life constantly without any limelight and knowing full well that he would be remembered as a pathetic failure and a joke, even while he saved the world repeatedly. And Booster paid that price gladly. Even when he realized that Rip had lied, and that there was no way for him to save Ted, he kept on with that mission, and eventually, under Giffen and DeMatteis, came to terms with Ted’s death and moved on.
That’s Booster’s character growth. That–and pretty much that alone–is the only real reason Batman had any respect for him or faith in him as a hero. Because Batman saw the pictures and figured it out. So starting him in the same place emotionally and maturity-wise as he was pre-reboot, but in a world without Ted Kord, and presumably without Rip either…well, it’s just cheating. It’s hollow. And, to be honest, it makes him bland.
If we have to have a Booster who never knew Ted and Rip, then for the love of chocos, let’s have him be a shallow, self-absorbed future-y guy who has to find a new way to grow. Because otherwise, he’s just another rookie hero trying to do good.
The JLI book was disappointing on so many levels (except artistically. Really did like the art), but primarily because it had no heart, while wearing the name of a book that was made of heart.
…
Er. As it turns out, I have really strong feelings re: JLI and Booster Gold.
KISS HIM!
KISS HIM!
KISS HIM!
You have now.
I don’t see this guy as Ethan’s type.
I don’t believe that being gay would affect Batman’s story too much, it just makes readers look at certain elements of Batman’s life in a new light.
Batman is the universal embodiment of coolness so no matter what his story will stay the same.
Well except if Frank Miller is writing him(except Dark Knight Returns. That is awesome).
Hell, you’ll find moral guardians who claim Batman IS gay (“He hangs around with a young boy! There can be NO other explanation! Also leprechauns are gay because rainbows!”).
Didn’t they did that way back then with some nut writing a book called the Seduction of the Innocent or some crap like that?
Yup. Frederic Wertham. He’s the reason comics have that stupid little “Seal of Approval” on them that no one has cared about in decades. The industry chose to engage in self-censorship rather than have it forced on them from outside.
No, no, it’s “had” now. DC and Archie Comics both stopped using it January of last year, rendering it defunct.
Shows how well I’ve been keeping up with the industry.
Stopped reading comic books about two years ago when I graduated college. I had no job and it was on the list of luxuries I could really afford to cut.
Got a great job nowadays, and can afford plenty of comics, but somehow I haven’t been. At first it was because I was so far behind (a problem that gets worse the more I put it off), but now I just can’t find anything that strikes me as a “must read”.
I only know because I looked it up about a year ago for some reason. I don’t even remember why. I had to check before posting this because I thought it had been a few years earlier.
Everyone has being making gay jokes involving Batman for so long, they might as well make it official.
Having an eromenos doesn’t make you gay, at least under old Greek laws. Being gay was totally weird and wrong. Having a younger male live with you, learn from you, take baths with you, have sex with you…that was good for the kid and the adult, nothing gay there.
That’s why he has to be straight. To screw with their heads.
I thought it would’ve been somewhat humorous if they kept Batman straight, but made every Robin gay.
Who’s the gay GL? Hal? John? Guy? Kyle? Kilowogg? Mogo?
Alan Scott, the Golden Age Green Lantern.
Although, I’m currious how a planet can be gay. I mean, they don’t reproduse sexually. XD
Don’t they have living planets in the DC universe?
Doom Patrol had a transvestite street. An actual street. It was named Danny and could move around.
You can tell when he is there because suddenly all the store windows have pink frilly curtains. I swear I am not making this up.
Doom Patrol was WEIRD.
Well, Grant Morrison was writing Doom Patrol at the time.
They must have access to a lot of great drugs at these comic companies.
The ink they print that stuff with with fuck you up, man.
Supposedly they stopped using lead-based inks a decade ago, but I guess the brain damage is irreversable.
That… is… just aweswome.
I ship Danny the Street with Bunker.
Also; Morrisson claims he didn’t start taking drugs until after his Doom Patrol run.
The DC coming out of Alan Scott seemed more like a gimmicky attempt at a plot to increase sales for a character who hasn’t really been relevant in a long time.
Honestly I think Marvel did better by letting Northstar get married to his lover instead…
Actually I think it was to replace Obsidian, who was Alan’s son in the old continuity, but now that Alan is young again and therefore has no children their breakout gay character no longer exists. So the writer decided Alan himself was a decent enough replacement.
That in itself is part of the problem, if they character came out as gay as part of its natural evolution then it would be fine, but to infer that there is some kind of universal conservation of LGBT and that there must be at least one gay character, just because, is as wrong as not having any gay characters for the same reason…
I think the word you’re looking for is “tokenism”.
You can only accidentally add a gay character. You can never do so on purpose.
I imagine this going down something like, Batman showering after a hard night of crime-fighting, and Robin “accidentally” comes into the bathroom, apologizing immediately, and Bruce is all “Well, you can stay but only if you don’t peek.”
So Will’s all, like, poopin’ or whatever, and that whole “forbidden fruit” thing kicks in, and curiosity gets the better of him, but only because Bruce said not to.
And then they make eye contact. Bruce has the option to cover up, get angry, something. He realizes “accidentally” that he’s turned on by the thought of Will watching him.
I should stop now before this gets NSFW
…Will?
… Dick.
Mah bad.
I honestly have no doubt in my mind that this story exists already.
Fanfiction is a helluva drug.
So no gay characters unless you actually see them come out on the page? That seems awfully limiting. They introduced a character, he went to his boyfriend, and kissed him. Seems pretty organic to me.
