Gay comic book superheroes
15 Influential LGBT Comic Book Superheroes
Ever since the Comics Code Noun (C.C.A.) was established in , comic book creators have been limited in their ability to depict LGBT characters as adequately as drug use and other controversial topics. In the '50s and '60s, it was illegal (in the United States) to be gay, so it was considered taboo and part of the counterculture. It wasn’t until the '70s and '80s that comic book creators began introducing characters that could be described as having gay ‘traits’ without outright declaring them as LGBT.
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The C.C.A. required absolutely no mention of homosexuality until they lifted that ban in , and as the land became more progressive in its understanding and acceptance of the LGBT community, creators continued to buck the system and display compelling characters that were relatable to more people. Here are 15 influential LGBT characters who appeared in comics before the code was finally abandoned.
15 JOHN CONSTANTINE
John Constantine is a cynical, witty and absolutely ruthless
Dive into stories of heroism, devotion, friendship, and self-discovery with our top picks of the finest gay superheroes, celebrating courage and representation in every panel.
Whilst the first “official” coming out was Northstar, who uttered the words “I’m gay” in , there were plenty of characters suspected of being queer well before that.
Many people believe the first gay characters were Batman and Robin (first published in ) due to the homoerotic nature of their relationship. Think about it: a young apprentice who devotes his life to a single, older bachelor… That has gay sugar daddy written all over it. Not to refer Robin’s super flamboyant super close twink-like costuming!
Yet, due to the Comics Code Authority forbidding the mention of homosexuality in mainstream US comics between and , gay characters had to be represented subtly.
Fast forward to when the time came for Northstar to come out explicitly, society had moved on so much that instead of being lambasted, his outing was so victorious that the “coming out”
Marvel’s first gay superhero is an amalgamation of straight assumptions. Northstar was introduced in as the first gay character in the superhero genre. Unfortunately, the Comics Code Authority censored scripts that were explicit on the matter of his sexuality. For years writers employed subtext to quit hints for their audience to pick up.
Besides men coming in and out of his abode, or lingering shirtless in the background of panels, Northstar was coded through the unique perspective of how straight men typically view gay men. As Ben Bolling points out, he was portrayed as vain, sarcastic, and reckless, but more interestingly, he was given a backstory occupied of poverty and abandonment. While this is a common background in action/adventure drama, it parallels tightly with sociological work on the queer community in the late &#;70s. Material like the documentary Paris is Burning exists as a reminder that the queer community was viewed as an economically suppressed class for decades.
In the &#;80s Northstar&#;s creator left his flagship and the subsequent writer, Bill Mantlo, though
Northstar is often called the first gay superhero, although he wasn’t allowed to come out until 13 years after his debut. But he was almost certainly the first mainstream superhero deliberately (albeit subtextually) depicted as queer, he was Marvel’s first gay superhero, and his coming out in was a landmark event, as was his eventual wedding to his husband, Kyle, 20 years later.
I will begin with this disclaimer: I am not going to do justice to this subject in the space I have here. Scholarly papers have been written about Northstar’s history and significance; there are decades of blog posts, letter columns, zines, and newspaper articles, not to mention the comics themselves. This profile could very well be a book — and I hope someone writes it someday so I can read it. But in the meantime, here’s the condensed version:
Jean-Paul Beaubier, AKA Northstar, was created by Chris Claremont and John Byrne, and he first appeared in X-Men # (April ) as a member of the Canadian superhero team Alpha Flight, along with his twin sister Jeanne-Marie Beaubier (Aurora). He didn’t really get