Note: This is not a commentary about gay characters in comic books. I have zero problem if a character is created & written as a gay character. This is a commentary about retcons, cheap publicity stunts, and corporate stupidity.
So Alan Scott, the original non-Green Lantern Corps, Green Lantern has been changed to a gay man in DC’s brainchild of the “New 52”, for no apparent reason beyond some cheap publicity and an attempt to jump on President Obama’s bandwagon with his current “evolving position”. With the DC quasi-sorta kinda-reboot & the merging of the Wildstorm characters into the DC universe, DC had plenty of characters they could have highlighted that are already established as being gay. They could also have created a brand new character, one without the “troubling baggage” of 50+ years of comic continuity – in other words, a perfect launch point for a new character, which was one of the primary reasons cited for the sorta-kinda-reboot in the first place.
But publicity stunts don’t have to be stupid – sometimes they are effective. So why is this a bonehead move on DC’s part? Because for years, decades even, they’ve been bemoaning the fact that aside from Batman & Superman, they haven’t had any media success in making their other heroes more popular & mainstream. In this area, particularly with respect to films, Marvel has been kicking the snot out of DC. After Supes & Bats, Wonder Woman rounds out the Iconic Trinity of DC but hasn’t carried a film or TV show since the 70’s. (I mean, how many years have we been hearing about a possible Wonder Woman movie…) DC kicks butt on the animated media side and has been successfully expanding brand awareness of other characters via that medium – but that road’s a much higher hill to climb to break into the popular culture the way Batman, Superman, Iron Man, Cap, Thor, or Spiderman have done via movies.
Case in point: Green Lantern – that is, Hal Jordan, Green Lantern of Earth, member of the Green Lantern corps. GL’s been getting quite the media push in recent years and is arguably the 4th most iconic DC character behind Superman, Batman, & Wonder Woman. Feelings on the movie aside, it moved GL into the popular culture. He’s also got his own animated TV show, the only DC character I can think of to have done so in years outside of Batman, Superman, or made-for kids characters like Static Shock.
And this is where the corporate stupidity comes into play. DC decides they want to “out” a character. They try and hedge their bets by selecting an “Earth 2” character rather than a “main universe” / Justice League contender. Ok, that’s pretty smart. They get to make their statement without “risking” an iconic character that is a hopeful for the media-money-maker stable. Yet they pick the one Earth 2 character that shares the same name as one of their push-to-iconic-status-characters! Not only that, the one character that has been successfully making some in-roads into the wider pop culture.
So what happens? When the character was revealed this morning, every media outlet I saw showed a picture of....., you guessed it, Hal Jordan. Whether it was a comic book representation or Ryan Reynolds in the GL suit, it wasn’t Alan Scott. Most of the articles didn’t even bother to point out that it’s a different character, in a different universe, and not associated with the Green Lantern Corps. By mid-day, a few websites had changed the art or bothered to make the distinction, but not many.
If your goal is to increase brand-awareness to make a character franchise-level popular, why would you execute this so poorly? If your corporate “problem” is that you need to make more iconic characters to achieve franchise-levels of popularity, and more characters aren’t at a franchise-level because they’re not as well known, how in the hell do overlook the fact that the media and non-comic-reading population doesn’t know or care about the distinction between “main Earth” & “Earth 2” or GL Corps vs. just “Green Lantern”?
Sadly, the fact that this change/statement/stunt has to be made shows that it’s a divisive issue to some. Sadly, there will very likely be some negative repercussions to the brand or the character. But it’s an act of sheer corporate stupidity that someone didn’t think this through enough to say, “Hey, maybe we should pick a character that can’t be associated (correctly or incorrectly) as strongly with a character/brand we’re trying to elevate to franchise-level,” or “let the character stand on their own to see how popular this decision might be." I mean, it’s not like super team rosters don’t change… If they wanted to highlight a gay character, there are a ton of other ways they could have gone about it (which is why I feel this was a publicity stunt first-and-foremost).
As a fan of Hal Jordan & the rest of the GL Corps, I really hope I’m wrong about that franchise taking a hit from this. I never really followed the JSA, Alan Scott, or the other Earth 2 heroes so I don’t have the emotional attachment to the character that other might but generally speaking (if I was, though, I'd be annoyed), I’m not a fan of retcons. However, I can appreciate them when they’re done well. (And for those keeping score at home, I'd also be annoyed if an established gay character suddenly "went straight".)
Despite some interesting stuff (like Aquaman), I think the execution of the New 52 reboot has been poor. But this? This is just epic-level-of-incompetence stupid.
If someone forced me to choose, I’d have to pick the DC characters over the Marvel ones, but it’s a very close call. I WANT more franchise-level characters in the DC stable. I want to see Green Lantern, Flash, Aquaman, and the Justice League on the big screen. But the next time I hear someone at DC or WB whining about a lack of franchise-level characters, the immediate reaction is going to be “it’s your fault”.
And if the rumormill is true about the inevitable Batman-films-reboot and “start with Justice League” rather than taking an approach like Marvel did leading up to Avengers, I’m guessing we’ll have a DC Stupidity, Take 2 post a few years from now...
