Created 1998, Apollo and Midnighter were among the first married gay upl superhero ics — and they were totally parodi of Batman and Superman. Now, thanks to DC Comics ntuy, the four characters fally met face to face.
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DC NCELS GAY SUPERMAN IC AMID SAL CLE
* gay comics batman superman *
“Characters that were unknown to most of the general public — like Starman, say, or Maggie Sawyer, or Green-Lantern-no-not-the-active-one-wh-a-seri-but-the-olr-one-nobody-outsi-of-ics-fandom-knows-by-name — uld be gay, but Superman had to be able to sell movie tickets and toothpaste the Midwt. “You n see a clear shift between so-lled ‘gay vague’ marketg and queer normalizatn mastream advertisg around 2015, ” Grayson ntu.
A gay, or bi, or ace, or trans superhero might be a small and ut gture, but every gture tak on outsized meang when speakg out is self a source of fear. I remember when Batwoman beme the pany’s first gay character to headle a book 2009, and Midnighter beme DC’s first solo seri for a gay man 2015, and the long stretch of the 2010s when Wonr Woman, and Harley Qun, and Poison Ivy, and John Constante were fally allowed to be irrevobly queer.
Eltaeb was thrilled to see the end of the gay Superman seri. Aqualad, is gay.
DC COMICS CANCELS GAY SUPERMAN COMIC DUE TO DISMAL SAL
And sce, at the time, he’d temporarily taken over as Superman while his father was off-world, generated headl about Superman beg gay.
This is a dynamic which led homophobic cric Fredric Wertham to suggt the 1950s that superhero (pecially Batman and Rob) promoted homosexualy through their privilegg of male/male bonds. The pot here isn’t that Superman was really gay those early ics. But the obssn wh double inty and disavowed sire do suggt that the character has been built on anxieti about homosexualy and masculy.