Gay comic character in DC's New 52
Ok just heard that DC Comics, said this weekend that one of their most identifiable (but as of yet unnamed) straight characters will soon be coming out of the closet, according to a report
So who do you think it will be? I think Aquaman cause than who would care
So who do you think it will be? I think Aquaman cause than who would care
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It's not that a character will be coming out. DC is planning on introducing a homosexual character, this could be a charcter who has not yet been reintroduced in the New 52 or it could be a brand new hero, but it wont be any of the top-tier heroes. It will not be anyone 'popular' unless they become popular after this, because all the 'popular' characters have already been reintroduced in their new form.
It's not even really news. They said over a year ago that there would be at least one homosexual character in the New 52 universe. The news is that one of the execs recently said that it might be a character who we already know from the pre-New 52 story-world, when previously they said that it would not be. (Which they probably only said in order to avoid headlines like "Could Superman be gay!?")
The list of characters who have yet to be rebooted includes names like The Jive and Hawklady, it might be one of these minor characters.
Seriously though, this is just a sad publicity stunt. It's been done, it had more bite 20 years ago. If DC really wanted to do it with some artistic integrity they would not tease it, they would just allow a writer to take a character and explore the issues.
http://www.toplessrobot.com/2011/09/dc_sees_marvels_half-black_half-latino_spider-man.php
In many superhero comics romantic relationships are superfluous. In some rare cases like Spider Man, it enhances the story, but in many, it's just there for window dressing. How does a writer make it organic to the story, how does a writer take an "iconic" character that everyone has made assumptions about and just inject homosexuality as something to differentiate him/her? If a writer can do that, great, go for it, I hope it's beautiful, but if it's just a way to create excitement for sales of an issue (which it likely will be), then I'm not sure anyone, including our friends in the gay community should be that excited. It just seems like a form of exploitation to me.
So going by your understanding Fox and other News got it wrong, but they could have got it right and you got it wrong.
The fact is that the players involved at DC have stated "it will be a character who we have not yet seen in the New 52". You would have to ignore that official statement all together to even consider Superman or Batman as an option because both have already been seen in the New 52 as straight characters.
It's like Fox's headline when Prime was on "Will taxpayers money fund Call of Duty?" We know the answer to this is No because the taxpayer money in question was for educational games and not for big publishers.
Now we have the headline "Is Superman gay?" while we already know the answer is No because he has already started his New 52 storyline.
Remember the pile of shit that Prime was up against? That would be a proper representation of the writer of that article in this case. Maybe that is why he/she didn't even put a pen name on it.
They do it simply to grab people's attention regardless of what the story is actually about.
Its a neat step. I think if they revolve the comic around nothing but that, of course it'd suck. But if they do what they did wih the Ultimate Spiderman Reboot, then shit, I'm ok with the Justice League being multicultural.
I could get off on a major tangent here (which makes me realize Icrontic really needs a comics discussion board), but what I was going to say is that there is no bigger enemy to the comics business than the old school notion of required universe continuity. It over complicates the product for casual readers, it makes it impossible for the less hardcore to follow, it's just plain bad for their business. Books should be self contained, arcs should begin and end in a number of issues, or maybe a year tops. The idea of this elaborate new 52 re launch looks like its designed to simplify things at first, like big events, such as Crisis and Zero Hour were designed to do, reboot, wipe the slate clean for some characters, a chance to correct a few writing missteps, but ultimately it will end up a complete garbled mess again.
If I owned a company like DC, I'd do the mother of all reboots, I'd destroy all continuity, tell the writers they own their stories and get out of the way.