User blog comment:Ultimate Heatblast/Gay characters are way to underappreciated/@comment-61022-20120927025317

If I could chime in, I always feel that any character who is advertised as being gay/lesbian/bi/whatever, is just a way of boosting sales. All of it is. Marvel isn't as bad as DC.

My position is why should the sexual orientation of a fictional character be a big deal, or a sales feature at all? They can be as straight as they come, or flamboyantly gay, it does not mean eff all to me unless the any story or plot development regarding their sexuality is well written. I am always for good writing, not cheap gimmicks.

New characters that are being introduced that are homosexual or whatever are not as bad as when they take a pre-established character and suddenly do an about face and change their sexual orientation. Because it's a cheap cash grab generated by a gimmick. In this day and age it seems like a big deal for comic companies to be the "first" one to have a gay marriage, or introduce a major character who has such-and-such an orientation. It's sad, and diminishes the point.

As a parallel, I will point out Marvel Comics during the 1960s, the hight of the civil rights movement, and during the explosion of drug culture in popular entertainment. In dealing with race, Marvel simply did stories that were anti-prejudice, pro-civil rights, and introduced a lot of African-American characters who were not horrendous stereotypes (I am talking pre 70's before the Power Man blaxpoitation era) and Marvel did it with little to no fanfare. They just told a GOOD story, and let the reader rave about it. Same thing with drugs. The most classic anti-drug story is the one that deals with Harry Osborn's drug addiction. The only real issue there was the stringent CAC rules at the time. Marvel published the book anyway.

Compared to the revelation that Batwoman is a lesbian, Earth-2 Green Lantern is gay, and Northstar is getting married... These were all stories that were pushed out to media outlets to promote the books in a "Hey, ain't we all inclusive" kind of way to generate more sales. Instead of standing back and letting the stories sell themselves and gain the press and media attention on their own merits.

I have also found that, and DC is particularly the worst culprit for this... that the majority of homosexual or bi-sexual characters were always female. Which, call it as revolutionary as you'd like, the fact is comics mostly cater to a pubescent age range and hormone driven teenage boys would find an almost pornographic interest in two female characters in spandex making out than they would two guys. Or at least I think believe that is what the marketing perspective for this was.

Late late 90's and 2000's were also rife with gay sterotypes, while they were being "Hey, look, we've got gay characters how 'with it' are we?" they were still tossing out lame stereotypes and jokes that were so ham-fisted they were ridiculous. Especially when dealing with Northstar (up until recently) his homosexuality was pretty my a tongue and cheek joke where he fumbled around hitting on straight male characters.

Anyway: To the point --- I have no problem with super-heroes with different sexualities, but if writers and comic companies are going to go this route, I think it's only as good as the writing behind it and lack of marketing gimmickery that is behind it.