LGBTQ Roll Call

[neo_prodigy]

With June being LGBTQ Pride, I couldn't think of a better time to do a Roll Call celebrating exceptional LGBTQ characters in comics.


While there have been a number of LGBTQ characters, most of them at best have been relegated to minor characters and at worst deplorable homophobic queer minstrel shows.
And don't get it conflated.

Visibility is not progress.

If it were then the Rawhide Kid and Northstar would be progressive trailblazing characters.

 So no, this isn't just my list of queer comic characters.

This is a salute to the elite characters who have provided me with a more than a few OH HELL YEAH! moments.
A list of characters and made me proud to be a comic book geek and an LGBTQ.

Also, if you haven't already, feel free to check out my recent post on No_Scans discussing Queer Tropes to better understand where I'm coming from on this.


That being said: ROLL CALL!!!!!!!

 

Batwoman










Jack Harkness










Ianto Jones










The Question (Renee Montoya)











Ozymandias




Black Cat



Daken



Destiny



Mystique




Rictor & Shatterstar 

 


 

 



And by the by: The Greeks/Romans/Spartans were like TOTALLY GAY!!!!! (nsfw)


Victoria Hand





Richie Foley/Gear









Dani Baptiste





Tim Gunn

He's awesome and must therefore be included.



Catwoman (Holly Robinson)



Lafayette Reynolds



Scandal Savage



Hulkling



Karolina Dean



Wiccan



HE"S GAY HONEY!!!! Stop trying to recruit. Straight people: Always trying to push their heterosexual agenda on us God-fearing gays. ;D




Xavin







Achilles







DAYUM is my boyfriend sexy!!!!

Go ahead. It's okay to look.

THAT"S CLOSE ENOUGH.

I'm gonna need you to back away from my man, right the hell now.

Satsu













(Ultimate) Colossus









Not sure if the live-action movie version featured 616 Colossus or Ultimate Colossus.

It really doesn't matter because you're a fool if you think I"m about to pass up a chance to partake in some Grade-A beefcake like one Daniel Cudmore.








Willow Rosenberg

















Tara MaClay













John Constantine







Xena






The Midnighter



Apollo & The Midnighter







Now, I'm willing to bet there are some gems out there that myself and others may not be aware of and/or should (re)consider checking out.

So if you have any recommendations of awesome exceptional prominent LGBTQ characters in comics then by all means, sharing is caring. Please post them away in the comments.

 

Comments

[flidgetjerome]

McDuffie stated it on his old forum.

[icon_uk]

Interesting, of course, as it was never a plot point or even hinted at, I'm not sure it should qualify, much like Ozymandius.

[shadowpsykie]

if it was just hearsay then i would agree with you, but coming from the word of god, i would say he qualifies.

[icon_uk]

If the only way you could intuit he was anything other than straight is a post on an a creators blog from years after the series ended, then I'd say no it shouldn't count, as no casual viewer of the actual series which is his entire canon would give you any hint of it. No gay kid watching him would get any sense of fellowship from him on the basis of his sexuality, because he didn't have one.

Don't get me wrong, my affection for cute blond geeky heroes would happily stretch to include Richie, but there's nothing about the character on screen to inform us that he IS gay, so he can hardly be a gay icon.

Hope that made sense...

[pyrotwilight]

Oddly enough there's at least one episode that makes it seem believable (at least in my eyes), the episode about how Richie's dad was racist. In the episode itself they just focused on the racism of Richie's dad against Virgil but I did get a big vibe that when Richie ran from home unwilling to tolerate his dad's one-mindedness their was a bigger reason for it.

[shadowpsykie]

ah yes there was that one too,

also take into account Richie is a stand in for Virgil's gay friend in the comics

[icon_uk]

You can read that into it if you like in hindsight, but that episode is all about the father's opinions and views, and doesn't even carry a subtext that Richie is gay.

[shadowpsykie]

i get what you are saying, but one could argue his lack of interest in any girl (except maybe hawkwoman, and come on, its hawkwoman she doesn't count) and his devotion to Virgil and his earing made me think he was a little "fancy" as Zinda would say

[icon_uk]

Suggesting that an earring is indicative of anything other than diodgy fashion sense is past even the point "scrabbling for proof".

His devotion to Virgil is that of a best friend. Virgil is just as devoted to Ritchie too, but he's straight isn't he?

