The Big Picture: The New Green

[Shoggoth2588]

A question that will out me as not knowing much about Wonder Woman but:

Wouldn't turning Wonder Woman gay actually make it so that she prefers men? Wonder Woman wasn't born to a male/female pair, she was created. She and everyone on Themyscera (forgive spelling) are basically golems if I'm remembering this right, little girls fashioned from clay and having life breathed into them and given human-like appearances. I'm assuming this means of birth was eventually retconned out but it still doesn't change the fact that Diana was born and raised on Themyscera, a nation where Men don't exist and are mistrusted (if not downright detested) by the all-female inhabitants.

As for Alan Scott...My prediction was Guy Gardener, another Green Lantern but a Green Lantern none-the-less. I want partial credit dammit.

 

[lord.jeff]

My problem is in the fact that Allen Scott was a 40 something married with son right wing thinker, who had a problem with his gay son, now he's a 20 year old proud to be gay, it doesn't sound like they made Allen Scott gay but made a whole new character and then just gave him the Allen Scott name, that's where the problem lies. I wonder if the continuity of the new 52 will ever become just earth 3 or something, then we could watch homophobe Allen Scott deal with gay Allen Scott.

 

[LiquidGrape]

I wonder how many cis-straight dudes are going to complain about "appeasement" in this comment section.

 

[frostgiant]

Evil won another battle, RIP Golden Age Green Lantern

 

[Vortigar]

Personally I'd say the whole 2 earths so they can have a different version of established characters to mess around with is a pretty good idea. It's just that DC can't help but do it in the most convoluted way possible.

As long as it wasn't Aquaman.

Ghah! Established canon? That's no way to appeal to the youth! Make everything new and 'hip' and make Power Girl's boobs bigger while you're at it. Hell, MAKE ALL THEIR BOOBS BIGGER!

Apparently Aquaman is pretty cool in the New 52. Also Wonder Woman is a good book for the first time in 20 years or so. What the hell is going on here?

PG's boobs have actually shrunk (and are covered up nowadays).

I rather like PG myself, she realizes people notice the rack so she just makes it into her thing. Basically every superheroine has this amazing body that is never really talked about in the comics themselves. Power Girl and Empowered are almost the only characters where they address this, making them more mature (in a way) than the ones screaming that it's pandering. Of course that's still going on, but that counts for basically every superhero comic out there.

tldr:
Buy Batwoman.
^_^

ps. A man, over 1000 posts, I've gone gonzo... I loved the pulitzer laureate tag...

 

[seiler88]

Oh, Sorry were you expecting some Christian anti-homo rage?

Nope not gonna happen. I got some therapy and got over myself a few years ago.

Sorry to disappoint!

 

[Tanis]

One more thing..
Making a character gay is no more done to 'please the gay community' then making a black character, that doesn't look like s/he was made by the KKK, is done to 'please' the black community.
.
Times change, societies evolve, and bigoted notions are tossed away by those who don't think the earth is 6,000 years old.
Welcome to the 21st Century, people.
We're evolving into a better society and if you don't like it, o well.
.
.
.
And you wanna know WHY people are protesting this?
It's because vile, hate filled, bigots have less and less groups that are seen as socially 'okay' groups to hate.
.
.
.
You know what is REALLY killing the comic book world?
All those universe changing events that take a year to tell, **** up any way of letting a character develop, and then doing it a year or two later.
While I'm a fan of things like 'Brighest Day' and 'Darkest Night', they happen FAR TOO often.
.
.
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Or how about the 'New 52' that promised a true REBOOT, so it'd be easier for new people to 'get' into comics, that failed to not only be an actual REBOOT but also ruined characters like Starfire?
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Or maybe there's the RAPE of Ms. Marvel back in the late 80s/early 90s.
But this IS the internet so I'm sure some of ya'll think it's GREAT.
.
Yeah...
Changing a barely know version of Green Lantern's sexuality is SO going to 'ruin comics forever'.
.
Get over yourselves you Bronze Age bigots.
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It's the 21st Century.
Women are no longer property,
*insert non-white color here* aren't that way because they pissed off some deity,
the earth is round,
Science is more popular than sorcery (mostly)
Homosexuals aren't curse by a imp/genie/make good pray for hunters,
etc, etc, etc...
.
.
.
O, yeah, and we went to the ****ING MOON!
BOOYAH!

 

[daxterx2005]

Well, I was hoping Batman was going to end up being gay.

 

[BatteringVulpine]

For the first time ever with a Big Picture episode, I actually knew more than 80% of what Bob was talking about.

As to the topic at hand, wasn't one of Alan Scott's first lines in the Golden Age something along the lines of "I'm gay about this" or some such? Completely useless information, since back then "gay" was just another word for "happy" or even "crazy," but it was just a fun little fact.

Also, to everyone bitching and moaning about it being a "publicity stunt" and how "GRRR He's not a MAIN character," consider that DC never made the statement that it would be a "main" character, simply an "iconic" character.

Finally, Archie did it first, bitches (not that I read Archie).