Looking back, it came off really bigoted and I’m sorry for that. I was of the mind that this was the same Alan Scott from the past 70 years and not a new character.
I guess If you never met a gay guy they must not be important. Not like you might just be deprived or just oblivious.
Or that you do in fact know gay people who just don’t mention their orientation around you. Acquaintances and such, most likely, or distant family members.
I honestly don’t care too much about this anouncement, and I’m a HUGE Green Lantern fan. (Though I’ve never been too big on Alan Scott). Then agien, I think it would’ve been better if they didn’t make a big deal about it, and just let people be surpriced when the comic hits the shelves.
Weirdly though, the thing that actually has me in a tissy? The fact that they changed Jay Garrick’s helemet!
“They” didn’t make a big deal about it. Comics press made a big deal, and then mainstream media outlets picked up on it.
Yeah, I guess that’s true. Maybe I’m just annoyed that this still needs to be a big deal at all.
They did? Does it look more or less like a colander now?
Well, here’s how it looks now. http://www.dccomics.com/comics/earth-two/earth-two-2
Mercury was expecting to die along with the other gods in issue one. Maybe his hat is out there waiting for someone worthy to find it?
btw John Stewart will always be the best GL to me. He just…is…
He’s like Ben Sisko to me.
Well, it’s your lucky day.
I have no problem with Alan Scott being gay. I support gay rights. Yet I roll my eyes whenever I hear a gay wedding taking place in comic books.
Someone PLEASE make sense of that!
Well, when a guy loves another guy very much and they want to spend the rest of their lives together…
Might be because weddings in general are a bit kitschy to some people?
He didn’t say “weddings,” he said “gay weddings”!
Perhaps it’s the silly marketing campaign? “Hey everyone, we’re a comic book and we’re having a GAY WEDDING! You gotta come see this shitznit!”
I don’t suppose you remember the equally silly marketing campaign around Black Canary/Green Arrow’s wedding?
How about THIS bit of marketing “genius”… http://robot6.comicbookresources.com/2012/05/flashback-to-hype-surrounding-wedding-of-spider-man-mary-jane/
Kinda makes Northstar and Kyle’s wedding promotions and a few news articles look kinda low-key, don’t it?
I have no memory of that. It’s almost like it never happened….
jaconey wins the thread!
Right, but if he had just said ‘weddings’ in that sentence it would have read as a really odd non-sequiter (sort of like, ‘I support gay rights. Yet I roll my eyes whenever I see somebody brushing their teeth in comic books.’), so you can’t really assume that he specified it to gay marriages for any reason other than making the sentence flow naturally.
You support their right to do that in real life, but not in comics?
What about Manga?
In manga gay people can get married, but only in tiny non-ceremonies like the one you assume happened in the drunken Vegas marriage cliche.
It recently became legal for LGBT to marry in New York State, this is a big deal, especially since North Carolina denied this right in its state not long ago.
To celebrate the former; Marvel Comics, based in New York City, decided to Marry their longtime Homosexual character Northstar, who (at last look) was also living in New York. Thats why.
I forsee that this man is about to be lawyered
I don’t like Alan Scott.
I liked Obsidian.
This move is gay. And by gay I mean- a cheap attempt to try and sell a few comic books or make people say “I remember comics, do they still sell them in the drug store?” Because gay dudes are always up on me going “Hey sexy heterosexual guy, why don’t you open that pretty mouth of yours and take this big, throbbing issue of JSA I’ve got here, maybe at your local bookseller. And while you’re at it, get on your knees and order this easy-to-use DC Comics iPad app… yeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaah…”
I wish gay dudes would stop being all weird like that.
What really pisses me off is the change to Mr Freeze’s origin.
GAHHH I KNOOWWW
What, what have they done?
I’ve been too scared to look into Riddler and most of the Bat-villains. Still sob quietly when I think of what’s happened to the Rogues. Oh Mick, you poor pyromaniacal teddy bear…
Basically, they changed it so that Nora was frozen decades ago, and Fries was hired to unfreeze her. Basically, they were only married in his head and thus he was turned into a creepy stalker rather than a loving husband.
WHAT?!
What the…WHY?!
Freeze’s backstory was the best thing about his charcter, this…WHY?
I understand change when it’s needed, I understand changing a costume, or a backstory ,or a charcter if you feel it needs changing – that the costume looks ridiculous by today’s standarts, that the backstory is too comical or too seirous ,or that the charcter was not inersting enough.
But…This? WHY? Who wanted a new origin for Mr. Freeze? Who demanded this complete turn-over from a sympathetic, intersting villain with a reasonable motivion and a few parallels with Batman to yet another insane-and-creepy-stalker-batman-villain?
WHY?
WHY?
Considering that “origin” for Mr. Freeze is just twenty years old and was first told in a Paul Dini episode of The Animated Series, I see no reason for it to be treated as something sacred that can’t be changed again.
It’s considered sacred not because of its age but because of its quality. It’s really not all that hard to understand.
Pretty much this. Freeze was just another gimmicky villain before the backstory got added. Which was so good that even Joel Schumacher used it.
Now he’s just another nutjob in Arkham.
Freeze, IIRC, originated on the Adam West show, not the comic.
Because they wanted a television-friendly gimmicky villain. And omeone who had an ice theme to his crimes was awesome.
(I miss the ice theme.)
Derik- Freeze was known as Mister Zero when he first showed up in the comics. The Adam West show didn’t create him, just changed his name.
