 |
Alan Scott, the first Green Lantern, who's been like the fifth most important human Green Lantern for the last 50 years. But in case you're still happy to have a new gay character in the DC universe, it should be noted that at the moment, Alan Scott will only be appearing in Earth-2, the comic and parallel universe, which has almost no bearing on the rest of the DCnU. I could joke about this, but I think I'm genuinely pissed. Seriously:
• First of all, the way DC spent an entire week teasing its "MAJOR NEW ICONIC GAY CHARACTER" was awful and exploitative and really, really annoying.
• Second, Alan Scott is not that iconic. In fact, I don't think any non-comics fans even know who the fuck he is.
• Third, HE'S NOT EVEN GOING TO BE PART OF THE MAIN DC UNIVERSE. At least Marvel, has Northstar's wedding taking place in the normal Marvel U.
As much as DC was randomly homosexuallizing a character for attention instead of any real stab at sexual equality, they actually had a chance to make a statement here, and instead I really think this is a massive cop-out -- a cop-out made worse by how much DC promoted it like they were doing something at all "iconic." I don't expect everyone to agree with me, and maybe some of my gay readers are genuinely pleased. I hope so. I just don't think so.
More links from around the web!
199 comments
The problem with making Alan Scott gay, is they ruin the work, they did with showing what it was like for a gay individual (Obsidian) to come out to his father who did not agree with his lifestyle, but with time, got past his own disagreements with it, and showed feelings for his son.
I would believe Selina Kyle is bi. Kory Anders, Starfire and Dick Grayson had swinging parties at Titans Tower I would believe. If you read The New Teen Titans, you'd understand that they all dated at some point. Alan Scott is gay? Do his children know? Okay, I'll pretend to care. Couldn't they just show him with his "room mate"? Why the big production? STOP THE PRESSES!!! ALAN SCOTT IS GAY!!! Most people who don't read comics wouldn't know who Alan Scott is. Green Lantern? Is that who Ryan Renolds played in the movie? Besides, for those of us who still don't dig the New 52, Alan Scott is Justice Society. After CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS theres an Alan Scott here. More Earths have crept in over the years, like in KINGDOM COME. But the Justice Society and all its members are a part of Earth 1. The only New 52 I've read is Batman. And I try to overlook the problems with continuity because its Batman.
Can I ask something that I'm sure will get all the torches and pitchforks out? Speaking as a white, heterosexual, Christian male, has anyone figured out when we're paid up? There's a lot of talk about "sexual equality" going on regarding this issue, but I'd like to think that most people are sharp enough to realize what a BS term that is when there is clearly a different standard being applied to the different sexual orientations. By the majority of the comments, it seems that the worst thing about this stunt was that it wasn't a more prominent character, yet it would be wholly unacceptable by those same people (and me, I might add) were they to have spontaneously decided that Batwoman was now straight. So, let's dispense with this "equality" nonsense since the advocacy here is for special treatment, not equal treatment. You can't champion equality when your watchwords are, "Anything that benefits my favored group is good even if it comes at the expense of another group."
The fact of the matter is that it is acceptable to treat people like me with what would be called bigotry were it directed at anyone else not like me. Now, you can all save your public school, liberal arts college diatribes about "privilege" and how outrageous it is for me to have hurt feelings about anything. I have my masters in literature, so you're not spouting anything at me that some professor didn't require me to endorse myself for the sake of my GPA. I've heard it, and I don't care so long as we're rational enough to accept that you endorse different standards for different groups. This is, presumably, to make some kind of recompense for all the evil that people like me (though not me) have apparently done to people not like me. In the interest of "fairness," my kind must be made to pay to make things right. I'm not quite as willing to embrace the soapbox-mounting self-hatred some of my fellows espouse as a means a rectification, but I am, at least, inquirous of the same end.
So, I return to my question, has anyone determined when my kind is paid up--when we've offset our sins? When will the standards of treatment be, ya know, standard? How long until I'm not "privileged" anymore? I'm sure it's way far off, but I'd kind of like to know what I'm shooting for. It just seems to me that "equality" has such mathematical overtones to it that speak to a certain precision and exactitude, so I'd like to think that there is some rigorous, passionless computation of how and when this all-important debt will be paid. It'd be just shameful if this was nothing more than blind, self-righteous emotion manipulatively ginned up by cultural and political demagogues to promote division for personal gain.
P.S. Has anyone bothered to notice how ageist this, and much of the DCnU, is? I know older people don't rank quite as highly on the hierarchy of "special" people of which my kind is (righteously?) at the bottom, but it's something to consider.
