BREAKING: DC ANNOUNCES FIFTH MOST IMPORTANT GREEN LANTERN ON PARALLEL UNIVERSE IS GAY

By Rob Bricken June 1, 2012 Comics 0 Comment

Remember how DC was oh-so-coyly teasing that a major, iconic new character that had yet to be introduced into the New 52 would suddenly be homosexual? Well, USA Today has revealed that character, and it’s…

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.

About The Author

Robert Bricken is one of the original co-founders of the site formerly known as Topless Robot, and its first editor-in-chief, serving from 2008-12. He brought the site to prominence with “nerd news, humor and self-loathing” as its motto, raising it from total internet obscurity to a readership in the millions, with help from his savage “FAQ” movie reviews and Fan Fiction Fridays. Under his tenure Topless Robot was covered by Gawker, Wired, Defamer, New York magazine, ABC News, and others, and his articles have been praised by Roger Ebert, Avengers actor Clark Gregg, comedian and The Daily Show correspondent John Hodgman, the stars of Mystery Science Theater 3000 and Rifftrax, and others. He is currently the managing editor of io9.com. Despite decades as both an amateur and professional nerd, he continues to be completely unprepared for either the zombie apocalypse or the robot uprising.

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