As I have said, I read comics for most of the 1960's and all of the 2000's. There was NO WAY gays were going to be featured in comics in the '60's. Such topics were not discussed in polite society, so gay characters were not going to exist in comic books. Cops routinely harassed and arrested patrons of gay bars in major cities in those days. The Stonewall Riots were very late in the decade.
However, the 2000's are another story. But the number of gay characters is still somewhat minimal (even if you only believe that gays comprise five percent of the population): Northstar, Apollo and Midnighter, The Rawhide Kid (mostly done for the silliness factor), Hulkling and Wiccan, Batwoman and, recently, Rictor and Shatterstar, and a few others over the years, some of whom were retconned back to straight.
There are those in the industry who don't like the fact that once-straight characters are turned gay (as if that doesn't ever happen in real life). And there are even gay comics fans who have expressed their distaste for the fact that, when a character is gay, his or her sexuality becomes the dominant issue--that sexuality can even detract from the quality of the comic itself and the super heroics therein. (I don't get this argument at all but no matter.)
Certainly, the Comic's Code contributed to the lack of gay characters in comics for so many decades. But I was never much concerned with why there were no gay characters in comics.
There were none when I was growing up, so my response was to not have straight super-heroes in the Rainbow Arc of Fire. If we could be excluded from their mainstream, then I would exclude them from my mainstream. It was not so much revenge as fair play and balance. Oh, I could include a straight character as a villain (just as movies often portrayed a lesbian or gay man as the villain in a film).
The Rainbow Arc of Fire was my super-hero universe, just like DC and Marvel created their own super-hero universes decades ago. Just like they waited for years to include GLBT characters, I waited for years to introduce straight heroes into the Rainbow Arc of Fire universe.
Superheroes are typically positive role models. For a gay kid growing up, I suppose I had to take comfort in the notion that many superheroes had secret identities, just as I had my secret gay identity that I kept hidden from the world. The Legion of Super-heroes, my favorite teen team, was in the future. One would have anticipated that the LSH would not have to preclude the introduction of gay characters, but even Star Trek didn't much address these kinds of issues for years and years. Don't Ask; Don't Tell existed even for the Legion of the future. If a legionnaire were gay, we were not going to be told about it, not with the morays of the '60's guiding the production of comics, even about superhero teams in the distant future.
Next post: ethnicity, dating, kissing, and marriage in Rainbow Arc of Fire.
However, the 2000's are another story. But the number of gay characters is still somewhat minimal (even if you only believe that gays comprise five percent of the population): Northstar, Apollo and Midnighter, The Rawhide Kid (mostly done for the silliness factor), Hulkling and Wiccan, Batwoman and, recently, Rictor and Shatterstar, and a few others over the years, some of whom were retconned back to straight.
There are those in the industry who don't like the fact that once-straight characters are turned gay (as if that doesn't ever happen in real life). And there are even gay comics fans who have expressed their distaste for the fact that, when a character is gay, his or her sexuality becomes the dominant issue--that sexuality can even detract from the quality of the comic itself and the super heroics therein. (I don't get this argument at all but no matter.)
Certainly, the Comic's Code contributed to the lack of gay characters in comics for so many decades. But I was never much concerned with why there were no gay characters in comics.
There were none when I was growing up, so my response was to not have straight super-heroes in the Rainbow Arc of Fire. If we could be excluded from their mainstream, then I would exclude them from my mainstream. It was not so much revenge as fair play and balance. Oh, I could include a straight character as a villain (just as movies often portrayed a lesbian or gay man as the villain in a film).
The Rainbow Arc of Fire was my super-hero universe, just like DC and Marvel created their own super-hero universes decades ago. Just like they waited for years to include GLBT characters, I waited for years to introduce straight heroes into the Rainbow Arc of Fire universe.
Superheroes are typically positive role models. For a gay kid growing up, I suppose I had to take comfort in the notion that many superheroes had secret identities, just as I had my secret gay identity that I kept hidden from the world. The Legion of Super-heroes, my favorite teen team, was in the future. One would have anticipated that the LSH would not have to preclude the introduction of gay characters, but even Star Trek didn't much address these kinds of issues for years and years. Don't Ask; Don't Tell existed even for the Legion of the future. If a legionnaire were gay, we were not going to be told about it, not with the morays of the '60's guiding the production of comics, even about superhero teams in the distant future.
Next post: ethnicity, dating, kissing, and marriage in Rainbow Arc of Fire.
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