Super Queeroes: The Normalization of Gay and Lesbian Characters in Superhero Comics

This piece was originally presented at the Transitions 4 Conference at Birkbeck University in London England, October 2013.

Super Queeroes: The Normalization of Gay and Lesbian Characters in Superhero Comics

In the summer of 2012, with the second wave of titles for their New 52 initiative ready to release, DC Comics announced that the Golden Age version of Green Lantern - aka Alan Scott -would be reintroduced as gay. Activist groups such as GLAAD and One Million Mothers (OMM) took up predictable positions on the subject. GLAAD praised writer James Robinson for his “bold decision” while OMM decried what they saw as another attempt by media to portray LGBT+ characters as positive or normal. However, response from die hard comic fans and collectors was less predictable. Posting on message boards and in the comment sections of news stories, more vocal fans wanted to make sure their thoughts were heard. While there were comments and posts praising the narrative choice and vowing to buy multiple copies of the new series when it hit comic shops, the overwhelming response seemed to be confusion that a character that so many of these fans had invested in, and the company that published him, had betrayed an established and expected doxa. “Nick Fury is an old white guy, and Green Lantern is NOT gay” posted one upset fan referencing a recent change of race to the longtime character at  Marvel Comics. “What's next, Superman is really a pedophile” fumed another fan. While these two opinions tend toward the extreme, they do illustrate an underlying idea of how comic fandom perceives and interacts with long standing comic characters and the codified and canonized gendered and sexual expectations of those characters.

 

Over the last 50 plus years of publication, mainstream comics have cultivated and delivered expected meaning to an assumed, cis-hetero-male, dominant reading position of collectors and fans that value the doxa of cannon and continuity, making these the bedrock of their cultural discourse. Characters and their histories are expected to maintain, and with that unchanging history, the roles prescribed by gender and sexuality have been defined and are assumed to be unchanging. By reintroducing Alan Scott as gay, Robinson was potentially introducing transgressive or heretical presentations of gender and sexuality. As a young gay man, aspects of Alan’s old continuity, particularly his marriages and children, could not be easily reconciled with this new version for the dominant reading position. But most significantly, the doxa that has come to define Alan Scott - how he should act, the type of hero he should be - did not seem to coincide with the discourse of LGBT+ and other non cis-gendered characters that is prescribed and expected by the dominant reading position.

 

Within mainstream superhero comics, lesbian and gay characters in particular are limited to a particular field of possibles. Lesbian characters are objectified, sexualized, and depowered, while gay characters are punished or normalized. Lesbian and gay characters are presented this way to remove representations that the cis-hetero-male dominant reading position may find heretical or subversive to a discourse and narrative that reinforce the patriarchal power structures that they have come to expect from superhero comics and western cultures.

A gay character like Alan Scott is especially hard for the dominant position to reconcile, particularly because of the discourse that exists within that culture and how it deals with gendered expectation, performance, and sexuality. The woman in the specialty comic shop has been, for the most part, an anomaly. Because comics and comic collecting has been so wrapped into the male-centric audience, the culture of  comic reading and collecting has started to become a short hand for a specific type of maleness. Thus, a woman reading comics was either performing femaleness wrong or performing comic reading wrong. This has led to instances of male fans attempting to test female fans on canonical knowledge of the medium or to stand as gate keepers to the discourse and culture of comics. This works as a way to protect their culture from what they see as transgressive, subversive, or heretical readings and interpretations of the texts. The woman in the comic shop is overt and a potential enemy agent. Regardless of her ability to engage in the discourse of the culture, she can be identified as an outsider by physical markers. The gay male, however, can be covert. By becoming familiar with the cultural discourse, they can seemingly infiltrate the comic fan culture and bring in these, perceived, transgressive interpretations, readings, and positions.

Of all the discomforts the dominant position in comic discourse could possess, anxiety and fear of gays and lesbians is one of the most long standing and constant. The fear of a queer interpretation of superheroes is built into the history and discourse of superhero comics. In his now infamous book, Seduction of the Innocent, Dr. Fredric Wertham warned against the negative influence that the comics medium could have on young children. Not only did he target the crime and horror comics that were popular at the time for their perceived negative influence on the youth of the 1950s, he also targeted some of the more popular superhero books on the newsstands. Both Batman and Wonder Woman were singled out by Wertham as examples of comics that were trying to promote or force a gay and lesbian agenda and lifestyle.

