James Robinson addresses one of the sorer points of "Cry for Justice"

[icon_uk]

Spoilers for the Starman/Congorilla team up one-shot

Readers of Cry for Justice were witness to many, many arbitrary fridgings, but one irked me more than a little.




Now I now Tasmanian Devil was a D-lister, I don't even particularly care that he was a happy, gay hero, many characters were fridged in CfJ regardless of orientation, so I genuinely didn't think it was homophobically motivated.

Readers of the Starman/Congorilla team up one-shot will be aware that the plot involved the blue skinned alien Starman, a Lazarus Pit and a certain dead Australian hero... who now isn't so dead any more, and has a new, blue boyfriend.

Robinson discusses this in an interview with Newsarama here

Here's an excerpt

Newsarama: James, now that the Starman/Congorilla special has been released, what motivated you to tell this story?

James Robinson: The Starman/Congorilla one-shot is one of those stories that I've been meaning to tell ever since Cry for Justice – well, actually, I knew this was coming even when I was writing Cry for Justice.
Plus it involves a hunt for the Lazarus Pit and the Fountain of Youth, and Rex the Wonder Dog, and all these different, interesting, bizarre aspects of the DC universe, which is something that I enjoy messing around with.
But it was always a story that was leading toward the return of Tasmanian Devil, who will be Starman's boyfriend.

Nrama: You were the one that killed off the Tasmanian Devil in Cry for Justice. Was it always your intent to bring him back?

Robinson: Absolutely. I was hoping to write it immediately. Because I killed Tasmanian Devil off rather cruelly in Cry for Justice.
I always intended for that to be the case, that Starman would eventually have Tasmanian Devil as his boyfriend. Congorilla finding his friend was going to be sub-plot that I was going to use, and tie it in with the apparent murder of Tasmanian Devil. I had to put it off for a while, but I found a way to fold it into the Omega storyline.
And I had always planed that it would lead toward Starman finding love with Tasmanian Devil. They're two of the main gay characters of DC Universe. So I wanted to bring them together.

Nrama: I think it's safe to say that nobody saw that coming.

Robinson: Not when I've apparently had one of them skinned! [laughs] And in a rug on the floor. No, not at all. But I didn't want to reveal anything.

Nrama: But didn't you get some flack for killing Tasmanian Devil?

Robinson: Yes. People online were like, "James Robinson hates gay people" and all of this. Which is utterly ridiculous, and it was a little bit hurtful, considering the gay friends I have here in San Francisco and other parts of the world.
It's ironic because in Starman – and I believe this to be true. And I’m willing to be called a liar. I’m not 100 percent sure of this. But I think within mainstream comics, be that Marvel and DC basically – I think in Starman, I had the first main, male gay kiss ever. So for me to be called a gay hater is ridiculous.
Comments? Opinions?

Comments

[arbre_rieur]

Who *wouldn't* be hurt when people call them a bigot?

[neev]

Oh come on. Lets weigh the too options here. On the one hand we have "Yet another portrayal of a gay character being horribly killed, apparently the latest in a long line of characters who are degraded, stripped of their heroic qualities, and treated like shit" vs "Being accused of being a bigot when you're not actually one". Oh, gee, I'm so sorry for his poor little fee-fees. Would the straight man like a glass of warm milk and a cookie to make him feel better?

I mean, seriously, it's fine that he was upset but invariably people talking about this stuff act SO OFFENDED, as though there's NO POSSIBLE WAY that their critics have a valid point or an understandable gripe. Is it seriously that hard to sit back and go "Well, I didn't mean it that way and there's more going on here than they can see, but I can see why they might be upset about this since they have no way of knowing my long-term plans for this character"? So, in short, sure, he can be hurt, but I'm not gonna have a lot of sympathy for him.

[arbre_rieur]

It's not a contest about who's more hurt. It's one thing not to have sympathy, it's another that you're actually *annoyed* that he's hurt by it, as if that's somehow not a perfectly understandable reaction to being called a bigot.

And I think you're conflating all the criticisms into one whole. You're talking about criticisms about Tasmanian Devil's death, as if he's reacting to that. He's not, he's reacting to those who take it a step further and turn it into criticisms about him as a person.

[neev]

I would be less annoyed if the "I didn't do anything wrong, how dare you accuse me of this" weren't the exact response of anyone who gets accused of anything like this, ever. They never, ever, ever acknowledge that ANY of the criticism might be warranted especially since, again, the readers aren't fucking psychic. And, I mean, that's the most I can say about it since I haven't read what was said about him personally.

