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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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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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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You may've noticed our last episode of Sidekickcast Presents... was ably hosted by a young Welshman by the name of Joe Glass, he kindly went to MCM Expo for us and reported back on all the fun with some great interviews. What you may not have known is that Joe is also a comic book writer in his own right, his book, The Pride was on the flip side of Stiffs which we reviewed just after Cardiff Comic Expo (incidentally, Joe also writes for Stiffs). We thought we'd take the opportunity to grab a 6 page preview of The Pride (scattered in order through the post) and run a few questions by Joe, especially regarding the more unique elements of the project.

Sidekickcast: Let's start at the beginning, what exactly is The Pride about?

Joe Glass: The Pride is a six issue comic miniseries. It’s a superhero story about the formation of a team, who then get drawn into a global threat, and they may be the only heroes capable of saving the day. Oh, and they’re all LGBTQ heroes…lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, trans, post-gay, queer, but all heroes.

The main thrust of the story, besides the obvious action, explosions and kicks in the face, is about representation. They’re not getting the best representation as heroes in their world, so they seek to change that by showing how great they are.

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Link: http://www.facebook.com/#!/group.php?gid=2408336898

Whilst at Cardiff International Comic Expo (CICE) last month, in the few minutes where I wasn't running around like a headless chicken I was able to pick up the flipbook double feature preview of Stiffs and The Pride. Both books have some of the same creative team but are very different in tone and subject so we'll tackle each one as their own entity, look for The Pride review coming soon.

Regular listeners to the Sidekickcast may remember the interview we did with two of Stiffs' writers, PJ Montgomery and Joe Glass at last year's Thought Bubble Festival in Leeds, Drew Davies the other writer on the book, who also came up with the original concept for Stiffs unfortunately couldn't make it. If you did miss the podcast, I suggest you go have a listen but if you can't do that I can catch you up or you could check out this blog interview from one of our Sidekicks, Nick Roberts. The book is about a bunch of everyday 'working stiffs' that lead normal mundane lives by day but hunt zombies (and other supernaturals) by night, all whilst never missing a chance to grab a few beers down the pub.

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