Topic: Funnybooks (Read 170042 times)

Mongrel · « **Reply #1900 on:** May 21, 2012, 08:55:23 AM »

You gotta admit that the've always struggled to build her numbers and that few of her relationships have ever been very meaningful to the character. I can see DC doing it just to redefine the character in the hopes of finally driving readership numbers for her.

There's also the argument that states that if the writers have been ambiguously hinting a character is gay or bi for decades, then it's just as big a disservice to keep playing coy about it.

Who would the next "strongest" female DC character be anyway if you discount WW?

Büge · « **Reply #1901 on:** May 21, 2012, 09:54:48 AM »

Batwoman.

Thad · « **Reply #1902 on:** May 21, 2012, 10:32:37 AM »

Quote from: Büge on May 21, 2012, 08:34:52 AM

Are you joking? That'll stir some serious backlash. It'd be logical from an in-universe perspective, but outing their most prominent female character would send the message that a female character can't be strong without also being gay.

I'll grant I'm generally pretty broad in my use of the word "fans", but in this case I specifically meant people who buy comics in specialty shops, not Gloria Steinem. (I only pick Ms. Steinem because she was a vocal critic of the 1970's mod era of the book; I don't actually have any reason to believe she'd have a problem with Wonder Woman being gay, particularly if she's aware of the character's genesis.)

The message isn't "A female character can't be strong without also being gay", the message is "There have been lesbian and bondage undercurrents to Wonder Woman's character for 70 years and it's time to acknowledge them overtly."

This isn't like Batman and Robin, either, where any homoerotic undertones can be dismissed as fans' (and critics') projections and not what the creators intended. William Moulton Marston clearly and unambiguously intended bondage/femdom/bisexual themes in Wonder Woman, from the very beginning; that's not up for debate (though I'm sure Fox News et al would happily pretend it was).

That said: you're not wrong; I can definitely see a hue and cry from people who aren't familiar with Wonder Woman's history (or are but argue that the past 65 years are more pertinent to who the character is than the Marston years) and who aren't anti-gay but nonetheless feel this is a betrayal of the character, or pandering, or a publicity stunt, or what-have-you.

And I'm certainly not saying that it ISN'T pandering or a publicity stunt. I'm just saying that, if it IS Wonder Woman, it's absolutely consistent with the character's history, the creator's intent, and it's about damn time.

And it might not be her, it might be somebody else. Like I said, I think Tim Drake would be a great call -- though they might not want to risk the "ick" factor of the inevitable "Robin is gay" -> "Batman is a pederast" false equivalency.

Then again, Tim's not currently Robin, so that would probably help with some of the inevitable confusion from the mainstream audience of people who know who Robin is but don't know the difference between Dick, Jason, Tim, and Damian.

Büge · « **Reply #1903 on:** May 21, 2012, 10:59:52 AM »

Quote from: Thad on May 21, 2012, 10:32:37 AM

And I'm certainly not saying that it ISN'T pandering or a publicity stunt. I'm just saying that, if it IS Wonder Woman, it's absolutely consistent with the character's history, the creator's intent, and it's about damn time.

Oh, I agree. But it'd be a political and public relations minefield.

I read speculation that it might be a Green Lantern or a Flash, but not The Green Lantern or The Flash. That way they can claim the character (or to be more specific, the brand) is prominent to satisfy groups that wanted to see this, while not upsetting the groups that were afraid their beloved flagship characters were going to come out.

Thad · « **Reply #1904 on:** May 21, 2012, 11:26:00 AM »

Flash seems unlikely; Wally's completely absent from the New 52 and indeed DiDio seems pretty big on the whole "Only one of each character (except Green Lantern)" edict. (Which is why Dick is no longer Batman, more's the pity.)

As for GL, I haven't read it in years but I'm guessing that John, Guy, and Kyle all still exist (not sure about Alan). Given that all three of them are pretty inextricably linked to past female love interests, Johns is HUGE on continuity wank, and GL is the single book that has been LEAST affected by the reboot, it's hard to figure any of them will turn out to be gay (maybe bi but DiDio explicitly said "gay"). Of the three I'd guess Guy, except I don't see how he could come out without it being played for laughs and I don't think that's what they want to go for here.

Course, if it's Kyle and they retcon out the whole fridge thing then that would be two birds with one stone.

EDIT: Oh hey, they just reintroduced Earth-2, didn't they. So yeah, it could be the parallel-universe version of pretty much anyone.

EDIT 2: Johnston, who was there, claims that DiDio specifically said it would be a character just now being introduced to the New 52 -- which, if true, rules out Diana, Tim, and Harley, to name a few obvious guesses.

Zaratustra · « **Reply #1905 on:** May 21, 2012, 12:55:58 PM »

how can you care about this

please

tell me your secret

Thad · « **Reply #1906 on:** May 21, 2012, 01:16:03 PM »

"Care" is a pretty strong word. Idle speculation makes for an amusing distraction, is all.

Bal · « **Reply #1907 on:** May 21, 2012, 02:35:43 PM »

Wonder Woman let slip that she was at least bi-sexual (having engaged in relations with some of the women of her home island) years ago. It was a pretty casual thing though.

Royal☭ · « **Reply #1908 on:** May 21, 2012, 02:39:35 PM »

Quote from: Thad on May 21, 2012, 11:26:00 AM

EDIT 2: Johnston, who was there, claims that DiDio specifically said it would be a character just now being introduced to the New 52 -- which, if true, rules out Diana, Tim, and Harley, to name a few obvious guesses.

Come on, gay Anti-Monitor.

Rico · « **Reply #1909 on:** May 21, 2012, 03:10:54 PM »

Larfleeze is kind of by definition greedy for cocks

Lottel · « **Reply #1910 on:** May 22, 2012, 03:26:19 AM »

They ARE reintroducing Ted Kord, remember.