Everything Paul Dini ever wrote for the DCAU is quality. That doesn’t mean any of it has to be considered sacred to comic book writers who want to tell different stories.
For some people, I guess that really is hard to understand.
Possibly because this isn’t an elseworlds. So it makes no sense to eliminate something of quality to bring something cheap and mediocre to the table. Which is what’s been happening in a lot of the DCnU.
Why they didn’t just make it a new universe, like Marvel’s Ultimate Universe, I’ll never understand. Then you can tell brand new stories with considerably fewer fans whining about changes to characters. Or, y’know, killing off characters to replace them with skin-wearers who are nothing like the original in personality.
So…he’s almost as creepy as Hatter now, then, is that it?
For the love of pity. I mean, yes, Bat-villains are, by nature, way creepier than the average super-foe, but the “crazy and unrequited” folk are a dime a dozen. Freeze’s origin with his wife was full of pathos–you genuinely felt for the guy because his motivation was genuine love.
I just noticed, the guy Ethen’s talking to, he’s just buying a soda can. Who goes to a department store (which is what I’m guessing this is) and only gets a single can of soda?
That guy?
Yah, jeez pretty obvious.
If the can of drink is a lot cheaper then normal, then yes it makes sense to get a can from a department store.
Thank you willis for making the strip, I was banging my head in frustation into the wall because people like this guy saying exactly the same things…
I hate it whenever someone says “Green Lantern is gay now!” Its really over blown, DC had said one of there main heroes was going to “come out”. Alan Scott is not one of there main heroes, sure he was the first Green Lantern, but no one thinks of him now when someone says Green Lantern.
Also, its just the Earth 2 Alan Scott, so not only do we have a sub tier character who uses the same name as a semi popular character, but actully has almost nothing to do with him, but hes also from an alternate universe. So he isnt even mainstream DC cannon. WOW that’s definitely big news.
Alan Scott is the central character of an ongoing title. Thats fairly major.
If you think the post-Flashpoint universe is going to be mostly rolled back (like I do– all DC knows how to do anymore is rearrange the deckchairs) then it means this Alan Scott is actually from an Alternate Universe’s Alternate Universe.
Not even the main Universe’s AU.
The least believable portion of this comic to me is the idea that 90,000 people read Green Lantern.
Well, 10,000 fewer people do than at the beginning of the year!
The hilarious thing is it’s not even the green lantern that 90,000 people give enough of a shit to buy and was in a shitty movie, it’s the green lantern that like maybe 20,000 people care about who was like in the background scenes of some JLU episodes I think, so it’s like who even gives a fuck.
Nah, Alan Scott wasn’t in any JLU episodes. Brave and the Bold, maybe.
True, but an expy of his, The Green Guardsman did feature in an episode called Legends. That was pretty cool.
I do.
The legacy part of Green Lantern has always been something I’ve really enjoyed.
As for Alan Scott not having gay before because he had a wife and kids? I’m sure there weren’t any gay men back in the 40s who married and had a family due to social pressure and conventions….
Hell, you should have met my ex-brother-in-law’s Dad. The fact that his youngest son was also gay? Massive coincidence….
Yeah, the fact that they made Alan Scott gay doesn’t bother me at all.
Somehow the fact that they made him young bothers me. And I’m not 100% certain why that is.
I am also bummed about him being de-aged, though not surprised. I really enjoyed all the old guys in the JSA. It was just a fun perspective. I’ll still read Earth 2, though.
I really like Alan’s cape. He was practically the only Superhero I’ve seen who actually knew how to wear one of those things. Most just let it hang there like some kind of half-assed streamer. I’m a tad disappointed that he won’t have the cape anymore. Jay got to keep the kettle on his head.
Which is another thing. After seeing the Earth-2 Flash design I wasn’t exactly expecting a Green Lantern suit quite so bland.
I could care less that Alan Scott is now gay. DCU has tons of gay/lesbians in it. Archie has one gay guy, introduced last year, joined the military and got married a couple months back. He’s Veronica’s gay BFF. *lol*
And then there’s that million mom’s group who are constantly complaining about everything! They tried to get the issue of Life With Archie where Kevin Keller gets married banned from the shelves of TRU. Now they’re like “Boycot DC cuz Green Lantern’s gay!” not realizing how many LGBT characters there are in the DCU and of course they’re up in arms about Northstar’s wedding as well. One Million Moms has seemingly taken the place of Westboro as the nutjobs of the world overnight.
Lol, that’s kind of my favorite thing. When my mom was talking about how “sick” it was that the Green Lantern was gay, I was eying Batwoman: Elegy and a few issues of Flash that happened to be scattered around my computer desk. Yeah, this guy is…he’s a real shock, all right.
Oof.
I had my mother call me up and ask if I’d “heard about the Green Lantern.” My mother pays exactly zero attention to comics, but she is a member of a severely conservative (women in dresses with long hair, etc) church. So I got to endure a while of: “It’s a shame. Don’t you think that’s sick?”
I still wish I’d agreed and said, “It is a shame. I was really hoping it would be one of the four Robins. Or Supergirl.”
Also, some yahoo in the local paper made a point of saying that’s money he won’t have to spend seeing that movie, which just proves that 1) he can’t tell the difference between the names Hal Jordan and Alan Scott and 2) he’s unaware that the movie came out over a year ago.
I have to sit with Ethan in the apathy corner, I’m afraid. Green Lantern has just never been a superhero I’ve been interested in.
