DC plans to out a prominent character

Seems like another publicity stunt to me. I guess its easier to just rework an existing character than to try to do something bold and original, like create an all-new character for whom it works and fits organically. But, that's just me.

That being said, I see 4 front-runners for it.

Aquaman- this would be a facepalm move, but seeing as they've crapped on so much history as it is, they could easily eliminate Mera, Arthur Jr., and his other son.

Atom (Ray Palmer)- a very recognizable character, with not too much solid history. His marriage to Jean Loring was weird as hell anyway.

Booster Gold- Just a gut instinct.

Shazam- Since they pretty much threw out the Captain Marvel name and are essentially rewriting the character as a whole, they could do it quite easily with Billy Batson. In truth, this would be the one that actually makes the most sense anyway. Billy is in his early teens, so it would provide the opportunity for them to show him develop as a gay character, not just a character they decided to make gay.

Sounds like a stupid stunt that will be retconned under new management.

and then they will reboot the universe again and everything will be forgotten and go back to the way it was before.....

Probably shouldn't get hung up on the word "prominent" because that brings to mind main characters like Superman and Batman. It's not going to be them.

From the sound of it, it's going to be a character that hasn't shown up since September's reboot. So who haven't we seen yet that'll still be a big enough deal to make news?

I've heard speculation that it might be Vibe (as seen in the Free Comic Book Day issue) and being a member of the current Justice League might make him fairly "prominent". Or maybe that new, mysterious Green Lantern? The person under the mask would be a new character, but a gay Green Lantern would be major.

I'm gonna guess Poison Ivy. I know she was always seducing Batman and/or Robin, but she has seemed awfully chummy with Harley Quinn too. Plus they never said it was going to be a hero(ine).

I could see Wonder Woman being gay.

OK! I admit it!

I could watch Wonder Woman being gay!

Fun aside, that´s just a lame publicity stunt... and it will most likely be retconned in less than a year.

But if I had to guess which one will be outed, I´d say the guy in the fancy purple suit.

@Redcap

Publicity stunt. And a sad one at that. It's them trying to show PCness and using a character that might have name recognition than creating a new character who might bomb in the sales department.

Of course, doing this could still bomb sales after a bit, as people will buy up the coming out issue, then drop it.

It's a stunt. And a poor one. It's no different than New Ultimate Spidey.

I'm thinking Kyle Ryner

From another source:

However, when asked about that policy at this weekend's Kapow! convention in London, DiDio said that plans had changed, and that a previously established DC character would be introduced in the New 52 universe as gay. DiDio told the audience that the character would become "one of our most prominent gay characters."

The question is: who will it be? It sounds like the character will be one who hasn't yet appeared in the New 52 (so that image above probably won't pan out). Will anyone's slashfic dreams pan out? And will the newly homosexual character be a hero or a villain?

So it wont be someone currently in the DCNU, but someone showing up soon.

Here's the link: http://io9.com/dan-didio/

It's obviously Aquaman

Hmm. Now, admittedly, I've not really been following DC since the New 52 essentially retconned everything I ever knew, but going by the sheer amount of "oh god, why won't it stop coming out wrong" bits, the possibilities I can think of off the top of my head...

- Conner Kent/Superboy and Tim Drake/Robin. Both have canonical hetero love intersts (Wonder Girl/Cass Sandmark for Conner, Spoiler/Robin/Batgirl/Stephanie Brown for Tim), but people have noted a *lot* of undertones, especially after Infinite Crisis where Tim's reaction to Conner's death was to try to clone him again, *repeatedly*. Given Cass got involved in some weird Kryptonian cult trying to bring Conner back to life, and the parallels are...significant.

- Oracle/Barbara Gordon and Black Canary/Dinah Lance. This is one that's been one of my favorites because the initial writer who wrote them did *not* intend for it to be this way, but the pages his artist drew made his lines have an entirely different context, one long-time Birds author Gail only made even more prominent. The running gag in Birds fandom has been that people are waiting for Dinah to dump Ollie and go back to her girlfriend, and it's not without reason. Again, like Conner and Tim above, both have hetero love interests (Ollie/Green Arrow and Dick Grayson/Nightwing), but both have been in-and-out-of-love with those guys before, and Ollie and Dinah's wedding fell apart rather spectacularly before Flashpoint annihilated history.

- Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy. From what I've heard, this one's actually been referenced outright lately, with Harley wondering how much Ivy's latest actions were based off her "feelings for her". The DCAU versions had this all but canonized, if only because the authors couldn't explicitly make them gay, but the "Gotham Girls" subseries had the infamous line "Are you two....?" "Like they say about you and Supergirl?" If they canonized this, I think the outright reaction would be a resounding "not surprised".

