In Your Face Jam: Where Have All the LGBT Heroes Gone?

[Darth Phoenix]

Marvel has a few grate mutant color gays like Mystique and Anole as well.
With the latter it would be cool if he started voluntering at an OutYouth center for his own thing on the side or have him deal with guys who's type is visable mutants (like twinks, or bears) so he can show he wants to be seen as a person not an object.

[thecrimson]

The article mentions Ultimate Jessica Drew. I was not aware of this and could someone point out the issue in which this was revealed?

[legion_quest]

Tom Breevort was asked question about this on his Tumblr the other day, here is the question and his reply:

Q: "Hey Tom, Where are all the gay men at? Or just LGBT characters in general? I appreciate Marvel's efforts at diversity but as a gay man I feel under represented in all forms of media."

A: "I think that’s because you are underrepresented in all forms of media. But hopefully that’s changing as time marches on.

As I’m sure you are aware, there are an assortment of LGBT characters scattered throughout the Marvel Universe. Most of them tend to have grown out of team series, which I think gets to the heart of what you’re asking about. There is at present no Marvel solo series starring a LGBT character.

I think that has to do both with not having found the right character who could potentially hold their own series, combined with the additional pressure that any LGBT-led comic is going to face. Because you are underrepresented, each representation becomes more crucial, and more about the demographic as a whole than about a specific individual. And that’s a tough place to exist as a series. The sort of outcry that might follow if we treated such a character in the same way we treat Thor or Iron Man or Captain America is a daunting proposition—because an iron Man story or a Thor story can simply be about those characters, whereas the same story about a LGBT character is interpreted as a commentary on the LGBT community as a whole, positive or negative.

I think it’s only a matter of time before we get there. but I’d want to do so with a committed creative team who were invested in the material and who were prepared to deal with the sort of harassment that, for example, Rick Remender experienced when some people didn’t like his CAPTAIN AMERICA stories—only more so, and more regularly. And I think that if we foul it up, if the book isn’t as good as you’d want it to be, regardless of its orientation, that would do a whole lot more damage to the movement than the average title launch that doesn’t catch on.

So it’s maybe a bit of a cop-out, but that’s how I see it at the moment. We’ll get there, we just don’t yet have the MS MARVEL situation for a LGBT-led series, and I wouldn’t want to go out with anything we felt less confident in. We’ll continue to feature LGBT characters throughout the Marvel Universe in various titles, and hopefully the right opportunity will present itself sooner rather than later."


For me, the way to go forward would likely be to go for Wiccan/Hulkling or Ms America. Relatively new characters, with lots of story scope because they haven't been around much, no X baggage that'll get them drawn in to their cross overs or issues and pleanty of chances for other popular characters to appear as well. It'll never sell big numbers, but should sustain with some work and the right combination of artist/writer

[Ebon]

Rictor is Latino. What is with the craze as of late to lump in latino and Native Americans as white with so many people?

'Native American' is a race and I have no idea why or how anyone would mistake them for Caucasian except possibly through artists or colorists not bothering to make the distinction.
'Latino' or 'Hispanic' is an ethnicity at best, and usually just a cultural identity marker. It is not and never will be a 'race', no matter how badly people want it to be one; anyone of any race can be 'Latino' or 'Hispanic', and a vast number of those people are indeed 'white people'.

[Rene Narciso]

You know that only 3.5% of US adults consider themselves gay or bisexual. You'll find that Marvel has far more than that percentage of characters who identify themselves that way in the active superhero and supervillain community. And if you want more diverse characters, the answer is not to change existing characters. It's to create new ones.

This number is not realistic, because it's based on self-identification. If you got a reliable telepath doing the interviews, the number would be two or three times as high. Even in our liberal times, people are still hesitant to admit to not being straight.

Also, most superheroes are middle-class, white and urban. The number of self-confessed LGBT superheroes would be above the national average in any case.

he was introduced as a gay man. so yeah, he was out.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extra%C3%B1o.

Extrano was not quite openly gay.

DC would not let Steve Englehart use words like gay or queer. He also was forbidden to show Extrano hanging out with a boyfriend.

The way Steve used to show the readers that Extrano was gay was to make him as campy and as flamboyant as possible. And that he liked to watch baseball games, apparently to ogle the players. And a lot of other stereotypical stuff.

But for all we know Extrano was just a weird, effeminate guy that liked to dress colorfully, loved baseball, but was never involved with men or women.

And hint for hint, Northstar was also heavily hinted at being gay. In the first Alpha Flight storyline dealing with Northstar, we met the older male friend that was his "mentor" when he first came to the big city or something. It was implied to be his first boyfriend. That was more than Extrano got. And it was years earlier.

