A few weeks ago, DC Comics announced that a major character was going to be reintroduced as gay. So comic fans speculated which major character it was going to be. I thought it should be Captain Marvel because he didn’t really have any serious romantic entanglements in the previous continuity (ignoring for a second that he’s really a pre-teen but that might have made it more awesome and influential).
It was revealed this week that the now gay character is Alan Scott. If you just said, “who?”, I rest my case. Scott is DC’s original Green Lantern (before they came up with the Guardians, Oa and the entire mythology that spawned Hal Jordan) and was a member of Justice Society of America. This is HARDLY a major character. Adding insult to injury, Scott is going to be in Earth-2 so he’s not even in the current continuity that the average person is aware of. Why couldn’t it have been Martian Manhunter, one of the Robins or one of the more recognizable Green Lanterns like Kyle Rayner or John Stewart? It’s great that DC is adding a LGBT character but given the fanfare, I wanted more. This was just too safe.
DC Comics already has gay characters – Batwoman/Kate Kane, Renee Montoya/The Question, Obsidian (coincidentally Alan Scott’s son from the previous continuity) – so one more shouldn’t be a big deal (actually they could use a few more). DC Comics trying to ride the wave of Obama coming out in support of gay marriages to try and push a few more issues.
