Did DC’s Earth-2 immediately ruin the positive PR of Green Lantern being gay? Dennis Farr suggests so, over at political site Think Progress:
[Alan Scott's boyfriend] Sam serves to highlight two things. First, DC was pushing an interracial, same-sex relationship. This sounds great from a diversity standpoint (and somewhat mirrors Northstar’s current relationship), but when the non-white character is the one who is easily disposed of, it becomes a bit troubling. Second, they firmly established that Scott is now gay, and can move on, eliminating the need to worry about how to fit Sam, or the relationship, into the picture as much (I am sure Alan’s PTSD will come up again when it’s convenient). They may introduce new lovers, bring Sam back, or just milk the distraught Scott trick.
Unfortunately, at this point, I am left not wanting to return. I have more than enough media where I get to see painfully unsuccessful same-sex relationships, and read more than enough news of harm inflicted on the LGBT community. I am left wondering what would make this Green Lantern specifically interesting to me. Watching him go through pain? As yet, they have defined nothing else about him as queer man. While on the one hand, this is normalizing gay men into the broader culture, it also means that the queer history and culture I know and live is not present.
July 26th, 2012 at 8:20 am
I wondered if anyone was going to pick up on this. I am not a gay man, but I was put off by the short life and instant death of Alan’s SO as well. It was handled in a perfunctory manner, followed by a pretty bland introduction of the new Earth-2 GL. There must be other ways to inspire people to be heroes than killing off loved ones, gay or straight or whatever. As so often seems to be the case, supporting cast members seem to exist in super-hero comics only to be props for the heroes.
That said, I am willing to give James Robinson a chance because his work with gay (and straight) characters elsewhere has been good more often than not. There is a lot of potential in Earth-2. Whether James is able to bring it out, whether he’s even allowed to, is the big question.
July 26th, 2012 at 8:28 am
Secondary characters are disposed of and the man’s upset? You’d think he’d never read superhero comics before. It’s his choice, but I’m still getting rather tired of how some make everything political. I don’t see how a character who appeared for one issue (so far, since death in comics is a revolving door) with either hurt or harm gay rights. YMMV.
July 26th, 2012 at 11:16 am
Eh, while the death of Sam is sad to an extent, because of the potential there in his relationship with Alan, it’s hard to get too worked up since he wasn’t a real character at all, just a plot device with a face. Getting mad because he was killed as part of Alan’s origin as GL is like getting mad that Thomas and Martha Wayne were killed so that Bruce could become Batman. Or getting mad that Jor-El and Lara and all of Krypton died so that little Kal-El could grow up to become Superman.
July 26th, 2012 at 12:33 pm
I felt the same way in the 1960′s about Lee and Ditko killing off Uncle Ben. It ruined the character of Spider-Man. Ageist bastards!
July 26th, 2012 at 4:46 pm
I think the important thing to remember here is, James Robinson’s writing isn’t very good.