[icon_uk]

Except there's nothing to apologise for in this context. He didn't kill TD because he was gay, he killed him because he was viewed as being expendable, just like the woman who is beheaded and the guy whose face he shatters.

Whether he SHOULD have been viewed as expendable is a valid question, but that's also the case for the woman and the other guy.

[neev]

Which would be a legit point if it weren't for the fact that gay characters are so few and far between. All things being equal, yeah, then that would be one thing, but you really can't say that gay characters are given the same treatment as straight characters. Even if it wasn't because he was gay /this time/ it's still part of a larger pattern of gay characters being "expendable". I mean, obviously the character is in and of himself not an important character but I can understand people being upset about it anyway. It's just like "oh look, another gay character who will never get a chance to become anything more than a background character cause he's dead...well that's just fucking typical".

[icon_uk]

Oh don't get me wrong, I wholeheartedly agree about the need for a level playing field (see also Marvel's "Freedom Ring") and appreciate there isn't one.

But I still can't view the death of a gay character as being an automatic example of homophobia. Bad writing, sure, but by no means homophobia.

As others have noted, CfJ lwas an equal opportunities slaughterhouse, and I have a MUCH bigger problem with that being used as a narrative drive.

[neev]

Yeah, definitely. I mean, personally, I don't think I would have immediately jumped to HE'S A HOMOPHOBIC ASSHOLE AND MUST DIE, but I guess I can see how people would? I think my issue here is that I just get so tired of people responding with "But but but I'M NOT THAT WAY" without acknowledging that maybe, uh, they came off that way. Cause I'm sure not ALL the people who had an issue with killing Tasmanian Devil were responding to it with blind frothing at the mouth.

I definitely agree with you over all that having the whole comic be a slaughterhouse is in general a much bigger issue. Although in some respects, it's not hard to see why people might not give him the benefit of the doubt for that very reason. It's would hardly be surprising that someone who thinks KILL EVERYONE is an interesting way to drive a plot might also be a bit homophobic. It's just so dang hard to tell "are you just a bad writer or are you REALLY an asshole".

[icon_uk]

"But I'm not that way" is actually a pretty understandable human reaction to an unfounded accusation as well as an overly defensive cover up of an unpleasant truth. That's where the tricky part comes in, telling the difference.

[neev]

Yeah, they just never seem to get OVER that initial reaction. It's not like he needs to put up a public apology or something, just a little thoughtful discourse would be nice.

[greenmask]

A professional who is aware that their readers are reacting to the parts of the story they have published so far that, objectively, look bigoted?

[icon_uk]

But that's just it, they weren't reacting to it by calling the story bigoted, they were reacting to it by accusing HIM of being bigoted, that makes a big difference to how it would be perceived.

[greenmask]

Which would suck, yeah, but t's a question of degrees - who's more hurt, people who feel insulted personally for who they are, or the person who feels insulted personally for what he did? It would be a major bummer to be called a homophobe, but if it happened to me I would look at my work from the outside and see if it looked like the boot fit. I wouldn't do publicity where I said "I am bummed out because in other news, I have gay friends!".

I can sympathise with a person who feels their rep has been wrongly tarnished, but I can't make that the biggest deal of the whole mess. Human beings react, but responsible adults hold off outside of privacy and then address the problem that their adversaries actually have with them - which in this case, is the death of a gay character in an industry with not the best record on gay characters, eventual story aside. Weighing the history of pain-because-of-gayness against pain-because-of-wrongful-assumption-of-bigotry, I think Mr Robinson would do well to hush a little and just suck it up. If his story really isn't anti-gay, it'll show and he'll be fine.

[arbre_rieur]

Of course, there's nothing to say James Robinson didn't take a look at his work after the comments to see how much merit they had. That's something that can be done in privacy. He can do that *and* remind people that he has feelings. I'm sure most writers analyze their own works six ways to Sunday, only the barest iceberg tip of which fans are informed of.

There's no reason to weigh whose pain is greater since it's not an either-or situation. It's perfectly possible to voice strong, angry objections to the death without going a step too far and calling him a homophobe. Various comments in this very post succeed at the former without resorting to the latter. All it takes is a little perspective.

[greenmask]

That's true. I guess at the time I wrote that comment it seemed to me like accepting this written reaction without taking time to reiterate the feelings of those who felt slighted or threatened by the original story line was veering too close to placing but they shouldn't have shouted over but there is a valid complaint here.