I have no idea who “Josh Walton” and “Leila” are, but they play a pivotal role in the Jacksonville, N.C., Daily News‘ reportage of the “lesbian Batwoman” story.

“No sooner had the words ‘Batwoman’ and ‘lesbian’ been uttered, Josh’s ears perked up,” the reporter writes. “Oddly enough, so did Leila’s. Seems Josh would like to know more about D.C. Comics’ lesbian counterpart to the Batman, and Leila wants to know who the ‘lucky’ girlfriend’s going to be.”

Well, Josh and Leila are going to have to wait, just like everyone else.

The article leaves the couple for a moment to flesh out the “recent” history of gay superheroes. And that’s where things go terribly wrong:

Apparently the last gay super- hero (at least from the two biggest publishers of comics) didn’t exactly strike a chord with readers. Then again, he was a big burly dude with a prep boy coif, not a big, busty broad dressed in black tights. Yes, North Star came out of the Marvel Comics closet back in the 1980s. Apparently, Marvel’s marketing for North Star was out of sync with the fact that, depending on which survey you read, anywhere from 99 to 99.9 percent of comic book readers are male — and probably the variety of male who has no problem with homosexuality as long as it’s the women who are doing it.

Oh, he probably gets that last bit right. But everything else is just … hm.

Discounting that in the 14 or so years since Northstar’s unceremonious “outing,” Marvel and DC Comics have seen the likes of Apollo and Midnighter, “Ultimate” Colossus, Rawhide Kid (granted, not a superhero, per se), Holly Robinson/Catwoman, Hulkling and Wiccan, Obsidian and more — who would ever describe snooty little Jean-Paul Beaubier as “a big burly dude”?

Feh, probably Josh and Leila.

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 8th, 2006 at 11:51 am and is filed under DC Comics, Marvel, Pop Culture. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.