A character created in 1940 has been retconned as gay. What about this is upsetting fans?
After much teasing and hinting, venerable superhero giant DC Comics has announced that the original Green Lantern, Alan Scott, will be gay in his newly-retconned version. There’s been a few shrieks of outrage from old-school fanboys who see this as the colonization of their existing emotional property. Yes, Kate (Batwoman) Kane is gay, and Renee (The Question) Montoya, formerly a major player in the Gotham City Police Department, is gay, and yes, Marvel has had quite a few openly gay characters, beginning with Northstar. But… this is different!
And okay, I want to take a minute to engage with that sense of this being different. Green Lantern was first created in 1940, by Mart Nodell, who also created his secret identity of Alan Scott, broadcaster and all-round square-jawed blond man. He had a ring that made him virtually omnipotent, and used this to fight the Sportsmaster, who committed crimes using tennis rackets and ice skates. (If you think I’m kidding, you have never read any Golden Age comics.) Alan Scott, like every single member of the Justice Society of America except Wonder Woman, was a Normal Guy. “Normal” meaning white, straight, male, educated, and middle-class. You know, like it always means. Yeah, they let Wonder Woman in, but her official position was as the secretary. (Again, not kidding.)
So the upset fans have a point that this character they’ve known and loved and memorized the adventures of has now been thrown out and has a new characterization. Or rather, they have a point if you ignore a rather important caveat: that’s true of every DC character.
The reason Alan Scott is gay now is that they threw out all their existing continuity and rebooted it from scratch. DC does this periodically. They did it in the 50s, when all of a sudden Green Lantern was a guy named Hal Jordan who worked for blue aliens as a space cop. They did it in the 60s, when all of a sudden their 1940s continuity, including Alan Scott, happened on an alternate world. They did it in the 80s, when 50 years of history and all the alternate world were completely wiped out. (Along with Krypto the Super-Dog, Comet the Super-Horse, Streaky the Super-Cat, and Beppo the Super-Monkey. There was a reason they were cleaning house.) They did it in the 90s, hammering together a new continuity in an attempt to make the character ages fit.
You cannot be a DC Comics fan and stay too attached to the existing history of the characters you love. It’s like buying a hamster:you know it’s only got a few years to live, and you have to accept that.
So what’s the difference between this retcon and all the previous retcons? Well, this time it’s about a definition of Normal Guy that’s actually been updated since the 1940s. And surprise surprise, that’s what’s offensive to some folks.
Photo— istolethetv/Flickr
If they want to start from scratch then they should start all the way from scratch by creating a new (gay) character. And don’t rob the fans of what we’ve grown to love. As far as I’m concerned this Green Lantern that was created in 19 forties will never be gay. GIVE ME A BREAK. So I guess they’ll make a new Green Lantern movie where he’s gay………STOP!
Well, so what if he’s suddenly gay? I don’t know much about the old series, but I do know that they constantly change the stories and back stories of superheroes. If they do that anyway, so what if they change him “completely?”
Kind of annoying when characters are retconned in that kind of way, what if Sonic the hedgehog suddenly became red and not blue?
I think that they should’ve left Alan Scott just as he was. There is absolutely no sense in completely changing an established character that has been straight since the early forties and suddenly saying, “oh, yeah. He’s really gay.” If they wanted a gay character, it would’ve been better to just come up with a new character that was gay from the start. This ruins the character that I have known for years, because I know that he was married and had two kids.
“‘“Normal’ meaning white, straight, male, educated, and middle-class”
Middle-class?! There are two billionaires in the club! (Scott Alan, Bruce Wayne)
And an illegal immigrant (did Kal-El go through Naturalization? I think not.)
I think there’s an extra level to this though, because the Green Lantern’s powers are based on morality. Making an openly gay Lantern probably rubs people the wrong way because this is them basically equating homosexuality with good morals, which obviously everyone isn’t ok with. Also a problem arises when you look at most superheroes (except for Aquaman & Robin) as extremely masculine, and homosexuality is generally at odds with masculinity.
“and homosexuality is generally at odds with masculinity.”
Homosexuality is generally perceived as being at odds with masculinity.
