LGBT comic book characters

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Damon Matthews and Todd Rice (Obsidian) share a kiss in the pages of Manhunter
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Damon Matthews and Todd Rice (Obsidian) share a kiss in the pages of Manhunter

In recent years, mainstream comic book publishers have portrayed more of their characters, both protagonists and supporting, as being lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgendered (LGBT). Both male and female gay comic book characters are represented, as are imaginary persons from all walks of life, economic, social, and ethnic.

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[edit] Public reaction

While it may be too early to tell how the public in general and comic book fans in particular will react to these publishers' focus on homosexuality, one thing seems certain: the political, social, and cultural landscape appears to be such that it supports at least a trial effort in developing comics featuring gays, lesbians, bisexuals, and transgendered characters. Whereas only a few decades ago, comics would likely have lost their approval by the Comics Code Authority for including gay characters of any kind in any comic for any reason, no one seems to be suggesting that the comics, in highlighting gay characters, has done anything to warrant disapproval, social or otherwise.

[edit] Characters notable for being gay

[edit] Rawhide Kid

Marvel Comics’ Rawhide Kid
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Marvel Comics’ Rawhide Kid

In 2002, Marvel Comics revived The Rawhide Kid, introducing the first openly gay comic book character to star in his own magazine. The Western gunfighter is the first main character among Marvel’s comic book cast to be homosexual. The first edition of the Rawhide Kid’s gay saga was called Slap Leather.

Writer and artist

According to a CNN.com article, “The new series pairs the original artist, John Severin, now 86, with Ron Zimmerman, a television writer. Making the Rawhide Kid homosexual was Zimmerman’s idea."

Indirect portrayal of character's sexuality

The character’s sexuality is conveyed indirectly, through euphemisms and puns, and the comic’s style is campy. For example, the Rawhide Kid says, of the Lone Ranger: "I think that mask and the powder blue outfit are fantastic. I can certainly see why the Indian follows him around."

Humorous asides

According to a CBS News story concerning the character, “Part of the comedic slant will come in the Rawhide Kid's asides to the reader after the townsfolk can't quite figure out what makes the gunslinger ... different. In his previous incarnation, the Rawhide Kid was very shy around women. Nothing about that will change in the new version.”

[edit] Northstar

Marvel Comics’ Northstar, of Alpha Flight
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Marvel Comics’ Northstar, of Alpha Flight

The Rawhide Kid was preceded by other gay Marvel characters, such as Alpha Flight’s Northstar. Created in 1979 and a member of the original Alpha Flight team, the character was revealed to be gay in 1992's Alpha Flight issue 106.

Implied homosexuality

Northstar's sexual identity was hinted at in 1983, in issues 7 and 8 of Alpha Flight. He and his sister Aurora visit Raymonde Belmonde, a friend of Northstar's. After Aurora leaves, Belmonde asks Northstar, "So, you didn't tell her all about me." When, later, Northstar meets Belmonde's daughter, the superhero is astonished to learn that his friend is a father. Moreover, Belmonde tells Jean-Paul Beaubier (Northstar's alter ego) not to fear his mutant powers or anything else, and Aurora chastises her brother for questioning her romantic choices by remarking, "You, of all people, dare to challenge my love life?" However, in Alpha Flight issue 11, which details the character's origin, Northstar's apparent lack of interest in women was chalked up to his obsessive drive to win as a ski champion [1].

[edit] Devlin Waugh

The first openly gay hero in mainstream British comics was Devlin Waugh, who first appeared in 2000AD in 1992. He was created by writer John Smith and artist Sean Phillips. The character's homosexuality is frequently referenced in the strip, and in his first story he attempts to seduce one of the men he is rescuing.

The character was deliberately created in opposition to such characters as Judge Dredd and Johnny Alpha, gruff, macho men. Waugh, by contrast, was camp, flippant and flamboyant.

[edit] Gay fanzine and parody art

Super Gay Comics cover
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Super Gay Comics cover

Fans have also created artwork that depicts heterosexual Marvel and DC comic book characters as being gay. Other, similar art is designed to parody these characters. One notable incident involved the artist Mark Chamberlain and works depicting Batman and Robin in homoerotic poses. DC comics threatened both the artist and a gallery showing his work, with legal action. [2][3].

[edit] Transgendered superheroes

A few mainstream comic books have also introduced transgendered characters.