Something hit me: since when was Obsidian a "positive' gay character? He murdered his abusive stepfather while (once again) suffering from a mental breakdown that saw him team up with Mordru and Eclipso and then he spent a while being an egg. Granted these were psychological issues that stemmed from the nature of his powers and his horrible childhood, and the physiological problem was supposedly fixed around the time he came out, but very little of it was seen as positive. The only positive I ever saw was that his sexuality was virtually immaterial to any of this, he was messed up because he was messed up.
That DC managed to crap all over Jade is just piss icing on the crap cake.
Sorry, needed a full day to process that they're not around anymore at all.
personally I always figured Guy Gardner as closeted,figured his anger was just an out pouring of his own self hate
Can we just storm the DC building and boycott DC? Just like Japan did with Gainax building when the End of Evengelion was poorly done and made them redo it. On another note: It's kind of sad that I've given up on American comics. With poor reintroduction of characters and retconning really well written story lines (referring to Hal Jordan and parallax being a virus = contrived), now rebooting everything. It shows that they do not want to find capable writers to fix things and have proper continuity. I'm sticking with manga, at least I pretty much know what I'm getting into, unless they sneak in NTR or hentacles. Then I just move on to the next manga.
As even Robinson points out, he kinda had to make Alan gay because his son was a major gay character in the DCU. Okay.. not that major.. but being one of the very few gay ones.. that made him a major gay character.
This is not Alan Scott. This is not the JSA. No JSA from any age before. It's JSA nU. Like New Coke, it's a brand new formula that tries to get new customers and pisses off most everyone who was supporting the brand before.
Making Golden Age Alan Scott gay would make no sense, as he had a big role as a biological father, one who had an affair with a super villianess and had a gay son who became a major part of his life. Yet if you eliminate that son or any children, yeah, whole new character. And they're really just trying desperately to fix losing one of the few gay characters in the DCU.
I am disgusted by the change. Not because the character is now gay. But because the character, team, and entire whole universe is completely different from what came before in either pre or post Crisis DC, erasing anything from the Golden, Silver, or Modern age. And without honoring its rich history, while still looking forward, what exactly does DC have to offer?
This Alan Scott is a brand new character. I don't read DC comics for brand new characters unless maybe some older character is passing a torch to them. See Rucka's Montoya becoming the Question or Robinson's own Starman. Funny enough, both of those erased for no good reason. All to make way for a new universe as muddled as the last. Meet he new boss.. as confusing and unwelcoming as the old boss.
What DC had going for it, maybe the only thing it had going for it aside from being owned by a giant multinational media conglomerate, was its rich history. Old readers could suggest to new readers what they should read. Retailers could point to a wall of DC trades for new readers to explore. Post reboot, they have decimated this advantage. One of DC's few in the struggling industry that helped it be a leader, and these idiots just flushed it away in a Flashpoint.
If people want new characters, new gay superheroes or gay character in general or female or black or Asian or even new blonde haired blue eyed straight male characters, they have plenty of other comic companies and even other media companies for that. The only card DC had to play was that they had these iconic characters with a rich back story. This brand new gay Alan Scott has none of that. No matter what DiDio says, he's not that iconic. And taking away Alan Scott as the first golden age Green Lantern? That just makes him even less iconic. So, no, you are not making an iconic character gay. You just made a new gay character, like you could find in any other publisher or medium, and slapped on the name of an old Green Lantern.
So there's nothing that wrong with having this character be gay... just everything else they did to the character did to the character is totally wrong. Pretty much making him a completely different one and connected in name only is a terrible idea.
This is like DiDio saying how great the Halle Berry Catwoman movie is because she's black and ignoring that it isn't Catwoman at all except for the fact some iditos slapped the trademarked name Catwoman on it. And it's terrible as Halle Berry would have made an amazing Selina Kyle in a movie based on the then recent Brubaker reboot. Instead the idiots calling the shots erased the old character completely and felt they needed a totally unrelated character by the same name to justify making her black or some garbage. Now I'm sure Robinson can make this new Alan Scott smarter than that awful Catwoman movie, but it's the same corporate non-creative mentality which craps all over the history of the DCU. And really, its rich history is the only thing DC has to make it stand out. So too bad they've completely ditched it.
Gay Reader here. Totally Agree HUGE cop out. That said I do like Alan Scott read JSA and I am reading Earth two. However I was really hoping for Shazam which would have fit the Iconic part and made actual sense.
