Rob out as gay new Batman ic, addg to DC’s LGTBQ characters - Polygon

Contents:

• 'BEEFKE HERO': JOE PHILLIPS BRGS GAY SUPERHERO OUT OF THE CLOSET (PHOTOS)
• BATMAN’S LONG TIME SIKICK ROB COM OUT AS GAY
• IS BATMAN GAY, BISEXUAL, OR STRAIGHT? WHAT IS DC CANON?
• FEAR OF A GAY BATMAN BROUGHT BATWOMAN TO LIFE

'BEEFKE HERO': JOE PHILLIPS BRGS GAY SUPERHERO OUT OF THE CLOSET (PHOTOS)

Former Batman ic wrer Grant Morrison even told Playboy magaze that “gayns is built to Batman.

More than 80 years sce he was first troduced to rears, and after s of homoerotic subtext wh his pann Batman, ics’ most tsty sikick Rob has nonilly e out as a cliffhanger endg to DC’s latt issue of Batman: Urban Legends, the current eratn of the Boy Wonr, Tim Drake, is shown acceptg a date vatn om his iend Bernard, havg jt rcued him om a villa while disguise as Rob. In March, Marvel unveiled their first gay Capta Ameri character — a queer youth advote named Aaron Fischer — to be clud the upg “Uned Stat of Capta Ameri” ic book miseri. The list of superhero accintally or liberately d as queer who have never nonilly been brought out of the closet bee of homophobia is long and prsg.

But wa, I n hear the ments already: So now Tim is jt The Rob Who Is Gay? Tim Drake’s story speaks to what advot for diversy n fet and homophob would rather ignore: There are legimate reasons to give a long-standg straight character a g-out story beyond “more diversy is more.” Or to put pafully obv terms: Change and diversy are storytellg tools, and refg to e them is nothg but a self-imposed disadvantage. Unpackg the gay subtext of Rob, the Boy Wonr.

BATMAN’S LONG TIME SIKICK ROB COM OUT AS GAY

Gay subtext managed to suate self to the Dynamic Duo’s dyad om the very start.

Let’s get one thg absolutely clear: Rob isn’t gay. So have wrers like Frank Miller, Denny O’Neil, Alan Grant, and Dev Grayson—though Grayson admted that she uld “unrstand the gay readgs.

After all, if a character isn’t wrten as gay, then that character n’t possibly be gay, right? Gayns is built to Batman. Batman is VERY, very gay.

IS BATMAN GAY, BISEXUAL, OR STRAIGHT? WHAT IS DC CANON?

… but the whole basis of the ncept is utterly gay. But gay subtext managed to suate self to the Dynamic Duo’s dyad om the very start.

“It is like a wish-dream, ” he famoly wrote, “of two homosexuals livg together. This is the issue wh gay readgs.

Any given bond between mal n be homosocial whout beg homoerotic, and even the most explicly homoerotic bond n exist whout ever bbg up agast homosexual sire. Intentn don’t matter when to gay subtext. This is why, as a visual medium filled wh silent cu like body language and background tail, superhero ics have proven a particularly fertile vector for gay readgs over the years.

FEAR OF A GAY BATMAN BROUGHT BATWOMAN TO LIFE

That panel of a be-toweled Bce and Dick loungg together their solarium, for example, would not rry the potent homoerotic charge do, were the same scene simply scribed borg ol’ prose. But gay subtext, like rmatn, longs to be ee, and the universe doggedly nspired to keep droppg advertently hilar panels like this one, om a 1966 Jtice League of Ameri ic, to Bat-non:.

Although the show beme extribly associated wh the notn of mp, s pop-art sensibily never me off as particularly gay spe the prence of gut villas played by such fierce divas as Tallulah Bankhead and Liberace. They shuffled Dick Grayson off to llege 1970, effectively endg the Bce–Dick partnership that had grown so weighted wh gay meta-meangs over the s. Which, really, was all took for heteronormativy to reassert self, bee while separately Batman and Rob me hardwired wh vague gay associatns (the fear of one’s secret inty beg exposed, for example), was only ever their stat as a bond male–male pair that had tly raised eyebrows.

In recent s, certaly seems as if his wrers have grown more self-aware about untend gay readgs and hence more circumspect.