Shade, of Shade, the Changing Woman
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Shade, of Shade, the Changing Woman
Mantra awakens to discover the effects of her latest reincarnation
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Mantra awakens to discover the effects of her latest reincarnation

[edit] Shade, the Changing Woman

While working for DC during the 1970's, artist Steve Ditko created Shade the Changing Man. Although a mutant, like the X-Men, Shade’s super powers result not in superhuman fighting abilities but in a sex change that allows opportunities for humorous, ironic, sometimes satirical, social and political commentary. Among other themes, this comic book dealt with a man's becoming aware of, and sensitive to, the challenges and issues that a woman faces due to her own femininity, sexism, chauvinism, and life in general in a patriarchal society: She must learn to deal with female clothing and men's advances. There is a more than passing reference to dealing with PMS, the "heroine" has sex with the first man she comes across, and there is even the obligatory urinal joke. [4].

Awakening as a female one morning, Shade is first horrified by her transformation. However, with the help of her female friends, she meets these and other challenges, experiences her first kiss and her first sexual encounter with a man, and must make the ultimate decision as to whether to become a man again. Later in the series, “Shade's son George is put into the body of Lenny's daughter, Lilly” [5].

[edit] Mantra

On a 1994 Ultraverse trading card, Mantra's creator, Mike Barr, provides this information concerning his creation: ""Mantra is a man, he just has a woman's body. It was from this dichotomy that Mantra sprang. From the major theme--a switch in genders--came the minor theme of the series: a warrior who must become a sorcerer, a slayer who must become a nurturing mother, a man who has died hundreds of times must become a woman who can only die once. That's the conundrum--and appeal--of Mantra" [6]. A Malibu Comics title, Mantra recounts how a warrior was reincarnated into a female fighter's body. After Marvel Comics bought Malibu, Mantra was retired.

[edit] Babewatch

Youngblood's male members are transformed
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Youngblood's male members are transformed

In 1995, Image comics sought to profit from the "'bad girl' trend in comics. . . by briefly turning many of their male heroes into women." This series was initiated in Youngblood, when "Glory's nemesis Diablolique takes revenge on Glory (and men in general) by turning every man Glory had ever met into a woman" [7].

[edit] Sasquatch ("Wanda" Langkowski)

Again, as a result of a complex series of transfers between male and female bodies, Sasquatch is reborn, if only temporarily, as Wanda Langkowski in Alpha Flight issues 45 through 68. In the series Exiles, Heather Hudson also serves as a female host for Sasquatch.

[edit] Sir Tristan

In Camelot 3000, Merlin casts a spell to bring King Arthur's knights back. The members of the Round Table take up residence in individuals around the world, with the spirit of Sir Tristan inhabiting a female body, causing the usual crises and problems associated with such transformations.

[edit] Flare and the Champions

This series, which was based on the Champions superhero roleplaying game, included transgendered plots in which body possession and shapeshifting abilities were used to set up male-to-female transformations with Dr, Arcane entering Dark Malice's body and Flare's brother Philip uses his shapeshifting abilities to impersonate her so as to avenge himself upon his sister who, earlier, had forced him to pose as a girl.

[edit] Excalibur

Through the use of shapeshifting abilities and various other machinations of plot, several of the characters in the Excalibur series also swap bodies or are otherwise transformed into members of the opposite sex, including:

  • Nigel
  • Kitty Pryde (Shadowcat)
  • Nightcrawler
  • Archangel
  • Captain Britain
  • Meggan
  • Wolverine
  • Longshot
  • Dazzler
  • Havok
  • Storm
  • Colossus
  • Rogue

[edit] Hawkwoman and Hawkman

As a result of Count Viper's exercise of his tremendous psychic powers, Hawkwoman and Hawkman both switch bodies with others of the opposite sex, the count using them to advance his own nefarious schemes.

[edit] Lusiphur

When Lusiphur is trapped by his foes, a sorceress offers to help him, whereupon she casts a love spell on him. However, the spell goes wrong, transforming Lusiphur into "Lucy."

[edit] Superman

In an issue of the series Whom Gods Destroy, Superman is transformed into a woman to make amends for the unwitting crimes he has committed against those of the opposite sex.

[edit] Jimmy Olsen

Jimmy Olsen's biggest fan
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Jimmy Olsen's biggest fan

Although he is not himself a superhero, Superman's pal, The Daily Planet's "cub reporter," Jimmy Olsen, has been a frequent crossdresser over the years that he has appeared in Superman comic books. Once, after quitting his job, he disguised himself as a female, Leslie Lowe, to botch tasks so badly that his former employer Perry White would leap at the chance to rehire him.

In another comic, Jimmy takes on sexism by posing as a female fan of his own fan club.

When Jimmy poses as a woman to accomplish some undercover detective work, he attracts the unwanted attentions of one of the male gangsters he's keeping under surveillance.

Jimmy also dons ladies' clothing to evade the police.

