The Advocate posted their interview with DC Comics Senior VP/Executive Editor, Co-publisher and writer Dan DiDio yesterday, and it’s a trove of tidbits for anyone who is interested in the presence and future of gay characters in the upcoming reboot. And so, if you can get past the Advocate referring to Apollo, Midnighter, the Question, Voodoo, and the current Batwoman as characters that are being introduced in the relaunch, despite their existence as canonically gay characters for about half a decade even at their youngest. To his credit, DiDio points out at every turn that the characters he’s being asked about are pretty solidly established already.
Fans of Apollo and Midnighter who are worried that the quintessential superhero partnership where both dudes love each other and punch peoples brains right the frak out of their skulls might be split up in the relaunch can be assured that it’s only temporary. The Advocate asked the question quite bluntly:
Was there any concern at DC about incorporating a gay male couple with an established relationship into the superhero ranks?
Actually there was absolutely no concern about that. The only thing that we discussed long and hard was the idea of where those characters would be in relation to their [own] relationship. Because they had an established relationship in the stories that were being told within the Wildstorm universe—and this is the first time they’re being seen in the DC Universe—we wanted to build them from scratch and watch an emerging relationship between these two characters. So in this particular case, Apollo is much more out and much more comfortable with himself [while] Midnighter is naturally a little more repressed. You’re going to see the two characters working side by side and showing the difficulties of working together, learning and growing as a team and then ultimately as a couple.
Oh, DiDio also admits that Apollo and Midnighter “represent a story, a style of character that wasn’t represented in the DC Universe,” and that’s why it was important to include them. Which we’re assuming refers to all the literal brain punching that went on in every issue of The Authority.
There’s plenty of talk about what it would take for DC to put a gay character in the Teen Titans, and about Batwoman and Voodoo, another Wildstorm transplant. However, the Advocate never actually asks about the Question, they only name drop Renee Montoya in their introduction. There’s been no other confirmation of her character’s presence in the reboot to date, so while it’s tempting to see this as a good indication… the realists in us say it could just as well be a mistake on the part of the Advocate, who, to be fair, are trying to make it sound like DC is just now “introducing” some of these characters who’ve been around since the ’90s.
(via Bleeding Cool.)
