First gay comic book character

Dive into stories of heroism, love, friendship, and self-discovery with our top picks of the best gay superheroes, celebrating courage and representation in every panel. Many people believe the first gay characters were Batman and Robin first published in due to the homoerotic nature of their relationship. Think about it: a young apprentice who devotes his life to a single, older bachelor… That has gay sugar daddy written all over it. Yet, due to the Comics Code Authority forbidding the mention of homosexuality in mainstream US comics between and , gay characters had to be represented subtly.

Then, over the course of researching how Northstar became the poster boy for closeted gays, this post took a fun little detour. Writer and artist John Byrne considers himself to have created the first gay superhero in Northstar, a character who first appeared in a couple issues of The Uncanny X-Men. That may be true, but he himself admits that when he first created the Canadian superhero team Alpha Flight in , none of the characters had enough backstory to include a sexual orientation. One of the characters should be gay , and Northstar was his logical choice.

Northstar, a mutant with the ability to fly and move at tremendous speeds, eventually joined the X-Men, gaining greater status in the Marvel pantheon. The mystery was solved unequivocally in the pages of The Authority , where the super-couple came out the closet, married, and adopted a kid. Later renamed the X-Statix , the team boasted a roster featuring no fewer than three gay characters: a mutant with the power to alter his abilities by changing the color of his skin, an Eminem pastiche who could alter his density, size, and shape by manipulating his own subcutaneous fat, and a werewolf. Unfortunately, not all portrayals of gay characters in comics are positive ones — not by a long shot.

While not all of them may get their due publicity because of a lack of exposure on the silver screen, each has interesting stories to tell in the print medium. Flipping the pages of a comic book opens a gateway to a fantasy world where the most common narratives depict superheroes making a difference in the community they serve. Instead, Northstar has been placed in stories that explore realistic social issues that face the gay community and evoke messages advocating for gay rights. The issue begins with Northstar rescuing an abandoned baby whom he later adopts and names Joanne.