In order to put the code's seal on a comic, publishers were discouraged from addressing LGBTQ issues, deeming them too inappropriate for young readers.
Forced to be gay sex comic code#
One of the biggest headaches for American publishers was something called the Comics Code Authority, created in the '50s. All sorts of European, Asian, and indie comic-book publishers depicted gay characters as early as the '60s and '70s. Though homosexuality in comics is not, strictly speaking, "new," the narrative has gotten a lot more honest and interesting over the years. "We saw a real-world development as a window of opportunity for fascinating stories - starting with the fact that not all the characters on Northstar's own X-Men team would approve of or recognize the validity of his union." "When gay marriage become legal in New York State, it raised a question: Wouldn't one of the characters in our universe - most of them New York-based - react to it?" says Axel Alonso, editor-in-chief of Marvel. In fact, that timeline has presented creators with something of a no-brainer. In other words, that this is a pretty critical moment. It certainly hasn't gone unnoticed among comic-book creators that twelve states have approved same-sex marriage legislation, with the most recent, Rhode Island, passing on May 2 or that four days later NBA center Jason Collins came out on the cover of Sports Illustrated or that in spite of all of this, New York is experiencing a rash of hate crimes targeting gays, including the fatal shooting of 32-yeard-old Mark Carson in Greenwich Village in May. It's not a coincidence that all of this is happening at a time when marriage equality is at the top of the national mind socially and politically. X-Men recently featured a gay marriage on its cover. Three months later, DC created a new, gay Green Lantern, Alan Scott, and introduced the transgendered Alysia Yeoh, in Batgirl #19. Even Archie Comics made a bold step forward last March with the same-sex marriage of Kevin Keller and his partner Clay on the cover of Life with Archie #16.
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Last May, Marvel's Astonishing X-Men #51 featured the same-sex marriage of Canadian superhero Northstar and his partner Kyle on its cover. In March, Batwoman proposed to her girlfriend, but she's not alone. We wanted to show her as a hero first."īatwoman is one of several progressive storylines that are changing comic books at the moment. "The fact that she was gay was just a part of who she was.
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"We knew that putting the bat symbol on a character was going to make a much stronger message than if we did it with some tertiary character," says DiDio, now co-publisher of DC. DiDio and Rucka re-launched her as a crime-fighting lesbian. In the '50s, she was created as a love interest for Batman to battle allegations of his own homosexuality.
Forced to be gay sex comic update#
In 2006, DC Comics' then-executive editor Dan DiDio and writer Greg Rucka wanted to update Batwoman. Gay characters have been in comics for decades, but it's been difficult to get someone like Spider-Man or Batman onboard. In just this past year, there have been two same-sex marriages on the covers of different big-brand comic books and the introduction of the first transgender comic-book character. From the neon spandex costumes to the over-muscled, over-breasted heroes in them, it's hard not to look at a group of comic-book superheroes and think: "Shit, someone's got to be gay."Īnd in fact, more and more superheroes are literally coming out of the closet, turning the comic-book industry, however surprisingly, into one of strongest advocates for gay rights and marriage equality.