[bert]

If you want to talk about marginalized groups that would be the Oriental male. There are practically absent in the American media. In comic books they barely register.

Gail Simone written Ryan Choi was a pleasure to read.

[bert]

This is something that I noticed wasn't really touched on in the article, either; intersectionality. LGBT+ characters shouldn't all be default white. I know a lot of people throw around terms like "twofer minority," but that's ridiculous because there are LGBT+ people of color, and we should see that in the media.

I also think it's time for some non-binary characters in comics, as well.

they don't show up often (and haven't recently), but there were LGBT folks of color in DC's "Power Company" book, as well as in several of the Milestone Media books DC published (particularly in Blood Syndicate, which featured a gay black male (Fade), and a Transgender Black male (Masquerade)... and Donner/Blitzen are a Lesbian couple that are Russian/Asian.

[johnnyrocket]

My intent is not to shill for the publishers here... But this op ed comes out at a time when Catwoman comes out as bisexual, Alan Scott is gay, and gay characters are prominent in The Walking Dead. Just to name a few. Diversity in comics, especially at DC, is at an all time priority. The New 52 came out swinging with quite a few LGBT characters most of which fell to lagging sales. Batwoman was revolutionary on multiple levels and it could not sustain sales. It was smart, well written with amazing art. And even more impressive in the sense that her sexuality was just an aspect of her character, it wasn't front and center to the narrative. What I mean to say is she wasn't gay for the express reason of being titular or sensationalistic about it. So if we make her sexuality the focus of her reason to have a series then we'd be also forced to wonder if her lack of sales meant the LGBT community didn't fully support the comic. That's a can of worms. Then you have to ask yourself if Luke Cage doesn't have his own series because not enough African Americans come out in support of it. So, it's a double edged sword to call for such things for the sake of diversity alone. So maybe we just need to ask ourselves if the reason Northstar doesn't have his own series has nothing to do with his sexuality. Maybe it's just because a Northstar series won't sell. If so, then Marvel would do it. Now, are sales the only important thing in publishing and creativity, No. But these guys are in business and the numbers don't lie.

[Ravyn]

As an Avengers fan since the 1980s, I've always hoped to see a LGBT Avenger, for decades now - especially since they're such a big deal these days. Bring back Hercules and have him join the team. That would be fun.

I have wondered about the lack of LBGT representation at Marvel in team books at least. Why have Wiccan and Hulkling been seen in the multiple Avengers series lately? They could have easily been cast members of Hickman's giant Avengers team, but they were nowhere to be seen. Instead we got some random New Mutants characters. Miss America would have been fun there too.

At least we have Northstar in a X-Men book, so that's something.

[bert]

As an Avengers fan since the 1980s, I've always hoped to see a LGBT Avenger, for decades now - especially since they're such a big deal these days. Bring back Hercules and have him join the team. That would be fun.

Wasn't Triathalon gay?

could have sworn Busiek said he was at a panel I was at once.

(he was a hero of color too).

[Handsome men don't lose fights]

They did. A trans angel and lover of Angela, no less.

Which only makes sense because Angelic mythology describes them as hermaphroditic beings. "Male" and "female" angels in popular culture got it completely wrong.

[Rene Narciso]

Wasn't Triathalon gay?

could have sworn Busiek said he was at a panel I was at once.

(he was a hero of color too).

That was the original plan.

But Busiek backed away from the idea, because he thought Triathlon was over-burdened already by representing two minorities: blacks and scientologists.

[Teek]

The saddest part of this sad state of affairs is that Allan Heinberg and Jim Cheung did everything right with Young Avengers. A gay couple where being gay was just another part of their identity. Wiccan and Hulkling were great, and they were great together.

Marvel just refused to put that team in the spotlight. Marvel, for the first time in years, creates a team of characters that people actually like. NEW characters that people like. And what do they do with them? They bring them out once a year for an annual event crossover with the Runaways and then give them to Keron Gillian doing a Grant Morrison impression.

And yes, I am more outraged over the mishandling of the Young Avengers than I am about LGBT representation in comics. Such a wasted opportunity that would have made everything better for everyone.

[Spider-Chan]

I love when people throw statistics of "only x% of the population is lgbt blablabla is unrealistic to have more than x blablabla".

If is unrealism what bothers you I have no idea why are you reading superhero comics.

[Moose100]

I love when people throw statistics of "only x% of the population is lgbt blablabla is unrealistic to have more than x blablabla".

If is unrealism what bothers you I have no idea why are you reading superhero comics.

Exactly.