I kind of feel that way now. I never like GL’s on their own. Guy Gardner in JLI? Awesome. John Stewart in the Justice League cartoon? Wonderful. Alan Scott in JSA? Bring it on.
But I like Alan Scott as an Awesome Old Dude. I really have zero interest in a young Scott. Just…I dunno, it’s not as much fun.
I thought Kyle was awesome in the comics. They were like, “Alright, we admit it, this guy’s got the most powerful weapon in the universe, so how interesting can external conflict really get?”, and made it all about the human interest for a good number of issues.
Also: Fatality before villain decay.
Wonder how this guy feels about spider-man being black
How can you tell? His suit covers his whole body.
I’m sure this is a coincidence of sorts, since the webcomic Gutters also decided to do commentary of this “gay characters in comic books” almost with the exact same conclusion (I say “of sorts” since both webcomics are obviously mentioning this because it’s ‘news’ right now)
The first comment reminds me so much of Mr. Bearded Shopper here.
“Im in the camp of i dont care. I don’t care who people have sex with. Its rude and disgusting spouting off about it. If a dude likes dudes or chicks like chicks, fine, whatever, but you are not a champion of some kinda civil rights, you are just shouting about who you like to have sex with. When you are sprayed with fire hoses, attacked by dogs, forced to drink or use restrooms or go to different schools segregated from ‘the straights’, and then you triumph, i guess you can claim your title. Get some decency and class, then maybe I can care.”
So according to him, it’s rude and disgusting to tell the world the truth not only about the people whom you find sexually attractive, but the people who you enjoy having romantic relationships with and you love spending time with.
According to people like him, it’s rude to dispel people’s assumptions that you’re of the heterosexual persuasion. You’re not allowed to be proud to be different in an era when identifying as an “other” can still easily make you the target of violence.
Apparently you have to survive physical assault to be worthy of earning his acknowledgement. I’m not sure if he’s trying to draw some absurd parallel with racial violence with his examples, because that would make it worse.
Unless you survive being attacked for being an “other”, you are an indecent, classless person when you dare tell the rest of the world you don’t adhere to their heterosexual norm.
This, people, is how a LOT of mainstream comic audience (and I get the feeling a lot of non-comic fans) feel like.
There is non-violent apathy, yes, but it’s layered with a veiled hostility of “legally you cannot be prosecuted anymore for this, so why the hell are you bothering me with it, that makes me mad”.
Just because you are not a raging Fred Phelpsesque homophobe, it doesn’t mean you’re tolerant either. The fact that a lot of people are saying “I don’t take issue with gays, but if they appear in my favourite entertainment medium I don’t like it” just shows how skewed opinions still are.
I think “I’m not intolerant of gays, but…” will become the new “I’m not racist, but…”
It’s rude when I flaunt my sexuality in public, playing tonsil hockey with my girlfriend. I don’t see why it shouldn’t be considered rude for anybody else.
Likewise, the double-standard of the pride issue. Be proud to be what you are… Whatever traits you have, if that is your desire. But don’t do so, and then turn around and tell me I’m being gauche for doing the same, just because I share SOME traits with the majority. I am scots, german, straight, geek, iroquois, and alternatively religious. Don’t be telling me I can only be proud of the last three because of some arbitrary number or mistaken assumption of power. Either all of it is special, or none of it is.
The “pride” is meant to steel yourself up against a history of oppression, a tool for the ostracized. Taunting your pride in being an oppressive majority is just being a dick. Again, this is dealing with a false equivalence.
“I’ve never met a gay”
do people think we just wave big flags around or something?
You mean y’all aren’t having a pride parade every single day?
I heard you can tell a gay by the glittery rainbow trail he leaves in his wake.
And they taste like Skittles!
I thought that was vampires… Or was I lied to?
He knows he’s never met any gay men because no man has ever hit on him. He’s such an irresistible slab of studly man-meat that no gay man could possibly resist his charms.
This doesn’t apply to gay women, of course, because there’s no such thing. There are lesbians, but that’s totally different. They’re hot.
I don’t really care about his sexuality (though ironically by choosing to make Alan gay and erasing his son from existence, there has been a net increase of 0 gay characters), I more dislike the return to the separate earth for the JSA thing.
Also, Jay Garik’s new costume is one of the worse I’ve ever seen.
If they were going to pick a known Green Lantern, why not pick Kyle. It would allow for a net increase in Gay characters and do a great favor to the women of the DCU.
Honestly, the move just reeks of poor writing to me. They got rid of his gay son for god knows why, so he must suddenly be gay? I’m as queer as they come and the whole idea just offends me. This is the kind of thing that makes me glad I don’t read comics anymore.
They got rid of his gay son because having children would make our heroes OLD, and they can’t have that! Nope, everyone in the DC Universe must be young, single, childless and generically attractive! Don’t you know that’s the only way heroes are? Except for Batman, who somehow went through four Robins in a very short time frame.
*Facepalm* The worst part is, you know that’s why they did it. They don’t think older heroes sell, and marriage apparently “ages” them, meaning kids are an absolute no-no.
Is Ethan implying that ALL Green Lantern fans are gay? Because I know of about seven people who aren’t, including myself.
Since the percentage of gay to straight is about one out of ten, the dude who complains has a point, and he’s not a gay basher. At least not through that comment.
Nope, he’s saying that Green Lantern fans are far more of a “fringe group”, as far as numbers go, as compared to the number of gay people (which he implies is far over 90k). So the complaining guy’s argument of “Why should we care about such a small group?” kinda falls flat…Green Lantern fans *are* a small group!
