The "retroactively making old DC characters gay/bi/biracial" thread

[Jim Kelly]

Don’t shoot me!

I think the itch Roy Thomas wanted to scratch was the itch to write about the characters he read as a little kid. So he wanted them to be faithful to those comics as much as possible.

Of course, a lot had been done with those characters and their world by the time Roy had the chance to use them, so he had to work within those parameters. But he spent a lot of time rearranging the furniture, so he didn’t always agree with the changes others had made and pushed to make the world fit his childhood experience.

There’s no question that original Alan Scott had a lot of affairs with women. And that’s the Alan that Roy wrote. If you stretch it you can say he’s bisexual, but never came out in the comics. However, bi people get a bad rap from both the straight and gay community and I’m not sure another self-denying bi character is what we need.

I mean, sure, all DC books are now in another reality and you can do some revisionist history to populate the past with kinder, gentler people. But it doesn’t scratch my itch to read about characters who are faithful to the original comics. Just because there’s a new continuity that shouldn’t have the effect of making all previous continuities off limits. That’s a recipe for polarizing the fanbase.

Now, there are plenty of vintage characters where it seems like they were possibly LGBTQ and you could have stories about them. I wish we could have that.

[Lee Stone]

Now, there are plenty of vintage characters where it seems like they were possibly LGBTQ and you could have stories about them. I wish we could have that.

I agree.
I've been reading Invisible Hood, one of Quality's first superheroes, and from what I've read so far, he could easily be revealed as gay or bi. Simply because he was rarely given any personal backstory at all. In the first few issues, he'd appear for a few panels, usually by himself, before discovering some new 'job for Invisible Hood'.
A lot of Golden Age characters, indeed, were one-dimensional like that with very little glimpse into their private lives, simply because most stories were six to eight pages long and the action had to start pretty quickly.

The main reason that I think the Firebrand theory was likely just mis-interpreted is because Roy was very faithful in his stories to allow the Golden Age tales to be read alongside All-Star Squadron. And Firebrand's story in Police Comics firmly established that he was in love with Joan and they had a Superman/Lois relationship where she never knew they were one and the same. And he had a non-costumed sidekick in Slugger who was more like Wildcat than Robin.
Of course, Roy could have been heading in the direction of Rod and Slugger becoming an item after the war, due to their close friendship, but everything in All-Star Squadron pre-dated his last appearance in Police Comics where he was still involved with Joan.
And, as I've mentioned in the other thread, Roy wasn't beyond making the characters hold the same thoughts and beliefs that were common back then, and Dannette could have just been suspicious because she personally thought if a man wasn't married and had a close male friend something was amiss.

[Bored at 3:00AM]

Iris west on tv is not bi-biracial and the actress is i read in the x-men forum awhile ago is not bi-biracial either.

Alright, my mistake. Would you have a problem with Iris West being bi-racial in the comics, though?

[Ra-El]

The vast majority of DC characters we read about today were created between 1939-1970s. Almost every major character was.

During that era, during all of it, it was not okay according to society to have a gay character in a comic book.

To me that means writer's intentions don't mean all that much. We see all these characters evolve in different ways over different eras.

The math would suggest that among ALL of DC's major heroes, some of them would be gay. In the 40s-70s though, that would never be put in a comic book. And IRL, most gay people in that 30 (or really more like 50) year long era were closeted. IRL it was the 1990s when most middle aged gay men first started coming out of the closet, when they were in their 40s or 50s.

It would make all the sense in the world to learn that not just one but several of the characters we've been reading about was gay and both (a) couldn't be gay in the comics because no one could and (b) was likely closeted like nearly all LGBTQ were then. And I don't mean something like the somewhat secret intension of Byrne/Northstar. I mean characters we know and love that are popular and have been portrayed as heterosexual in past iterations.

If any character were gay they would have been in the closet. It makes all the sense in the world, especially now that our society has finally caught up and largely overcome the bigotry against LGBTQ, that we should learn some of the characters we love have always been gay but were in the closet about it. This is practically the first year that a major character might feel comfortable stepping out of the closet. It is definitely the first decade - remember that Obama would have lost if he'd come out in favor of gay marriage in 2008--it was a thing that one could not do and be elected president, even to be okay with gay marriage only 10 years ago.

I think it depends a lot on the character. I mean, Wonder Woman coming out as bisexual makes a lot of sense, so almost anyone complained, but making Superman gay would go against one of the most iconic things about him, his love story with Lois. So basically, altering some aspect of a character should be done always carefully so it not contradicts and erase some of the core aspects of his mythos.

[Confuzzled]

I think it depends a lot on the character. I mean, Wonder Woman coming out as bisexual makes a lot of sense, so almost anyone complained, but making Superman gay would go against one of the most iconic things about him, his love story with Lois.

That's an apples to oranges comparison though. An apples to apples comparison would be considering scenarios where both characters are bi. Diana is bisexual so that alone doesn't even affect her relationship with Steve any. Clark being bi doesn't affect his relationship with Lois either (assuming Lois is secure enough to not care whether her man is interested in dudes as long as she knows he will always be faithful and committed to her). A character being bi and a character being gay introduce totally different dynamics to their relationships and story.

