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

[Robanker]

You’ve asked this several times, so as a gay dude I want to respond so you can move forward with the conversation...
since the original character was written as straight, no issue presenting him as straight again if he’s presented in a new iteration like the “rebirth” GA Alan Scott.

I also see the nu52 Earth 2 Society as different than the true Golden Age JSA. The nu52 JSA was written with more diversity because the original JSA (who I do love and have collected) was written in a time that ONLY the straight white Christian hetero normative male stereotype was seen as marketable. Even Diana wasn’t allowed to play a significant role until the latter part of the All-Star Comics run. Different ethnicities and sexualities didn’t just come into existence with the modern age... they/we have always been there. We just weren’t represented (without some painful stereotypes) until later on.

All that said, keeping a “new” introduction of a GA JSA consistent with the original depictions doesn’t bug me. But if there are ways to diversify the GA lineup in ways that don’t contradict past history, it doesn’t hurt either (IMO). For instance..,Wildcat had a niece Yolanda Montez...was he maybe half Hispanic? If one of the characters never really had a significant love interest...does that really contradict coming out later in life? (especially in the 40’s/50’s?). IMO probably not. And given the painfully straight white sensibility of the original GA lineup I don’t begrudge a modern writer finding little inroads to diversity.

A half hispanic Wildcat sounds perfectly fine to me. Perhaps he downplayed it during his boxing days at the behest of his promoter and feels shame for doing so? That makes a lot of sense. A coworker of mine brought up Hawkman and it'd make sense that, if they wanted to reboot him again, he could reincarnate as a different ethnicity. It makes complete sense given the narrative and does diversify the line. If DC wants to have Kendra be a reincarnation of Shiera, who is now one cycle ahead of Carter and currently Egyptian or African American, it makes sense given the narrative. It's when you reboot someone like Wally and just use his name on a completely different character that fans get upset over.

There are numerous examples of adding ethnic backgrounds or exploring sexuality with established characters and they work fine. There's a nuanced approach and it requires a careful case-by-case basis. Otherwise, there's always the option to move forward. Personally, Terry Sloane never worked for me. I prefer Michael Holt in just about every way. The great thing about that is you can tell great stories with Terry in the past (as Geoff Johns did with JSA) and not upend the table of fans who prefer Terry. I can't speak for everyone, but I have always felt Michael Holt was a great legacy character with loads of potential yet untapped. Still do.

[Aahz]

For instance..,Wildcat had a niece Yolanda Montez...was he maybe half Hispanic?

He was her godfather not her uncle. The two were not related, he was iirc just a friend of her father.

If one of the characters never really had a significant love interest...does that really contradict coming out later in life? (especially in the 40’s/50’s?). IMO probably not.

I think you have to go for pretty obscure characters to find one who never had a significant love interest.

[astro@work]

I think you have to go for pretty obscure characters to find one who never had a significant love interest.

Golden Age Mr Terrific and Golden Age Dr. Midnite both come to mind.

[Aahz]

Golden Age Mr Terrific and Golden Age Dr. Midnite both come to mind.

Mr Terrific seemed to have had one named Wanda Willson and Dr. Midnite one named Myra Mason.

[Ascended]

I think you have to go for pretty obscure characters to find one who never had a significant love interest.

I think if you make allowances for the idea that the character was in the closet (which has a huge amount of precedence), it opens up more possibilities.

I'd say if a Golden Age character had a love interest *but* that love interest hasn't

* been a primary motivator for them in at least a few modern day stories (ie., since COIE)

* appeared on page more than a half dozen times a year since the COIE

* appeared in almost every original GA appearance, with a decent role that generated visible emotional reactions from the hero

then you could probably get away with saying that hero was in the closet. There's a difference between someone having a love interest people barely remember, and having a "Lois Lane." Jay Garrick had/has a Lois Lane, Doctor Mid-Nite did not.

You’ve asked this several times, so as a gay dude I want to respond so you can move forward with the conversation...
since the original character was written as straight, no issue presenting him as straight again if he’s presented in a new iteration like the “rebirth” GA Alan Scott.

