I think having more gay characters in comics is a good thing, sure, but making someone who was previously established as straight just so they could be made gay for the sake of being gay? Not so much.
Being a straight guy myself, I can't speak for those in the LBGT community, but I'd imagine that this sort of pandering doesn't sit well for them. Personally, I always found it annoying when a character was made black or another race for the sake of them being non-white, and I'm bi-racial myself. Characters should be able to stand on their own without their gender, sexuality, or race defining them to the nth degree. Obviously, for some characters those aspects are more important than others, but still.
Then again, this is essentially an entirely new continuity, so there you go.
If this is a character that hasn't appeared yet in the new 52 then I'm ok with it, otherwise I'm against it. That said I'd much prefer a well made new character, who despite what the big wigs may think will sell and become A-list or atleast B-list if written and marketed well.
The newer big names didn't magically appear as big name, they earned it. Do the same with someone new.
and that's the key. they don't seem to get that the right way would be a brand new character. by making it an existing one, they're bound to piss some people off.
Both them and marvel seem to be under the impression that new characters can't develop a following for some reason. So they try to shoe horn existing popular characters into every role possible.
Well, to be fair, this isn't a pre-existing character. Not really.
I think ultimately the problematic bit to all of this is that they're announcing it and leaving people to guess... of course it's going to come off like a shallow ploy for political correctness and increased readership by making it a guessing game. And of course it's going to irk fans who don't want characters seriously altered from their preboot counterparts.
To Marvel's credit, since the Ultimate Colossus shenanigans, I think they've been pretty smart about increasing their LGBT character pool without doing so at the expense of good storytelling. Wiccan, Hulkling, Daken and Victoria Hand have all been new characters, which is something at least. Rictor and Shatterstar came out, but they weren't exactly iconic characters and X-Factor had consistently solid writing so it didn't seem to piss many people off.
Them fixing Barbara Gordon's back sat less well with me than this, and that has been handled well so far. We'll see, I guess.
Yeah, it's the way that DC markets the idea that leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
Alan Scott would be a funny choice. Obsidian became one of DC's gay characters semi-recently I think (?) but I guess he's a ways off from becoming part of the DCnU.
Maybe it'll be Martian Manhunter. He's basically asexual as it stands now, right? Should be an easy fix.
Did any of you bitches read JL Dark? It was awesome. Constantine and his gang find...
[SPOILER - highlight to read]: The Lost Cube, which is a map to the 4 most powerful artifacts in existence. Not only does it contain these artifacts, but the BOOKS OF MAGIC and the supreme knowledge of everything.
Last edited by Senor Cage on May 24th, 2012 at 06:07 AM
Marvel should really look at DC and learn how to make a quality book. Outside of Daredevil and X-force, Marvel at best is mediocre. AvX is failing big time and as usual Wolverine has some of the most horrendous and intelligence insulting works of fiction ever.
Anyone read Aquaman. The first really big change by Johns happened in the latest issue in regards Arthur's past:
[SPOILER - highlight to read]: We find out that Black Manta inadvertantly caused Aquaman's father's death, so out of rage, Aquaman got revenge and murdered Manta's father.
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May 22nd, 2012 05:21 PM