Masculinity is stereotype, a stereotype is defined by society in general, society in general says attraction to men is a feminine trait, femininity is a stereotype, therefore, attraction to men is feminine.
That’s way too simplistic an analysis. Masculinity isn’t a stereotype itself, exactly; it’s a set of behaviours associated with a social identity. Attraction to women used to be included in western societal definitions of masculinity, this is true. However, that’s not exactly true any more. Social definitions of masculinity and femininity are constantly changing. Gender performance and sexual orientation are not longer quite as tied to each other as they used to be. Feminine lesbians and masculine gay men exist…not to mention all the other myriad combinations of sexual orientation and gender identity. So no, sexual attraction to men is… Read more »
So doesn’t that mean that having an openly straight Lantern implies that heterosexuality is equated with good morals? Which, y’know, is a much more common view in modern times? Honestly, I’ve never read Green Lantern at all, but having a character seen as the pinnacle of morality be gay doesn’t read to me ‘homosexuality is inherently more moral than heterosexuality’, it reads as ‘homosexuality is not inherently less moral than heterosexuality’.
Being a Green Lantern isn’t based on morality anyway. Alan Scott’s ring is powered by willpower, and both good and evil people can have plenty of that.
According to James Robinson, the writer for the title, it was not a conscious decision to “make a character gay,” but a way of making up for the loss of a gay character who had been retconned out.<– BS
No one cares if a character is gay in comics, they care if the characters relationships make stories interesting.
Saying " ZOMG old GREEN LANTERN IS GAY" shows there is no commitment to a good story.
But well the new 52 is all garbage anyway
This move makes perfect sense for a desperate brand that has nothing to lose. With Avengers breaking all kinds of records compared to the 14 people that paid to see the Green Lantern, DC Comics thought it better do something to get attention. And, it’s worked, at least for now. They’ve obviously given up on trying to compete for the superhero/comic book demographic since they know that gay love story themed superhero adventures are highly unlikely to bring the superhero/comic book demographic back. from Marvel and elsewhere. So, they are apparently counting on the fact that “all things gay” is… Read more »
I don’t know much about this character, but a friend of mine made an interesting point on FB the other day:
The green lantern is passed on from character to character over the years anyway. Why not create a new one? Instead of flicking a switch and making an established character suddenly gay, why not make a new green lantern from scratch and leave the old one who he is?
Alternately, doesn’t the original have a wife and kids? How about revealing that it was actually a lavander marriage? Now *that* would be worth a read!
“Alternately, doesn’t the original have a wife and kids? How about revealing that it was actually a lavander marriage? Now *that* would be worth a read!”
I’d read that, for sure.
Before the retcon, Alan Scott did have two kids: Jade and Obsidian. Apparently they’ve been erased to fit with the new continuity… which is a shame, because they were pretty good characters in their own right.
And Obsidian was, well, gay. So, uh, excuse me if I’m not tooting the Progressiveness Horn for DC on this one.
Yup, massive closet come-out cop-out. I think it should’ve been Batman’s son Damian Wayne, the current Robin. He’s just like a grown-up, bad-ass Stewie Griffin. Check out my article about DC’s weak publicity stunt here http://fundividedattention.wordpress.com/2012/06/03/great-scotts-dcs-closet-come-out-cop-out/
I have to say, though, that I have yet to hear any actual fans complain about this. The only complaints I’ve heard of are from the Million Mom March.
I see this as a cop out. The average person does not know who Alan Scott is. I do not know how DC can call him icon when he is not even the Green Lantern people tend to think of. This was really a way for DC to play liberal politics to shut up one side and to play to the fanbase by not PC-retconning a character most fans love. If DC really wanted to make waves, they would have made Hal Jordan or even Guy Gardner (a better choice) gay. Or they could have just made Aquaman gay since… Read more »
I think people are looking at this the wrong way around. According to James Robinson, the writer for the title, it was not a conscious decision to “make a character gay,” but a way of making up for the loss of a gay character who had been retconned out.
http://popwatch.ew.com/2012/06/01/gay-superhero-green-lantern-alan-scott/
“On a side note, let us hope that DC changes Alan Scott’s weakness from wood.”
When I heard Dumbledore was gay, the first thing I thought was wasn’t he the head master at Hogwarts? My bad. Couldn’t help myself.