You know, I feel sort of the same way; if they bring back classic Allan and he's straight, then okay. New52 Allan really didn't have anything in common with the classic version aside from a name anyway. But I really hope they don't undo the switch. Let the guy be gay. Maybe Allan wasn't the best option, given his history, for a "out of the closet" story but the New52 set the precedent here and I'd really like to see DC stick with it. I want to see history respected as much as the next fan, but I still maintain that this is entirely plausible if you just look at the character's modern history. And the older stuff.....most fans aren't going to dig that deep, or care about the discrepancy; you've gotta make allowances for stories that old yknow?

Of course, new legacies might still be the best option.

Would people raise a huge fuss is Ted Grant retired and Yolanda returned? Or if Beth Chapel took over for Mid-Nite again?

[Lightning Rider]

Yolanda would fit right into the current era IMO. Women in boxing and martial arts are getting a higher profile, Latinas in particular. Throw in his son Tom too who I always liked and you've got a solid Cat family.

[CaptCleghorn]

Certainly some cases of the JSAers had significant different gender love interests dictated they were straight (or at most, Bisexual). Flash, Dr. Fate, the Hawks, Starman and the original Black Canary all had romances play big parts in their lives. But the presence of a "girlfriend" who really played no major role except as someone who couldn't find out someone was a hero or as an occasional hostage was a Golden Age trope designed to make us think the character wasn't gay. Like Cindy Bear at Jellystone Park.

The "is Dr Midnite gay?" speculation has been going on for decades. Terry Sloan had the same sense of non-romance about him. The idea of one of smartest people on the planet being confused about their own sexuality is something that could play well in looking at that timeframe. I've often spoken of my love for a Molly Mayne trying to run Alan from being gay. A woman who knows Alan was gay and thought she could make him straight is a twist on their original relationship, but when we look at post-war beliefs and misconceptions, that also fits in.

Much of the Golden Age has been tweaked to make it fit into modern sensibilities. If we can accept a humanization of certain ethnic stereotypes and also accept a greater role for many woman characters, then accepting a Golder Ager as being a closeted gay person is just another example of that.

That being said, those are MY beliefs. If I am to be fair and expect you to accept my take and likings for my funny books, then I should accept your likes as well. If you like something else, that's cool. Just don't try to use evidence to prove it because that argument I will react to.

[MajorHoy]

Ah. No then. If a character is made gay, it would be very weird and would have ugly connotations if they were to make them straight after the fact.

The two things aren't equal. Gay characters were not allowed in comics when most beloved characters were created. Characters weren't created as heterosexual except as a default since all characters had to be heterosexual in those comics so it's a bit of a soft argument to say that characters were "intended to be heterosexual." There wasn't another option and certainly there wasn't the option of creating gay characters. For many years before that they all had to be white too. Both things are ugly things about our history that could be easily resolved with great in-story reasons as so many have suggested in this thread and others.

Nobody is gay and then not gay. That doesn't happen in real life or in any kind of fiction I'm aware of, unless it's pray-the-gay-away propaganda.

People are straight then gay because the incredible stigma that still exists against homosexuality (you can still get fired for being gay in a lot of states and there are not federal civil rights protections for LGBTQ) caused them to stay in the closet. In the 1940-80s, almost every single gay person was closeted. But there weren't less gay people, they were just in the closet. There is therefore a really obvious reason for a character we believed to be straight would come out as gay: the reason is it wasn't okay to be publicly gay before and it's still a brave thing for people to come out as gay in many communities.

What would be the reason behind making a gay character straight? Or is the question only intended to create a false equivalency?

So, are you then saying that if a character in 70+ years of stories is assumed to be straight, then a writer who wasn't even born when the character was first created decides to make that character gay in stories he writes, then that character will always have to be depicted as gay in any future stories by any other writers?

My whole point of asking this specific question is because there are people here that seem to feel that since New52's Earth 2 Alan Scott was gay, a returning (if/when that ever happens) Golden Age Original Alan Scott should now also be depicted as gay, something I do not feel is a necessary change for the original Golden Age version.(I wasn't necessarily thrilled with that for the New52 Earth 2 version, but since that was supposedly a different character, it didn't bother me as much as retroactively changing the original Golden Age one would have.)

