A 'prominent' superhero is coming out of the closet

>Not wondering why people read dc comics

>JH Williams III Exists

Pick one.

And I dont think that the creative process should be fan-driven, at least not like you're describing. No "asked" for a gritty breakdown of Charlton heroes but we still have Watchmen in the list of the best 100 novels of 20th century. And stop wanking sabout how DC's "bragging." They just put their normal PR spin like they do for every announcement. They said this at Kapow trust me if there were bragging, they wouldn't do it at the Aquaman of the Super Freinds that are the Convention Crcuit. It's not like the whored it out into an opulent fest just to get the OMM negative approval boost. coughmarvecough

So, the guy with the wood weakness is now gay.

I wonder if they realized that before taking this decision...

@Gannetwhale: The full issue isn't out yet, so you know as much about Alan Scott's significant other as most other people. So far as the internet has been able to determine, dark-haired guy is a new character. However, a horrific train crash with Alan Scott as the only survivor is part of the Golden Age origin, so...

To be fair, it exemplified the glory of the chinese elemental system. Pity they didn't realised wood also stands in for AIR...

Oh great, Bury Your Gays as a backstory. And here I thought they were smarter than that...

This change means Obsidian and Jade are likely gone for good. I was really hoping to see them in Earth-2. Why didn't Robinson just include Obsidian in the book? It's a reboot. Todd having different parents wouldn't be an issue.

Also, add Alan Scott to the list of married superheroes whose marriages are gone because of the reboot. :(

I wouldn't put it past Robinson. He seems to use gratuitous character deaths quite a bit. See Cry for Justice, where Robinson killed two gay characters*

Though at least Tasmanian Devil was reborn soon after.

Speaking of the devil (hurrhurr), if they truly wanted to appeal to the LGBT community, why the hell didn't they simply make Tasmanian Devil more famous instead of erasing Todd Rice from existence?

Watchmen didn't use established characters, and it was likely better for it. It honestly wasn't that special either, most of them are still an expy or substitute for better or at least older characters.

And yes, "no one asked" is valid here. Alan Scott is old news, the old Green Lantern, laid to rest. If you don't believe it compare the response from Alan to Hal to Hal to Kyle. Never mind this whole reboot is half baked. Crisis at least terminated everything and started over, for better or worse and inevitable retcons notwithstanding, this one fell out the gate.

Wasn't there some color spectrum case that wasn't yet completely fleshed out nor wrapped up? Wouldn't that be the more logical thing to keep on with rather than what is supposed to be a retiree? The one who's whole continuity was exiled in the 60s because as far back as then someone decided it was a dead horse? Make Earth's blue lantern, or teal lantern or whoever follows that octopus gay rather than screwing the dead horse after killing its offspring.

Okay, some of you are content with all of that, but more of you don't seem to be. To them I'm just dropping the reminder that there are better things to read than mainline DC(or Marvel).

edited 2nd Jun '12 10:18:01 AM by Cider

^^Everybody gets one, Momo. Even the Beatles had their clunkers. Besides, aren't you a big Golden Age fan? You of all people should be kindred spirits with Robinson, given his status as DC's premier Golden Age historian. The dude brought back Madam Fatal for christssake.

^Take that hipster crap back to /b/ if your honestly saying that out of the 200+ mainstream comic that there is no reason you can see for people reading them, then you're either an idiot ot a douche.

As it stands, we have tropes like Pandering to the Base, Running the Asylum and Fan Dumb for a reason, the fandom doesn't always know best, and judging all creative actions by some sort of rubric. Of if the fans "asked" for it or not is nonsense.

Civility. Civility!

The fandom doesn't always know best sure. But it was pretty clear they were cool with the Golden Age characters being wrapped up, or mentor types at most. But don't take my word for it, I'm mostly observing other people's reactions, even though I agree to an extent.

To be real, I don't know /b/ from /v/ and don't know why people care about them so much or expect the rest of the web to tell them apart. More relevant here is "writer did something people liked" has mutated into "writer can not do any wrong until proven otherwise, even when people already aren't liking an announcement"

That you bring up asylum running, fans might not always know best but there are more hipsters in DC's writing staff than in its fanbase. These are the writers who don't seem to realize the fans who wanted Jason Todd to stay dead are not the same ones who voted for him to be killed, nor do they have the same reason for wanting him off their pages.

Tell me, what does revamping one of the DC comic book characters who had some sense of closure, taking away everything that made him unique from the rest of the Green Lanterns and then turning him gay while removing his gay son accomplish. Nothing. That's the primary reason thing should not have gone down this way. The writers don't even have an excuse because the fans never asked for this to happen. The big two continue to demonstrate why they've been reduced to subsidiaries and there are no major standalone studios left in American comics.

Please don't call me Momo.

I'm a big fan of the JSA, but I've never been a fan of James Robinson. And no, this isn't a contradiction. Robinson only co-wrote about five issues of the JSA and the JSA: The Golden Age miniseries, which - in my opinion - is overrated.

