The Big Picture: The New Green
- Thread starter MovieBob
- Start date
Hmm. So it's not even Allen Scott it's an Allen Scott of another world? Comics aren't so much as weird as just down right confusing sometimes.
Still, at least they did have the guts to do it with a male character instead of just going with the cliche female one and using it as an excuse to shoe-horn in lesbian scenes to sell more crap.
Still, at least they did have the guts to do it with a male character instead of just going with the cliche female one and using it as an excuse to shoe-horn in lesbian scenes to sell more crap.
My thought was pretty much "Good for them, now why are they being so righteous about it?" Why not make it happen and not make a big deal about it? Because if they didn't they wouldn't get press out of it. Its not like people are going to go out and buy it because he is gay. Make a genuinely good character and it doesn't matter if they're black, white, gay, straight, man, woman, alien. A good character is a good character.
Also, WHY THE F*CK ARE YOU BRINGING BACK THE EARTH 2 BULL SHITE???
*adjusts tie*
It just seems foolish.
Also, WHY THE F*CK ARE YOU BRINGING BACK THE EARTH 2 BULL SHITE???
*adjusts tie*
It just seems foolish.
Flamboyantly dressed, immaculately groomed, well built, good with his ring.
Makes sense I suppose.
Makes sense I suppose.
I don't have a problem with characters being gay or of a particular ethnic group in and of itself, what I have a problem with is when that is shoehorned into a property just to appease a given social group; which is kinda what I feel DC is doing with this whole gay Green Lantern thing.
I'm just a little disappointed that there wasn't a "coming out" event for him and that they still just rewrote his background to make him gay in the first place. After all, for most generations of LGBT you had to keep it hidden, and there's still communities within the US (as well as whole countries in the less developed areas of the world) where being gay is a ticket to automatic ostracism from the community as a whole.
But, then again, baby steps...
But, then again, baby steps...
I thought it was going to be some of the already outed characters that DC has publishing rights to. You know something like, Fade from Milestone Media or Apollo and Midnighter from Wildstorm.
I'm almost surprised that MovieBob didn't talk about The Authority/Stormwatch. Because really, DC could've thrown that out there without changing anything, and sort of take credit of characters done by a different company.
For those that don't know, two characters in Authority/Stormwatch are Apollo and Midnighter, who are essentially a grittier, gay version of Superman and Batman. They've been a hot item since the Authority comic began, and they got hitched years ago before DC took over the franchise and added them to their continuity. Now they're in Stormwatch and led by the Martian Manhunter.
So yeah, technically DC could retroactively throw them out there, and they're no less obscure than Golden Age Green Lantern.
For those that don't know, two characters in Authority/Stormwatch are Apollo and Midnighter, who are essentially a grittier, gay version of Superman and Batman. They've been a hot item since the Authority comic began, and they got hitched years ago before DC took over the franchise and added them to their continuity. Now they're in Stormwatch and led by the Martian Manhunter.
So yeah, technically DC could retroactively throw them out there, and they're no less obscure than Golden Age Green Lantern.
In regards to the "why don't they come up with new heroes who are representative of this group or that group" it's probably a two-fold reason. 1. It's quite hard to come up with a brand new character in this day and age when pretty much every superpower you can think of has been used and 2. That new character would likely get a slating because of the people who'd see the new character as only being there just to fit that demographic gap.
Apparently I agree with Bob so much that there was absolutely nothing new in this episode for me. Yeah, it probably needed an episode, yeah he said what probably needed to be said. However I mostly felt that people should know these things already. (Not the history of course, it'd be silly to expect everyone to know the history of Green Lantern.)
So is it a coincidence that Green Lantern's initials are GL, as in GLT... yeah, I'm sure it is.
So is it a coincidence that Green Lantern's initials are GL, as in GLT... yeah, I'm sure it is.
Something I feel needs to be mentioned is why Alan Scott was chosen. Some people think DC decided that having a gay superhero would be a great publicity stunt and then proceeded to go through their line up and choose an appropriate hero.
Well before the reboot, Alan Scott had a super hero son, Obsidian, who was gay. With the reboot making him younger, that son was not going to exist any more. The writer thought it would be a shame to lose a positive gay character and so proposed making Alan Scott gay, and it went from there.