Particularly Alan Scott Green Lantern fans, as at least in the past he was only loosely tied to the more modern version of the title by some heavy retconning.
And considering the “Earth 2″ comic isn’t exactly a big name book that non-fans will be familiar with, wouldn’t the number of readers be even less than 90,000?
Yes, most definitely. I’m fairly certain the big GL book that sells 90,000 isn’t the one where Allen shows up.
(kisses the guy) You met one now. XD
In my humble opinion, if that happened, whether it was a girl or a guy* who did that to me, I’d still see it as a violation of my personal space.
Sure, it’s possibly funny in a comic, depending on execution. Less so in real life.
*As far as I know I’m heterosexual. Hugs are okay, kisses are a bit too intimate for me to share with any random person though.
I love you, David Willis.
Awwwwwwwkward.
GO ETHAN GO!
Obviously he’s never met a gay person because gay people only exist on Earth 2.
Actually, that’s my only criticism over this whole thing – they’re reinventing Green Lantern as a gay man, but it’s the least-recognized Green Lantern, and not all that mainstream of a character. It’s like a really weird compromise. DC got a lot of criticism for relaunching their universe as a mostly white, heterosexual, sausage fest under a banner of “diversity”. There were so many questions about why we didn’t get a black Superman, a gay Batman, or a female Flash. This just feels like DC’s attempt to appease the fans.
Funny enough there was actually a black Superman in a recent issue of Action Comics. The story was a mess thanks to the elementary school fanfiction style of Grant Morrison, but it was still nice to see. But again, that was an alternate Earth story.
Oh well, hopefully they’ll do more with Alan than they did with Batwoman in her first year or two. She gad more articles written about her than comics featuring her. .__. I really need to pick up her book to see how the relaunch is treating her.
Now I’m going to go sit in the corner and weep for Jade and Obsidian.
Oh good, I have someone with whom to share a corner.
Ah HA the De-gaying of Ethan has begun!!!!;)
Definition of fringe group: one that (you assume) you haven’t met any members of.
Put me in the camp that’s OK with Alan Scott being gay, but annoyed they changed him from Cool Old Dude to Young Alternate-Earth Dude. And while this does sound like something that a publicity-hungry corporation would pull as a cheap stunt, the fact that it was suggested by writer James Robinson (who did a fine job with the gay alien Starman in that series years ago) makes me think it’ll turn out fine.
I didn’t notice that. Now that you mention it, old-guy Alan Scott would have made a rather sexy old gay man. He could raise visibility for old gay people, who aren’t seen much in comics.
and still have Jade and Obsidian and not to mentionthere would of been a vary good story on how he struggled internally with keeping his other other sercret from being known as a look at the times. similar on what Bru did with Post WWII Captian America Stoties. But no…..
I knew that would be today’s strip! It’s interesting to see how you shored up the joke compared to the test run. Hee-hee!
I really have no use for any Big Two super hero comics after 1992 or so. And they were getting worse even back then.
Who cares what they do with Golden Age but not Golden Age or even Earth 2 but Earth2.2 Green Lantern? Not me, and not them.
He’s not the guy he “used to be” anymore than any of the DC heroes are. Does he even still have his two kids (one DC later decided was gay, when not possessed by the evil shadow dimension, or dead, and the other one who seems to die and lose her powers a lot in a weird “Carol Danvers of the DC universe” way) any more?
The guy might as well be an android ninja created by Lady Darkseid of the Apokalypse Ltd. Corporation too.
Oh. Make him Trigon’s son too. From the 5th Dimension. Make new things from old things by mixing them up. It’s the new old hotness.
No, his kids are gone. That’s why they made him gay, because we lost Obsidian and the writert thought that wasn’t fair.
“I really have no use for any Big Two super hero comics after 1992 or so. And they were getting worse even back then. ”
I recommend you make an exception for the bits by Clevenger. His Captain America one-shot and Infinity Gauntlet four-issue miniseries are fantastic.
I think it really depends on what you’re reading. Most of the stuff isn’t going to be good, but there are usually a few gems here and there.
I just want to know whether the Green Guardsman is also gay.
Comment of the Day.
I wonder how they’ll bring back the whole evil opposites Earth 3-> Earth 2->Antimatter Universe->Injustice Society.
……Yes you have, you bigot!
I notice that when they have a gay character they never make them have a romance they just already have them paired off. As far as I know DC hasn’t shown the meeting and falling in love portion of any of their gay characters relationships, the ‘Lois Lane is in Danger’ portion. When I heard it was Alan Scott, I was at least expecting a whole new spin on Rose/Thorn.
Never make them have a romance??? What about Scandal Savage and Knockout or Grace and Thunder or Batwoman and Rene Montoya??? Those were some pretty big romances in my book! I was saddened that they killed off Rene… :/
As far as I know, Montoya is not dead.
A friend of mine said that they haven’t said it outright, but that it’s implied Montoya is dead. I guess I’ll find out when I start reading Batwoman.
In other news, Helena Bertinelli (Huntress of the past several years) is dead and Helena Wayne of Earth 2 assumed her identity. I think I hate the reboot. .__.
I don’t think you understand the reboot. Helena Bertinelli died long before “The Huntress” ever existed. Helena Wayne has always been the The Huntress and using the Helena Bertinelli name in the Earth-1 universe.
Reboots are retroactive.
