Therumancer said:
Okay, I'll try to keep this brief-ish since it's not exactly a heated topic.
First off, apologies if I came off rude, you just seemed to be kind of abrasive in your post considering the lack of actual accurate info you had to back yourself up.
That said, that's a shit apology, but I do recognize that I was overly belligerent in what I said, which doesn't really help the communicative process. So yeah, my bad.
Secondly, whilst a lot of what you say is true, i.e things returning to the status quo, major changes to characters contradicting them and whatnot, it's all very conditional.
I mean sure, writing out Lois Lane and making Supes gay would be stupid and would definitely not last. But your argument only really applies in the precise scenario you gave, so you sort of straw-manned it there.
See, Lois is a big part of Superman's character, (whereas the sexuality of Superman doesn't come up all too often) and writing that out would be as big a change as making him decide circumstantial killing was A-okay, or deciding he is prejudiced toward... I dunno, Egyptians?
Batman though. Making Batman gay? What would that actually change, that people would have a problem against? So Bats and Vicki Vale never happened? Tali Al Ghul never got it on with him?
Uh, big whoop. While significantly large story arcs, they aren't exactly synonymous with Batman. I mean, you can't picture Supes without Lois. But does Batman have a definitive love interest? Not really. I mean, it would make a lot of sense if Batman's past and post-reboot flings with Cat-Woman were one-sided affairs. There never was any real chemistry there anyway, just poorly disguised porn.
And Hawk-man hasn't been all tangled up with Hawk-Girl in a while. And in the New 52, she's not around at all. Actually I wouldn't be surprised if it was Hawk-man.
That doesn't mean I think it's Batman for sure though. How significant are the romance stories for Green Arrow, or Martian Manhunter, or Zatanna, or Wally West, Ted Kord, Guy Gardner, Booster Gold(I could totally see him as gay), or Captain Marvel?
Sure, I totally agree that making Superman gay would be a bad move, but no one said it's going to be superman, so your point lacks applicability since not everyone is Superman.
In fact, DC said that it was a character not yet introduced in the New 52.
Plus, whilst comics do often return to a status quo, New 52 has been going on for a year now, and the changes it's making aren't dramatic or anything. I pretty much view the reboot as a synchronized "Streamlining character retcons" time period.
I mean, no one's going to reject it because it's just going to slip in a few changes. Changes we'd all like to see, but there's something in the characters history from a lame one-shot in 1995 or something that contradicts it.
Perhaps, somewhere, there is a poor heterosexual love interest crammed in for an Iconic secondary character, preventing them from being made homosexual which would add some extra story-telling potential. Well now that the New 52 is around we have a legitimate excuse to implement such a change.
Oh and on that: I know I am probably making it seem like introducing a gay iconic character is a brilliant idea by rights, simply because the character is gay; And many think it is unnecessary.
But when you make a change in comic books, there should really only be one question to ask to validate making the change - Does this create opportunity to tell a greater variety of stories?
And to be honest, there's plenty you can do with a gay character. As much as you can with a straight character, of course, but most of that has already been explored.
Variety is the spice of life and all that. I would love to see a gay character who is recognizable and actually well known and people who don't read comics might know who they are so you don't have to go and explain who Wiccan and Hulkling are to defend stupid claims of homophobia in comics.
Wow. Apparently, that is what I call brief. Oops.
((On Stormwatch: You won't find it to be very familiar territory, at all. While I also miss Winter (And Hellion and Fuji, actually... Thought Fuji is entering through the reboot another way) there aren't many classic Stormwatch characters around.
Stormwatch fits into the DC universe very well, but as a secret extra-terrestrial defense team guarding Earth from all sorts of attacks that other heroes are too stupid and mainstream to detect.
Jenny Quantum/Sparks is not the chain-smoking cynic you know and love, but is... A little kid. The spirit of the Twenty First Century who has the power to manipulate physics based on the current scientific knowledge on them. I know it sounds like a turn off, but she's still very cool and likable.
Joining the team is Martian Manhunter, who quite the Justice League because he's a hipster now, Apollo and Midnighter, Jack Hawksmoor (who's city-talking power is portrayed amazingly), the Engineer, the Projectionist, and Harry Tanner the Eminence of Blades. It's really a great book and the first six issues, by Paul Cornell, are sublime.))