 

In his book, Wertham referred to the fact that “a California psychiatrist pointed out that the Batman stories are psychologically homosexual”, and then suggested that “only someone ignorant of the fundamentals of psychiatry and of the psychopathology of sex can fail to realize a subtle atmosphere of homoerotism [sic] which pervades the adventures of the mature ‘Batman’ and his young friend ‘Robin’.”

Wertham asserted that Batman and Robin “live in sumptuous quarters, with beautiful flowers in large vases, and have a butler, Alfred. Batman is sometimes shown in a dressing gown…It is like a wish dream of two homosexuals living together.” For Wertham, Bruce Wayne as Batman and Dick Grayson as Robin exemplified 1950s perceptions of a gay couple. Wertham even went so far as to push the horribly erroneous perception that gay men were also engaged in pedophilia. “The Batman type of story helps to fixate homoerotic tendencies by suggesting the form of an adolescent-with-adult or Ganymede-Zeus type of love-relationship.” We can still see this perception played out by the earlier quoted internet commenter when they saw the next step from introducing a gay character being the introduction of a character who is a pedophile.

In the 1950s, being part of a marginalized orientation, gender identity, and intersex population not only meant transgressing sexual norms and expectations, but also gendered norms and expectations. Specifically, the perception of being gay was that the gay male was taking on perceived feminine traits and performative acts. While at the same time, to be a lesbian meant to do the inverse and take on masculine traits and acts. By embodying these traits, it was assumed that they were violently opposed to the gender they were trying to masquerade as. As a lesbian, Wonder Woman must of course hate men, and if he was gay, Batman must hate women. “Where Batman is anti-feminine, the attractive Wonder Woman and her counterparts are definitely anti-Masculine.” In Wonder Woman and Batman, Wertham saw the subversion of hegemonic gendered performance. They were a source of gender and sexual confusion.

 

Wonder Woman was obviously a lesbian to Dr. Wertham. “Her followers are the ‘Holliday girls,’ i.e. the holiday girls, the gay party girls, the gay girls.” As a lesbian, Wonder Woman worked in opposition to expectations of female gendered performance and was denying expected female roles like homemaker and mother. Even though she was shown adopting a young female sidekick, Wertham views this act as heretical. “Even when Wonder Woman adopts a girl there are Lesbian overtones.” Wertham noted that Wonder Woman was dominant instead of submissive and asserted that “neither folklore nor normal sexuality, nor books for children, come about this way. If it were possible to translate a cardboard figure like Wonder Woman into life, every normal-minded young man would know there is something wrong with her.” By existing in opposition to expected gender roles it was assumed that Wonder Woman would be frightening to young men. “For boys, Wonder Woman is a frightening image.” and for young women “she is a morbid ideal”

 

Wertham thought that the idea of a gay and lesbian Batman and Wonder Woman defying gendered and sexual norms should be frightening, and that it was dangerous. Though the artists and writers never intended their characters to be read as LGBT+ characters, and the overwhelming majority of their readers never saw this particular subtext, Wertham’s claims created a fear of what could potentially be seen in the character, or how some readers could be reading the raw images and text that they were being given. This fear and anxiety caused the major publishers to try and close off the texts, or make it immune to any polysemic interpretations. DC Comics responded quickly by introducing Batwoman and Batgirl, romantic counterparts for the dynamic duo. With the eventual addition of Ace the Bat-Hound, Batman had a heterosexual, plutonic Bat-family. And soon Wonder Woman’s exploits were replaced by romantic adventures where she was being rescued by love interest Steve Trevor, instead of vice versa.

The dominant, cis-hetero-male reading position that mainstream comics had been trying to cultivate needed to have their fears assuaged. So, the narratives that followed worked to eliminate possible heretical readings. As writer Glen Weldon has pointed out “most readers of the time weren’t reading gay and lesbian subtext into their comics. But being denied any other representation in culture, there were the handful of young gay kids who did. And that was seen as a problem.” Because of the strong connection being forged between comic reading and comic culture, the worry became: if these stories were covertly gay, and you enjoyed them, did that make you covertly gay? Any possibility needed to be eliminated. That active elimination has maintained since the 50s and 60s.