I understand it fine. What I mean is that Helena Bertinelli as she existed for years has been erased from existence and her DCnU self is dead meaning the version of the Huntress I like and the one I prefer cannot and will not exist now. Basically they killed Helena off before she could even become Huntress, and threw away the name in there as a nod to the character. However, for me it comes off less as a nod to the character and more of a middle finger.
Okay, I can understand that you are angry about “losing a character” you liked. However, they didn’t just “throw the name in as a nod”. Huntress was Helena Wayne long before she was Helena Bertinelli. Bertinelli was created to allow The Huntress to continue after Helena Wayne was eliminated. This is a restoration of the original character, not some random decision.
Pied Piper wasn’t in a relationship when he came out. He just, y’know, came out to Wally, his best friend. He’s been in a few since then (or had been. Pre-reboot and all), but I don’t know that they ever showed the build-up (unless you count Trickster and call Deathstroke the ultimate cock-blocker).
Though in the new 52, he’s only thus-far shown up as Director Singh’s secret boyfriend, so… no lead-in to the relationship.
Shotpack: We were making our characters gay before it was cool.
My only real gripe with the whole thing is that they have so many openly homosexual characters they could use yet they insist on changing a well-known character’s sexuality simply because they know it will sell books. It’s cheap and reeks of desperation. Like pretty much everything DC does nowadays (excluding Animal Man and Swamp Thing).
It’s nto about selling books, Gay lantern isn;t really a big selling point. It;s to replace Obsidian, who was wiped out of continuity by the reboot.
But why wipe out Jade and Obsidian? They were such great characters. Now they’ll never exist because someone decided that Alan Scott is suddenly gay after 75 years of continuity. Admittedly, I will miss Jade more than Obsidian, but my point still stands.
No, they were wiped out because they made Alan young. So it went Alan is young, Jade and Obsidian no longer exist, Alan is gay now to replace Obsidian.
Well, they had already been wiped out because the new Earth 2 title has the JSA being formed in the present day, and thus Alan Scott, Jay Garrick et al are all in their twenties. So Obsidian and Jade were never going to be an option, even if Alan was straight in this new universe.
But those JSA characters were all wiped away by the reboot and therefore Jade and Obsidian were too.
Which is… Odd? Most of Green Lantern is untouched right? So how did Sora and Kyle break up now? Did they break up? Were they ever together? Because one of the last issues pre-reboot was Kyle admitting that when the Star Sapphire showed the two their true loves he saw Jade and lied to her about it because he didn’t want to dwell on the past and she told him to screw off because Jade being alive was starting to get in the way of their relationship. And well. Jade JUST came back too. So that was all for nothing?
And if Blackest Night never happened (At least from what I understand it didn’t. None of the crossover events have.) why is the Green Lantern book STILL going on with its prophecy story as if it did? How did the Blackest Night and the Brightest Day happen and not happen at the same time?
Also you know poor Kyle. His luck with the ladies was bad enough but now two of them don’t even exist anymore… Maybe three? Does Sora still exist? Has she been brought up in the reboot at all? Because I could see them erasing her to make Sinestro seem younger…
I just think they missed a chance to do a pretty good teenage coming out story by not making it Tim. Tim is so methodical and thoughtful about every action he takes, every relationship he has, platonic, familial, or romantic. It would have been really interesting to see him figure himself out like that and figure out what to do next.
Or, well, pre-reboot, it would’ve been. Haven’t read him in the nu52, so I don’t really know how his character goes.
…I am a little bothered it’s such a long-standing character – not mantle, individual – as Alan Scott, honestly.
New universe. New rules.
As far as things to be upset about with the DCnU go, Alan Scott being gay barely registers.
M’eh. Gallup polled adults and adults in the U.S. think there are a lot more gays than there really are. When asked, the mean response was that they thought that 24.6% of the U.S. population was gay. Even the grossly over-inflated, non-scientific Kinsey quote from 1960 put it at 10%. The most comprehensive research to date on the topic puts the real G/L/Bi pop is more like 3.5%. Roughly 9 million people. Certainly there are far more gay people in the US than there are people who read Green Lantern (let along those who know who the heck Alan Scott is). However, less than 4% of any large population is pretty much the definition of a fringe group. To get smaller than that you have to start going into “radical fringe” territory… such as CNN viewers (rimshot).
I imagine that Ethan would’ve been less offended if this was an academic discussion of the categorical status of the gay community instead of a conversation with a guy who seems to be offended by the very existence of a homosexual under his favored publishing label using that term to justify his desire to shove homosexuality into corner where it does not have to be seen. Starting his point off by implying that Ethan isn’t a “Real Comic Book Reader” probably also wasn’t a good move for keeping things friendly between them.
You say “meh” like I didn’t already know that there’s an estimated 9 million gay folks in America. I’m not sure why that changes the point of the strip, which is that comic book readers are ALSO a “fringe group.” Even more of one.
A thought just occurred to me: Shortpacked! location is the San Francisco Bay Area right? SF itself is considered one of the Big Gay cities in the USA, and the surrounding areas (Oakland, Berkley, etc…) have pretty high gay populations too. AND this very month in fact is Gay Pride Month in SF, which means a massive increase of gay tourist in the Bay Area.
Now with all that in mind… how the heck has he not realized that he’s met a gay person before? I mean, yeah, Ethan is pretty Straight-acting for the most part, but he’s never met any of the more obvious ones before, or was he just REALLY REALLY oblivious to even the ones who are a bit on the stereotypical side?
Maybe he doesn’t subscribe to stereotypes.