 

[RJ Dalton]

I knew it was going to be one of the Green Lanterns from the moment I heard the announcement. My thinking was this: they wanted to make an announcement like this because comic sales go up when there's controversy floating around (which, as far as I'm concerned, turns the whole decision into exploitation on the part of DC executives, but then, that's what I've come to expect from these companies). Green Lantern has dozens of characters with that mantel, so it could pick one of the more obscure Lanterns and thus still have a "big name" character come out, but if it goes badly and nobody likes it, they can stop writing comics about the character without losing their big name or needing to come up with some kind of dubious retcon.
At the end of the day, I feel like DC is trying to play us. What the writers do with it, that might be a different story. Good writers can take even incredibly stupid ideas handed down from "on high" and turn them into something interesting.
But, as I'm not really following the comics realm all that much and haven't read the latest issue or any of the subsequent issues that are going to come out, it'd be a bit premature for me to say whether or not they've pulled it off.
Not that this stops me from expressing my cynicism for the big companies running our media.

 

[RatRace123]

I think dropping Allen Scott's age by a couple decades is a far more drastic change than his sexual preferences.

I mean, hell in comics Scott was dealing with his gay son. If they had kept that aspect of continuity, imagine how much more poignant the outing of Allen Scott would be if it was revealed that he was actually gay too, and his problems with his son were maybe stemming from his own self loathing on the subject.

But I guess it's kind of a moot point since Allen Scott isn't "The" Green Lantern that everyone knows about, so for DC it's a relatively safe publicity stunt.

 

[Redd the Sock]

New characters are a hard sell. DC probably didn't want to make a political statement with a character destined to join so many characters created in the 90s in total obscurity.

Sadly, modern comics aren't written for what would be a long journey of personal discovery. Private lives get shufffled to the background such that it's rare to find a releationship that really feels developed rather than characters started dating between issues. I'd like to see more, but try and get writers and fans to accept a relationship based story, or drop siz months of comics covering an afternoon for the characters.

 

[corrosiveblood]

Their message is pretty obvious to me "It's ok to be gay... IN A DIFFERENT F-ING UNIVERSE AS FAR FROM US AS POSSIBLE!"

 

[Fwee]

Have I lost my mind, or wasn't there a gay Green Lantern already?
Guy Gardener, looking at you buddy.

 

[Orange Monkey]

Bob, as always watching your videos is an honour and something I look forward to at the end of the day. As always you've reminded me that there are smart, open-minded individuals who are not afraid to voice their opinion and for that I thank you

 

[Tanis]

I think dropping Allen Scott's age by a couple decades is a far more drastic change than his sexual preferences.

I mean, hell in comics Scott was dealing with his gay son. If they had kept that aspect of continuity, imagine how much more poignant the outing of Allen Scott would be if it was revealed that he was actually gay too, and his problems with his son were maybe stemming from his own self loathing on the subject.

But I guess it's kind of a moot point since Allen Scott isn't "The" Green Lantern that everyone knows about, so for DC it's a relatively safe publicity stunt.

That...damn.

THAT would have been something interesting and noteworthy.
Something current, and relevant, like the X-men USED to be.

 

[Morbira]

If I may interject on something a little non-sequitur... Am I the only one who really hates the term "LGBT"? I mean if you spell it out it sounds atrocious and cumbersome ("algae-beaty"), and if you try to physically pronounce it you sound like a drooling invalid. Just a pet peeve...

 

[Sovereignty]

Whenever you try and pop in these attempts at sounding like you're sincerely behind the idea of everything being equal...

You just come off sounding guilty of prejudice. It's part of the problem with changing heroes genders/sexualities/races/etc. When you alter something because you think a group of people you can't relate to (usually of a different sex/gender/race) dislike the way it is, you're simply trying to appease your white guilt.

These communities don't neccesarily want us to change established things to include them. As that would just perpetuate the cycle of inequality (you don't restore balance by turning every superhero black for instance.)

They want genuine attempts at new icons that are more deverse. Not one dimensional stereotypes like we have now.

I really think for all the good Bob tries to do with these equality pieces in comics/games/movies, his position will never come off right. Truth is, what would he know about inequality or prejudice?

 

[thomaskattus]

I think dropping Allen Scott's age by a couple decades is a far more drastic change than his sexual preferences.

I mean, hell in comics Scott was dealing with his gay son. If they had kept that aspect of continuity, imagine how much more poignant the outing of Allen Scott would be if it was revealed that he was actually gay too, and his problems with his son were maybe stemming from his own self loathing on the subject.

But I guess it's kind of a moot point since Allen Scott isn't "The" Green Lantern that everyone knows about, so for DC it's a relatively safe publicity stunt.

Dammit, you said what I was going to say. I feel that an older Allen Scott having that level of character development would make for an excellent story.

 

[Harbinger_]

Part of me wonders if this was DC's response to Marvel's recent attempt to show acceptance for homosexuality. There is often a lot of imitation from one studio when the other does something. This sort of one up man-ship makes me wonder how much of this was a legitimate decision.

Okay, cool so the Green Lantern is gay. Does it really matter? No. Unless they start churning out comics where his homosexuality is important to the story, I don't see how this change is really going to be important.

It does make sense though that a male character had to be the choice rather than a female character. Personally though the schtick that every man is obsessed with lesbians is rather absurd in my opinion.

To people that aren't for homosexuality I offer you this token of advice: Are you really getting upset over a fictional character in a fictional universe? (A slightly obscure version of a character in a slightly obscure universe even?) If you aren't for homosexuality at least console yourself that it wasn't a more recent and iconic hero.

And yes we all get that Aquaman would have been an insult to the LGBT community.

I will say this though, the amount of attention that homosexuality has been getting in media though is a bit off-putting. Yes we understand that it is a growing concern and issue that needs to be addressed but there is no reason that it needs to be shoved into every facet of media and life. Especially in places where sexuality was never necessary to begin with.