So Alan Scott, the original non-Green Lantern Corps, Green Lantern has been changed to a gay man in DC’s brainchild of the “New 52”, for no apparent reason beyond some cheap publicity and an attempt to jump on President Obama’s bandwagon with his current “evolving position”. With the DC quasi-sorta kinda-reboot & the merging of the Wildstorm characters into the DC universe, DC had plenty of characters they could have highlighted that are already established as being gay. They could also have created a brand new character, one without the “troubling baggage” of 50+ years of comic continuity – in other words, a perfect launch point for a new character, which was one of the primary reasons cited for the sorta-kinda-reboot in the first place.
But publicity stunts don’t have to be stupid – sometimes they are effective. So why is this a bonehead move on DC’s part? Because for years, decades even, they’ve been bemoaning the fact that aside from Batman & Superman, they haven’t had any media success in making their other heroes more popular & mainstream. In this area, particularly with respect to films, Marvel has been kicking the snot out of DC. After Supes & Bats, Wonder Woman rounds out the Iconic Trinity of DC but hasn’t carried a film or TV show since the 70’s. (I mean, how many years have we been hearing about a possible Wonder Woman movie…) DC kicks butt on the animated media side and has been successfully expanding brand awareness of other characters via that medium – but that road’s a much higher hill to climb to break into the popular culture the way Batman, Superman, Iron Man, Cap, Thor, or Spiderman have done via movies.
Case in point: Green Lantern – that is, Hal Jordan, Green Lantern of Earth, member of the Green Lantern corps. GL’s been getting quite the media push in recent years and is arguably the 4th most iconic DC character behind Superman, Batman, & Wonder Woman. Feelings on the movie aside, it moved GL into the popular culture. He’s also got his own animated TV show, the only DC character I can think of to have done so in years outside of Batman, Superman, or made-for kids characters like Static Shock.
And this is where the corporate stupidity comes into play. DC decides they want to “out” a character. They try and hedge their bets by selecting an “Earth 2” character rather than a “main universe” / Justice League contender. Ok, that’s pretty smart. They get to make their statement without “risking” an iconic character that is a hopeful for the media-money-maker stable. Yet they pick the one Earth 2 character that shares the same name as one of their push-to-iconic-status-characters! Not only that, the one character that has been successfully making some in-roads into the wider pop culture.
So what happens? When the character was revealed this morning, every media outlet I saw showed a picture of....., you guessed it, Hal Jordan. Whether it was a comic book representation or Ryan Reynolds in the GL suit, it wasn’t Alan Scott. Most of the articles didn’t even bother to point out that it’s a different character, in a different universe, and not associated with the Green Lantern Corps. By mid-day, a few websites had changed the art or bothered to make the distinction, but not many.
If your goal is to increase brand-awareness to make a character franchise-level popular, why would you execute this so poorly? If your corporate “problem” is that you need to make more iconic characters to achieve franchise-levels of popularity, and more characters aren’t at a franchise-level because they’re not as well known, how in the hell do overlook the fact that the media and non-comic-reading population doesn’t know or care about the distinction between “main Earth” & “Earth 2” or GL Corps vs. just “Green Lantern”?
Sadly, the fact that this change/statement/stunt has to be made shows that it’s a divisive issue to some. Sadly, there will very likely be some negative repercussions to the brand or the character. But it’s an act of sheer corporate stupidity that someone didn’t think this through enough to say, “Hey, maybe we should pick a character that can’t be associated (correctly or incorrectly) as strongly with a character/brand we’re trying to elevate to franchise-level,” or “let the character stand on their own to see how popular this decision might be." I mean, it’s not like super team rosters don’t change… If they wanted to highlight a gay character, there are a ton of other ways they could have gone about it (which is why I feel this was a publicity stunt first-and-foremost).
As a fan of Hal Jordan & the rest of the GL Corps, I really hope I’m wrong about that franchise taking a hit from this. I never really followed the JSA, Alan Scott, or the other Earth 2 heroes so I don’t have the emotional attachment to the character that other might but generally speaking (if I was, though, I'd be annoyed), I’m not a fan of retcons. However, I can appreciate them when they’re done well. (And for those keeping score at home, I'd also be annoyed if an established gay character suddenly "went straight".)
Despite some interesting stuff (like Aquaman), I think the execution of the New 52 reboot has been poor. But this? This is just epic-level-of-incompetence stupid.
If someone forced me to choose, I’d have to pick the DC characters over the Marvel ones, but it’s a very close call. I WANT more franchise-level characters in the DC stable. I want to see Green Lantern, Flash, Aquaman, and the Justice League on the big screen. But the next time I hear someone at DC or WB whining about a lack of franchise-level characters, the immediate reaction is going to be “it’s your fault”.
And if the rumormill is true about the inevitable Batman-films-reboot and “start with Justice League” rather than taking an approach like Marvel did leading up to Avengers, I’m guessing we’ll have a DC Stupidity, Take 2 post a few years from now...