True, but you don’t need to subscribe to stereotypes to know that in the Bay Area of all places, the Gay Community is not exactly considered a Fringe group.
There’s something impressive about someone who lives in the Bay Area, but claims to having never met or at least realized that he’s interacted with a gay man or woman before and can say with a straight face (no pun intended) that gays are a “small group”.
Of course that’s assuming he’s from the Bay Area. If he’s visiting or a new, then maybe I guess it would make sense. Before living in SF, I was in Nebraska, and the gay community was so tiny there that Gay Pride was held in a small parking lot.
The Bay Area is vast. Narrow minded bigots abound. Physical assaults on those perceived as homosexual are not uncommon. A person as depicted in the strip is very common. Many of the small towns surrounding SF are incredibly insular, and homosexuality (even within SF) is rarely as widely accepted or displayed as people tend to believe.
Eh, the whole thing’s gonna be rebooted again in the next big ultracrossover, probably next year, because that’s all DC does anymore.
I was super-duper disappointed. Me and my friends guessed it would be a Green Lantern but kind of assumed it would be Kyle, with Tim Drake in a close-runner up for just fitting it the most.
Oh god, Kyle Rayner? You realize that would be a death sentence for all gay men in the DC Universe, right? Dating Kyle has a 150% mortality rate. Dead girlfriend, dead one night stand, dead girlfriend, resurrected girlfriend, dead girlfriend, Black Lantern dead ex-girlfriend, resurrected ex-girlfriend, ex-girlfriend no longer exists – and that’s only the ones I remember.
I bet DCU Insurance Companies refuse to give coverage to women who date Kyle Rayner. He’s considered a per-existing condition.
Sora broke up with him before she had a chance to die and hasn’t been seen since…
I really hope she still exists. She is by far one of the most interesting Green Lantern in the entire corp.
And she broke up with him because she felt like she couldn’t really compete with a character who doesn’t even exist in the reboot…
Though you know in retrospect Bleez and Fatality are about the only females in the mythology to really receive any attention so far. Carol had like two pages in issue 9 though and Indigo-1 is getting some well deserved focus in the current arc as well. But really its odd to see so many of the female GLs take a backseat because Green Lantern was probably the series of books with the strongest/largest cast of female supporting characters.
that guy is in for a shock when he relizes he just met his first gay guy in ethan. as for alfred its about time he got some more plastic treatment plus the fact he comes with one of the main parts of the bat signal the controls.
Are…are there really people who believe that gay’s are a minority? That’s a level of stupid I’ve never hear before.
I saw someone say that on Gail Simone’s twitter. In fact, I think Willis responded to that one.
Wait – there is anyone on the planet that thinks that gays aren’t a minority? There are people who think that gays comprise over 50% of the population? Seriously? That group that’s surveyed at between 3 and 10% of the population, on the generous side?
I sure hope I’m misunderstanding something here.
Gays ARE a minority, dude!
Also, don’t use an apostrophe to pluralize a word.
Sorry I don’t have great Grammar. My Bad
I think what I meant was that there are people who think there are so few gay people in the world that he’d call them a “Fringe Group” seem’d to weird/stupid to be true.
Can I link this without being political? I’m not sure. There is a survey in which people were asked what percentage of the population they think are gay. It turns out people vastly overestimate this number. I’ve been hearing 10% for years, it turns out that is still too large. Take from that what you will, I offer no further commentary. Here’s the link: http://www.gallup.com/poll/147824/adults-estimate-americans-gay-lesbian.aspx
As for token characters of any minority group, that’s a tough thing for writers because a lot of the time it’s difficult to distinguish between a token minority and a non-token minority. All the audience knows is there is a lot of pressure (both friendly social pressure and outright threats of protests) on Hollywood and other fiction-producing groups to be inclusive of minorities, so when it happens, is it because of the pressure or not? In the end it doesn’t really bother me one way or the other, but the effect these things may or may not have on the creative process out there is interesting.
I am amused by Alan Scott as the choice of characters to “turn gay”, if that’s what this is, given that he’s the least important guy from as close to the top of their totem pole of titles as they could get. Of course that’s the cynical view I guess. One could also say they picked him because being from golden age he’s the guy whose original back story they most dumped out the window in the reboot, so he’s the easiest one to be homosexual without having to reverse that wife or girlfriend character that everybody knows about. It feels like a gimmick even if it’s not, but that could just be the result of the stupid hype.
Why did you tweet the punchline before this comment was posted? It doesn’t make it any less true, but there’d be a hell of a lot more of a “BAM!” factor to it if you didn’t say it before.
Considering Green Lantern (in general) is my second favorite DC Superhero(es) (after Booster Gold), making Alan Scott a HOMOSEXUAL… doesn’t bother me at all. Sure I’d have prefered it to be Wonder Woman for obvious ‘dude reasons’, but making it Alan Scott doesn’t change my opinon of the character at all. He’s still my forth favorte GL (after Hal, Kyle, and Rot Lop Fan). Hell, if anything, I’m upset it wasn’t a more well-known GL. Why not a gay Guy? or better yet, Kilowog. Gay Kilowog would be the most badass comic book gay character ever.
I dunno if I’d way a gay Guy… Can’t he and Tora just be happy with one another? I’d really like that. They’re just kinda cute together.
But a gay Kilowog? I can get behind that I think.