[shadowpsykie]

yeah i admit the earing was a stretch (but it would be a "tag" that one would use if one could not address ones sexuality on a Y7 show)

and i say Hawkgirl doesn't count because, well, she's harkgirl. maybe its the mace, or the fact that Maria Canal Bernales' voice goes well with the character, but i am 100% gay and even i think she was kinda hot... (its like staright guys and Hawkman.... dude is all man....:)

hmm there should be a trope akin to "Even Guys want him" like.... "even Gays want her." :)

[icon_uk]

Wonder Woman often has that one sewn up, look at Phil Jimenez.

[galateus]

Dumbledore-level visibility is a pretty crappy excuse for representation.

[shadowpsykie]

okay seriously? would you rather have had Dumbledore be a flaiming queen?

He was the greatest wizard of all time, NO ONE knew anything about his personal life until the final book. then they started revealing that stuff, anyone who read that book and DID NOT see that Dumbledore was in love With Grindelwald is dense. it does not need to be stated explicitly, especially since being gay does not define his character.

the same can be said for Gear. what defined him was that he was Virgil's best friend, and later his crime fighting partner. plus it was a Y7 tvshow? they did as much as was allowed ona show like that, and if you saw the show you could pick up on the subtext

[galateus]

Because clearly the only two options EVAR are "tragic backstory subtext with a dead villain" and "flaming queen". Your logic is impregnable!

No, wait, the other thing. 'Shit-tastic.'

Heterosexual relationships formed the basis of entire plots in those books. The disparity between that and the lone example of Albus' hopeless crushing on an unattainable (straight? who knows) guy isn't really excusable, at all.

As for Static Shock, the fact that the FCC and lobbies like the PTC aggressively enforce homophobic standards doesn't make the fiction that squeezes through any more progressive.

[shadowpsykie]

i think you are being incredibly unfair to the Dumbledore story. He loved some one and lost him, if this was written with a female character in stead of two males people would just go "awe how sad" but with a gay character it suddenly becomes a thing of homophobia?

there were also many platonic relationships as well,

as well as Sirius and Remus' close relationship (notice Remus did not even NOTICE Tonks until Sirius was dead)

we are just going to have disagree on this one. I saw Albus' story as the story of a man who has loved once and possibly never been able to find some one else who even came near to that love, only to have to lost that love.

the story is called Harry Potter, not Albus Dumbledore, its not HIS story. No one really knew his story, and that was as much a part of his character as anything else. We didn't get the whole affair, it was Albus' personal life. he told the parts that he was willing to tell. you could tell when his spirit spoke of it how much he loved and how much he hurt. he does not need to come out and say "I desired him very much" he didn't NEED to say that, because you could from the writing just how he felt. And you could tell that Grindelwald felt "Something" for him, even if it was nothing more than respect of thier old friendship, when he refused to tell Voldemort where the wand was.

i know nothing i say is going to change either of our minds, i just think we needed to be fairer to some of these characters than we are

[galateus]

lol no

Subtext is not a substitute for text. There are roughly OVER NINE THOUSAND textual het relationships in HP, JKR could've easily been more inclusive (no publisher's going to seriously restrict the content of one of the best-selling kids' series in years), but she chose not to be. The *intentional* subtext of Albus & Grindelwald may be better than nothing, but it just highlights the big, gaping absence more.

[sistermagpie]

as well as Sirius and Remus' close relationship (notice Remus did not even NOTICE Tonks until Sirius was dead)

Which was why a lot of fans were disappointed when the author specifically hung girlie pictures on Sirius' bedroom walls. (Which of course doesn't prove he was absolutely straight, of course, but the only explicit interest Sirius and Remus ever show sexually it's het.)

I agree with galateus, though. There were so many het relationships just as little reason for us to know, but we knew them all the same--explicitly. Dumbledore's story isn't even told to us by him, but by other people most of the time--especially people like Rita Skeeter who would eagerly include that Albus was potentially in love with Grindelwald instead of just thrilled to have finally found a friend as smart as he was.

It's not that the subtext isn't there, imo, but there's really nothing so special about the GG/DD relationship that prevents it from being stated along with all the others except someone deciding to treat it differently. Obviously many many people were dense enough not to get it because the revelation was big (but not scandalous iirc) news-even to people who saw the subtext and assumed it wasn't intentional.

[icon_uk]

To be fair, the Dumbledore is told entirely by people OTHER than Dumbledore and he makes no mention of his preference at any point in the book. He's not gay, he's not straight, he's essentially sexless.

