In Which I Recommend You a Gay Superhero Webcomic: The Young Protectors

[q99]

Recently, I discovered a webcomic, The Young Protectors. It's about a young superhero, who's gay.

And an older supervillain, who is also gay :)

It's still fairly early on in the story, but so far it's been pretty good stuff

Comments

[dewinged]

I've been enjoying the heck out of this comic recently, and plan on donating to the Kickstarter this coming weekend.

The 'Interval' story where the team finds a fan website with slash fiction and art is hysterical. Everything Spooky Jones says there is comedy gold.

[q99]

So far, I *like* his team :) At first, considering how Jake and Duncan-focused the comic was I figured they'd be fairly background, but they seem pretty developed too.

[dewinged]

His team is a fun bunch, and I like how they act.

(Though I think Red's real name is Kyle, not Jake).

[q99]

Oops, you're right ^^

[grazzt]

Yeah, Spooky Jones seems an inspired mishmash of comic book archetypes. I love his hat with the ghost wearing a cap and holding a flashlight. Makes me think he's a teenage occult detective as well as being a wizard. Like a sidekick version of John Constantine.

[ozaline]

Looks good, but Avast is giving me malware warnings for the site.

[kurenai_tenka]

I've been reading it since the start and oddly my Avast hasn't pinged once!

[grazzt]

I've been getting malware warnings for a bunch of webcomics that have always been safe before today. Methinks something is up and it will be fixed soon.

[salad_barbarian]

Same here.

[q99]

There's a lot of webcomics being hit by that today- hopefully whatever it is will be cleared up soon.

[kamino_neko]

Hiveworks, which host/hosts ads for/partners with a HUGE number of comics got hacked this morning. So, apparently, did Mepsu (which hosts Humon's comics) and Questionable Content's server.

Oddly enough, Blind Ferret, which got hit 3 times in the past couple months, wasn't.

[q99]

Ah, that's what's going on. Thanks!

[shadowpsykie]

i saw this comic a while back, last i saw they went on thier first date. i forgot how fun this was :D im gonna go catch up :D

[mesmiranda]

I'm also getting a malware warning when I try to access it. Which is a shame, because hello.

[urkonn]

I don't know if it was ever mentioned here but before "The young protectors" the author, Alex Woolfson, had a story running called Artifice, that's now finished. you can find it here:
http://webcomics.yaoi911.com/archive/artifice-title-page/
It's a sci-fi story about the an artificial person and a young gay man. Lots more to the story but I don't know how to not spoil the story.

I'm simply waiting for The young protectors to finish before I start reading it.

And I also got Avast warnings of the site at first but after a few times it stopped. So either the Malware tricked avast into accepting it, or avast decided it's fine after all.

[dancesontrains]

A friend read this a while back, and warned me away because of very icky consent issues that are treated as romantic by the writer. I don't remember what they were exactly, but just mentioning it in case anyone is upset by such things.

[grazzt]

"I don't remember what they were exactly"

The pair's initial encounter involves the villain blackmailing the kid into kissing him. I don't think it's treated as explicitly romantic, though: the kid seems to enjoy it, but he's young and stupid and very repressed, so you could read that as an expression of his repression.

From there on in, the consent seems to be mutual, with Annihilator is acting as the suitor. Of course, Annihilator has a high-powered magic user in his corner, so this may not actually be the case, but we haven't seen any proof yet. I'm constantly waiting for the other shoe to drop. Annihilator has been far too pleasant thus far.

[q99]

Yea, he did *start out* a bit on the squick side, but it's also pretty clear he was playing into Kyle's response.

I think Annihilator/Duncan is sincere about his affection/liking Red Hot's genuine heroism, and really is playing it honestly... but I also think he's got something else going on too.

[northstarfan]

The issue I had was that this was an older, experienced guy blackmailing a closeted kid by holding his sexuality over his head in exchange for a kiss...which he then turned into a grind up against an alley wall. When I read it, I got a definite sexual predator vibe off of the whole scene. I'd say Kyle's nonchalant -- and even positive -- reaction to the whole thing, despite the fact that Annihilator is also someone he doesn't especially trust, could definitely be read as the writer implying that the encounter was supposed to be seen as romantic.

The rest of the comic is better, but that definitely got things off on the wrong foot and I'm reeeeallly not a fan of the central pairing as a result.

[icon_uk]

I get what you're saying, though I got a more complex vibe from that scene myself.

Kyle is having trouble dealing with his sexuality, Annihilator is much more relaxed about his, but remembers where Kyle is coming from. In some ways he seems to like this kid (again with the Deathstroke analogies, Slade used to like and respect most of the Titans, despite being hired to kill them) and sympathise with that discomfort, and wants him to be more honest with himself, for his own sake, so blackmails him into a kiss (and also because he's a bit of a bastard).

As it turns out it's Kyle's first ever kiss, and he does seem, despite himself, to enjoy the excuse to kiss another guy ("I'm only doing it because he's blackmailing me!") but reacts to it like many a hormonal adolescent.

This is the sort of thing he probably has fantasised about since realising he was gay (albeit wthout the blackmail part); kissing a guy who doesn't mind being kissed and kisses back (I think a lot of gay kids imagine that, I know I did). Whilst hating the reason for doing it, he's enjoying the experience itself.