Even more insulting is the recent announcement from DC Comics that from now on, all gay characters will be drawn by Rob Liefeld, and all straight female characters will be drawn by Greg Land.
DC didn't make it a big deal. They mentioned at a con, a few blogs picked up on it and then Fox news went apeshit over it. DC then responded to it.
You might want to get the actual facts before you rip them.
I'm gay and I'm extremely disappointed by this for exactly all the reasons you mentioned, Rob. I really wanted it to be a main character.. like Superboy or Batman, for fuck's sake. But mostly Superboy. And Lobo.
Who gives a shit why is it comics are catering to a diagrammatic that doesn't buy comic books www.youdontknowcomics.blogspot...
And of course they decide to apply this to the most flamboyant hero from the golden age. Remember that crazy costume? How did he come up with it? Retroactive gayness!So goddamn stupid.
im not pleasedit is such a cop out, feels like DC threw it together in a panic to match the Northstar wedding
Turning a 70+ year old character gay? Yeah, why not. Makes sense? Hate you so much now DC.
Well.. people can be old and gay.
"My Grandmother always used to say "why buy the cow, when you can get the sex for free". ""She didn't! ""All the time, before she became a lesbian on her 60th Birthday, but that's besides the point."
They arbitrarily decided that Obsidian (& Jade) didn't exist anymore, so they made his dad gay as a consolation? Even if the original Green Lantern doesn't exist in the main universe anymore, why can't they have Obsidian as a non-legacy hero? Do they have a limit on how many gay characters they're allowed to have at any given time?
The only thing that might actually matter about this is if they include him in a episode or two of Green Lantern: The Animated Series gayness intact. That would actually be breaking some ground.
I don't think that needs to be in a kid's show, even one mostly meant for older kids. That's just like rubbing your body in meat and throwing yourself into a shark pool.
Besides, Alan's power source is a little difficult to explain. Not impossible, just difficult.
Did...did ANYONE actually read James Robinson's reasoning for picking Alan Scott? Obsidian had been written out of the New 52 so far. And since in Earth 2 the characters are in their early 20s or so (Alan Scott was said to be 27ish) how could he be the father of two established heroes as well? Earth-2 so far is the closest thing to a true reboot of conventional origins we have seen, and it has only been one issue.
He also said he has plans to bring both Obsidian AND Jade into Earth 2 further down the line.
What bothers me is everyone saying that because he is in Earth 2 it doesn't matter. You know, because Earth 2 and Earth 1 have never, ever, ever crossed over. Even though in the FCBD New 52 book, the Red Room had a Monitor Screen that was clearly showing the events of Earth 2 issue 1.
Also, main DCU already has several excellent gay characters - Batwoman, Apollo and Midnighter, Bunker, Pied Piper, etc and each is portrayed in a different manner. My roommate is essentially a carbon copy of Bunker's personality, and his boyfriend is spot on as a (male) Batwoman. I have thus far found both Marvel and DC's gay characters to ring true.
Finally, for those who think Alan Scott is a useless unknown character...he is. As far as the GL mythos go. But you know what isn't unknown? Green Lantern the name. If this gives more exposure to the excellent (thus far) Earth-2 book, then I am all for it.
And how many non-comics fans have heard of Batwoman, Apollo and Midnighter, Bunker, or Pied Piper? Probably fewer than have heard of Alan Scott.
None of them are particularly mainstream, but they exist, which is an important fact to consider. Would Northstar EVER be considered a mainstream Marvel hero? Hell, he isn't even a mainstream X-Men.
Both major companies are slowly yet surely adding in more LGBT and multi-ethnic characters to their rosters. None of them will start out as well known powerhouses, but everyone has to start somewhere. Take Booster Gold. He went from D lister to a solid B lister because of his exposure in 52. All it takes is one excellent story run to catapult a character higher than before. Same with any of these gay characters for Marvel or DC.
The difference being, Alan Scott has the benefit of the Green Lantern label to lend him so instant star status to begin with instead of beginning from scratch.
Oh, I'm sure a lot of them have heard of Batwoman. I'm not making any claims they know of her sexuality, but I bet they know of her.
if dc wanted to out-PENIS marvel, they could have made wonder woman gay; it would have been so awesome and astounding and groundbreaking to so tweak with a truly iconic character that they would have buried marvel. instead we get a token. fuck you dc and your PENIS LOGO too
if dc wanted to out-PENIS marvel, they could have made wonder woman gay; it would have been so awesome and astounding and groundbreaking to so tweak with a truly iconic character that they would have buried marvel. instead we get a token. fuck you dc and your PENIS LOGO too... in your penish-shaped boob window...