[Ascended]

My whole point of asking this specific question is because there are people here that seem to feel that since New52's Earth 2 Alan Scott was gay, a returning (if/when that ever happens) Golden Age Original Alan Scott should now also be depicted as gay,

I know you weren't replying to anything I said but I'm gonna kick in anyway.

I wouldn't say every version of Allan from here on out *has* to be gay. But I do think it would be nice if the main continuity version carried that idea over from the New52. I don't think it *absolutely must* be done but I'd definitely appreciate it if it did. That sounds like a more interesting thing to do than "Allan has trouble with Todd again" or "Allan is the Elder Statesman of the DCU and dispenses wisdom again" stories. I like those stories but I've read them already.

But I don't consider it a retcon, I consider it adding a new layer, which is where I think our opinions diverge. Yeah, he was written as straight for decades. Plenty of gay people pretended to be straight for decades. Nothing is really contradicting anything here and despite being married Allan doesn't really have a "Lois Lane." I don't see him coming out of the closet as removing anything, but adding something. Granted, the "closeted gay man" story might've fit other JSA members better than Allan, but the New52 set the precedent and I'm happy to roll with that.

If DC doesn't make classic Allan gay, then I hope they pick the idea up somewhere and say one of the other JSA members was gay (one who's original stories leave more room for such a shift). I'd also welcome new legacies (like a new Red Bee or someone) who could be gay, but new characters struggle to survive so I think you need to supplement that by adjusting established characters here or there, where it makes sense and you can get away with it. I don't really like changing continuity but this is something where I feel the fiction has to take a backseat to the business realities a little bit, and the reality is new characters fail 99.999% of the time. So if diversity is to be achieved, some of that will have to come from established corners.

And if DC did keep Allan gay, but then had a straight Allan Scott in a tv show or movie or a Elseworld type alternate reality, that's cool too. Hell, I'm sure on Earth-whatever Kate Kane is straight too.

[jamgut]

I honestly don't recall, but were people upset with the sexual orientation change of two Silver Age Legionnaires -- Lightning Lass and Shrinking Violet?

[CaptCleghorn]

I honestly don't recall, but were people upset with the sexual orientation change of two Silver Age Legionnaires -- Lightning Lass and Shrinking Violet?

Lesbians are hot.

[Assam]

Lesbians are hot.

Besides this double standard being the reason there are far more female LGBT characters than males, Classic Salu and Ayla have basically been written as a couple since the mid-late 80's, being so blatant that I have to imagine the only people who couldn't see what was on the page were the ones who didn't want to.

Also, no one but us uber nerds really cares about the Legion.

[CaptCleghorn]

Besides this double standard being the reason there are far more female LGBT characters than males, Classic Salu and Ayla have basically been written as a couple since the mid-late 80's, being so blatant that I have to imagine the only people who couldn't see what was on the page were the ones who didn't want to.

Also, no one but us uber nerds really cares about the Legion.

There definitely is a double standard. And I hope my emoji made it clear I was joking, but traditionally attractive lesbians are more acceptable to people than gay men or a more "butch" lesbian.

And your uber-nerd observation is valid and true.

[The Darknight Detective]

There definitely is a double standard. And I hope my emoji made it clear I was joking, but traditionally attractive lesbians are more acceptable to people than gay men or a more "butch" lesbian.

As long as straight males are the vast majority of the comics readership, I doubt that will change within the books, either.

[BatfanReborn]

Make Captain Comet gay, Phantom Stranger and Martian Manhunter bisexual and Batwoman's legacy is already a lesbian. The link here is that these are the only 4 new characters created between the last appearance of the JSA and the first appearance of Barry Allen. The New Challengers (of the Unknown) looks pretty diverse, Legion of Super Heroes has a lot of scope for any representations, Supergirl and Adam Strange are straight as are Hal Jordan and Wally West but Lady Blackhawk has potential. That's all the characters DC created in the fifties and offers an opportunity to offer diversity in 7 out of 12 of them. Of the five who couldn't be changed: Barry has Iris, Adam Strange has Alannah, Hal has Carol and Wally loves Linda and I just think Supergirl would just be into boys though others may disagree.

Edit: Rip Hunter debuted just before Hal Jordan in 1959 too