The Four Color Media Monitor

IGN did a gushing interview with Dan Parent about his upcoming story where he turns the gay teen Kevin Keller into a superhero called the Equalizer:

Since his inception as Archie's first gay character, Kevin has been followed by a storm of controversy about his sexuality, which makes the positive message of a young teen coming out to his friends and being supported by his parents more pertinent than ever. Now he joins the likes of Batwoman and Northstar on comics' ever-growing list of gay superheroes.

While admitting to his friends that he's gay might be positive, is living that way the same? They don't dwell on that question.

IGN Comics: Kevin Keller has been a breakout success for Archie Comics, and now he's becoming a superhero?

Dan Parent: Yes, yes. The other Archie characters have had their superhero personas, now Kevin is going to have one -- with the help of Veronica, of course.

Simply hilarious how they claim it's a huge hit for the company when the title doesn't turn up anywhere on the sales charts. Yet it's easy to guess why they're coming up with this idea in Keller's own series proper and not as a separate one: because there's no chance it'd fare any better financially.

IGN: I really like the costume design. It's very modern-looking. We have seen him on some variant covers, like the Action Comics #1 variant where he was in a very classic costume, but I really like his updated look -- and I really, really love that he's known as the Equalizer, and he's got the equal symbol on his chest. Could you tell me where that idea came from?

DP: Well, first of all, we had to pick out a name for him, and since he is gay and stands for equality, he wants to help everybody. We're not just talking about cases of homophobia; we're talking about when some downtrodden person gets hurt. So Equalizer is just sort of a good term. It's not a term that we made up, obviously -- it's been used for batteries and TV shows -- the word's been used before. But it just symbolized him, because he stands for equality, and that's what he's trying to do. When he becomes a superhero, first he helps an old lady who's getting attacked, then he saves this kid from getting made fun of, which, you know, he's been in that place before. Then also, if a real crime is being committed, he'll help stop that too. He's an equal opportunity provider.

Despite what they say, I won't be surprised if this does eventually sink into political diatribes about homophobia. On the other hand, I doubt they'll ever focus on the left's efforts to lionize atrocious pervs like Harvey Milk, who told one of the youngsters he exploited he thought it perfect for gays and lesbians to be promiscuous.

IGN: So how is he going to go about fighting crime? Is he going to have a signature power or a gadget or anything like that?

DP: We're actually trying to keep it a little more reality based. Mostly it's just based on his physical strength. Whereas the Archie characters, you know, Archie got powers and could actually fly, and they can all do other things. But with this character, we're keeping it more in the realm of, like, a Batman, where he actually depends on his physical prowess -- and then lots of gadgets. In his cave, the guy who kind of monitors what's going on with the crime and kind of invents things for Kevin -- and at the same time, Kevin has the hots for this guy, so it's kind of like a love interest for Kevin too.

IGN: [Laughs] I love it!

DP: Yeah, the guy's all oblivious to it. We haven't even really said if he's gay or not, but Kevin's totally enamored with him. We'll see where that goes. So in addition to pinpointing where crimes are, he's busy coming up with gadgets and things like that for crime-fighting.

There we go. I figured this already sank into focus on the character's homosexuality. No matter what they say, it's pretty apparent they cannot keep away from that part of the premise.

IGN: Going back, you said he's helping people -- saving old ladies from getting mugged just as much as a kid from getting feelings hurt, and it's that second one that hits home for me. One of my favorite Kevin stories was when he gets the note in his locker from another student who is afraid to come out. They agree to meet, but at the end the mysterious student doesn't show up because he's not ready to come out of the closet yet. But instead of that being a sad ending, Kevin wrote him back with some powerful words of encouragement that he could come out when he was ready. It was a great message to send. So for this story, what sort of message are you trying to send with it?

DP: Well, the message I think is just really the continuation of what Kevin's already been. We know he always helps out people, because he's that kind of a guy and he's been there before. When we saw Kevin's origins in the early stories, we saw that he didn't grow up this real debonaire, suave kinda guy. He had a lot of growing pains like a lot of kids, especially with being gay on top of it, it was more of a challenge. In one story I'm working on now, he just happens to see this kid getting made fun of, so Kevin springs into action, and Veronica, of course, keeps trying to help out, and she just screws things up.

