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Saturday, June 02, 2012 

Robinson gets Alan Scott's historical business status wrong

In one of the fawning interviews the MSM's given James Robinson over his oh-so brilliant and important changing of Golden Age GL Alan Scott gay, this one for Entertainment Weekly, he doesn't seem to realize just how Alan climbed the success ladder in past storytelling, and he even risks making the new homosexual status sound like a role model:
Can you talk about the new Alan Scott?
He’s a giant of the media industry. By getting involved in communication, the news, and the Internet, he’s become a billionaire. He’s kind of a cross between Mark Zuckerberg and David Geffen. The original Alan Scott owned a radio station in the ’40s and ’50s, so he was a media giant then. He was this bold, heroic, brave man who took control, who would risk his life for you and be this emerald knight that was always there to protect the world. The Alan Scott I’m doing now is that same dynamic, brave, honorable man. A man that you’d want guarding your welfare, your children, your life, your home. He’s willing to give his life for the world. He’s everything you want in a hero. And he happens to be gay. So really, apart from his sexuality, there isn’t that much of a difference.
But there is a glaring mistake made in his grip on history: Alan Scott began as a mining engineer in the 40s, and it was only in the 60s and 70s that he went on to become a media mogul. Clearly, Robinson is not so keen on comics history as he'd like everybody to think.

His claim that the new rendition of Scott is the kind of man you'd want guarding your children is actually taking a serious risk, given that there's parents who don't want gays working as scoutmasters in the Boy Scouts of America, and probably not their welfare either (you could almost wonder if he's hinting he condones socialism too).
Last week, when news about Earth 2‘s Alan Scott being homosexual hit the Internet, I saw a few complaints which mostly came back to one fact: That we’re talking about a character in an alternate universe who’s a rebooted version of a character that has been outside of the mainstream comic book world for awhile now. How do you respond to charges that this story is opportunistic?
That was never the intention. When I was first putting together this version of the team eight months ago, and was making the team diverse and interesting, adding in a gay character seemed like the natural thing to do. Quite honestly, it was an offhand comment that Dan made at a panel in England that got everybody suddenly aware and excited. I’m as surprised by it as you are. This was not ever meant to be sensational. It’s meant to be about a team that’s well-rounded, that shows the diversity of the world around us.
I'm getting the impression Robinson's not as well educated a man as he'd like people to think either, if he can't grasp the fact that the MSM he's giving the interviews to, no doubt with a lot of glee, is quite gleeful themselves whenever people of his leftist standings come up with degrading things like this, and I doubt the interviewer was as surprised as he and the EW staff were delighted to promote this.

As for natural and diversity, isn't it just as natural if they were to introduce a cast whose characters are of Bulgarian, Armenian and Danish descent? Why is introducing a gay character "natural" but not different nationalities?
Starman featured what has been referred to one of the first gay-male kisses in mainstream comics. Since that time, has it become easier to introduce a homosexual character into a superhero comic book?
I think so. It’s very gratifying to see the interest in this character and what we’re doing. But I at least hope society is moving forward sanely and rationally, where people’s diversity is accepted, not feared.
I want to stress that Alan Scott is a gay man, but that’s just a part of who he is. He’s a businessman. He’s a hero. He’s a lot of different things. His sexuality is a part of him, but it isn’t his defining trait. He’s an interesting, complex character that I think people will respond to on many levels.
I'm not so sure it's been easier at all, as family groups like One Million Moms for example have made clear, and looking at some of those panels provided from the Earth 2 issue, it's hard to see the homosexuality Robinson's forced on Alan as much other than a defining trait. One more reason why his claim that Alan's now an interesting, complex character is hard to swallow.

William Bigelow at Big Hollywood says:
DC Comics, which saw its “New 52” line premiere in 2011 as a relaunch of its series of superhero comic books fail to live up to expectations, is trying to increase its sales by making Green Lantern, one of the longest-running of its characters, gay.

It’s not the first time DC has crossed the sexuality line with one of its major characters; in 2009 the comic book giant capitulated to PC and made Batwoman gay.

Batwoman was described as a “lesbian socialite by night and a crime-fighter by later in the night.” But sales for DC haven’t been as brisk as they would have hoped. The “New 52” series dropped 17.4% last December and 19.6% the month before that.
And that's exactly what's bound to happen sooner or later as the retcon of Alan Scott becomes old news. And they sure won't be winning over the masses of family audiences, nor will it help the popularity of any Green Lantern if this is all they can think of doing to so desperately get the press' attention.

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Wow, are you from a small bumpkin town in in the South or something? You're quite bigoted and small minded especially coming from someone who reviews superhero comics...

Comics have always been a tool to provide insight to our current culture. Back in the Golden Era, it was pertinent to show the now cliched ideals of heroism.

Yet, that was decades ago! The world is in a very different cultural landscape now and what I have always appreciated about comics is that they strive to relate to current issues.

It doesn't matter if you're religious and do not accept homosexuality, but the treatment of homosexuals in the global community is the last horrendous crime against human rights. It has even been defined this way at the International Human Rights Conference held by the UN.

Rebooting Alan Scott as potentially the strongest hero on Earth-2, who just happens to be gay, has already been beloved by many supporters and the queer youth readership who have found him to be a symbol of hope and change.

Don't shortchange this monumental win for human equality with petty statistics of irrelevant character development. As I said previously, it comes off bigoted.

@anonymous: wow, someone who doesn't even have the courage to sign his real name is attempting to lecture...whom exactly? And just what proof do you have that many fans actually support this forced retcon? Judging by how low sales are today with very few books reaching more than 150,000 copies, not many do, but you obviously wish it were so. But hey, that's the way you want to see it, you can go on dreaming.

If you really believe in equality, let's see you campaign for Armenians to get prominent roles and features in comic books both major and minor. But I suspect that idea just simply doesn't interest or inspire you.

Whooo, the right to anal sex! What a great moment in our species' history.

I agree with Avi. Where are the Armenian characters? Apart from Mannix they're virtually non-existence. Making a character like Green Lantern gay is just forced diversity. If they want to create gay or lesbian characters, they should create their own rather than butcher existing ones.

And Anonymous, if you don't like what Avi's written, don't read it. That's a problem with leftists like you; if someone disagrees with you, you resort to childish name calling (you calling Avi a "bigot" for disagreeing with DC changing Alan Scott's orientation) and seek to destroy your opponents. And there's no one that supports this retcon; it's pretty unpopular, and for good reason.

To the bigwigs in charge, one European/African/Asian country is as good as the next as far as they are concerned.

I fully back Avi too! I had the pleasure to meet Roy Thomas at the KC ComicCon, just about 3 months ago & he told me he'd contacted DC to re-launch All-Star Squadron -- with original Golden Age characters -- as they originally were meant to be & they got back to him & said no!

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  • I'm Avi Green
  • From Jerusalem, Israel
  • I was born in Pennsylvania in 1974, and moved to Israel in 1983. I also enjoyed reading a lot of comics when I was young, the first being Fantastic Four. I maintain a strong belief in the public's right to knowledge and accuracy in facts. I like to think of myself as a conservative-style version of Clark Kent. I don't expect to be perfect at the job, but I do my best.
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