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.

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This may not seem entirely comics related, but hey, it’s my column, so shut up, bear with me, and we’ll see where this goes.

This week sees Heroes and Star Trek actor Zachary Quinto come out of a frankly transparent closet and announce to the world that yes, he is gay after all; to which the world replied with a collective “Well, duh, but thanks for finally being open with us anyway.” Now, I by no means mean to belittle his statements, nor do I feel any ire at him for taking so long. I can understand the situation he was in. However, I do heartily commend him on making this move of being open and letting the world know another member of the LGBTQ community is out there, and is someone they’ve welcomed into their homes and Cineplex’s with joy.

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Recently, it’s been announced that Teen Titans, as part of its New 52 reboot/relaunch, will be seeing a new gay member, in the form of the awkwardly named Bunker:

Bunker, real name Miguel Jose Barragan, is also Mexican, Catholic and camper than a row of tents (at least visually, as we have yet to see him in the pages on the comic actually speaking). He creates some kind of weird purple energy/telekinetic barriers, and his homosexuality is apparently a fundamental part of his character, so it will be focused on and dealt with, whilst still showing that he is heroic and a badass new member to the team.

But wait, what was that one word I used to describe him?

Camp, flamboyant, a flamer, queeny, gayer than the day is long, out and proud and throwing his hands around in such a fashion that there’s a genuine danger they could fling off him and cause a major traffic accident.

Hell, we can see it in one of the first images shared by artist Brett Booth, where Miguel appears to dress when out of his costume in a style of fashion not a million miles away from current famous gay teen, Kurt Hummel of Glee.

Bright, colourful, and a definite statement, it’s still an improvement on his rather garish superhero costume.

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So, last week’s column saw me looking at Stormwatch #1, finding myself left wanting with the obvious lack of mention of Apollo and Midnighter’s sexuality, or in fact any way of differentiating them from Superman and Batman in their now shared universe; and also, looking briefly at DC’s claims of improving diversity.

Then, last Wednesday, DC finally released Batwoman #1. So, today’s column is very much a sequel to last week’s, as we again delve into DC’s diversification claims, and look at somewhere DC are actually doing it right.

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BEWARE: SPOILERS FOR STORMWATCH #1!

Last week saw the release of Stormwatch #1 from DC, written by Paul Cornell and with art by Miguel Sepulveda. More importantly, it features the return, or perhaps more accurately the introduction, of Apollo and Midnighter; two of comics most renowned homosexual characters.

As you may recall from earlier editions of Tales, I wondered how we might find these characters represented, what this would mean for LGBTQ representation in comics as a whole, and also how this marries up with DC’s claims of a broader, more diverse and inclusive universe.

With the issue finally out, I felt I should say something about it. However, I admit this is proving the hardest entry to write…because there’s not an awful lot to say. Maybe that in itself is worth exploring.

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I’ll start with a little bit of personal history for you: when I was in university, all those many years ago, I spent a lot of my time working with the university LGBT group, called AberPRIDE, as this all occurred in the far off sunny/windy/wet/drunken shores of Aberystwyth.

As such, LGBT rights and gay culture have always been on my mind and a major part of my life. Also as such, it means I often hear the question: “Do we really need gay pride events? What’s the point? They’re just big parties these days”.

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Link: http://www.thelengths.com

With the release of the third issue of Howard Hardiman’s latest work, The Lengths, I thought maybe I’d tell you all about it, let you know how good it is, so that you would all go and get it.

And let’s be clear; I am going to be telling you how good it is and insist that you get your copies ASAP.

The Lengths tells the story of Eddie, a young, art school drop out living in London, and his relationships. As if that wasn’t dramatic enough, the crux of the story pulls us in deeper to an emotional world of emotional twists and turns that ensnare Eddie, and the reader too. Because Eddie is also Ford, a male escort, drawn into this world by a powerful fascination with another male escort, Nelson.

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Now, many of you may have noticed that when discussing gay characters in superhero comics, I rarely discuss Northstar, perhaps the first and most well known out gay superhero in mainstream comics. In fact, the few times I have mentioned him have been pretty disparaging.

This is through no fault of the character. I think Jean-Paul is a fascinating character, all bluster and rudeness, and yet a good man at his heart. The problem is that no one seems to know what to do with him. And once he came out...well, that was pretty much it for the character.

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Maybe no one remembers this, as it was a few years ago now, and some comics geeks can have very short memories, and require references and pictures and concrete statements from creators. But for a while, there was discussion in the X-Men comics about Beast’s sexuality.

As it turned out, he wasn’t really gay. It was a malicious lie he told the human girlfriend who dumped him by telephone because he now looked like a big cat; one that got away from him and returned to bite him on the ass. This all happened, of course, in Grant Morrison’s epic and unbeaten New X-Men run.

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Link: http://www.thecomicguru.co.uk/

Busy this Saturday 20th August? No? Then get yourself down to Cardiff's Comic Guru from 2pm for another exclusive creator signing. The writers of Stiffs and The Pride, Drew Davies, PJ Montgomery and Joe Glass will be signing copies of their preview flip book, that's two comics for the price of one! If the names sound familiar it's because all three also contribute to this very blog and PJ has reliably informed me that they only have 30 issues of the book left so to avoid disappointment I'd get down there early. No doubt I'll also be there, making a nuisance of myself and making people hold up #TeamBatman signs.