I don't get a sense of romance at all, just an experience which Kyle has long wanted and which he has now had and liked the fundamentals of, though he would have liked it more under different circumstances.

The sort-of-romance bit comes later when Annihilator uses much less confrontational methods.

Please let me be clear that I am not advocating sexual predation in real life, and though Kyle would be beyond the age of consent in the UK I appreciate he's underage in the US and the scene does read as at best slightly skeevy (mostly due to Annihilator's age), but provided I've read Annhilator's motivations right (and I may well not have) there's a bit more to it than a sexual predator stalking.

[grazzt]

The Annihilator/Red Hot relationship feels like a cross between the Terra/Deathstroke relationship and the Dick Grayson/Deathstroke relationship, only slightly less twisted (and Red Hot will be legal before they have sex). Anni's costume is even reminiscent of Deathstroke's, only without all the orange.

Also, I love the Silver Priestess. She manages to have one of the most ridiculously skimpy costumes, and still carry herself with dignity and power. She's like the better incarnations of Emma Frost.

[icon_uk]

Silver Priestess also reminds me a bit of the more recent take on DC's Enchantress.

[lucky_gamble]

Ah I remember this series. I enjoyed it up until Anni said something along the lines of "you make me want to be a better person" to fire-guy after one date. It just made me roll my eyes back into my head. The pacing, which is ridiculously slow, also took the joy out of it. This is my fault; having the patience for a bi-weekly comic that costs 400 a page isn't my ideal set-up. Yet I praise Alex for telling a Gay story that isn't 90% sex.

[icon_uk]

I could have sworn something from this had been posted here before, and if it hasn't I'm embarassed I didn't do it myself because I knew about it and it's rather fun.

[q99]

I know I've *wanted* to for awhile but haven't gotten around to it before now, since this page inspired me.

[skywaterblue]

Like a lot of commentators, I think the romance is actually the weakest part of this. I loved the teammates, but Duncan just seems SO under-written right now in part, I think, because the author is trying to shy away from all of the questionable content. I'd be okay with it if Duncan WAS a little bit of a predator. It would help round out that he's supposedly a large super villain.

At least, I kept thinking about how Queer as Folk UK did the topic of a much older man picking up a twink at his first gay bar with much more consideration for what that meant for both of them.

[icon_uk]

QaF UK is perhaps the last thing I'd have thought of as a comparison, because that was worse than this IMHO.

Stuart, was almost entirely selfish in his sexual encounters, picked up Nathan (who was IIRC underage at the time, or just barely legal) in a very predatory fashion. He had no real intention of a real commitment or relationship, he just wanted to be the first to pick up and have the pretty little twink (Looking at Charlie Hunnam in Sons of Anarchy, that seems like a LOOONG time ago :) ).

Nathan was intended to be a one night stand, but in the words of Vince he turned into "the one night stand who never went away".

[dewinged]

The US version of the story is also like this. It was kind of really creepy all around.

[skywaterblue]

Right. My point is that QaF UK is a LOT less queasy about portraying that relationship as questionable at best. In fact, the fact that it's an uneven, messed up power relationship is essentially the plot.

Here, it's going for the same effect but with all the edges filed off... this despite the fact that as a an actual baddie, Duncan has probably done things MUCH worse than the dickishness of Stuart. Right now, the parts about Duncan and Kyle's relationship read very rosy-glassed and not rooted in their actual behavior. If I felt like Duncan had more lust for him, then it might explain why he's pursuing it at all. (Since it reads very safe and tame to me, I have to assume that the storyline about the mystical prophecy is going to be more important than it seems, of course.)

Contrasting that with the interludes, where a superpowered team of mostly teenaged boys are acting like teenaged boys is... interesting.

[icon_uk]

Right. My point is that QaF UK is a LOT less queasy about portraying that relationship as questionable at best. In fact, the fact that it's an uneven, messed up power relationship is essentially the plot.

Ah, right, gotcha!

[grazzt]

If I felt like Duncan had more lust for him, then it might explain why he's pursuing it at all.

I keep getting this feeling that Anni is deliberately hiding his lust most of the time, to make Kyle feel easier. Like on the bottom panel of Chapter 1, p 26, Kyle is sort of looking down in a bit of a fluster, so Duncan is free to let slip a little. So in that panel his face reads "I am going to gobble you up."

So the edges are still there, it's just that Annihilator is covering up as many of them as possible to keep Red Hot in for the ride. That's the feeling I get, anyway. Personally, I do hope this ends with whatever Anni is planning defeated and Red Hot dating someone more appropriate, but who knows? Artifice didn't exactly have the happiest of endings.

[skywaterblue]

I don't dislike it enough to drop reading it now that I found it - it's quality and FREE - it's just disappointing that the main storyline leaves me a bit cold.

[janegray]

I wanted to like it, I really did, but I just couldn't.

One of the guys is 17, the other is nearly 60. It creeps me out like there is no tomorror, my mind keeps screaming NONONONONONONONONONONONONONONOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!

I'd be all for a well-draw slash comic about a superhero and a supervillain who fall in love. But the age difference is just too much for me to ignore :(

[gamerguy]

Great stuff, no issues with it. I especially love the rest of his team, and their powers - Fluke especially has a very cool and weird ability. Hopefully we'll get back to them at some point :)

[q99]

I suspect we'll alternate between couple & team