The connection between the culture and text of superhero comics makes gay characters  especially difficult for the dominant position to reconcile; he can’t be the point of identification for the reader the way Iron Man or Batman can and he can’t be objectified the way female characters are. Either of these options would make the reader complicit in what the reader sees as the homosexual act. Instead, deemed abnormal, the character needs to be, narratively, either punished or removed from the act in order to normalize them to the expected discourse and power structure. We can see how this plays out in modern terms with the reintroduced Alan Scott’s romantic relationship, and how it builds a new doxa for the character that is eventually normalized to the expectations of the dominant position.

In the second issue of the series Earth 2, we are introduced to Alan’s boyfriend and lover, Sam. In this issue, Sam appears in eleven panels, spread across three pages, before he dies in a train explosion on the very last page of the comic. Sam’s death serves a number of purposes. First, he becomes a version of the women in refrigerators trope, the loved one that is often killed or hurt in order to motivate the protagonist to become the hero. With women in refrigerators, the loved one is often characterized only by their relationship to other characters. Sam is no different, he is only known as Alan’s friend or lover.

The second function that Sam’s death serves is as punishment to both him and Alan. Just before the explosion, Alan proposes to Sam, “Marry me so we can —.” The train blowing up cuts off part of the proposal and kills Sam. Alan Scott being married isn’t something that can be seen as heretical to the doxa of the character, since the pre New 52 version had been married twice, but a same sex marriage could be seen as heretical, and that heresy is punished by Alan losing the person he loves. Sam, only really an object meant to motivate the protagonist, is punished with death. As with other examples of women in refrigerators, the death of the character is also seen as a punishment for keeping the hero from their destiny. Losing Sam not only removes a perceived hindrance to Alan becoming a hero, but it also removes him as the object of the homosexual act, metaphorically separating Alan from gayness. Once this happens, Alan begins his hero’s journey, unencumbered by his transgressive sexuality. However, having Sam taken from him isn’t enough, Alan needs to also renounce Sam, the symbol of his sexuality. This happens in issue five and six when, as Green Lantern, Alan faces his first major villain, Solomon Grundy.

As the avatar of the Gray, Grundy is sent to hunt down Alan, the avatar of the green. In their fight, Alan enters the ethereal home of the Gray, and while there, he is shown a vision of Sam, and told that the Gray can bring Sam back to life, if Alan agrees to give up the fight. This version of Sam is a dark, gray, ghost-like version. He is placed in contrast to the bright, green glowing Alan. Sam is presented as a piece of the Gray, and by extension a piece of the villain, Grundy. Only by rejecting evil, and in this case, rejecting Sam, the symbol of his gayness, can Alan really become a hero. This is something that Alan does, destroying this version of Sam. In order to become normalized to the discourse at work, and the expected doxa of the hero, Alan pushes away and destroys the symbol of his sexuality, a sexuality that is presented as villainous, or evil. This idea is reenforced for the dominant reading position through their knowledge of the DC Comic universe. For fans who are assumed to be familiar with all of DC’s monthly books, The Gray is also known as The Rot in the pages of Animal Man and Swamp Thing. Through what Theirry Groensteen calls tressage, or braiding, this attaches Sam to other villains that represent death, decay, grotesqueness, and especially, abnormality. By figuratively abandoning his sexuality, Alan is normalized and is in line with a doxa of the character that is acceptable within the discourse of comic fandom. However, normalizing lesbian characters isn’t the preferred option, because of physical indicators of sex and/or gender, the lesbian character is overt and can easily be objectified and sexualized, placing them in a patriarchal dominant/dominated structure, dependent on male characters for legitimacy and authority and viewed as part of cis-hetero-male lesbian fantasies. This can best be seen in another DC comic character, the modern Batwoman.

