Today I give you Karma lookin fierce as hell like the badass Vietnamese lesbian mutant psychic she is!
Shan is often overlooked, something they’ve joke about in recent X-Men comics. Finally it seemed as though she was getting some limelight in the new new New Mutants title. But alas, she’s recently become legless or something. I find it interesting that the two X-Men who have lost limbs are gay.
I really like the new header!
Thanks man! I didn't realize how 80s it was looking till I was uploading it to the site. But the 80s are never a bad thing, right?
I also just noticed the new header.
Very cool. It is a little 80's color wise the scheme is kinda early 90's comics (the cutting edgy ones).
Anywho yeah, Marvel is not as kind to its gay characters as DC is. DC seems to have a policy of squirreling gay or lesbian characters away whenever there's danger instead of having them fight their own battles. Which is like…wha? Even with superpowers the LGBT world needs an ex deus machina?
And with Marvel…man they just don't know what to do with us. So they kill us or maim us, keep us from having stable relationships, etc. I recall Northstar being declared gay…and then never speaking of it again, never being attracted to anyone, never dating, never having to come to terms with his sexuality (and neither did anyone else). Then he becomes EVIL and DIES!
I think the only gay character from Marvel who hasn't had their face kicked in is Caroline from Runaways (SP, haven't read it in a while but my brother loves it even when he hates it. You know how comic book people can be).
OH! And Wiccan! But…he's not an X character…
Okay so maybe only X-related characters who are LGBT get maimed to hell?
I don't read too much DC, (except early Authority) but it seemed to me what with Millar's Apollo rape, that DC is just as comfortable fucking over the gays as Marvel is. Do u remember that shit? Single most offensive thing in a comic EVER to me. Apollo gets raped and then Midnighter performs a revenge rape with a power drill or something. Disgusting, offensive, off-color, and totally solidifies Millar as my most hated comic writer ever.
Oh and Hulking and Wiccan were beaten so badly in Secret Invasion that it worried gay comic fans that one of them was going to die. I don't doubt for a second Marvel woulda done it if not for the huge public outcry from the gays online.
Oh no then, I meant DC proper. Or rather…not one of its million offshoots like Vertigo, Wildstorm, Archie Comics, Milestone, etc.
Like the first big pro-gay thing was done by DC with Green Lantern. A friend of his, who was gay, gets killed via gay bashing and Green Lantern…kinda goes into a rage over it. He almost kills someone if I remember correctly to make them pay for what they did.
Also, in the JLA comic "Midsummer's Nightmare" you see a small tender scene with this lesbian couple and one wishing the other a good day before work.
Then the latest Batwoman was a lesbian as well. And hardcore. Still, the issue with DC is that they view gays as needing to be "saved" because otherwise they won't get protection, which is to an extent true (depending on where you are) and on another hand insulting.
Even during the latest DC "Crisis" there was this one gay character, Piper, who you could tell DC was trying to make sympathetic. He was paired with someone who repeatedly degraded and let fly with sly homophobic comments when you could clearly see that Piper wasn't doing ANYTHING. It was like DC wanted everyone, gay or straight, to just scream "LEAVE HIM ALONE ALREADY!"
Which is what DC likes to do. Recall gays need to be "saved"
It's odd. Because while DC's mainline is like that it's offshoots can be markedly homophobic which I don't really get. Like you said the whole Wildstorm doing The Authority and then the rape…it's like…why didn't someone step in and say "Maybe this is the dumbest thing ever and you shouldn't do it?"
Even now Archie comics is JUST getting their first openly gay character and gay men and women have been reading Archie for how long? How many visions of Moose and Dillon or Moose and Reggie can the world stand? (Also Archie/Reggie is a popular one)
I will never get why homosexuality or transgender themes have to be SO gimmicky in comics just to prove a point. There's only one comic I've ever really seen it handled to my liking and it wasn't done by DC or Marvel (it was pretty indie if I recall…)
I love this! Cuz from the main page it looks like a ton of people are commenting! Haha!
What they are doing in DC sounds hirable from your description. I almost rather the gay characters get killed in battle rather than waiting for someone to come to their rescue. How lame! We're not damsels, DC! (well, some of us are– lol)
It is a real shame comics don't treat gay characters better– especially since we make up a sizable chunk of it's fan base. We just need more gay talent at the helm. Not holdin' my breath for that one tho…
Oh and LOL @ the Archies. When I 1st heard about that I was like– um, ok Archies was kinda already the gayest comics out there WITHOUT a confirmed gay character" haha.
I recall Wizard doing an article about how homophobic the comic book industry can be. So much so that we have to create our own niches.
Although Adam Warren's work is surprising non-homophobic. His Empowered series (which I adore, and highly recommend) is the first comic I've read, with superheroes, to mention yaoi…and then fully embrace the idea as being okay.
And he actually had a gay superhero comment on yaoi saying how it degrades the idea of gays to think that they're only good to fulfill the fantasies of others.
I was like "A straight man wrote this?!"