Robinson likes to use gratuitous deaths, which is one of my major pet peeves with writers. This isn't just a recent thign. In Starman he had Mist kill off four Justice League in poorly conceived ways. (In the same issue they were introduced, no less.) Since most of my favorite characters are lesser known characters, he's managed to kill off several characters that I loved. He also tends to be fairly poor at characterization when working with other people's characters.

On topic, I'll repeat my previous sentiment. I would have preferred to see Obsidian. Obsidian was an established gay character with quite a few fans, but now he never existed and likely never will exist. Not to mention the loses of Jade and Molly (Alan's wife).

Ok then Lady M, sorry for lumping all Golden Age guys into one group. But really Obsidian being gone makes sense, they're boiling down the characters to "iconic" status. Just as Babs is out the chair the JSA is out of the "old folks home." Earth 2 is a George Lucas Throwback to the original National Comics and other golden age super stuff, Rob's said as much. So yeah, Obsidian's out just like Lian Harper is Marriage has be iconized in our stories as an "ending" (quite a few tropes across all media stem from this) and endings are the antithesis to the infinite stories that are comics, this is The Justice Society of America not the JSA.

@Cider dude what the hell, why would hipsters be in the DC fanbase Hipsters hate anything they define as "mainstream" and decry anything that made it "mainstream" in the first place. You say out of the couple hundred books the big 2 put out that there is NO reason anyone (read anyone you approve of) would buy. Even accounting for Sturgeon's Law that's about eighty talented writers, artists and editors (not to mention letters and all the "backstage stuff") just to satisfy your smug desire to be self-superior. The reason why they were "reduced" to subsidaries was because they were successful companies bought by larger ones that how industry works and the Billions Warner and Disney are raking in from them proves they were very good investments.

You called me hipster. I don't dislike DC or Marvel because they're mainstream comics, the thing people can't seem to wrap their heads around is that in the large picture there aren't any truly mainstream American comics. There is mainstream Marvel, 616, there is the mainline of DC, which they've rebooted three times but they aren't mainstream companies and haven't been since a brief boom in the Dark Age Of Comicbooks.

There business has been steadily shrinking, they've both been through bankruptcy and they are subsidiaries of larger companies working on a stagnating business model, making more money off of movie rights and merchandising than comics. There are no big companies left in American comics. Nobody treats other Warner branches like Sport Illustrated as "big companies" yet they are at least doing well with their own product and their magazines are more likely to be read by a mainstream audience.

There are lots of things in DC I would approve of reading though. These, these and these. Granted, not all of them, but there is a lot to choose from rather than going along with reboot #3 of the undying "multiverse".

Now mind you, Mr. Robinson might just be teasing us because the long-time fans know the train wreck from the Golden Age origin and it's possible to swerve it so that Alan's significant other isn't fridged. But given he's already killed off Lois Lane, Selina Kyle, Superman, Batman and all known Amazons including Wonder Woman...hope for this guy's survival is minimal.

<<"heaven forbid we have an all-white, all male team" Wow. To be blunt, yeah, doing that would be bullshit. Having a team comprised entirely of white men would be stupid.>>

You'll have to explain why that would be "stupid", because I'm not seeing it. In any case, the irony here is that before the reboot, the JSA was one of the more diverse teams in comics. The team had men and women, different ethnic groups, old and young and at least one gay character. And all of that was done without completely altering the surviving golden age characters. Now all of that's been thrown out the window.

I'm a big fan of the JSA, but I won't be buying and reading this new version. I'm done with reboots, and honestly probably done with the new 52.

A team comprised entirely of white men would just be incredibly lame. Some diversity is needed.Even in the '60s, creators made sure to always include a token female, even if they were usually the weakest and lamest members. These days, not including a little diversity is even dumber.

Edit: Shortpacked on the gay Green Lantern.

edited 4th Jun '12 1:00:04 PM by Tiamatty

That comic was kind of a zig-zag.

I can't tell if they support the move or don't care.

Tendentious stuff, far as I can tell. The cartoonist seems to think that anyone who objects must have it in for gay comic-book characters. But most of the displeasure or irritability I've seen is more about "monkeying with well-defined characters until they're not those characters anymore—even by 'rebooted' standards."

I kind of feel the same way, I guess.

I haven't touched Ultimate Spider-man since Peter died—not because I don't care for multi-ethnic Spidey, but because I read the story for Peter.

I was never big on Alan Scot, Kyle Rayner was the best green lantern in my opinion. But I find this development/change/whatever you want to cool very interesting.

Wasn't Alan Scott the one with the gay son?

Yep.

And per Mr. Robinson, losing Obsidian as an adult* (or possibly completely) was part of the impetus for making Alan Scott gay.

• There exists the possibility of Todd and Jen showing up later as pre-adolescent children from a one-time fling back in college when Alan was desperately "trying to not be gay."

Oh, and Earth 2 #2 ended on the train crash as a cliffhanger, so the fate of Alan's fiance is still in play.

I say it's going to turn out to be Galactus.