 

Even in her original incarnation, before her reintroduction as a lesbian, Batwoman was a passive character. As an individual she was defined by Batman, the active protagonist and symbolic presence of the male reader. Her primary motivation for fighting crime was to impress Batman, whom she had fallen in love with, and in so doing convince him to marry her. Because Batwoman initially starts fighting crime without male permission, specifically Batman’s permission, it becomes necessary for her to be depowered and made submissive to Batman’s set of rules. By so doing, her lack of power gives more power and dominance to Batman, and by extension the male reader. Though she has successfully prevented crime, Batman’s goals throughout this first issue are to make sure “she takes no more such risks”, and “to prove to her she can’t keep this up.” By the end of her first appearance, Batman is successful in persuading Batwoman to give up fighting crime on her own, or without his permission. “I guess you’re right. I - I’ll quite my career as Batwoman.” Batwoman’s decision serves to reinforce her as passive and dominated in comparison to Batman as active and dominant. Her possibles are limited by Batman, or the male reading position that enters Gotham City through him, they decide if she can join their crime fighting club. By controlling and limiting her field of possibles, the male reading position’s power and authority increases within the text.

When she was reintroduced in 2006, the new Batwoman was no longer a lovestruck mother figure, but the determined former West Point cadet - and lesbian - Kate Kane. Even though Kate is a military-trained soldier at the top of her class, she is still subject to the limitations on crime fighting that were applied to her predecessor and expected by the dominant reading position. In the case of this Batwoman, it is Nightwing, the former Robin, who steps in for Batman and the dominant position. Though Batwoman has been fighting crime in other issues of the weekly series 52, during Christmas she is confronted by Nightwing who presents her with a batarang as a Christmas present. Nightwing points out that “this is a real Batarang.” Her batarangs, like her crimefighting are less than or illegitimate. The legitimacy and batarangs that Nightwing offers are “ not one of those homemade models you’ve been tossing about.”

Not only does this encounter reinforce the idea of males as gatekeepers to power and authority in this particular universe, but the fact that it is Nightwing, Batman’s former sidekick, giving the permission places Batwoman in a hierarchy that is at least two steps below Batman. Her power is even further diminished by the fact that up to this point, she has been a fake Batwoman. It is only through Nightwing and his real Batarang that she can gain any legitimacy. However, as a lesbian character, she is also subject to a sexualization and objectification.

The sexualization of lesbian characters mirrors the way straight, cis-female characters in comics can be amplified by the reader’s point of view being focused and directed by the panel and gutter, that serve to frame the object of examination. This can be used to present a form of scopophilia or voyeurism. The structure of comics form a window through which the  reader can obsessively observe the contents of the panel. With characters like Batwoman, this voyeurism is centered in the original idea that scopophilia comes from the curiosity of and about other people’s genitals, bodily functions, or primal signifiers of gender and/or sex.

In one of her first modern day appearances, Batwoman arrives in the nick of time to save Gotham Detective Renee Montoya from supervillains. Though the next series of panels is intended to illustrate the fight and defeat of these villains, the action and specifics of the fight are placed on the periphery of the panel or cut off by the frame and gutter. The central focus of each panel is Batwoman and her body. Emphasizing this, is that the point of view offered to the reader and the positions that Batwoman is drawn in make sure that the primal indicators of femaleness are always on display. Her breasts are accentuated and always present, and in two of the panels she is drawn with her legs spread open drawing attention to her crotch. If the images themselves were not enough to dictate what the reader is seeing or how it should be observed, the text boxes present in these panels are there to reinforce the idea. “That’s not Batgirl, that’s...that’s a Batwoman. Hot damn.” The text makes the reader aware that the object they are looking at is not a girl, but a fully, and sexually, developed woman. The term “hot damn” gives the reader permission to objectify and look. If the observer of the events in the comic are allowed to voice attraction, desire, and objectification, then the reader, who is engaging in the events both visually and through the narration are given freedom to as well. By not using dialog that is specifically attributed through the connecting tails typical of word and thought balloons, the reader is given permission from the text itself to observe the figure of Batwoman and gratify the voyeuristic sexual desire. Once objectified, Batwoman and lesbian characters become less threatening to the established discourse of the comic fan and under control of the field of possibles placed on lesbian characters.

While the readership of comics has begun to increase and diversify, attempts are made to introduce more diversity of representation for gay and lesbian characters. However, since the dominant reading position, the assumed primary purchaser and collector of comics, is still a predominantly cis-hetero-male audience these representations of gay and lesbian characters are subject to a field of possibles that is dictated by doxa, continuity, and the expectations of the dominant position that have formed the way comic fan discourse deals with sex and gender. Even though the intention of writers of characters such as Batwoman and Green Lantern may be to present more positive representations of gays and lesbians into mainstream comics, they are limited by the these expectations of the audience.