Then, the other angle we have of the story is Kevin's father eventually finds out what he's doing. You know, they try to keep it a secret, and the running joke is that people keep finding out he's the Equalizer, because it's so hard in this day and age to keep a superhero alias a secret. Basically, people keep finding out. I think 10 issues down the line, if he's doing this, everyone's gonna know -- because his father does find out early on and wants to help him keep it secret, but he also has helped train Kevin, because he was in the military. So he helps Kevin because he doesn't want Kevin to get hurt. He knows Kevin's going to do it no matter what. So we sort of have the father/son bond in there too.

I don't see what the point is if they can't suspend disbelief and allow his vigilante identity to remain secret. I do see they're apparently intent on making Veronica look like a jerk. The story sounds like what may have taken place in the early issues of Ultimate Spider-Man, where various people found out Ultimate Peter was Spidey. All that aside, I don't see why they should bother about a story like this if they don't intend to allow Keller to run a competent vigilante career. It sounds very unimaginative.

IGN: That's great. Kevin's parents have been a big presence in the book, and I think that's great to show a positive relationship between parents and kids when they come out as gay. So often they're afraid to come out because they think their parents are going to disown them, and sometimes that's the reality. There's a lot of LGBT youth shelters out there for that exact reason, for kids who get kicked out of their home or if things just aren't the same and they can't stay at home.

One of my favorite things you wrote was actually your Afterword in the back of the trade Kevin Keller: Welcome to Riverdale. You said, "Maybe not every gay teen has an ideal experience like Kevin has in Riverdale... But we're showing the way things should be. Everybody deserves their own Riverdale!" That was an immensely positive message. It's just so great. I really love that that's the thinking behind this character.

DP: Yeah, and that is what we're trying to do, because we're aware that Kevin's story is similar to a lot of teens growing up. It's sort of, like, Archie is that place you go to. I grew up watching, like, The Brady Bunch and shows like that, where very few lives are like that, but it's like the idyllic version of the way life is, and that's sort of what we're doing with Archie. We're trying to integrate some real issues, but it's really the way you want things to be.

For leftists like those, the only way a relationship between parents and gay children can be "positive" is if the parents fully accept their son/daughter's beliefs and not try to persuade them to consult a psychologist who can try to help them to reverse the situation. A big problem with many of these depictions of LGBT in fiction like movies and TV shows is that they can only be depicted as gay, and never allowed to change that part back to heterosexual. And if gays and lesbians are kicked out of their homes by parents, as they claim, what if it turned out to be left-wing parents with no proper idea of how to cope? Did that ever occur to them?

IGN: Can you talk a bit about the design choices that went into the new superhero outfit?

DP: Really, the design choices were to keep it simple. You can never go wrong with a sort of simple, black outfit. The equal sign was an afterthought. But when the Human Rights Campaign had the big equal symbol -- they were all over the place -- so there was a borrowing from that. I did a couple of sketches in the office, and then we had a little running joke in the story, because Veronica is really pushing for him to do this -- of course, she designed all these costumes for him, so we have a little montage of really terrible superhero outfits, including a couple really bad, cliche superhero outfits that are over-the-top and Kevin wants no part of.

Again, it sure sounds like Veronica is being set up to look bad here. And look at whom they've drawn "inspiration" from: the HRC, that leftist movement funded by George Soros, who blatantly called the Family Research Council a "hate group". If that's that wellspring they're drawing from, I'd rather be in a desert.

IGN: Anything else you wanna throw out there before we close out?

DP: Just that we're still having a great time with Kevin, and the fans are still enjoying it. We look forward to presenting these stories, and we're happy to have Kevin enter the Archie superhero realm.

How can they still be enjoying it when there's hardly any to start with? This Parent is one of the most dishonest members of the Archie writing staff.

Labels: Archie, golden calf of LGBT, misogyny and racism, moonbat writers, politics