DC Comics announced it is going to out one of it’s ‘iconic’ characters as being gay next month and Marvel says that it’s character Northstar (already out of the closet since 1992) will marry his boyfriend.
DC Comics, whose portfolio includes such iconic characters as Batman and Robin, Superman, and Wonder Woman, plans next month to reintroduce one of its major superheroes as openly gay. Just not yet.
“One of the major iconic DC characters will reveal that he is gay in a storyline in June,” Courtney Simmons, DC Entertainment’s senior vice president of publicity, confirmed to ABC News.
Comic Book Resources list up the candidates based on the clues: The Flash, Joker, Plastic Man, Superboy and others. Head over to read their reasoning.
Over at Marvel, they’re planning a wedding for Northstar:
“When gay marriage became legal in New York State, it raised obvious questions since most of our heroes reside in New York State. Northstar is the first openly gay character in comics and he’s been in a longterm relationship with his partner Kyle so the big question was – how would this change his relationship?,” says Marvel Comics editor-in-chief Axel Alonso. “Our comics are always best when they respond to and reflect developments in the real world. We’ve been doing that for decades, and this is just the latest expression of that.”
ok…I’ll jump in and say it…..this is the stupidest ‘politically correct’ idea I’ve ever heard!!! Ok, the ‘community-organizer-in-chief’ voicing HIS opinion in an intimate white house interview rather than focusing on the problems that are ravaging our economy and people….that was the FIRST stupidest politically correct idea I’ve ever heard……but this is right up there as well…..
Actually, I have to hand it to ‘his highness’….the interview was a splendid idea….smoke and mirrors….deflect attention AWAY from the issues he SHOULD be dealing with….well done, sir!
This outing and gay marriage in comics….pandering…pure and simple. Pandering to the politically correct crowd….of which I am proud to say I am NOT a member!
We, as a nation, have become too tolerant of chosen sinful behaviour. It’s the same as making a crack-addict superhero.
I agree the reason behind it is on the lame side, but ultimately diversity only helps comics.
I’m betting on Flash.
My bet is Superboy.
I was surprised when I collected Ultimate X-Men and they made Colosus gay… and I don’t remember any mention of it, for or against.
And Batwoman is a lesbian. Not much press for her, and her character was the best thing to come out of Batman’s “death”, IMO.
Instead of making established characters gay, why not create a new character that is gay, and let the character be written by a gay writer for a more authentic story?
it’s probably the one who wears tights and a cape I bet
This is what I think of when I read these comments.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uzae_SqbmDE
Sketches of Batman and Robin in bed were steady sellers for me in my comic convention days and the implications of their relationship were also an issue for Dr. Wertham in his famous book. So I’ll be disappointed if it isn’t made official.
@Ryan In the 90s, I actually wrote a DC miniseries about a superhero who gets his powers from heroin. They never published it, though I did get paid for the script.
so Mike, are you saying Ned Beatty would make a good superhero?
Maybe Jim! Just saying that the first two comments sound like some psycho hillbilly crap.
@ krahulik……tread lightly, my friend. I do NOT take kindly to name-calling. From what I’ve learned in my nearly 50 years on this rock….name-calling is the last resort of a weak argument.
I stated my opinion. Last I checked, that is not one of the freedoms that BHO has managed to over-rule. I didn’t state my religious beliefs….merely a pure and not-politically-correct disgust for the obvious pandering of the comicbook industry.
If you’d like to toss a few personally addressed insults…..have at it…to quote a line spoken by Doc Holliday in an old western….’I’ll be your huckleberry’…..
@Mike Beckom
“Dingleberry” more likely.
What would be absolutely great is if you would not only get a gay writer to write the gay super hero’s exploits, but also get a gay artist, ( and if it goes Hollywood, you would have a real large choice for a good director who should be gay ) AND why not a gay publishing company to publish the graphic ( and in this case, I mean I mean GRAPHIC ) novel, AND, AND use printing ink made by a gay ink manufacturer. !
OR, to quote the late great scientist, Carl Sagan: ” IF YOU WISH TO MAKE APPLE PIE TRULY FROM SCRATCH,YOU MUST FIRST INVENT THE UNIVERSE. “
That’s so gay.
@Mike Beckom
?community-organizer-in-chief?
?his highness’
The last time I checked, that man was the President of the United States. Show some respect for the damned office and stop with the stupid, childish name calling.
God forbid someone show some compassion to other people who just want to live their lives with the same dignity and respect that you feel you’re entitled too just because you choose to stick your penis into a certain orifice.
If they want a gay character write a new gay one instead of changing an old one. The whole thing screams of being a pc gimmick to get attention. If it’s mean’t to an edgy dangerous change, a big yawn. If they really want to do something edgy have a gay character be converted to straight. Better yet why not just a transvestite superhero or maybe a bi-sexual one. Never a big comic book fan to begin with so let them out whoever they want.
Chris Cantrell
Not a big Obama fan myself and don’t usually go to the trouble to call the man names, but he’s only president, not a king, people are free to call and treat him or any other prez however they feel. Considering the names the last one was called Obama gets off easy.