Thad · « **Reply #1911 on:** May 22, 2012, 09:24:41 PM »

Really? Huh. That could totally work.

Dunno that he's likelier than Wally Flash (now that they're tipping that it's a "popular, iconic" character who hasn't been introduced in the New 52 yet), but...one of the draws of the Tim idea was the possibility that they WOULDN'T go all slashfic and hook him up with Superboy, but just have two male best friends, one gay and one straight, and who the hell cares because it doesn't matter if your friend is gay or not.

Which of course would be exactly what we'd have with a Booster/Beetle friendship if Ted's the guy.

Rico · « **Reply #1912 on:** May 22, 2012, 09:39:52 PM »

Until Booster fakes being gay for the publicity.

Thad · « **Reply #1913 on:** May 23, 2012, 07:53:43 AM »

I haven't been paying attention; is New 52 Booster still just pretending to be an ass, or is he back to actually being an ass?

Thad · « **Reply #1914 on:** May 23, 2012, 08:34:48 AM »

Per the "Why should we give a fuck?" question, Bleeding Cool has the guy who asked DiDio about gay characters in the first place.

Quote

My name is Joe Glass, a lifelong fan of comics, a big gay man, and new writer of comics too, including LGBT superhero series, The Pride. And I asked that question.

The ‘why’? Simple…for nearly a whole year now, Dan Didio’s comment kind of stuck in my craw a bit. I understood them, and respected that it intimated a desire to add new LGBT characters, a group that is still sorely lacking within comics, despite what some commenter’s may think.

But it was the ‘rather than [change an existing] character’ bit that really bugged me.

I mean, what? They changed Superman, Flash, Apollo and Midnighter from being married to single and/or dating. They changed Barbara Gordon from being a disabled, non-violent hero to a fully bodily-abled violent one again. They resurrected, vanished, killed, changed ethnicities, made skinny, gave out new dads, and changed almost any other aspect of a character as part of the re-invigoration process of the New 52, but for some reason they couldn’t or wouldn’t change a character from straight to gay?

Why not? Why was THAT the line they dare not cross? I know it’s a fairly small thing, and maybe as a gay comics reader I should just be happy to take what I was getting, but I couldn’t help but feel that there was an unintentional implication there.

[...]

And so, at Kapow, with DiDio present, I saw my chance to finally get it off my chest and ask him personally what he meant and why. I honestly didn’t expect much of an answer, or if he’d even remember the interview. I even expected to get groans from the crowd for some reason. Instead, I got an answer back that made me feel genuinely happy. Seriously, no one in that hall was clapping louder than I was, and I laud DiDio and DC for this.

And clearly I’m not alone in that respect: I was approached by a number of convention goers after that panel and the subsequent Marvel panel (where I asked another LGBTQ related question), all congratulating me on an excellent question, saying it was great to see a comic big wig answer to their previous comments, and even got thanked by one young man who told me his cousin was gay and has a hard time of it, and it was great that I ‘took a stand’. Honestly, I was completely taken aback by the amount of attention I was getting, let alone DC’s answer. It was quite amazing.

So, y'know. On the one hand, yeah, I think the Big Two's (and Archie's) introduction of a more diverse lineup does, unfortunately, often come across as cynical pandering. But it's the end result that's important. I was pretty uneasy about Batwoman at first but she's turned out to be a great character in a great book. As for racial and gender representation, well, Ted Kord's death was still stupid but I love Jaime; John and Shayera were clearly included on JL precisely because of their race and gender respectively, but they turned out to be a damn sight more interesting than Kyle and Carter would have. Samuel L Jackson is now the definitive Nick Fury.

So it's easy to see it as just another cynical marketing effort -- I won't disagree with that characterization. But if it makes people feel like they're being included instead of being shunned, then that's awesome.

Related: Bill Rosemann and Nelson Ribeiro help a hearing-impaired 4-year-old feel good about his hearing aid.

EDIT: More. You know, amid all my cynicism and griping about Marvel as a corporate entity, it's easy to forget that there really are some wonderful people there who really DO just want, more than anything, to give kids something to aspire to.

Thad · « **Reply #1915 on:** May 24, 2012, 11:08:43 AM »

CA places bets; it's a Sims article but is actually mostly (if you'll pardon the expression) played straight.

Büge · « **Reply #1916 on:** May 24, 2012, 01:55:24 PM »

Here's something nice: Jack Kirby getting recognized in the Badass Hall of Fame.

Royal☭ · « **Reply #1917 on:** May 24, 2012, 06:35:33 PM »

Rising to take his place among such badass luminaries as Sherlock Holmes, Abbie Hoffman and Judy Blume.

Thad · « **Reply #1918 on:** May 25, 2012, 12:25:37 PM »

TA · « **Reply #1919 on:** May 30, 2012, 03:49:58 PM »

Quote from: Büge on May 21, 2012, 10:59:52 AM

Quote from: Thad on May 21, 2012, 10:32:37 AM
And I'm certainly not saying that it ISN'T pandering or a publicity stunt. I'm just saying that, if it IS Wonder Woman, it's absolutely consistent with the character's history, the creator's intent, and it's about damn time.

Oh, I agree. But it'd be a political and public relations minefield.

I read speculation that it might be a Green Lantern or a Flash, but not The Green Lantern or The Flash. That way they can claim the character (or to be more specific, the brand) is prominent to satisfy groups that wanted to see this, while not upsetting the groups that were afraid their beloved flagship characters were going to come out.

Such speculation is [spoiler]entirely correct[/spoiler], as the correct answer turns out to be [spoiler]Alan Scott[/spoiler].

You know, this guy.

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Author Topic: Funnybooks (Read 170042 times)