Young Justice Dark Crisis

[Dataweaver]

I never said you were.

Fair enough; that's mainly been scourge and Saithor.

There are nuances to the issue of the lack of prominent queer men in comics that come from historic discrimination that are difficult to fix. Just making new characters isn't a solution if those characters don't stick around or gain prominence.
Maybe the awkwardness of adjusting to the change in the character is worth the positives of establishing fair diversity now. Otherwise, things would continue moving forward without that fair diversity that should've always been there.

I get that. Though with examples such as Batwoman, diversifying the heroes can be done by writing new heroes who are already diverse; I would contend that the tendency for them not to “stick” has less to do with them being diverse and more to do with them being poorly written. You mentioned Bunker earlier: the problem that Bunker faced was that Lobdell's Teen Titans in general were poorly received. Bunker was actually one of the better written of the group. But the overall quality was so bad that it weighed him down. If we were ever to get a YJ Volume 3, I wouldn't mind Bunker being on the team.

[scourge]

Tim's extreme grief over Conner's death sticks out for me as subtext for Tim's feelings.
I'd love to hear from writers who wanted to do more but were prevented - both with Tim and with other characters. Jericho was considered to be created gay but Perez and Wolfman didn't follow through because they thought he'd be too stereotypical, yet they failed to create non stereotypical gay characters. It's really frustrating. As a gay kid who grew up in the 80s without any gay role models, a gay Jericho would've changed my life. That's why representation matters. Everyone should see themselves reflected in the media, and people who aren't minorities should see diversity too, to foster a more accepting world.

That and how its pretty much always Conner Tim is thinking of when he's near death/in super dire situations. There's also similar arguments to be made about feelings for Bart. And while it's definitely not something I subscribe to now, there had been some arguments that could be made for Tim having had a crush on Dick Grayson before their more 'adopted brothers' relationship developed. And I don't see it as much as others but some have seen Tim having a similar fanboyish crush on Ted Kord back in the day.

And I agree entirely. Having gay role models growing up (for me it was late 80s, early 90s) would have been something that made life better. Instead all that was allowed was terrible stereotypes and "bury your gays" fodder. I and many others saw the subtext in characters they didn't let come out though and seeing them finally get to come out is pretty great. The fact that so many of the anti-LGBT crowd cry and scream when it happens causes immediate bristling. As is the fact that so many like the comicsgate crowd think we should only get LGBTQ+ rep on their terms and consider their opinions and comfort above all else.

[Dataweaver]

That and how its pretty much always Conner Tim is thinking of when he's near death/in super dire situations. There's also similar arguments to be made about feelings for Bart. And while it's definitely not something I subscribe to now, there had been some arguments that could be made for Tim having had a crush on Dick Grayson before their more 'adopted brothers' relationship developed. And I don't see it as much as others but some have seen Tim having a similar fanboyish crush on Ted Kord back in the day.

And I agree entirely. Having gay role models growing up (for me it was late 80s, early 90s) would have been something that made life better. Instead all that was allowed was terrible stereotypes and "bury your gays" fodder. I and many others saw the subtext in characters they didn't let come out though and seeing them finally get to come out is pretty great. The fact that so many of the anti-LGBT crowd cry and scream when it happens causes immediate bristling. As is the fact that so many like the comicsgate crowd think we should only get LGBTQ+ rep on their terms and consider their opinions and comfort above all else.

That's still not valid justification for lumping everyone who dislikes Tim's coming out in with them.

[Drako]

This became a thread about Tim Sexuality all of the sudden?

The thing about the "subtext" is that it really depends more of the person reading than anything. Johns already said that he based the depiction of Tim and Conner friendship of his TT run on himself and his brother. And he was the one who wrote Tim's grief after Kon's death.

Nowadays people swear that Starfire was created based on a black woman cause of Anna Diop on Titans, when George Perez already said multiply times that she was based on Red Sonja and his wife.

But i'm pretty sure other writers might have Tim being LGBT in mind while writing him. Judd Winnick, Tynion IV and Freddie E. Williams II comes to mind. I know Winnick and Tynion are part of the LGBT community, so they viewed as such but some other heterosexual writer probably didn't.

I have no problem with Tim Drake being bi, same thing with Jon.
I wouldn't like Conner to be changed tho, i'm still holding hope for Cassie and Kon together.

[Aahz]

Fitzmartin didn't write Tim for a long period and is also not a major Batman writer so why should her writing be accepted when it contradicts the past but the other writers shouldn't when they're a major part of Tim's history especially stuff like David's YJ vol., Cataclysm and War Games, Identity Crisis, John's Teen Titans, Red Robin, Lobdell.

There is a difference between what actually ends up in continuity (and is therefore also approved by the editors) and the headcanon of a writer.

Since that head canon is not really more valid than the head canon of any fan, unless that writer is the original creator, or an otherwise defining writer.

[Frontier]

This became a thread about Tim Sexuality all of the sudden?

