The big news coming out of the Kapow! comic convention in London is that DC Comics will be reintroducing a previously straight character as a gay character in the New 52 continuity. This development will be coming to us in June.
Just how big is this news? It’s hard to say. As it stands, it’s hard to honestly say it’s big at all.
DC’s claim is that this character will become one of its most prominent homosexual characters, which isn’t a difficult thing to be. When you think about it, all you need to be one of the most prominent is to be gay and be featured in a comic. There aren’t that many others.
DC’s comments on this topic imply that this character will be male and has not already been reintroduced in the New 52. The latter may be reading too much into the comments, though. Either way, the real question here is how major of a character will this be? Hyping it up as they are, DC is going to have to go bold here. They definitely have to be bolder than they were when it came to race in the New 52. Turning a character of minor status similar to Etta Candy or Morgan Edge gay is not going to impress anyone. That’s especially true when Marvel Comics already did this over a decade ago in the Ultimate Universe with one of their main X-Men, Colossus.
If DC does change the sexuality of one of its more notable characters, that would be an interesting step forward in an area that the New 52 honestly hasn’t lived up to.
Yes, Batwoman has a series now. Yes, Apollo and Midnighter are now in the DC Universe. Hey, there’s Bunker in the Teen Titans. But Obsidian has been wiped out of continuity. The Secret Six, with their cast of homosexual and bisexual characters, have been erased from history. Grace Choi and Thunder seem unlikely to exist anymore. And most recently, Renee Montoya has been stripped of her role as the Question and left in character limbo. The list even goes a bit further.
This will hopefully be a good move for DC, because they have some catching up to reach the level of sexual diversity they had before the reboot.
