FOUR COLOR COMMENTARIES #40: Placing Gays And Lesbians In The World Of Comics

[Richard Davidson, Jr.]

Placing Gays And Lesbians In The World Of Comics

It's been kind of interesting news week here in my home state of California. For those of you that haven't been watching all of the cable news channels, the state supreme court ruled that the state could not do anything to impede the marriage of gays and lesbians and meant that this group of citizens should be allowed to have the same rights as the members of the straight world. The monumental moment came with all of the customary praise and rejection from the requisite governmental sides of the divide but it seemed like nothing could slow this down.

Against this backdrop of historical moment in the real world, I reflected on the ways and means of the homosexual world within the comic books that we all read and enjoy. It may have started out as kind of a side show to get the sales up on a certain book but it's now really started to blossom out into a more real group that can and do play major factors in the books that they appear in.

A moment of complete disclosure... I am born and bred in California within a 40 minute drive from San Francisco. I am a graduate of San Francisco State University. I have homosexual family members and have many gay and lesbian friends. I am someone who has spent a large portion of my life involved in both the local and national scene of ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW live performing casts.

And now back to our show...

Unlike other minorities, it did kind of seem like the world of comics tended to be a totally heterosexual world. You might have found a bad guy or girl that had very homosexual overtones but there really wasn't any overt or specifically stated gay characters in the comic book world. In a humorous vein, you could always look at DC Comics' Female Furies of The New Gods or Wonder Woman's Amazon homeland but that was the only way that you could have an even vaguely gay character.

One of the first overtly gay character appeared in the mid 90s but looked to everyone in the world as more of a publishing stunt than the need to include all groups in the readership. While the book in question, Alpha Flight, has been surviving sales wise but it was stuck in the lower reaches and dropping very quickly. Into this world came the announcement in issue 106 where the hero Northstar stated in public that he is gay. This was a shocking moment in the past but the history reads even more questionable.

As stated in many interviews, the original writer of the book, John Byrne, had decided to make one of the characters gay and finally came to the decision that Northstar would be the one. This decision came to a full stop due to a couple factors, including the times that the book was being written in, the people in charge of Marvel Comics, and the Comics Code would not allow it to happen. What do you do when you aren't allowed by a generic ruling code or Editor-In-Chiefs that state there will be no gay characters in their company's books come in and refuse to let you do what you want? Just imply it all over and believe that the readers will figure it out. The fact that it stuck for so long and wound up being brought out into the Marvel world like it was originally planned and thought out just shows how solid an idea it was and still is.

From those kind of quiet beginnings, it seemed like all of the gays and lesbians went right back into the metaphorical closet for a bunch of years but then it seemed like the writers of the books either caught up to the rest of the world or at the very least the creators that were able to write these kinds of books and stories had reached the point of visibility that we now had a knowledge of their work.

The one writer that tends to catch the most hell over the use of gays and lesbians in his books is Judd Winick. He did some creator owned work and was then hired on at DC to write the main Green Lantern book and was doing a very great job in my own estimation. After a couple years of work on the book, Winick added an assistant to the lead character who came out as being gay. This felt pretty okay and natural though it did seem kind of like this person was dropped into the story just because he was gay. The later plot line that involved this character being beaten in an apparent hate crime kind of felt like an even more added on kind of thing though the actual storyline was a strongly written work.

Since then, Winick has had gay characters or, in the case of his Green Arrow work, HIV positive characters in all of the books that he's worked on and which has led to an odd kind of backlash toward him as a writer. Instead of being looked at by the comic book world at large as a writer working to bring a previously disenfranchised group into comics, it started to feel like there was an odd kind of resentment to what Winick was doing. I can kind of see what they were saying when you look at his work in a certain way but I do definately feel that his work did help to bring the world of gays and lesbians into the wider world of comic book publishing.

Winick's work was appearing in major publications while there was another writer that was doing work that brought the lesbian world out to so many people. This writer's work might have been seen as being done on an independent work but the sales on the book and it's appearance in all comic book stores or normal book stores brought it into everyone's vision. The writer is Terry Moore and the book is Strangers In Paradise.

