Ok, how about this for an idea. We take it in turns to post a favourite (British spelling) comic cover every day. This went really well on the comic fan website that I used to frequent. What we tried to do was find a theme or subject and follow that, until we all got bored with that theme. I'd like to propose a theme of letters of the alphabet. So, for the remainder of October (only 5 days) and all of November, we post comic cover pictures associated with the letter "A". Then in December, we post covers pertaining to the letter "B". The association to the letter can be as tenuous as you want it to be. For example I could post a cover from "Adventure Comics" or "Amazing Spider Man". However Spider Man covers can also be posted when we're on the letter "S". Adventure Comic covers could also be posted when we're on the letter "L" if they depict the Legion of Super Heroes. So, no real hard, fast rules - in fact the cleverer the interpretation of the letter, the better, as far as I'm concerned.
And it's not written in stone that we have to post a cover every day. There may be some days when no cover gets posted. There's nothing wrong with this, it just demonstrates that we all have lives to lead.
If everyone's in agreement I'd like to kick this off with one of my favourite Action Comic covers, from January 1967. Curt Swan really excelled himself here.
Discussion and voting on future monthly themes takes place on the "Nominations, Themes and Statistics for A Cover A Day" thread. Click here to view the thread.
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Sorry guys, I'm all out of Pride/rainbow/LBGT covers so I'll have to switch to posting issues numbered 18. Here's Archie #18 from January 1946.
Marvel Team-Up #18 is one of my favorite issues of MTU and certainly my favorite of the ones starring the Human Torch.
If only the others gave Johnny more of a personality than "hot-headed youth"!
With their acceptance of everybody and Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations, I'm not sure if the Pride Flag still has any (historical) signifigance in Star Trek's time, but it still represents a cool warp speed effect. (Image courtesy of the Grand Comics Database.)
Lee Houston, Junior said:
Like I've said before. I have no problem with any person or character prefering their own gender for a relationship, but I still cannot agree with the editorial decision to go against years of continuity. In this case, Tim's long term interest in the Spoiler.
I agree with Lee. I think gay characters need to be in the stories, but they should be new characters or background characters without years (or decades) of continuity. Beyond that, these new or background characters shouldn’t be dumped after a handful of appearances.
My guess continues to be that Tim’s support of his date-raped pregnant friend was seen as gay by some decision-maker. Also, I suspect that changing the sexual orientation of the Alan Scott Green Lantern was inspired by his multicolored costume. Can’t prove it, but it makes sense to me.
Alan Scott, or at least the current iteration of him, was made gay because his Earth-Two Obsidian was retconned as gay then retconned away! So they had the father replace the son.
They also needed a major Bat-character to be gay so (IMO to have the least amount of controversy) picked Tim Drake, now the fourth-most important Robin.
Tim Drake is bisexual. Him coming out at bi does nothing to invalidate the feelings he had for Steph Brown, or any feelings he might have for another woman in the future.
Was it handled awkwardly? Sure, a bit. But coming out is, itself, an awkward experience, and sometimes people get their feelings bruised by it. But I'm pretty sure he and Steph are on good terms now.
Rob Staeger is right.
Philip Portelli said:
Alan Scott, or at least the current iteration of him, was made gay because his Earth-Two Obsidian was retconned as gay then retconned away! So they had the father replace the son.
They also needed a major Bat-character to be gay so (IMO to have the least amount of controversy) picked Tim Drake, now the fourth-most important Robin.
Rob Staeger said:
Tim Drake is bisexual. Him coming out at bi does nothing to invalidate the feelings he had for Steph Brown, or any feelings he might have for another woman in the future.
Was it handled awkwardly? Sure, a bit. But coming out is, itself, an awkward experience, and sometimes people get their feelings bruised by it. But I'm pretty sure he and Steph are on good terms now.
I have to respond to clarify what I was trying to say. Up until now, I hadn’t heard that Tim Drake was being presented as bisexual. If these were real people instead of characters being written (ham-handedily) I wouldn’t be making these observations.
Obsidian was retconned away? So the Green Lantern stories featuring his sister Jade never happened? This is one more reason to regret their decision to dump Earth-2.
Tim had become “my Robin” beginning with his origin. His living with an “initially unmurdered” father made for interesting stories. I really admired his helping Stephanie without her (IIRC) being a love interest and also without accidentally causing her date-rapist to be run over by a truck.
Also, I am sick of their casually killing and un-killing characters like Stephanie just to sell a few more copies.
Justice League #18. The Atom is six inches tall. The rest of the JLA are gradually shrinking to subatomic size.
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