Exactly! EXACTLY! not to mention she's from a fucking all female society, people have been re imagining her as a lesbian since basically the beginning.
What the fuck happened?!?! Let's try this again...
• First of all, the way DC spent an entire week teasing its "MAJOR NEW ICONIC GAY CHARACTER" was awful and exploitative and really, really annoying.• Second, Alan Scott is not that iconic. In fact, I don't think any non-comics fans even know who the fuck he is.• Third, HE'S NOT EVEN GOING TO BE PART OF THE MAIN DC UNIVERSE. At least Marvel, has Northstar's wedding taking place in the normal Marvel U.
I actually think it's kind of awesome that most of the outrage is about how DC didn't make a more recognizable and relevant character gay. Don't get me wrong, as a LGBT reader, I'll accept just about any positive representation of queer characters that I can get from Marvel or DC. I just think it's super cool that nerd society has reached the point of "WHY ISN"T THERE A MORE ICONIC GAY CHARACTER!"
Excellent point and I really hope that's the case. Playing Devil's advocate though, and not having any faith in mankind at all...the complaining about the gay character not being more iconic may not be so much from the demand for an iconic gay character, but more outrage at DC marketing that promised an iconic gay character and then, for all intents and purposes, failed. But, like I said, I hope you're right.
I totally understand what you are saying, but I gotta admit that I'm hearing a lot less "Whew, they only made Alan Scott gay. I was worried it was going to be somebody important" and more "What, Alan Scott is the "iconic" character they made gay? Why not somebody from the main universe? Somebody everybody knows!" I think DC did over-hype the "iconic" thing. Sure, Alan is a long established character, but is not well known outside of dedicated comic book fans. But that's what DC does and I can't say I expected much more from them. But still, even though DC is doing it for headlines and profit, I think Robinson is doing this for story reasons (and to make up for losing Obsidian). Overall, I'm happy but not thrilled.
EXACTLY, ROB. It ultimately feels like they did this entirely for the wrong reasons. plus, you were damn stupid if you even thought that "MAJOR NEW ICONIC GAY CHARACTER" would even come close to being Superman or Batman.
And just look at the gay/lesbian characters they already have.... WHAT THE FUCK ARE THEY DOING WITH THEM?!?!? NOTHING!!! NOT A DAMN THING!!! But Marvel's stunt is working out for them, and now DC's the one that has to scramble to stay relevant! The roles have been reversed... And don't get me started on Marvel's bullshit right now. What's my problem with what they're doing? Everyone but Spider-Man can get married! Why, we'll even stand up for equality for homosexual marriage! But we're so against Spider-Man being married, we'll tell a fucked up story like One More Day to get rid of it, just so we can tell stories about him being horny all the damn time!!!!
As for my overall stance on gay/lesbian marriage? FUCK YEAH!!! Why not? They deserve to be happy too!
Batwoman has her own book. Voodoo has her own book. Apollo and Midnighter are in Stormwatch. Bunker is in the Teen Titans. Alan Scott and his boyfriend are in Earth 2. Pied Piper has been re-introduced in Flash and is in a relationship with Barry's boss.
DC could certainly be doing a lot more with their gay and bisexual characters, but to say they're not doing anything with them simply isn't true.
yeah... this is the worst kind of forced controversy/news coverage... they got the head line "GREEN LANTERN IS GAY" without actually making the Green Lantern people know and recognize (Hal) even remotely gay, plus, as mentioned, he's not even in the "real" DC universe, he is also not the original Alan Scott, the one who's been around since the 40's and actually means something to anyone... so they created an all new character with an old name, got boycotted by christian mothers, made no one buy media outlets happy and haven't done anything that actually helps gays or lesbians...
dc, you are a true disappointment and frankly I have reached the point where I wonder why I still buy any of your shitty new comics... clearly, I'm a masochist of some sort
so in other words after building up the hype that maybe dc would dare to make one of their icons gay like supes or bats. they decide to go with a real old character that was way before their current readerships time not to mention in the process got rid of one of their already established gay characters since now jade and obsidian are gone from the dc universe. though will be checking out the book to see who alan finds happiness with.
Side Note! James Robinson, the writer who made the change to Alan Scott's sexual orientation also wrote the first kiss between two gay males in comics! I really don't see this as a publicity stunt. That said, he has to be considered iconic if only for virtue of the logo he wears on his chest. As a guy who can recite his oath from memory, I find nothing wrong with this change, sociopolitical currency be damned.