No one who read the initial SIP mini series could have known what was to come in the future years of the book. It kind of felt like a simple slice-of-life book but it blossomed into a book that brought out a world that readers hadn't seen in any kind of book being published back then or even today. Instead of the stereotypical world that most people were working with when it came to lesbians, Moore wrote a book where you can see and understand these people for who they are and it didn't matter that you weren't in the same situation as the characters were. It was full of stories with true caring and feeling which would leave readers of both in wonder and emotional devastation depending on the plot going on at the time.

There might be other gay and lesbian characters in books of today (Apollo and Midnight of The Authority for example) but the points that I mentioned here seemed to me to be more of the important touchstones of the bringing of gay and lesbian characters into the comic book world. This was a group of readers and fans that spent many years with little or no representation in the books that they would read. To suddenly start to have them all over the place and done in a way that they could identify with must have been a revelation and it's always good to have all kinds of people able to belly up to the bar.

Song Of The Week:
Song: Look Out Sunshine!
Artist: The Fratellis
Album: Here We Stand

Sidebar Of The Week
I got Lego Indiana Jones and will admit to having a good time with it but I'm also feeling an odd kind of disappointment with it too. The game just kind of feels like a "been there, done that" in relation to the earlier Lego Star Wars games. It just feels kind of like they took all of the amazing stuff they created for LSW and tweaked it to fit in LIJ. There will be a Lego Batman coming later in the year so I guess I can still have hope.

My Pull List - June 11, 2008
Action Comics #866
Booster Gold #10
Green Arrow/Black Canary #9
Trinity #2
Wonder Woman #21
Invincible #50
The Twelve #6 (of 12)

[Andrea Speed]

Nice article, Richard.

I just contributed a comedy piece to Prism Comics' 2008 Guide to Comics (plug, plug, plug), and in it is something I already knew from talking to gay comic readers (and there are many): they are all so very pissed off at how Northstar's been treated these last couple of years. Invisible, then dead, then evil, then dead again, now back and maybe crazy, but who knows, since he's gone back to invisible again.

It happens to every character who isn't a headliner, they get treated poorly for plot induced reasons, but some of them are so ticked off at Marvel. I have no idea if Marvel knows that or not.

[Zap Rowsdower]

A backlash against Winnick?!

I'm not so sure about that. I would argue that Winnick is a terrible writer -- among the absolute worst currently in the business.

I think his (seemingly growing) unpopularity isn't a backlash for using gay characters.

I think the fact that he uses them is the only reason anybody likes him at all.

I'd read a truckload of Daniel Way before picking up another Winnick book...

[Ben Lehnsherr]

Having a quite a few gay characters now and when I came up in high school (both of my best friends were homosexual), I've been known as a gay-friendly straight male. Some of my family despise me for it, but none-the-less, I've never seen them as a seperate group because of who they find attractive. I applaud when gay characters are introduced in stories in an organic way. You can tell when writers put a gay character in the wrong reasons, but a great example of it being organic is Wiccan and Hulkling from Young Avengers. Heinberg did a great job characterizing those two, and they're one of my favorite couples in comics, straight or gay.

[Arsenal7]

Originally Posted by Zap Rowsdower

A backlash against Winnick?!

I'm not so sure about that. I would argue that Winnick is a terrible writer -- among the absolute worst currently in the business.

I think his (seemingly growing) unpopularity isn't a backlash for using gay characters.

I think the fact that he uses them is the only reason anybody likes him at all.

I'd read a truckload of Daniel Way before picking up another Winnick book...

I have to second this thought. I dislike Winnick b/c he's writing terrible stuff now. And, I feel that he too frequently forces his political pets (including homosexuality) into stories, instead of letting them fall naturally. In Young Avengers, for instance, Wiccan and Hulking's sexuality came from within the story and works very well. Winnick just uses different techniques to "shock" the reader at this point.

[chrismozer]

Don't forget Maggie Sawyer from Superman. She was a lesbian. DUH!

[Richard Davidson, Jr.]

Originally Posted by chrismozer

Don't forget Maggie Sawyer from Superman. She was a lesbian. DUH!

I actually was a regular reader of the Superman books back when she came out but I have to admit to not remembering it. Also, it was hard figure out past the Northstar/Alpha Flight angle which gay and lesbian characters to focus on. I went with the ones that seemed to be the ones that most readers would identify with or remember.

[Richard Davidson, Jr.]