[Aahz]

What's your cut-off for revealing newer characters as gay? Obsidian is okay because he debuted in the 1980s, but not his father because he first appeared in the 1940s? What about Ray Terril, who was created in the early 1990s? I confess I was bored stupid by Orlando's JLA, so I never read enough to know if the newly gay-ified Ray was worth a damn.

I think it is not only about when the character was created but also about how much he was used since then.
There are probaly some characters from 40s you could retroactively change without that it would feel odd, since these characters just don't have enough story lines to be really defined at this point. On the other hand a quite new character, who got allready a lot of storylines might already be past this cut off.

When it comes to Allan Scott, I think you can't make him gay, if you wan't to bring back the classic version.

[Lee Stone]

I think it is not only about when the character was created but also about how much he was used since then.
There are probaly some characters from 40s you could retroactively change without that it would feel odd, since these characters just don't have enough story lines to be really defined at this point. On the other hand a quite new character, who got allready a lot of storylines might already be past this cut off.

When it comes to Allan Scott, I think you can't make him gay, if you wan't to bring back the classic version.

Plus, you have to take into consideration that comics is a somewhat unique medium that allows readers to see what the characters are thinking.
So reinstating past continuities while changing certain aspects of the character can be problematic if that character had appearances where readers could actually read his or her thoughts.
Unlike in tv, or even real life, where people aren't privy to thoughts.
In that case, it would be best to either chunk the past continuity and create a new version of the character or pick a character that had much less established history so it could be added to them in a way that would embellish them.

[Bored at 3:00AM]

Okay, I am becoming more convinced that perhaps Alan Scott might not be the best choice, particularly if Obsidian is coming back, but what other heroes would be more viable candidates for this kind of story, because I think the story of a gay Mystery Man in the 1940s sounds like it'd make for a potentially interesting story. The Invisible Hood sounds like a good one, and the name is certainly evocative enough

[SUPERECWFAN1]

I think with the return of the original Justice Society coming likely in 2019 , I'd say that the Alan Scott from it will return. The Earth 2 one hasn't been seen since what ...2015 ?

[Bored at 3:00AM]

Or would the Amazing Man approach be better? What would that look like? Street-level? Mystical? Sci-Fi? How would you justify nobody having heard about them before now, or would you just chalk it up to time shenanigans ala Triumph?

Actually, Triumph might be a good idea come to think about it. Maybe you could retcon the retcon and have him become a forgotten Golden Age character, too. That poor bastard just can't catch a break being stuck in a time loop at the dawn of various heroic ages, but doomed to be wiped from history again and again.

[Bored at 3:00AM]

I think with the return of the original Justice Society coming likely in 2019 , I'd say that the Alan Scott from it will return. The Earth 2 one hasn't been seen since what ...2015 ?

Yes, they were wiped out in the great "Convergence? What Convergence? Never heard of it!" purge of 2015

[SUPERECWFAN1]

Yes, they were wiped out in the great "Convergence? What Convergence? Never heard of it!" purge of 2015

Dear lord was Earth 2 a great concept that DC drove straight into crap with a terrible mini-series (World's End) and the destruction of that Earth. Then they got another Earth and well...I think it died a quick death within months.

[Lee Stone]

Well, something they could do...
Since Wonder Woman has been removed from the JSA, as far as we can assume based on DC's general stance on her history...
And they'd need someone to fill her shoes...

They could introduce Miss America or Fury as her stand-in, while simultaneously adding a new supporting character that handled the 'secretary' role. (This would kill two birds with one stone as Wonder Woman being referred to as 'the secretary' had sort of a sexist undertone, even if innocently unintentional.)
And the new supporting character could be anything they wanted her (or him) to be.

And as All-Star Squadron managed to squeeze over two years of issues between two issues of All-Star Comics (All-Star Squadron #6-30 were all set between All-Star Comics #11 and #12), and there were instances where some members only appeared once (Batman & Superman in All-Star Comics #36, Mister Terrific in All-Star Comics #24) or twice (Wildcat in All-Star Comics #24 and 27), there's plenty of possibilities where other members could have possibly joined and left between the Golden Age issues (such as Amazing Man, who had been met several JSA members during that two year block of All-Star Squadron issues between All-Star Comics #11 and #12).
This is made a further possibilty by the fact that All-Star Comics was bi-monthly, so there definitely could be room for many untold JSA stories set in the Golden Age.

[Lee Stone]

Dear lord was Earth 2 a great concept that DC drove straight into crap with a terrible mini-series (World's End) and the destruction of that Earth. Then they got another Earth and well...I think it died a quick death within months.

I remember loving the Huntress mini-series and liking Mister Terrific... and the direction they seemed to be heading with Earth-2 which was more like just a modernized version of the original. But... omg... did that train derail. It got to where they started trying to be different just for the sake of it and then it just kinda snowballed from there.

[Aahz]

I do think it will be interesting see how DC handles future appearances of Alan Scott. Would be a PR nightmare if they made him straight again

Would this really be such a nightmare?

Some comic news sides would probably act like that was big scandal, but do you really think that the readers would care?