I don't have a problem with introducing gay characters or having old characters rebooted with changes to there race/sexuality/hair colour. However I'm not a fan of how DC promoted this as if it was a big deal.
Well before the reboot, Alan Scott had a super hero son, Obsidian, who was gay. With the reboot making him younger, that son was not going to exist any more. The writer thought it would be a shame to lose a positive gay character and so proposed making Alan Scott gay, and it went from there.
I don't have a problem with introducing gay characters or having old characters rebooted with changes to there race/sexuality/hair colour. However I'm not a fan of how DC promoted this as if it was a big deal.
Actually, it makes a lot of sense. It would be great, to create a comic book character, and evolve him as a superhero, and give subtle hints, that he might be gay, and that the character comes out after a few years, much to everyones surprise (would take a LOT of hiding that information, yet still conveying it to the artists who work on them without leaking out as it would spoil the whole damn thing).
That would be much more natural, if you have an established character, and turn him gay for the sake of PR, that's just bad storytelling.
That would be much more natural, if you have an established character, and turn him gay for the sake of PR, that's just bad storytelling.
For long time DC comics readers, Green Lantern Alan Scott is a pretty well-established character. Sure this isn't exactly the Alan Scott who's been around 70 years, but basically all of the JSA characters got younger reboots with The New 52, and like most retconn reboots, this will be obscured within a couple years and most of them will be indistinguishable from their original characters. Except perhaps Alan Scott will keep his new sexual identity, because it's not as big a deal as it once was.
The main point of the "One of our major characters are coming out as gay" hype, was not so much the face value big deal, but the confidence that such a press release would spur a group like the (amusingly misnamed) One-Million Moms to give them a lot of free advertising by protesting. Score one for predictable, if misguided, outrage.
The main point of the "One of our major characters are coming out as gay" hype, was not so much the face value big deal, but the confidence that such a press release would spur a group like the (amusingly misnamed) One-Million Moms to give them a lot of free advertising by protesting. Score one for predictable, if misguided, outrage.
The ironic thing about publicity stunts like this is that the more we react to it, the more successful it is financially, but the more hindering it is to the real cause. The ultimate acceptance of the LGBT community would be to treat them like everyone else, therefore like nothing at all. The change itself deosn't bother me in the slightest, but the attention that DC draws to it is what makes it come off as gimmicky and insincere.
Seeing as most people don't really care about Green Lantern though, I think the gays win - I mean, no matter how much the movie sucked, Ryan Reynolds still takes his shirt off in it, right? Amirite?!?!?!?! lo lolol olll ol l o!!!
Seeing as most people don't really care about Green Lantern though, I think the gays win - I mean, no matter how much the movie sucked, Ryan Reynolds still takes his shirt off in it, right? Amirite?!?!?!?! lo lolol olll ol l o!!!
The "yeah it's not really the green lantern we know and not even the original Allen Scott" game is fun and ultimately harmless. But the "this isn't a big deal," "there was no reason to do this," "they're just doing it because x," thing really needs to stop. Looking at the history of this industry and especially DC's inability to have a well-rounded cast for the longest time, something like this is a huge step forward at best, and simply a unique character trait at worst. I don't buy the argument that it's shoehorned in because giving an old character something new to work with is kind of what REBOOTING is about.
I don't know much about comics (what little I do is from the X-Men and the Batman cartoon shows), so I can't argue if this fits in universe, but the way that DC handled this is kinda irritating to me.
DC: "One of our main characters is going to be gay".
Me: "Cool".
DC: "It's Green Lantern"
Me: "Hal Jordan's gay? Cool".
DC: "Hum, no...it's Alan Scott, the original Green Lantern (who you've never heard of, by the way). And it's going to happen in a parallel universe, so we don't have to deal with it in our main continuity".
If you wanted to make a gay character, then make a gay character for real! Don't pick a different version of a character in a different universe and make him gay!
DC: "One of our main characters is going to be gay".
Me: "Cool".
DC: "It's Green Lantern"
Me: "Hal Jordan's gay? Cool".
DC: "Hum, no...it's Alan Scott, the original Green Lantern (who you've never heard of, by the way). And it's going to happen in a parallel universe, so we don't have to deal with it in our main continuity".
If you wanted to make a gay character, then make a gay character for real! Don't pick a different version of a character in a different universe and make him gay!