Originally Posted by Arsenal7

I have to second this thought. I dislike Winnick b/c he's writing terrible stuff now. And, I feel that he too frequently forces his political pets (including homosexuality) into stories, instead of letting them fall naturally. In Young Avengers, for instance, Wiccan and Hulking's sexuality came from within the story and works very well. Winnick just uses different techniques to "shock" the reader at this point.

I think that we actually agree on this matter. The inclusion of gay characters in Winick's books also seems to me to be kind of a political statement more times than not. If it is something that helps to expand the character to a more fully complete person, then it would feel much better. To have at least one gay or lesbian character in nearly every book he does (Green Lantern, Exiles, etc) just won't sit well with many people.

[Richard Davidson, Jr.]

Originally Posted by Ben Lehnsherr

Having a quite a few gay characters now and when I came up in high school (both of my best friends were homosexual), I've been known as a gay-friendly straight male. Some of my family despise me for it, but none-the-less, I've never seen them as a seperate group because of who they find attractive. I applaud when gay characters are introduced in stories in an organic way. You can tell when writers put a gay character in the wrong reasons, but a great example of it being organic is Wiccan and Hulkling from Young Avengers. Heinberg did a great job characterizing those two, and they're one of my favorite couples in comics, straight or gay.

To be honest and with a large ladle full of embarassment since YA was a book that I loved and read throughout it's initial run, I totally forgot about Wiccan and Hulkling. It is really fascinating to go back and reread the YA book again because there are just so many layers going on that you don't even notice until the reader takes a look at the written work as a whole instead of seperate issues. That is the mark of a very well written book.

[Doug Norris]

I just wanted to say something here.

Richard, I have been with cX since forever in some capacity, and in my time here, -this- is one of the best 'opinion' articles I have read printed here.

From the resident old fogey to you, sir, I give you Kudos.

[Richard Davidson, Jr.]

Originally Posted by Doug Norris

I just wanted to say something here.

Richard, I have been with cX since forever in some capacity, and in my time here, -this- is one of the best 'opinion' articles I have read printed here.

From the resident old fogey to you, sir, I give you Kudos.

And I am very grateful for these compliments. When it comes from someone who has been around the site for as long it sounds like you have, then I know that I've earned some very large accolades.

[Blade X]

Originally Posted by Ben Lehnsherr

I applaud when gay characters are introduced in stories in an organic way. You can tell when writers put a gay character in the wrong reasons, but a great example of it being organic is Wiccan and Hulkling from Young Avengers. Heinberg did a great job characterizing those two, and they're one of my favorite couples in comics, straight or gay.

I agree.

I also liked the way Byrne handled Northstar in ALPHA FLIGHT. While he might not have been allowed to out right have be stated that Northstar was gay, he did drop lots of hints throughout his run that he was gay. I also liked how PAD introduced Hector of the Pantheon (during his first HULK run).

FYI, Byrne was not stopped from having Northstar being openly gay, it was Bill Mantilo. IIRC, Mantilo wanted to have Northstar come out of the closet and get AIDS and have him (I think) die from it. Jim Shooter stopped him from completing that subplot (there was a few issues showing Northstar suffering from some kind of mysterious disease).

[Richard Davidson, Jr.]

Originally Posted by Blade X

FYI, Byrne was not stopped from having Northstar being openly gay, it was Bill Mantilo. IIRC, Mantilo wanted to have Northstar come out of the closet and get AIDS and have him (I think) die from it. Jim Shooter stopped him from completing that subplot (there was a few issues showing Northstar suffering from some kind of mysterious disease).

From the research that I did, it was Jim Shooter who held Byrne back from going full disclosure on Northstar during his initial run. This led to the hints of the character's sexual orientation instead of full disclosure. The Mantilo thing came later and helped to totally screw up the Northstar character because they wound up having to come up with a reimagining when the AIDS subplot didn't work out and they had to find a way to explain the illness.

[Blade X]

Originally Posted by Richard Davidson, Jr.

From the research that I did, it was Jim Shooter who held Byrne back from going full disclosure on Northstar during his initial run.

My bad, I meant to say that Shooter allowed Byrne to have Northstar be gay as long as he did it in a subtle manner. I guess reading those old issues of AF as an adult and easily seeing and understanding the obvious clues that Northstar was gay, has pretty much came across to me that he was openly gay. This just proves how much more creative when it comes to dealing with adult subject matter (like sex and sexuality) many of the old school creators like Byrnr are compared to many of today's "hot" writers.