[edit] Gambit

Once again, due to a villain's shapeshifting abilities, another superhero--Gambit, of the X-Men, this time--is trapped in the body of a member of the opposite sex.

The divine Thor, transformed
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The divine Thor, transformed
Gal Gardner
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Gal Gardner

[edit] Thor

At Loki's suggestion, to teach his son a lesson in humilty, Odin transforms Marvel Comics' thunder god into a female deity, Thor becoming, literally, a diva.

Other storylines in which Thor swaps sex are the results of the discovery of the mystic hammer that normally transforms Blake into Thor by the girlfriend of Don Blake (Thor's alter ego) and of the female X-Men character Rogue's inheriting Thor's powers. Both of these stories are part of Marvel's "What If" series.

[edit] Coagula

Kate Godwin, a male-to-female transexual, was one of the first transexual characters to have a major role in a comic series. She was a member of the Doom Patrol, and had the ability to coagulate liquids and dissolve solids at will.

[edit] Shvaugn Erin

A female Science Police officer, Shvaugn Erin took a sex-change drug because he was in love with Element Lad.

[edit] Cloud

Cloud, who was able to take the form of a female, a male, or a cloud, appeared in a revival of The Defenders. The character could take on male or female form. Romantically attracted to the female Cloud, Iceman was upset by her male form.

[edit] Xavin (Runaways)

Xavin is an alien shapeshifter, normally male, who possesses the ability to change his sex at will. After becomeing engaged to Karolina Dean, a lesbian, he begins to spend much of his time female. Though most of his teammates (Karolina especially) would prefer him to appear in female form permanently, he remains male much of the time, and has defended this decision vocally (this may be an overt nod to transgender issues, especially considering the his creator, Brian K. Vaughan, is notably friendly to LGBT issues).

[edit] Other transgendered superheroes

These other superheroes also are (or have briefly been) transgendered superheroes:

  • Promethea
  • Gal Gardner
  • Martian Manhunter
  • Resurrection Man
  • Anna Elysian
  • Conan the Barbarian
  • Mountjoy
  • Lord Fanny, a Brazilian shaman-woman trapped in a man's body, appeared in The Invisibles
  • Atlas of Thunderbolts (when Erik Josten and Dallas Riordan were fused)
  • Firestorm is a fusion of Jason Rusch and a female superhero

[edit] Means of transformation

In comic books that include male-to-female or female-to-male transformations, the characters undergo these transformations as a result of a variety of causes, including:

  • Genetic mutation
  • Magic
  • Shape-shifting ability
  • Psychic power
  • Crossdressing
  • Sex-change drug

[edit] List of gay, lesbian or bisexual comics characters

This section does not cite its references or sources.
Please help improve this article by introducing appropriate citations. (help, get involved!) This article has been tagged since December 2006.

A

B

C

  • Guthrie Carroll - Fans!. Shown in the end of the series to have married Tim Mitts.(gay)
  • Zoe Carter - Venus Envy. (bisexual, MTF transgendered)
  • Amanda Cartwright - Umlaut House (bisexual)
  • Catwoman (Holly Robinson) - The current Catwoman, a former prostitute who operates in the DC Comics One Year Later continuity, is in a relationship with another woman. (lesbian)
  • Ollie Chalmers - Wendel, Formerly married father, lover of Wendel Trupstock (bisexual?)
  • Chantel - Apparent lover of Zelda in Sandman. Full extent of their relationship of unknown but they are shown to have a physical relationship. Refers to everyone in the building as 'Housemate'. Owner of the largest collection of stuffed spiders on the Eastern Seaboard. (lesbian)
  • Margarita Luisa "Maggie" Chascarrillo - Locas, Has had a long relationship with the woman Hopey, as well as with several different men. (bisexual)
  • Chelsea Chattan - Clan of the Cats. Witch and werepanther (and possibly, the avatar of the 'Queen of the Netherworld'); her sexuality is at least in part influenced by the duality of her part-animal nature. It has been implied that her sister, Corrine (Melpomene) is bisexual as well. (bisexual)
  • Chelle Archer - Jane's World, Jane's former lover, a mysterious and potentially dangerous former spy? cop? secret agent? (lesbian)
  • Si Coltrane - Preacher; investigative reporter looking into the "Reaver-Cleaver" killings. (gay)
  • John Constantine - In issue 51 of Hellblazer ("Counting to Ten"), John reveals that he's had "the occasional boyfriend", whilst in issues 170-174 ("Ashes and Dust in the City of Angels" 1-5), he has a homosexual relationship with billionaire Stanley Manor, albeit as part of an elaborate revenge scheme. (bisexual)
  • Cutter - Elfquest Confirmed sexual relationship with Skywise (another male elf). According to the creators of Elfquest, Wendy and Richard Pini, all the Elfquest elves are "omnisexual."