But really the one I always felt was gay was Vath Sarn. Sometimes I just get this feeling that he has feelings for Isamot that he’s really ashamed of. Something about these two it just felt like there was more to how Vath felt about him then just being partners. Like when Vath practically forced him to leave his mate for his duty even though it was his mating season. The stuff Vath was dealing with that he needed help with never even seemed that major but as he did them he was so clearly distracted. And there’s other stuff like that as the GLC series goes on too. It felt like the natural way to take his character and I liked that.
Well, the Green Lanterns are a big organization. I’m sure there’s more than one who’s gay (well, ok, Alan Scott isn’t technically A Green Lantern, but whatever, my point stands)
I remember how a bunch of people thought it was going to be Wally West or Tim Drake.
And Tim Drake would have made SO MUCH SENSE. Plus, the fans have wanted it for ages.
Wally really didn’t make much sense. His relationship and later marriage was a keystone of his comic pretty much from the moment he met Linda. And prior to that, he was a total horndog. Whereas Alan Scott’s romantic relationships really weren’t a focus of his comics.
Okay, Tim’s relationships got a lot of focus, but most of them were very awkward, teenage, I-don’t-know-what-I’m-doing that was very genuine, and could easily be seen as a kid figuring himself out sexually.
At any rate, it’ll be a good long while before we see Wally back in the comics. And as much as he is my favorite Flash, that’s kind of how I’d rather it.
Yeah Wally would make no sense. Also Didio had just talked about how one of the reasons he hasn’t been reintroduced is because they didn’t actually want to reboot him. That they loved his relationship with Linda, and him having a family, and all that and it felt wrong to just deage and reboot him. Apparently a rumor floating around is that we’ll see him soon and he’s outside time and space trying to get his family back. I really really love this idea so I’d be really happy if it were true. It’s just something Wally would do.
And when it comes to Tim Drake his only female relationship that ever felt real to me was the one he had with Tamara Fox. I’ve only read a few Red Robin issues but he actually felt like he cared about her to me. Everything else felt really awkward and forced on his part. Even though Steph had some good moments it still felt like that more then half the time. He’d have been the logical choice to make gay.
Yes, of course you haven’t, because all gay people have a big stamp on their foreheads reading “GAY!!” I didn’t think I knew any gay people when I was in high school, then one of my friends came out. And THEN I found out a few people I’d known for years were also homosexual (some it was a case of “oh, that explains it” and some you’d never guess).
I wonder if Ethan’s going to raise to the bait or just let this slide. I’m personally hoping for letting it slide; getting into a debate with this moron would just be a massive waste of time.
You know, I could care less about the alan scott being gay thing. What I’m pissed off about is that JSA is one of the books that put Geoff Johns where he is now, and now he is letting other writers just crap all over it now that he’s done with it. JSA didn’t need updating. I like the other ideas of having Kyle Rayner or Tim Drake come out. It seems like less of a cop out.
Geoff Johns got his start on JSA by replacing James Robinson, who was largely responsible for driving up the JSA’s profile in the mid-90′s to the point they could even get a new series.
James Robinson is writing the new Earth 2 series.
Kyle would totally be a copout based on who he is as a character today. While I think there was a window early on when he was incredibly close to Connor Hawke and worked with that gay guy as it stands now no. His true love was shown to be Jade. Even if she’s gone in the reboot, and it was in order to show that Kyle was over her death, that still holds some weight to me. On the other hand two of his girlfriends are out of continuity, Sora hasn’t been seen yet but they broke up anyway (but that was because of Jade’s revival… So uh… I dunno about that now…), and the other ones are dead.
But Connor doesn’t exist anymore and I don’t think there’s anyone I would want to see him with more then Connor Hawke… Those two were so right together. I’m still sad they hadn’t interacted in so long.
And really him and Jade being gone is still kind of fells insulting to me… Lian’s death was a compromise so he, Mia, and the rest of the arrow-related characters could live, and Jade just came back. So now Lian died for nothing and the relationship drama Jade created when she was brought back was pointless and broke up a decent relationship that’s still probably broken up… If Sora even still exists…
And Kyle lost his the two characters who were best options for his soulmate…
Beyond the fact they retroactively gave him a dead wife to explain where his kids came from, did the original version of Alan Scott ever display a hint of sexuality in the past 50 years?
See, This is falling into the same trap the random guy in the comic is, in that the average person, without reason to believe otherwise, ASSUMES that a given person is heterosexual. He doesn’t have to display heterosexuality for him to be heterosexual. But ‘being gay’ in and of itself, somehow, is ‘displaying sexuality’? There’s a double-standard that has to be addressed.
I… really don’t know what point you’re arguing against. Superman and Archie ‘display sexuality’ every time the romance plots are dealt with, it’s a bog-standard part of comics.
There’s a lot of homophobes complaining about how ‘sexual’ these comics are, using the term as if two guys kissing is drastically different from Lois and Clark, and that is NOT what I meant.
I’m just genuinely curious if Alan Scott had EVER been depicted showing any romantic interest in a woman outside of retroactive flashbacks.
I am aware of Robinson’s work on JSA(including Golden Age)which was good, but I am also aware of his latest work on Cry for Justice, JLA, and the first issue of Earth 2 which was terrible.
Yeah, he doesn’t do a lot of mediocre work. It’s either really good or really bad. I’m totally digging the Shade right now, but I’m kind of worried about how much of Earth-2 hinges on ladies being dead and things being darker and grittier. There’s enough grit in the main universe…would be nice to having some comics that are just, I dunno…fun?
I can’t imagine a more perfect final line for this comic. Excellent work, sir.