- Booster Gold. The bromance is strong with Booster and Constantly Doomed By Canon Ted Kord's earlier stuff, and while Booster's had more than a few female companions over the years, if anyone told you he was into Ted in more than a friends way, I don't think anyone would be surprised. Given that, like Tim above, Booster spent a significant amount of time, effort, and time travel trying to find any way to bring Ted back.

- Stephanie Brown/Spoiler-Robin-Batgirl and Cassandra Cain/Batgirl-Nightwing-Black Bat. For the longshot, this has been another of the subtext fans' pet couples. Stephanie had a thing with Tim Drake a while back, but Cassandra's always been more of a cypher, due to her unique upbringing. The fact that Steph was the only one that Cass really opened up to at length is generally significant. That said, both Stephanie and Cassandra have yet to debut in the New 52, with Stephanie's identity as Batgirl erased after Barbara Gordon was retconned back into the position, and Cassandra living in the realm of dubious "plans" that DC says they have for her.

- Wonder Woman/Princess Diana. Again, the lesbian overtones of the Amazons in general have definitely been there from the start, given it's an entire island of nothing but warrior women. Combine that with the origin of the word "lesbian" and I can see this being a very easy out, pardon the pun.

- Batman. Again, Bruce has a *laundry list* of ex-girlfriends, and at least one biological kid as a result of one (Damien, via Talia Al Ghul). But a lot of people have made the jokes about his closeness to the various Robins, and then there's Grant Morrison's quote from a few weeks ago. I can see this happening, but I find it the longshot of the group, just because Bruce Wayne, billionaire playboy is such an integral part of the character. That said, Bruce pretending to be gay so that none of the socialites he hangs with try to get into bed with him would be kind of funny...

Overall, I can see this as a publicity stunt first, much like Kate Kane/Batwoman was back during 52. That said, I liked Kate and found her interaction with fellow DCU lesbian Renee Montoya enjoyable to watch, so it doesn't have to be done badly.

But given everything DC's done lately to its print continuity, I fear it will be.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arcanaville You're right: this whole issue is a money grab. We're going to be grabbing money from impatient people with money to burn and completionist complexes, and using it to make a better game for everyone, including the 99.9% of the rest of the playerbase that isn't going to be buying everything, multiple times, immediately upon release, and spending hundreds of dollars in the process.

The phrase "jumping the shark" comes to mind. This sounds like a horrible idea, and will quite possibly destroy the popularity of the character that comes out of the closet, esp., if it's a male character.

Are there any characters that they've hinted at being possibly playing for the other team? I can't really think of any in the titles I read, but I stick to GL, Flash, Batman, and Green Arrow for the most part. I could see the ambiguous one being confirmed, rather than a full retcon.

Bleeding Cool posted some info. Apparently the character will be male and the story is supposed to be out by June. As some already stated, I really feel that this is just poor ham-fisted story telling and nothing more then a cash grab on shock value. I doubt it's going to be a big name character. I'm guessing either a 2nd or 3rd stringer hero or a supporting character.

I think it's a little presumptuous to call the story telling hamfisted til we actually see how they present the story.

Though yeah, total publicity stunt.

Hopefully it's go better than Marvel's Rawhide Kid... ugh.

I'm definitely for more gay characters, but most of the latest comic attempts at bringing them into the forefront tends to be... well, 'gay' tends to become their defining trait and that's just.. y'know, silly. It should be more "I'M A SUPERHERO! Oh and I like guys" rather than "WHEEEE GUYS IN TIGHTS, EEEEE. Oh, and I guess I'll beat up evil too". Which.. it tends to become :P


Actually, are there any gay characters in CoX? >>

From Bleeding Cool News

No, and I was there. Dan DiDio, DC Comics co-publisher said that a previously established characters would have a different sexual orientation when introduced to the current New 52 continuity. In the way that Morgan Edge became black, Etta Candy became thin, and the like.
They didn’t say one of their “most identifiable characters”. And Superman has already been introduced to this continuity.
Which also means, ScienceFiction.com, that it won’t be Damian Wayne, Harley Quinn, Poison Ivy or Tim Drake…
And I can confirm it’s definitely not Lobo.

Well, nothing says those characters can't be bi, but yeah they're probably not 'the one' to be outed.

And it'll be Dark Seid. For only one creature in the known universe could capture his heart, the last son of Krypton.

Publicity stunt ,and Didio wants another award from a Lesbian Gay group. DC cannot seem to stop selling zizzle and sell steak. They will out somebody and move on to the next stunt.