The So-Called "Most Important" List
Ranker.com writer Eric Diaz has been taking criticism since posting his recent entry titled "The 10 Most Important Gay Moments in Comic Book History". Tom Spurgeon, Dirk Deppey, and Chris Mautner have all taken issue with the list's pretension, which fails to acknowledge any comics outside of DC and Marvel, and even then, restricts itself to the superhero genre. Diaz defends that
If I had written this article for a comic book centric website, then I would have said "Top Ten Gay Moments in SUPER HERO Comic Book History" But for a larger audience, "Comic Book" still means "Super Hero."...
This wasn't a list based on quality, otherwise the awful Rawhide Kid series or Alpha Flight's coming out issue wouldn't even be here. Those stories got headlines in the mainstream press. Stan Lee went on CNN to talk about their "gay cowboy" book. Rictor and Shatterstar were all over sites like Perez Hilton and similar ones.
Which is where he loses me. You could argue that the overtones between Batman and Robin caused a media frenzy when they were more prominent, but to argue that they're significant, or even mildly relevant to LGBT(QI) acceptance in comics simply can't be a honest statement. Doonesbury is a syndicated strip with an expansive readership, and exposed thousands of readers to heartfelt commentary in Andy's battle with AIDS, which, while we're discussing semantics, is much more of a "moment" than the haphazard pairings and character names that appear on the list. No one can blame Diaz for trying to expose his readers to these admittedly prominent, gay characters, but the article would've hugely benefited from additional, comprehensive research and more selective diction. What comics do you think would better fit the "Important Gay Moments" mantle?
Rubber Justice
Posted to Superheroes, editorial on 9 March 2010
· Comments (2)
Other stuff like this: Comics Reporter, gay characters, history, pomposity
To me, one of the most important "coming out" moments in comics occurred when the Pied Piper came out to the Flash (Wally West). Why important? Because the Piper did it in a matter-of-fact fashion, and popped an illusion about gays held by the Flash. As the dialog went (and as memory serves), the Flash was speculating about the Joker, of all people. Mentioning the bizarre costume and the facial appearance (white skin, green hair, bright red lips), Flash wondered if the Joker -- or other super-villains -- was gay. To which Piper replied, "Well, he probably isn't...but I am." One panel of semi-shocked reaction from Flash, then acceptance, and then no big deal. (Well, this *is* fiction, after all.)
And it ranks up there with the news that Obsidian was gay, too. That one was even more subtle: He just showed up one day (in the pages of the Manhunter comic) to pick up his boyfriend -- Manhunter's assistant in her day job -- and go out. The reaction by the other characters was "oh, how nice he's finally got a steady boyfriend." And Obsidian's now head of security for the JSA, and his dad, the original Green Lantern, is totally accepting.
Then there's Maggie Sawyer and Dan Turpin. Remember Maggie? Head of Metropolis' Special Crimes Unit? Turpin had a crush on her, and she gently rebuffed him while revealing she already had someone in her life...and that someone was another woman. And Turpin -- who back in World War II was "Brooklyn" from the Boy Commandos -- took it in stride; they even bonded closer at work after that.
All in all, it seems that DC handles its gay characters with a little class and quite a bit of non-chalance, while Marvel always seems to make a big media hoo-hah out of it. I prefer DC's approach.
For me, the big important "gay moments" in comics do include things like the Rawhide Kid but mainly because they made me more willing to look into superhero comics again. That there were gay comics and gay characters in comics wasn't exactly news by that point - Dykes To Watch Out For and For Better Or Worse leap to mind - and to assume that knowledge of superhero comics or comics in general in a day and age when a Batman movie can break box office records strikes me as being behind the cultural curve. The line between nerds and normals is a lot fuzzier in the age when everyone has an Xbox and everyone's seen V for Vendetta.
That said, I think his list does include a lot of important instances of characters being casually out and the ones who aren't casual about it are recognized as being mishandled. That might have been a better way to frame it, too: the 10 best out characters/couples whose stories aren't about that.