The Four Color Media Monitor

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.

Labels: dc comics, dreadful writers, Green Lantern, msm propaganda, politics, sales