Gays in Comics

DC announced that a Allan Scott, the Green Lantern from an alternate Earth is gay.

So far DC has had a black Green Lantern, a Hispanic one, a few women, and various humanoid and non-humanoid aliens. Why not a gay Green Lantern?

At least they didn't decide to mess with Hal Jordan again.

Having a gay comic book character isn't really news. Captain America had a gay friend in the 1980s.

The first openly gay superhero was Northstar, a member of Alpha Flight although they danced around the issue for a long time. At first they dropped some fairly broad hints - he didn't like women. Later he came down with an acquired immune deficiency syndrome although no one used the acronym (AIDS). Northstar is going to be the first gay superhero to get married this month.

Cat woman was probably the first openly gay lesbian but Wonder Woman and her supporting cast dropped a lot of strong hints in the 1940s including swearing by Saphos, the Greek poet from the Isle of Lesbos (which is where we get the word Lesbian). But, Wonder Woman's sexuality in the 1940s was pretty racy, even by 21st century standards.

Archie made the news recently with the introduction of a new gay character. It would have been more interesting to have had an existing character come out - say Moose.

Considering how often DC reboots their continuity, this is really a meaningless gesture. Not long ago Allan Scott was older and had a gay son. Now it is Allan himself who is gay. Next year he could be older again and it is his granddaughter who is gay.

I cut way back on the Marvel characters I follow but I stopped caring about DC completely a long time ago. None of the characters I grew up with exist any longer. They have been written out of existence multiple times. Why get attached to a character if he will be rebooted later with a different personality?