UPDATE 100409: 64 MORE LGBT CHARACTERS (including images and descriptions) HAVE BEEN ADDED!!! this makes the new total 168 Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual or Transgendered Superheroes, Villains and Supporting Characters!
If you want to help – I’m looking for images of the following LGBT characters… Toby Raines (lesbian Metropolis reporter and former partner of Maggie Sawyer), Melissa Maro (lesbian friend of Ghost Rider), Rita Boyd and Valerie Susan Page (V for Vendetta – not sure if they were seen or just in the letter), Lee and Li (lesbian friends of Green Lantern Kyle Raynor), Panthalessa (mermaid lover of Jack Phantom) and the gay brother of 80’s era Wonder Woman publicist Mindy Mayer (his name is?). PLEASE contact me if you know someone not included below or if you have a superior image of someone!
This gallery collection would not be possible without the hard work of sites dedicated to the subject of LGBT characters in comics like TheGayLeague, PinkKryptonite and PerryMoore’s LGBT list
I started gathering these images to update my original post about Gays in Comics, but it snowballed way beyond my ability to control. My original list of 20 has grown to 104 168 LGBT super heroes, villains and supporting characters. You’ll be hard-pressed to find a more complete index. Click each image to see fullsize and read a brief summary.
PLEASE SHARE AND LINK TO THIS POST. I put a lot of work into tracking down these names, histories and images. They range from popular new gay characters, to old characters later outed, fallen gay characters, almost gay characters and of course the supporting gay characters. Northstar was NOT the first openly gay superhero at a major publisher. He was the first at Marvel and the first cool one, but he was preceded by the embarrassing el Extraño – a stereotypical flamboyant gay version of Dr Strange introduced and forgotten with DC’s 1988 series The New Guardians. Whoever came first, These pioneering characters really made it possible for new LGBT characters to be woven into the story as more than victim or villain.
The characters immediately following are creations conceived as LGBT by their originators or at least VERY SOON after creation. Some of these have become a popular part of continuity and others ended up exiled in limbo where they will remain until another writer decides to use them or kill them.
UPDATE 100409: 36 more…
Other characters to come out of the 4-color closet were pre-existing characters who sometimes had heterosexual romantic histories. Generally, noone seems to get too upset (or even notice) if the character is minor enough, but as evidenced by the mini-uproar that followed the ricshatty kiss, some fans and creators get more upset than others when their favorite forgotten character from the 80s says "Yep I’m Gay."
UPDATE 100409: 4 more…
Many of the Legion of Super Heroes have been hinted as gay only to have new creative staff change directions and kill planned storylines or completely reboot continuity. As of now, DC Comics has yet to officially "out" ANYONE in the 31st century. What? Are there no gays in the future? Is it like Iran? Hopefully that will be rectified in the new Legion tales in Adventure Comics.
With the modern trend of killing characters wholesale, it’s no surprise that some LGBT heroes and villains can be counted among the casualties but we may be getting more than our 10%. Even though characters such as Northstar, Moondragon and Phyla-vell have died, I’ve listed them elsewhere due to recent resurrections, so this section is longer than it looks.
The characters on this list owe their very existence to those who blazed the trail…Madame Fatal was a retired actor turned cross-dressing hero and was first seen in Crack Comics #1 (May, 1940), a crime/detective anthology series published by Quality Comics. While Northstar WAS introduced in 1979, he didn’t ACTUALLY come out until a few years after DC introduced el Extraño in the New Guardians. Who ever was first, a few more have been added to history since then ( Union Jack II, The Mighty Destroyer) and the boys were soon joined by lesbians like Karma and Rainmaker.
And where would these super gays and gals be without their not so super friends and frenemies? We cannot forget the LGBT supporting castmembers like Terry Berg, Christian Frost, Maggie Sawyer Damon Matthews, Raymond Belmonde Frenchie DuChamp and even the SVU epidsde waiting to happen… Skip Westcott
UPDATE 100409: 24 more…
via LGBT Superheroes, LGBT Characters in comic Books, PerryMoore, ComicVine, TheGayLeague, Pink Krytonite and BeeksBooks
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