D

Doop leaves one lover for another. Art by Marcos Martin from I (heart) Marvel: My Mutant Heart #1 (April 2006)
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Doop leaves one lover for another. Art by Marcos Martin from I (heart) Marvel: My Mutant Heart #1 (April 2006)
  • Danny the Street - Doom Patrol; a sentient, tranvestite street, usually illustrated by the presence of pink curtains in building. Later transformed into Danny the World. (tranvestite)
  • Desire - The Sandman; whoever sees Desire sees him/her as the perfect man or woman, depending on their sexual preference. (nongendered, bisexual)
  • Taylor "Taye" Dooley - Circles (gay)
  • Doop - Marvel Comics's X-Statix is recognized by self and others as male; involved with both female and male characters. (bisexual)
  • Dorim - Accidental Centaurs (lesbian; from her discussion with Samantha, bisexuality is apparently the norm among female centaurs in OtherSpace)

E

  • Electro - Marvel Comics' supervillain, who in Marvel Knights Spiderman #2 reveals that in jail he'd found a new side to himself, heavily implying prison homosexuality. (implied bisexual)
  • Element Lad - DC Comics' Legion of Superheroes (gay, original continuity - had a relationship with m2f transsexual Sean/Shvaughn Erin, saying "anything we've ever shared physically...was in spite of" the sex change, not because of it) [8]
  • The Engineer- Predominantly heteroesexual, Angela Spica of the Authority made mention of a lesbian fling in college. (bisexual or bi-curious)
  • The Enigma - Enigma; Apparently a comic book character come to life. Lover of Michael Smith. (gay)
  • Extraño - member of DC Comics' New Guardians; an effeminate man from Peru, he made references to himself as gay several times, and even references a former lover who had died from AIDS. (gay)

F

G

  • Esperanza Leticia "Hopey" Glass - Locas, Has had a long relationship with the woman Maggie, as well as with other women and men. (bisexual)
  • Bob Glover - Preacher; Sexual Investigator and small-time drug trafficker. Partners with Freddie Allen (see above) (gay)
  • Go Go Fiasco - DC Comics' Vertigo title Codename: Knockout (gay)
  • Kyle Graham - Lead character in the syndicated gay comic strip about a gay B&B, Kyle's Bed & Breakfast by Greg Fox (gay)
  • Ethan Green - Appears in a series of humorous books about his openly gay life and loves (long and short term), and his struggles in this journey. (gay)
  • Amy Grinderbinder - Preacher; in lust with Jesse Custer, possibly sexually interested in Tulip O'Hare, her best friend. (bisexual?)

H

  • Freddie "Tom O' Bedlam" Harper-Seaton - The Invisibles; homeless tramp and one of the greatest magicians in the history of the human species (possibly gay or bisexual)
  • Hector - The Incredible Hulk; member of the Pantheon, his sexuality was an occasional topic among his colleagues, and one of his brothers disapproved of his homosexuality. During a wedding party, Hector was observed chatting with another gay character, Northstar [9]. (gay)
  • Hooded Justice - Watchmen; super-hero. (gay)
  • Harold Hedd - Harold Hedd; Hippie underground comic book character, created by Rand Holmes, into marijuana and free love (bisexual).
  • Hothead Paisan - Hothead Paisan; the "homicidal lesbian terrorist". (lesbian)
  • Tefé Holland - Swamp Thing; daughter of Swamp Thing, John Constantine and Abigail Arcane Cable Holland. (Swamp Thing possessed John to use his body for the conception.) Formerly a flesh elemental, now just a human girl. (bisexual)
  • Michael Bernard "Mikey" Hopkins - The Class Menagerie, The Suburban Jungle (gay)
  • Hulkling - Marvel Comics' Young Avengers - Confirmed as being in a relationship with fellow Young Avenger, Wiccan. (gay)
  • Rick Hundecoph - Umlaut House (gay)

I

  • Icemaiden - Occasional member of the Justice League (bisexual; dislikes labels)
  • Invisible Kid of the Legion of Super-Heroes - in Threeboot continuity had a relationship with Condo Arlick (gay)

J

K

L

M

N

O

P

R

S

T

U

V

  • Vivisector (Myles Alfred) - Marvel Comics' X-Statix - Superhero, Role model, Harvard Undergraduate. Began a "fake" homosexual relationship with Phat. It is later revealed that both characters are gay but are not in love with each other. He then went on to date various movie stars. (gay)

W

Z

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

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