A little while ago, I covered the upcoming addition of Bunker to the Teen Titans team in this column. Now, as part of that, I mentioned how I thought it was a shame that they wouldn’t be focusing on people having negative reactions to him and his sexuality in the book, especially not from his fellow team mates.

Now, it has been asked of me why I think that’s a shame, and isn’t it better that a state of total acceptance is shown. And yes, that would be lovely in the real world, certainly. And when we get to that stage when it is the norm, then yes, we should definitely only have sexuality in comics handled as such. But sadly, that isn’t how it is in the real world. This is fiction we are talking about too, but sometimes fiction bears some powerful responsibilities in the context of the real world it’s released into.

My thoughts on this are maybe a little complicated, and I myself have been struggling to clarify it, so bear with me.

Follow up:

My reasons for thinking it would be better if Bunker was shown to face some kind of animosity or homophobia stem from two things: firstly, as a writer, that’s where the drama is. This character is apparently universally accepted in his home town, so wouldn’t it be interesting to see what happens when he faces homophobia for the first time? And even more interesting if some of those negative responses are actually coming from a team mate?

In terms of writing, we’re always looking for the dramatic angle. Having a character who is overtly homosexual but everyone is okay with it is, sadly, a little boring. Showing the character having to face negativity, which is new to him; struggling to rise above it, perhaps heroically too; now that is interesting and empowering.

For instance, take the recently restarted Batgirl by Gail Simone. Right from the offset, we knew Barbara Gordon was Batgirl again, and could walk. More specifically, she had still in fact lost the use of her legs, but had ‘got better’. Now, Simone could have come up with any number of simple justifications for Babs’ renewed use of her lower body, such as incredible technology the DCU clearly has access to or a metahuman who could heal. Instead, Simone has written it in such a way that not even Babs is entirely sure how she can walk again, and this is a mystery to be explored in the series as it progresses.

This is dramatic. It’s fun to write and to read, and builds character too.

Similarly, the representation in mainstream comics of LGBTQ heroes facing some form of homophobia isn’t that common. More often than not, they come out and that’s it. No one has an issue with it, it’s just accepted; sure the occasional villain may throw out a homophobic slur, but it’s smacktalk on a level of calling a female hero a ‘bitch’ or a black hero something worse. It’s a form of homophobia, but not the maddeningly pervasive and insidious kind that many of us face in our everyday lives, sometimes even from friends and colleagues.

This then ties into my second reason: a moral responsibility to the reader, to entertain and sometimes inform.

If we were to consider that the majority of the audience of comics are adolescents and children (which I don’t agree with at all, but it’s still a pervasive view of the medium), then would it not be more helpful to educate these readers occasionally on the ways of the world? For a gay teen reader, would it not be helpful to see a character they can relate to face homophobia, even from those closest to them, struggle with it but push through? In the current wave of gay teen suicides highly publicised in the news, one argument is made that the media hasn’t done enough to support these teens by showing them characters like them that go through the same problems. Likewise, by showing it, we may educate a non-LGBTQ reader that language and actions they themselves may use are wrong.

In the recent one shot X-Men: Regenesis by Kieron Gillen, the character of Gentle made a statement on why many of the younger X-Men were moving back to the school. It went thus;
“...the first step in making the world we would wish it to be is to ACT as if it IS the world we would wish it to be.”

A powerful sentiment that I absolutely agree with. I live my life by it. But I also know and understand that the world ISN’T how I wish it to be. Not yet.

That’s why I write characters and comics who go through the whole range of experiences and live their lives how they want regardless. Why I think that these issues should be tackled head on in comics more. And it’s why I write this column. We live our lives as we want to, but we must understand that the world is not necessarily as we want it; so as well as being ourselves, we strive, together, to make it what it SHOULD and COULD be.

Now, I just wanted to say thanks to everyone for the support to this column so far. However, I will be taking a brief hiatus to figure out where I want this column to continue going. Sadly, there isn’t LGBTQ news in comics regular enough to sustain these weekly updates, so maybe I’ll start doing retrospectives on older pieces or characters, or start casting the net wider. At any rate, Tales will be back soon, I just need a brief break to assess, and make sure I can keep delivering something fun to read.

Thanks again! See you all soon!