The thing about the "subtext" is that it really depends more of the person reading than anything. Johns already said that he based the depiction of Tim and Conner friendship of his TT run on himself and his brother. And he was the one who wrote Tim's grief after Kon's death.

Nowadays people swear that Starfire was created based on a black woman cause of Anna Diop on Titans, when George Perez already said multiply times that she was based on Red Sonja and his wife.

But i'm pretty sure other writers might have Tim being LGBT in mind while writing him. Judd Winnick, Tynion IV and Freddie E. Williams II comes to mind. I know Winnick and Tynion are part of the LGBT community, so they viewed as such but some other heterosexual writer probably didn't.

I have no problem with Tim Drake being bi, same thing with Jon.
I wouldn't like Conner to be changed tho, i'm still holding hope for Cassie and Kon together.

To be honest I have less of an issue with him being Bi (not that I personally believe he was in love with Conner at all) so much as the execution, which just goes back to Fitzmartin's issues as a writer.

[Dataweaver]

To be honest I have less of an issue with him being Bi (not that I personally believe he was in love with Conner at all) so much as the execution, which just goes back to Fitzmartin's issues as a writer.

I do think that, whether or not we agree on whether making him bi was a good move in and of itself, we can all agree that the execution of it was terrible.

[Drako]

To be honest I have less of an issue with him being Bi (not that I personally believe he was in love with Conner at all) so much as the execution, which just goes back to Fitzmartin's issues as a writer.

Yeah, i'm pretty sure most people agree that the execution was pretty terrible and Tim didn't look any good by his actions with Steph.
Right now we know that the writer is just not good at all, so it was the inevitable conclusion.

[Dataweaver]

This became a thread about Tim Sexuality all of the sudden?

Yeah; it has become something of a thread derail; hasn't it? Congress from people drawing hard lines and refusing to accept that other viewpoints can also be valid.

Shall we get back to “Meghan Fitzmartin is a terrible writer”?

[Drako]

Yeah; it has become something of a thread derail; hasn't it? Congress from people drawing hard lines and refusing to accept that other viewpoints can also be valid.

Shall we get back to “Meghan Fitzmartin is a terrible writer”?

I mean, it's a valid discussion as long it's civil.
But i understand that people can be defensive on the topic cause it's surrounded by such vitriol by a stupid crowd on the internet.

[scourge]

To be honest I have less of an issue with him being Bi (not that I personally believe he was in love with Conner at all) so much as the execution, which just goes back to Fitzmartin's issues as a writer.

Oh the execution was definitely terrible. I almost would have forgiven it when finding out she essentially had to sneak in Tim coming out under editorial's noses to keep people from having anti-LGBTQ+ freakouts but the fact that her issues continued after she got the OK nixed that.

She seems like she's got an issue with going from point A to point G all while saying B-F happened off panel with a lot.

[witchboy]

Oh the execution was definitely terrible. I almost would have forgiven it when finding out she essentially had to sneak in Tim coming out under editorial's noses to keep people from having anti-LGBTQ+ freakouts but the fact that her issues continued after she got the OK nixed that.

She seems like she's got an issue with going from point A to point G all while saying B-F happened off panel with a lot.

I don’t want to defend her as there are a lot of problems, but possibly part of the problem is lack of space to tell the story, so important details like Tim and Steph breaking up happened off screen.
Terrible storytelling, but Tim had suffered from lack of care and page space for awhile.
But what’s done is done and he’s bi now. And now he always was, as that’s how it works.

[Dataweaver]

The best solution would have been to put a good writer on him, and get him more coverage that way. If there was a push at DC to make him bi, you could then have used his restored popularity to take time to do the coming out properly. As is, it comes across as the only reason for doing it being a cheap publicity stunt.

[scourge]

I don’t want to defend her as there are a lot of problems, but possibly part of the problem is lack of space to tell the story, so important details like Tim and Steph breaking up happened off screen.
Terrible storytelling, but Tim had suffered from lack of care and page space for awhile.
But what’s done is done and he’s bi now. And now he always was, as that’s how it works.

That is an issue, yeah. Tim (among so many other characters) not being given proper space. I have some issue with how she's used some of her space...like Tim's part in the Pride issue. Or that weird little mini-story fighting the magic elephant. Some of that space could have been used better.

And its the same in this YJ mini. She spends a lot of time on this fake dream world and this 'fight everybody!' thing as well as spending pages with Cissie and Cassie arguing over things that feel like bad social media retcons instead of better using the space.

[ducklord]

A) Nice job keeping things civil, everyone. I was getting worried for a moment, but kudos to everyone for maintaining their cool while expressing their opinions on an often-explosive topic. Apologies if that sounded insincere, but I mean it.

B) Now that we're back on the main topic of this thread ("boy, does this mini suck or what?"), I've got a question: This story has only a couple of issues left to wrap things up. In your mind, what is the best possible outcome of this story's remaining chapters? That is, what resolution to this story will cause the least amount of damage to the YJ characters going forward?