Comic book trends: Big, green and gay

Not too long ago, homosexuality was banned from the comic book world. “That was the time of supposed self-regulation,” says Archana Bhattacharya, 48, who was a graphic artist in the ‘80s in Seattle. “The regulations set in the fifties never mentioned the word ‘homosexual’.

They described the banned matter as ‘sexy, wanton comics’. In translation, of course, this meant not a whisper of homosexuality was allowed.” By the time the Comics Code Authority (CCA) rolled around in the ‘70s and ‘80s, homosexuality had been classified and banned under the heading of “sexual abnormalities”. “Anything vaguely ‘adult’ was sold under the Adult seal given by the CCA, and otherwise not available to the younger reading public,” she adds.

Switch to today. DC Comics superhero, the Green Lantern, came out as gay last year and Marvel superhero Northstar married another man. DC Comics Batwoman became a “lesbian socialite by night and a crime-fighter by later that night” last winter.

Earlier this month, Batgirl’s roommate, Alysia Yeoh revealed to Batgirl that she is transgender, making her the first openly transgender character in mainstream comics. And two years ago, the as-American-as-apple-pie Archie comics introduced Kevin Keller, who Veronica has a crush on and who casually tells Jughead that he’s gay.

The list doesn’t stop at LGBT characters — this year a female Hulk finally debuted in her own series (“She will climb the corporate ladder, fight evil... and navigate the dating world for a Mr Right who might not mind a sometimes very big and green girlfriend,” promised the publishers).

As Bhattacharya explained, CCA rules led to a very straight-jacketed depiction of superheroes.

Comic book writers, in fact, faced a very specific and difficult set of challenges in terms of trying to be inclusive.

As Batgirl writer Gail Simone pointed out in an interview to a tech website: “We have a problem that most media doesn’t have. Which is that almost all the tentpoles that we built our industry on were created over half a century ago, at a time where the characters were almost with exception white, cis-gendered and straight.”

So why has that changed now?

WHEN TEXT WAS SUBTEXT
First off, there were always winks and nods: All that time Batman spent with Robin; Wonder Woman and her close girlfriends; Superman emerging out of a phone booth which served as the euphemistic ‘closet’ and the woman-avoiding Jughead in Archie comics.

“Veiled sexuality has always been around in comics,” says Abhimanyu Kakkar, 35, who is doing his PhD on ‘A Comic Re-imagining of Urban India’. “Batman and Robin? Everyone saw the homoerotic subtext. The creator of this duo, Bob Kane, pioneered the ‘cuddle-buddy’ angle of the sidekick. He was copied by many — Captain America and Bucky, Aquaman and Aqualad, Green Arrow and Speedy, and so on; all in the name of, you know, ‘reader identification’.”

Kakkar also points out, that from a psychological angle, superheroes such as Batman and Superman seem to display sexual anxiety “characterised by bifurcated male identities, secret identities, and intense male-male relationships resolved by violence which can be seen as homosexual panic,” he says. “Look at the X-Men,” says Bhattacharya. “Mutants born with strange and ‘unnatural’ powers, they are outsiders who are loathed by others. This kind of superhero is an archetypal example of individuals hated and feared by the ones they seek to protect.”

But soon, all this subtext became text.

A BINDING MEDIUM
So what prompted the change? Was it prompted by social responsibility, or merely a cynical marketing move by publishers attempting to stay provocative?

Kakkar finds the latter probable. “Market, market, market,” he says firmly. “Corporations like Marvel and DC are not exactly at the frontline of a cultural war. But when the tides start to shift, as they have over the past decade with regards to multiculturalism and LGBTQ rights, making a profit means anticipating a shift in the market. As a result, gay superheroes are firmly entrenched in the multiverse (multiple-universe) mainstream.”

But artist Biyush Subodh, 34, who moved back to India after spending two years working at Marvel believes the change is driven by individuals.

“It’s driven by artists and writers who want to see a change,” he says emphatically. But there are difficulties. “The problem is that they’re writing for a medium that has only depicted straight, white and male characters. So they struggle with the kind of homosexual stereotypes that cinema and television moved past years ago.” Whatever it is, the fact is that change is afoot. Bhattacharya remembers participating in ComicCon panels in the nineties, and notes the changes since then.

“Then it was a question of, how will I get my gay superhero past editorial? Now, the attitude is more like, why not?”

Are Batman and Robin gay?
The long answer: Maybe. Bob Kane never drew the dynamic duo in an intentionally compromising position, but the innuendo was enough to prompt some questions. In his 1954 Seduction of the Innocent, psychiatrist George Wertham explained: “Only someone ignorant of the fundamentals of psychiatry and of the psychopathology of sex can fail to realise a subtle atmosphere of homoerotism which pervades the adventures of the ‘Batman’ and ‘Robin..

”While this answer may seem like a stretch, the question remains: What about Batman and Robin encourages someone, anyone, to read in sex? Batman was a throwback to the mystery men of the 1930’s pulps. Alan Moore identified “the repressed sex-urge” of the pulps, sensing that these heroes and their fiancées were not entirely “innocent and wholesome.” The short answer: Batman and Robin are as gay as you want them to be.