The New York Times talks to Perry Moore, writer of the novel Hero, which is about a teen “coping not only with high school, sexual orientation and a strained home life, but also with his own budding superpowers.” Moore wrote the novel after becoming unsatisfied with how homosexuals are portrayed in comics, with the death of Northstar in Wolverine being the straw that broke the camel’s back:
“I thought I was going to have to stop buying comics,” he said, but instead, “I waged my own little jihad.” He visited a comic store armed with Post-it notes, which he affixed to copies of the “Wolverine” series (first on the covers, then, more slyly, on interior pages). They asked questions like “Can there be a gay superhero?” “Homophobic?” and “Ask yourself: equal rights?”
Death is rarely final in comics, so it’s no surprise that Northstar came back to life. “They couldn’t bother to mention he was gay,” Mr. Moore said of Northstar’s most recent appearance in “X-Men.”
Taking a cue from Gail Simone, a comic-book writer who first gained notice as a fan with her Web site, “Women in Refrigerators” (unheardtaunts.com/wir), detailing the mistreatment of female heroes, Mr. Moore created his own tally. “Who Cares About the Death of a Gay Superhero?,” which he has delivered as a speech, includes more than 60 gay and lesbian comic book characters who have been ignored, maimed or murdered.
“Yes, bad things do happen to all people,” he wrote in it. “But are there positive representations of gay characters to counterbalance these negative ones?”
September 3rd, 2007 at 6:58 am
Evidently the guy doesn’t read DC comics. There are a few homosexuals that live prolific lives within the company’s pages.
September 3rd, 2007 at 9:22 am
I don’t think orientation came into it when Northstar died- it was a time when both major companies were thinning the herd of c-list characters.
I do applaud Moore for doing something proactive for his cause instead of just complaining to anyone who will listen. I’ll pick it up next time I’m at B&N.
September 3rd, 2007 at 4:05 pm
Well… here’s the thing. Taken on its own merits, there’s little justification for classifying Northstar’s “death” as an act of homophobia. But if you take into account the fact that he was killed three times in the space of a month (”Wolverine”, that Akira Yoshida AoA mini, and another series that escapes me at the moment), and factor in the Rawhide Kid retcon, and the Freedom Ring fiasco, and Joe Q going on record saying that gay characters would be banished to the MAX imprint, and I wouldn’t blame people who felt there was some de facto (not necessarily intentional) discrimination.
The usual counterargument is that in comics, especially superhero comics, bad things happen to people of every orientation, gender and ethnicity… but the flaw in that point is that, when bad things happen to white, heterosexual men, there are about a hundred others who fit the same classification. It’s harder to let things slide when a minority starts losing its more visible representatives, especially since - if they’re anything like Northstar - they’re not exactly A-listers to begin with.
September 3rd, 2007 at 10:34 pm
It’s a touchy issue considering that bad things happen to comic book characters and there is a small pool of characters that classify as other.
I find his post its a bit childish. I wouldn’t imagine him affixing the same to Peter Milligan’s run where 3 of my favorite gay characters died.