cornelia accumulator: Writing Nowadays?What DC and Marvel Did

Monday, July 2, 2012

Writing Nowadays?What DC and Marvel Did | Book View Cafe Blog

The media went BLIP! when Marvel Comics announced that Northstar, one of the X-Men, would marry his boyfriend in an upcoming issue. The media went BLIP! again when DC announced that Alan Scott, a Green Lantern, was being rebooted as gay.

Okay, look, let?s get one thing straight (so to speak)?this is not a big deal. This is nothing but two companies running to catch up. And isn?t that kinda cool?

Lemme explain. If you don?t read comics, you probably haven?t even heard of Northstar. He?s a speedster who can fly, and he recently joined the X-Men. He was actually revealed as a gay man in the 90s, and the whole thing made the cover of TIME magazine. You?ve likely heard of Green Lantern, but you probably didn?t know that there was a GL that predated Hal Jordan, the one who appeared in the movies. The original Green Lantern?s name was Alan Scott, and he?s the one DC chose as gay.

You may or may not have known that DC and Marvel already have a number of other gay and lesbian superheroes. Batwoman is enjoying a fair amount of popularity. Hulkling and Wiccan (worst super-hero names ever) are two teenage males in a relationship. DC?s Obsidian is another gay hero.

In other words, DC and Marvel made a big deal out of having two little-known heroes be gay, and so did the media.

But here?s the interesting thing.

DC and Marvel are the big guys in comics. They?re also the most conservative and careful. They ain?t known for their cutting-edge storytelling. Both companies lived for decades under the oppressive thumb of the Comics Code Authority, the comics version of the movie ratings board. Stores refused to carry comics that didn?t carry a CCA stamp of approval on the cover, which granted the CCA quite a lot of power in the comics world.

The CCA allowed enormous amounts of violence in comics, but not much in the way of relationships or real-life issues like drug addiction or child abuse. DC had to fight long and hard to get even a mention of herion in Green Lantern/Green Arrow in the 70s, for example. Cutting edge stories? Nah. Even after Alan Moore did THE WATCHMEN in the 80s and showed people what could be done in this art form, DC couldn?t quite follow up with more. Sure, there were a few interesting sparks along the way. The Teen Titans did a series about Apartheid. Frank Miller wrote Batman: Year One. But these were exceptions. They should have been the rule.

Eventually, DC and Marvel realized the comic stores?and the readers?didn?t care whether the Comics Code Authority had approved their work or not, and they found the stones to drown the Authority in a barrel of printer?s ink. Hooray! Except both companies found it hard to actually DO anything with their new-found freedom.

Look at how long it took them to do something like this, and how timid they were about it.

They revealed (or hyped ) Northstar and Green Lantern as gay. Well, so what? We?ve had same-sex couples smooching it up on prime time TV for a few years now. There?s a huge manga library with same-sex relationships in it. Although gay and lesbian characters are still extremely rare as lead characters, they often show up as supporting cast in Hollywood movies. DC and Marvel are way, way behind.

If they had done this twenty years ago, or even ten, I would have been impressed. If they had chosen Hal Jordan, the Green Lantern that more people are familiar with, I would have been impressed. If they had chosen a more famous character, like the Flash or Robin or the new Superboy, I would have been impressed. Maybe even called it cutting edge.

But this? It?s just running to catch up.

Here?s the cool thing, though. By the time something shows up in super-careful DC and Marvel, it means it?s socially acceptable nearly everywhere else. These two timid media companies show how far we?ve come?and how far we have left to go.

So we?ll take it as a win.

?Steven Harper Piziks

http://www.stevenpiziks.com/

The Doomsday Vault (a Clockwork Empire novel) available at bookstores everywhere.