Old Timey Green Lantern Alan Scott Now One Of The Gays

Today DC revealed what comic fans had been guessing for a few weeks: Alan Scott, the original Green Lantern, has been retconned to be gay. This isn't the WWII Alan Scott from the Golden Age of comics, by the way, but a more modern day Alan Scott who lives on a different Earth than the rest of the famous DC characters (including more famous Green Lantern Hal Jordan).

Some folks are complaining that this is a lame move, and on some levels it is. Making an alternate Green Lantern gay isn't the boldest thing DC could have done. But it's still better than the general dearth of gay characters in comics. When comic characters come out they tend to be absolute nobodies, like Northstar (who is getting married next month. It's like we're in a gay comics arms race). At least "Green Lantern is gay!" means something to most people. 

The lack of gay characters in comics is shameful, but the only way to address it is in drastic reboots like Alan Scott's. The gay paucity is, in my opinion, related to the paucity of strong new characters in the major superhero universes. Creators would rather put new characters into creator-owned properties than share them with the big corporate guys.

Alan Scott is revealed as gay in Earth 2 #2 - which, by the way, I like. He doesn't 'come out,' he's just out. That's a refreshing change from how this stories are usuallly told. My problem, as I've said on Twitter, is that making Alan Scott gay has weird connotational issues: he gets his power from a green flame, and his weakness is wood. A flaming gay man who is susceptible to wood? Someone should have thought it through a bit.