And what subtext was there about Ritchie? As noted, the one time he showed an interest in ANYONE it was Hawkgirl, that doesn't suggest, to the viewer, anything other than straight.

[introverted_excavator]

Then we'd have to include Lexington from Gargoyles too.

[flidgetjerome]

I think in this case it can slide? Richard Stone's always been gay and it's always been obvious they're counterpart characters.

[icon_uk]

Which means nothing to the viewer of the Static Shock show who hasn't read those issues of the Static comic. You can't presume similarity where it isn't stated to be so, and Mr McDuffie saying after the fact does not make Ritchie anything like a gay icon in retrospect. It's an interesting factoid, but he's an "invisible gay".

[flidgetjerome]

This was a post-internet fandom, though. Most of us (by which I mean people in the Static Shock fandom) knew plenty-well that Richard Foley was called Richard Stone in the comics and that Richard Stone was gay without ever having touched an issue. It wasn't like Dumbledore, where there was genuinely no real indication until JKR said so, it was common knowledge.

[neo_prodigy]

You couldn't be more wrong.

The reason why they didn't out Richie in the series is because they couldn't less they lose their Y7 rating (which is the most adult rating a children's cartoon can get here in the states). That's right here in the states, YOU CAN'T BE GAY ON A KIDS SHOW. They would've lost that rating and there would've been no Static Shock.

Furthermore that's like arguing Renee Montoya doesn't count as a lesbian because she wasn't out on Batman. Or Maggie Sawyer.

And THAT'S the reality we live in. The only way to exist in a children's cartoon or for that matter society is by being AN INVISIBLE GAY.

Because being visible, gets you fired from your job. Being visible means you get met with violence. Being visible gets you killed.

Don't believe me then go ask Duanna Johnson, Emille Griffith or Matthew Shephard (sp?) what being visible gets you.

Being visible gets you kicked out of your house. Being visible led to my friend's ex boyfriend committing suicide because his parents couldn't accept that he was gay.

Being visible means you get rebuked and attacked or denigrated because in large part to avatars of straight privilege, queer minstrels like Northstar and Rawhide Kid.

Being visible in this society catches you unholy hell especially if you aspire to be more than society's punchline.

Richie IS the authentic gay because for those of us who live in real world, we understand that the only way for him to exist in a cartoon is by invisible.

And for those of us who knew then and know now, we understand because it's a struggle too many of us have faced. But we salute him just the same because we know if he ever came out on that show his father, who flipped his shit for his son being best friends with a black kid, would damn sure lose it for having a gay son.

So we support Richie because we know the struggle. And we applaud Richie because he became an ass-kicking superhero and didn't allow himself to be boxed in. He did what he had to do and became a hero to many of us.

AND FOR THAT, Richie has earned his rightful spot on MY list. And for that, I will give that cute bespectacled geeky blond white boy the hawtest THANK YOU sex that he'll ever experience.

[icon_uk]

You're still reading his sexuality into his character when it was only revealed after the fact when the writer would, conveniently perhaps, never have to deal with it.

You can appreciate him as gay in retrospect all you like (and I share that too, since as noted, I have a soft spot for cute blond geek heroes), but I still cannot see how you can cite him as being a major gay character when the only way anyone could know that he was gay is a blog posting after the show had wrapped. No gay kid could watch the show and particularly identify with him through his sexuality unless he already had the knowledge that he was gay, which he couldn't have got.

They might as well have identified with Soul Power, we don't know if he was gay or straight either do we?

Renee Montoya is a poor example to use because she HAD been created and written as straight up until... was it NML or Gotham Central that had her come out? Her homosexuality is, essentially, a retcon. Her boyfriend died of the Clench for example, and dating men wasn't indicated as being unusual for her.

[neo_prodigy]

Once again. That's a weak argument because the FFC WLL NOT allow gay characters to be included in cartoons or children's programming. So it's not like he or creators had a choice in the matter.

Same way there ARE NO GAYS in the US military. You either be invisible or you get canceled.

This wasn't a retcon seeing as the character predates the cartoon. Most of us knew about Richie when the cartoon premiered. McDuffie only confirmed what we already knew to those who didn't know the comic. But for comic fans, we knew the score.

If you don't agree, that's your privilege. However seeing as this is my post, I'm celebrating the gay superhero that I know him to be.