My personal feelings are
1. Excited:
DC FINALLY realized what Marvel realized years ago (and I don't just mean Northstar, also, Richter, Shatterstar, Union Jack, and Destroyer). If you can change everything else about a character, origin, personality, age, etc, you can change the sexuality. I think this will be interesting, and IMHO DC desperately needed a Queer male character not created just to be the token Queer.
2. Disappointed
My understanding is that Editor In Chief Jack-Ass specifically said that sexual orientation would not change with the reboot, so if that's true, this is clearly an editorial change related to angry mobs and not enlightened thought. So you know, that's a bit of a disappointment, but at least they realized they were in error, which is good.
3. Interested.
I think Alan Scott is a good choice. As a comic fan, I approve, even if it's probably killed my dad. He's got this Granddad Super Hero feel to him. Granted, I also don't keep up new DCU, so I'm basing this off al Chrsitmas Special in which he's awesome and everyone looks up to him so IMHO a character everyone looks up to is a good choice.
4. Let Down
The press release made it sound like the character who would be gay would have the "well known" caliber of one of the major players. They made it sound like the character would be one of the ones who - if I said "This character is now gay" -people in my office would have at least heard of the character. Nobody knows Alan Scott. I've asked (and now people think I'm crazy. But yes, I've been asking if people know who Alan Scott is in comics. So far we're 23 no to 0 yes). So, I don't how much this change will matter outside of Comic Book Fans. That's not to say it's not important, but it's not of the importance that DC hyped it to be. I think people calling DC out on this are 100% in the right. They said iconic, but they sorta hedged their bets by choosing someone iconic only DC comic fans, not to the public at large.
Then again, DC over hyped something. And summer is hot in Texas.
5.Petty
I think Marvel has consistently made better strides in this area, but people are acting like DC is doing something that hasn't been done since Northstar, But in reality Marvel has done this at least four other times in the last decade. So it's not quite the novel idea the press thinks it is. But hey, good job DC PR for re-wrinting history in your favor -_
6. Cynical
Oh look, another white male homosexual in the media. Because we lack those.
Maybe Marvel will make me happy and realize bisexual, transsexual, and/or asexual exist. That would make me happy.
7. Hopeful
Hopefully this makes spurs Marvel and DC into realizing that you can have a Queer character and it need not be the be all sum of their personality, and that you know, Diversity is good. Maybe of we're REALLY lucky, this will spread to Hollywood.
In conclusion, I feel the need to re-post this commission:
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ani_bester- Ani Bester
- Galactic Dust Bunnies
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Finding out they replaced one gay character with another sorta gives me pause though. I'm never in favor of minority replacements like that. I guess because it makes it feel like there's a minority quota they have a need to fill but don't want to risk going over, if that makes sense ^^. So I'm always uncomfortable with that, no matter what the case. But at least they did something and dind't just loose the minority representation all together.
Now, I did not know, at all, he'd been rebooted younger and that he was in another universe
Younger bugs me to no end and I have made many rants against DC, Star Trek and other franchises for this move (interesting to me that in the face of this younger=better trend, Marvel actually made some of their characters OLDER in movies, notably Bucky, Hawkeye, and Stark. Maybe that's part of why I make mine Marvel XD)
The Alternate universe really kills me though, but wiki tells me it's not new, I just don't know my DC, which I suppose is true ^^. But a lot of why I thought he was such a good choice was that he was a legacy character to other younger Supers, who looked up to him. That wouldn't be as much the case I suppose any more, would it. I don't know. All my DC is decades out of date ^^ I hope I'm wrong!
AH!! Why is DC so confusing >.>
...
No, no, don't look for it. I'm good here. >:3
My dad just gave me a re-print of his first story. I think I was snorting milk up my nose I was laughing so hard. Ohh it's such Golden Age spectacular wonderfulness XD (Some publisher managed to reprint Golden Age origins of several people Torch, Cap, Green Lantern, Superman, etc, all in one book. I assume he had compromising picture of many editors or something).
Oh, man. Golden Age stuff is so silly. In the best way. The origins make no sense! The villains make no sense! Basically, nothing makes sense, and that is why I love them. :3
But, alas, they dropped the ball. :P
I don't want to say dropped the ball, but I think there were better choices that could have been made, and more important choices. And it's why on the one hadn I think it's good, on the other hand, I feel like I got a runner up prize here.
I think though, their hype may have killed it. If they'd just done this, the way marvel handled Rictor and Shatterstar, I think the impact would have been great.
But saying it would be an iconic character with huge impact on teh DCU and then having it be someone NOT iconic outside of comics (I mean he is iconic IMHO, just not in the public eye, kinda liek Caravagio is iconic, put more peole know Da Vinci, if that makes sense) and not even mainly in the primary DC Universe... I think that their own PR hurt them.
I would rally, really love for someone to make a character bisexual. I mean, sexuality is not heteronormative! Excellent! But it's also not black or white, and that's kind of what we're getting. Devin Grayson has said in interviews that she sees Dick Grayson as bisexual and always wrote him as such. I've pretty much read Nightwing as bi from the start of my comics existence, and I know a lot of people who do the same. Why not just proceed with that? Make it something that's natural, not just... retconning someone.
tl;dr: sigh. In the end, I'm less surprised than I should be, but no less disappointed.
http://www.rzero.com/books/gaysuper
There are even some bisexual characters on the list:
Starman
Shrinking Violet
Lightning Lass (who, when I was a kid, was called Light Lass because she had, no kidding, super-weight-reduction powers)
Element Lad
Anima (from New Titans)
Lt. Marissa Rahm, who I never heard of before but who sounds like a great character, was a MtF trans cop.
I should add that this list omits superheroes from anime and manga. So--just as a for instance--Haruka/Sailor Uranus and Michiru/Sailor Neptune, a lesbian couple**, aren't on the list. Fortunately, they are on THIS list, which seems more comprehensive:
http://top-topics.thefullwiki.org/LGBT_
I wish that DC would just have Bruce Wayne come out of the closet already. The man is either gay or bi, and the whole world knows it. (And I can remember some Silver Age Batman comics in which Batman was genuinely distressed at the thought of college-age Dick Grayson preferring to go on patrol then-Batgirl Barbara Gordon rather than himself. When a ten-year-old's reaction is, "Jeez, he's really jealous that Robin's dating someone else!", it is time to admit the facts.)
**Who didn't become one bit less of a couple when the dub proclaimed them to be cousins. I don't think ANYONE was fooled.