Follow TV Tropes

Following

Discussion Characters / GreenLantern1941

Go To

You will be notified by PM when someone responds to your discussion
Type the word in the image. This goes away if you get known.
If you can't read this one, hit reload for the page.
The next one might be easier to see.
Synchronicity MOD (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
Oct 3rd 2023 at 6:50:31 AM •••

Removed The Beard entry because it's a complainy Wall of Text, keeping it here in case someone can trim it down.

    The Beard 
  • The Beard: As of the most recent Continuity Reboot, Alan comes out as gay. Fine, but unless he backs the train up a little and remembers bisexuality exists this has some rather deep and disturbing implications across his canon:
    • Alan being retconned into having been 100% gay all along means that Every. Single. Time. over the course of eighty years of comics whenever Alan had a one-off or short-term female love interest and behaved in a manner which seemed to all appearances to indicate he reciprocated their feelings—including vocally saying he loved them—Alan (well-aware that he was actually 100% gay all along by his own self-admission but unwilling to admit it out loud) was lying knowing full well that these poor women had feelings for a man that they believed felt the same passion and warmth as them but was actually stringing them along for his own purposes. This may be partially justified by 40's era society not being exactly embracing of homosexuality and Retconned Alan needing to keep up appearances, but exploiting an innocent person's emotions to benefit yourself is still generally considered morally questionable even in the best situations.
    • When he comes out as 100% gay, Retconned Alan claims he loved the two women he married (Rose Canton and Molly Mayne), but not romantically/sexually. With Rose, Alan being retconned into having been 100% gay all along means that our deeply-respected living institution of heroism didn't just lead an unaware girl on for a bit to keep himself from being outed, he led Rosie on straight to the altar under the utterly false pretense that she was going to share her life with a man who was deeply and truly enamored with and devoted to her in every respect of the word, little knowing that every time Retconned Alan said he was in love with her he was telling a lie, every time he said she was the only one for him he was telling a lie, and every time they went to bed together would be another damn lie! Rose would have no way of knowing that she'd be sharing her most intimate self with a man who was only deceiving her into believing he wanted nothing more than to be with her and forcing himself to have sex with her for the sole purpose of keeping her from finding out the truth! Retconned Alan's willing to lie to someone he claims to "love" for potentially decades to suit himself. Fortunately for Alan, he only had to lie back, close his eyes and think sexy dude thoughts once', since Rose disappeared after the honeymoon. Phew! Later, she came back (oh, no!) with kids (okay...?) as a villainess, so Retconned Alan didn't have to pretend to be interested in her anymore.
    • With Molly, Alan being retconned into having been 100% gay all along means that after several years of appearing to be Dating Catwoman, beguiled by her Enigmatic Minion nature and falling more and more in love with her as he grew to know her better, Alan (the superhero seen as a paragon of virtue by all) had actually been trying to get her on the hook for Fake Marriage 2.0 from the start. This one lasts for four decades of World Martial Arts Championship-level deceit on Retconned Alan's part as he plays the part of a loving and caring husband who totally doesn't resent being trapped in a fake marriage in a relatively gay-tolerant time with such infernally brilliant deviousness that Molly Mayne, skilled veteran FBI agent, never picks up on the fact that the man she had shared a home with and looked straight in the eye for forty years, the man to whom she had joyously given every part of her being was actually thinking about Luke Perry in their bedroom two nights a week. When Alan's youthened to the age of twenty-five years old, 65-ish Molly, concerned that this meant he would no longer find her attractive (joke's on her!) sells her soul to Neron in order to become young and beautiful again, Alan (to his credit) plunges into Hell itself and confronts its many horrors to rescue Molly, solving puzzles, setting free trapped souls, which is all quite heroic and stirring and beautiful until you remember that Alan has suddenly been 100% gay all along and is rescuing a lady who Neron wanted only because she was married to Alan. Yes, Molly could have been in a wholly sincere marriage with another man who truly wanted to be with her all this time, and Neron wouldn't even know who she was. But because Retconned Alan deceived her into a sham marriage for forty years the local equivalent of the Devil almost gets her soul. Retconned Alan, I don't think Rose and Molly need your "love".
    • So, to sum up, because Alan has been retconned into having been 100% gay all along, the straight relationships he had been in for the last 80 years have been summarily retconned into decades of monstrously self-centered manipulation by a sociopathic Consummate Liar masquerading as a superhero all this time. (Garth Ennis may or may not have ghostwritten Retconned Alan's Coming-Out Story). Alas! There was simply no other way to add representational qualities to him without turning 80 years worth of comics into NightmareFuel!

Top