I’ve got to agree with Beckom on this. For the president to answer a question he was asked simply points out that he is an elitist liberal who can think of more than one thing. The idea that he can be working on several policy issues at once and still be able to answer a question is disgusting, and the fact that his middle name is Hussein simply proves that he’s not one of us. It’s probably why, when he got out of college, he had the nerve to take a job helping people who had been laid off, instead of laying them off like a good American plutocrat should.
As far as gay superheroes go, there I’m gonna agree with Jim Lavery. Unless they’re going to use a variation on the Jessica Rabbit defense.
Terry, Chris and Mike……my point (in case you MISSED it while you were so pathetically trying to hurl insults at me) was…..that while America languishes in the muck of a stagnant economy…..Obama takes the time (away from more pressing economic issues that would better serve a LARGER segment of our society) to address one issue…in a private sit-down interview. THAT, my friends, is CLASSIC OBAMA. Divert attention away from bigger issues and onto smaller ones. As for my referring to him as ‘the community-organizer-in-chief’ or ‘his highness’….get over it. This is AMERICA. I have the RIGHT to call him a sack of potato chips if I wanna. I deride him in my editorial cartoons every chance I get. The man has taken every opportunity he can find to tell the American people…..’hey….look over here….see what I’m doing with my right hand…..’ All the while diverting attention away from what he’s doing with his left. I reference the white house ‘beer summit’ here. GINORMOUS waste of time. GLORIOUS FAILURE.
I’ve listened to his speeches. He speaks quite eloquently. He says all the right things and appeals to all the right people. I don’t drink the kool-aid. I READ. I study. I listen, I can even form my own OPINIONS. My OPINION is he is a crappy president, he’s done a crappy job and he needs to go the heck away after this term in office. For what it’s worth…I am a Republican….but if Hillary had beaten him for the Dems, I’da voted for HER! At least she had some inkling of how to run the office and the country.
Now, back to the original subject. The comic industry is jumping on the politically correct bandwagon. Plain and simple. What NEED is there to produce a gay character? There isn’t one. To my knowledge, there is a not a large segment of the gay community that are comic-afficienados. Therefor…..PANDERING. Plain and simple…..and it’s pathetic and sad.
@Beckom
Boy, that Obama’s a smart one! Here he got me thinking so much about gay marriage that I never even NOTICED the economy was bad! Thank goodness for eagle-eyed pragmatists such as yourself to keep me and all the other sheep focused.
Really, though–do you honestly think Obama or anyone else thought talking about gay marriage would keep everyone from thinking about the economy? It wasn’t long ago that even hinting you supported such a thing was political suicide, now you accuse Obama of taking the position for political gain. If that’s true then I say awesome–it means as a country we’ve come a long way. But even if Obama is pandering, so what? Your candidate has pandered to his base constituency so much that it’s difficult to find a position he HASN’T reversed himself on.
Are comics companies pandering by publicizing new gay characters? Sure, but so what? Comics, like all popular art forms, take off on the trends of their times. Comics that only featured characters who resembled their actual readership would be distinctly unappealing.
I hear that next they’ll out Superman as an illegal alien. As if we didn’t already know that.
Let me set the record straight. The only reason why President Obama came out publicly to support gay marriage is to gain more votes. We have to remember, the man is still a politician. As decent a family man as President Obama is, I do not believe that he and his wife Michelle really agree with gay marriage deep in their hearts. But, since Romney publicly opposes gay marriage, then that gave President Obama a strategic opportunity to publicly advocate it, even though he may not agree with it. I think President Obama just made a calculated decision to lose the personal battle with his own conscience in order help gain more votes that will help him win the WAR in November. Now, despite your opinion about President Obama, he did what a real leader does. A real leader sees the overall big picture and what is right for us all and understands the sacrifices that it takes in order to make sure his citizens are taken care of. Great leaders have been doing it since the beginning of time. And besides, even though I think he disagrees with gay marriage, his stance of saying it?s ?the right thing to do? is genuine and does have merit because we should still treat each and everyone as people and with respect, regardless of sexual preference.
Also, Mike Peterson, I found your comments about President Obama?s name very short-sighted.
It kills me when people deliberately say or spell out President Obama?s middle name as some paltry attempt to try and make it look unsettling. Hussein is a very common Arabic male name that just happened to be President Obama father?s name. For anyone to bring unnecessary notice like that to President Obama?s middle name just shows how ignorant they really are.
And to suggest President Obama is using gay marriage to divert attention away from the economy is ridiculous. Check the reports, the economy has been on a steady rise since February. The auto-industry has been reporting quarterly profits for months now. The economy is obviously not where it needs to be, but 1 presidential term was not going to fix the mess that President Obama inherited. Not even 2 terms will fix it but I feel more confident moving foward than I did, say, 5 or 6 years ago.
Urg, why the heck did something about comic books becoming more diverse (which is an awesome thing even if Marvel and DC aren’t really going about it in the best of ways in this instance) have to turn into some political bull crap? What the heck does this have to do with our economy? Or our president? Seriously folks, step down off your soap boxes for a minute, man.
*sigh*
I think this is a step in the right direction for the comic book giants. With any luck maybe in a few years they’ll come to realize that diversity in general is a positive thing and we’ll get a few more characters of different races, more diverse female characters, a wider range of body types, and other things that would be a giant bonus to superhero comics in general. And when that happens maybe they’ll also realize that you don’t have to be a straight, white male to work in the industry successfully.