Judge Dredd and mPreg

[auggie18]

Fun fact I just found out about Judge Dredd. Not only are gay couples a normal thing, not only is gay marriage so legal that it isn't even an issue, genetic manipulation has made male pregnancy possible.







Reed Richards, you need to step up your game.
 

Comments

[icon_uk]

I love the casual way it's not so much addressed as "just happens to be included".

[sigmund_droid]

I know eh? The big two has a bad nack of introducing homosexuality like this in the most hamfisted way possible.

[skjam]

Either 2000 AD or the Megazine did a m-preg centric story a while back that was basically the "ooh, we're edgy" story so they could get it out of their system. (It was not a Judge Dredd story, but I don't know much detail.)

[captainbellman]

My theory is that each time it's introduced they're behaving as if they're going through a huge effort and making a massive sacrifice to their integrity for the fans. The attitude appears to be "THERE! A character who's gay/non-white/female and wearing a practical costume! NOW will you shut up about being under-represented?!".

That's how it seems to me, at least.

[northstarfan]

Ha! Yeah, as much as I like Northstar's new husband, Kyle, I do sometimes feel like they went down a checklist of fan-complaints with him. "Look! He's gay, he's a decidedly un-angry black man, and the X-Men have human supporting cast again! Now go away!"

Kinda think they missed the point of having human supporting cast when said cast-member's main function seems to be getting kidnapped, tho'.

[sigmund_droid]

Honestly I didn't mind Kyle that much, my main beef has been with Bunker in the DC universe.

His intro was so cheesy it puts Poochie the dog to shame.

[northstarfan]

What I would really like with Kyle is for the writers to find something to do with him besides make him the guy Northstar worries about. Amanda Sefton, Lee Forester, Charlotte Jones...these were all X-Men love-interests who each had more going on than just their relationship with their X-Counterpart. And while I think Kyle's a character with a lot of potential and even a lot to recommend him right now, I'm worried that keeping him as the damsel in distress is 1) going to ultimately land him in a fridge and 2) hurt Northstar's character development as well, since Liu seems to be ignoring having him build any team bonds in favor of having him exclusively focused on Kyle.

[darkknightjrk]

How was it cheesy? I really liked the character--and I get the feeling that if he weren't introduced in the New 52, there would be a LOT more love for the guy in this comm.

[kaileighblue]

Why don't people say the same about Kevin Keller and his future husband? Last I heard nearly everyone was eating that up.

[skjam]

Possibly because Clay has his own plotlines beyond being Kevin's spouse, and Kevin has friendship bonds with characters other than Clay.

[q99]

Yea, and the Kevin Keller comic doesn't even have Clay. Just him doing fun stuff in Riverdale.

[mrstatham]

It does feel like we're supposed to get down on our knees and thank the Big Two every time they put out a character who isn't a white male or a book that features such a character. I'm sure that if Captain Marvel or Fearless Defenders or Red She-Hulk or whatever gets cancelled, we'll have that familiar excuse of 'we put X out, but no-one was buying' it, which just exposes the massive problem of the industry at the moment. Smaller companies can survive with a book doing 20K and not being in the top 100, why can't they?

At the same time, there's still an obnoxious majority of fans who don't seem to understand at all why this variety and diversity is a good thing and actively question the existence of an all-female team like Wood's upcoming X-Men book or Fearless Defenders, claiming it's just pandering.

[captainbellman]

What makes it so difficult is that both sides have the argument that it's just pandering - but the sexists/racists/homophobes are saying that this means that LESS effort should be made, while we're saying MORE, and with a little more dignity and honesty. Carol Danvers using her rightful "Captain" rather than "Ms." and wearing a full-body, military uniform? Great! The fact that this has to be advertised as the biggest thing ever and a massive divergence from the norm for female superheroes? Not so great.

[q99]

Yea, really :) It's not the most natural approach, not like Dredd does it.

[icon_uk]

Though I still find it somewhat amusing that the first actual outing I can recall in the Big Two, the Pied Piper in "The Flash", was so well handled because it WAS so understated, which is as it should be.

[q99]

It's funny how they started out as natural, smooth, just there as part of the story, and then moved to, "WE HAVE A GAY CHARACTER!".

[terrykun]

Oh Batwoman...


"LEEEESSSBIAAAAAAAN! WE HAVE A LEEEEEESSSSBIAAAAAAN! TELLL YOUUUUR FRIIIIIEEEENDS!"

[q99]

Yes!

And then she didn't get a book for almost *Four years*!

[darkknightjrk]

To be fair though, we probably would have gotten it a little faster if we didn't get a painterly artist who's infamous almost as much for his lateness as his talent...

[q99]

A lot of it was DC kept on shifting plans on Rucka, though.

[bruinsfan]

I thought Maggie Sawyer was pretty clearly shown to be in a lesbian relationship in the late 80s, several years before the Piper came out? That was nicely handled too. Perhaps the necessity of flying under the radar resulted in a more subtle, sensitive treatment?

Of course, in between came "Extraño" in that godawful Millenium crossover event. Not only did he embody practically every stereotype in existence, but the higher-ups assumed that being elevated to a higher evolutionary state at the end of the series would "cure" him of being gay.

[auggie18]

...what.

[icon_uk]

Maggie was, in many ways, a chronic stereotype when introduced. She had the short haircut, the cigarette habit, and yes, it was heavily implied she was into women, most notably in a story where Lex attempts to blackmail her by threatening to tell the world her dark secret (and also making sure that his office workers that day were all extremely sexily clad women and leering about how he thought she'd enjoy such a thing), but she never came out and SAID she was gay, any more than Northstar did, and implied (even heavily implied) innuendo and reading between the lines isn't anything like the same as being able to say, quite calmly that you are gay.

Extrano is another case where he never came out, presumably because, as you say, he was too busy embodying every stereotype going.

[bruinsfan]

Are you sure about the latter? I could swear I recall him actually flirting with men on panel, though time and rage-induced amnesia have blurred the specifics. I definitely recall Englehart discussing him in interviews as the first openly gay superhero.