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We know this post will anger comics industry journalists, but after Disney’s success getting PR for their gay-themed comic on The View, it seems Turner/WB is getting in on the synergy action too. We just received a tip from a Turner PR person for this story on the HLN (Headline News) site asking reader to guess the gay.

Joy Behar contributes to both The View and HLN, so this could be right up her alley. But we really want Nancy Grace on the case.

Just to get all our mainstream comics Yaoi out in the open, Marko Djurdjevic’s variant cover for ASTONISHING X-MEN #51.

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BISHONEN!

1 COMMENT

  1. The big difference between marvel’s PR stunt and DC is that that Marvels’ character was always gay, Northstar was the north star of LBGT heroes and him getting married, was more than reasonable and makes sense for the character. DC is imo is altering their universe for the sake of selling a few more comics, I must admit though I’m speaking prematurely since we don’t know who. like i said before i hope they have a rly good reason other than political correctness and sales.

  2. “good reason other than political correctness”

    That line is trotted out so much, I’ve got to ask – what the fuck does it even mean? It’s political correctness to feature how people lives their life every day?

  3. Well, technically, Yaoi is male-male comics produced for a female readership. Since Marvel tends to ignore that demographic, and since this is T+, this might be better categorized as “shonen-ai”. (And since the couple are mature, the word is “biseinen”.)

    Also, the roses might be a secret code to the “rose tribe” in Japan.

    “Bara is more likely to feature manly and muscular (sometimes hairy) characters with varying degrees of body fat, as opposed to the androgynous and effeminate boys commonly found in Boys’ Love Genre.”

  4. It’s political correctness to feature how people lives their life every day?

    The problem is that the Marvel and DC heroes don’t have day-to-day lives. They go from conflict to conflict, from event to event and, in DC’s case, from reboot to reboot. For that sort of character, being gay doesn’t really mean anything more than albino, short, ectomorphic, skinny, flat-breasted, etc., etc., does. For being gay to mean something substantial, the writer has to give the character real-life problems to deal with. That’s never going to happen at Marvel and DC because the editorial systems in place can’t handle that type of material.

    SRS

  5. The best reasons to feature diverse characters are EXACTLY the reasons that get dismissed as “political correctness.” People aren’t gay because the plot requires them to be. They’re gay because they’re gay.

  6. “And if one researches the light pink roses as part of the Hanky/Bandana code…”

    LOL. I never thought I’d ever read gay hanky codes being mentioned on a comics news site. This made my day.

  7. This is all amazing given the insane level of accepted homophobia even a generation ago. I don’t care about most of these comics, and the whole idea of “relationships” in cape comics is usually a joke.

    But these changes will help LGBTQ kids everywhere. Real progress!

    I still think the Guardians of the Universe were like a bunch of really smart gay uncles and would be the most natural candidates for a retcon.

  8. The best reasons to feature diverse characters are EXACTLY the reasons that get dismissed as “political correctness.” People aren’t gay because the plot requires them to be.

    But what do you get in a typical superhero story besides plot, character bits (e.g., Spider-Man’s jokes), and the artwork? Practically nothing. In commercial and literary fiction, you’ll find all the gay characters you could want to who just happen to be gay. But that’s because the character isn’t the foundation of the entire piece. The labeling situation in superhero comics will change only when readers are offered complete stories.

    SRS

  9. Most plots in superhero comics have nothing to do with the hero being straight, either. And yet most heroes are straight without anyone batting an eye.

    The charges of political correctness toward inclusion aren’t going to end when superhero comics deliver some utopian “complete stories.” They’ll end when fandom, and the rest of the country, grows the hell up.

  10. Seems to me this is part of the country growing up. And a couple folks frustrated by being ahead of the curve.

  11. what i mean by political correctness is that they are changing a characters sexual orientation solely for the sake of the social climate, in the same vein as the Multi-Ethnic gangs trope. the fact they are making an announcement about this gives it that impression, that it’s more about counter programming Northstar’s marriage issue by just making a major character(who ever it may be) gay for the sake of being a “socially relevant” me too. my distaste in the matter is in they’re changing something for the sake of the social climate not because they are becoming gay. Create a new gay character and flesh them out, make them overall likable.

  12. Who cares if they are changing a character? It’s a new universe. They can be whatever they want them to be. That’s the point! Duh.

  13. And, they *didn’t* make an announcement. They answered a fan’s question. And then, after the internet had already blown up about it, they made an announcement.

    It’s not counterprogramming, it’s not a stunt — it’s a storytelling decision made before any of this happened.