Alan Scott: From Golden Ager To Iconic Gay Green Lantern

[CBR News]

DC Comics newest gay hero has been grabbing headlines, but Alan Scott's long journey to iconic status has many twists and turns from Mart Nodell's original mystic engineer to modern stories about his relationship to his gay son Obsidian.


Full article here.

[batGRRRl4ever]

Not just the new angle of sexual orientation with The Green Lantern, but just the overall feel of this new JSA forming in the book Earth 2 is coming across as FRESH. Meanwhile the Justice League title is coming off as very STALE, same old types of stories, same old next to no character progression with characters who are archetypes as opposed to teammates.

I think that The Green Lantern has finally reinvented himself in a new and successful way after decades on the periphery. I look forward to seeing where the Earth 2 book takes us and hopefully suspect that this new "Superman" version of Alan Scott will give Hal Jordan a run for his money!

[Sk8maven]

Lots of misinformation in that article. It wasn't Nodell and Finger who dumped Irene from the stories - it was a fill-in team after Nodell had left and Finger had been reassigned. For a while Alan showed up in a different city every month, finally settling on Gotham at about the same time the writing team re-stabilized - now headed by Alfred Bester. And Alan's first wife was Rose/Thorn CANTON - no known relation to the Silver Age vigilante OR the "all-new Rose/Thorn" reworked by Gail Simone. (That's three characters jammed together by an underinformed writer who doesn't know jack about any of them!)

Also, you double-posted. Please combine or delete.

[sleeplessknight]

That All-Star Squadron cover is still so fantastic. God, I miss that book...

[orthodoxyordeath]

Journey? He didn't have a journey. It's not like the man realized he had been repressing his homosexual urges all his life and then came out of the closet. He was just retconned and changed to compete with Marvel. The comic industry is never going to attract minorities in any viable number until it stops changing old characters, and just creates completely new cool minority characters. Pandering never works for anyone.

[Crisis]

Lots of misinformation in that article. It wasn't Nodell and Finger who dumped Irene from the stories - it was a fill-in team after Nodell had left and Finger had been reassigned. For a while Alan showed up in a different city every month, finally settling on Gotham at about the same time the writing team re-stabilized - now headed by Alfred Bester. And Alan's first wife was Rose/Thorn CANTON - no known relation to the Silver Age vigilante OR the "all-new Rose/Thorn" reworked by Gail Simone. (That's three characters jammed together by an underinformed writer who doesn't know jack about any of them!)

Also, you double-posted. Please combine or delete.

That's the problem with ill-informed writers talking about stuff they don't know...its part of the reason that so much disinformation was done when Ultimate Spider-Man died...when they talked about his first appearance being in Amazing Fantasy which it wasn't.

[gwangung]

Journey? He didn't have a journey. It's not like the man realized he had been repressing his homosexual urges all his life and then came out of the closet. He was just retconned and changed to compete with Marvel. The comic industry is never going to attract minorities in any viable number until it stops changing old characters, and just creates completely new cool minority characters.

Non sequitor.

They just need well written cool characters period. Because if they're new readers, they're not going to care if they're based on old characters or revamped old characters; they're just going to care to see if they got it right.

[Crisis]

Journey? He didn't have a journey. It's not like the man realized he had been repressing his homosexual urges all his life and then came out of the closet. He was just retconned and changed to compete with Marvel. The comic industry is never going to attract minorities in any viable number until it stops changing old characters, and just creates completely new cool minority characters.

Why not a mix of both?

[okayaxis]

Enough of this already! BOR-ING! i don't care if Alan Scott is in love with Kilowog, i don't want to see any more of this lameness!!! Whether its man-woman, man-man, woman-woman, man-woman-animal-alien-inanimate object.....its BORING!!! if i wanted to get involved in people's relationships and their sexual preferences, then i wouldn't be reading comic books, i'd be watching 'Glee' or hanging out in real life. don't people read comics anymore for the surreal stories of imagination and fantastic possibilites? guess not.....so here's some dudes kissing. enjoy!

[orthodoxyordeath]

Because, especially when the original creators can't voice their input on handling the retcon, I don't like it. Alan Scott was a straight man who had a loving relationship of acceptance with his gay son. That was great. Why can't we leave created characters alone and create new characters, rather than changing old ones to suit the needs of competition.

[NotSuper]

Journey? He didn't have a journey. It's not like the man realized he had been repressing his homosexual urges all his life and then came out of the closet. He was just retconned and changed to compete with Marvel. The comic industry is never going to attract minorities in any viable number until it stops changing old characters, and just creates completely new cool minority characters.

No, you're wrong. James Robinson revealed him to be gay since the reboot removed Obsidian, his gay son. It wasn't to compete with Marvel, which is why DC didn't advertise it until the media decided to run with the story.

[Drew Melbourne]

Because, especially when the original creators can't voice their input on handling the retcon, I don't like it. Alan Scott was a straight man who had a loving relationship of acceptance with his gay son. I liked that. Why can't we leave created characters alone and create new characters, rather than changing old ones to suit the needs of competition.

You're assuming a particular agenda without evidence. What does "needs of competition" mean, and what would your opinion be if the creative team's only agenda was "this seems like a good idea"?

Honestly, I think people are thinking about this the wrong way. This is a new parallel Earth. If I told you that the Green Lantern of Earth-416 was gay, you probably wouldn't bat an eyelash.

[Brandon McKinnis]

Since this new reality is based in part on Barry Allen's memories does that mean he always thought Alan was gay or did he just kind of fudge the details and combine father and son?

[Legion_Quest]

Since this new reality is based in part on Barry Allen's memories does that mean he always thought Alan was gay or did he just kind of fudge the details and combine father and son?

Lol, I would love for that to be addressed one day.

Also, I still chuckled at that 'I'm cured!' page

[Kiel Phegley!]

Lots of misinformation in that article. It wasn't Nodell and Finger who dumped Irene from the stories - it was a fill-in team after Nodell had left and Finger had been reassigned. For a while Alan showed up in a different city every month, finally settling on Gotham at about the same time the writing team re-stabilized - now headed by Alfred Bester. And Alan's first wife was Rose/Thorn CANTON - no known relation to the Silver Age vigilante OR the "all-new Rose/Thorn" reworked by Gail Simone. (That's three characters jammed together by an underinformed writer who doesn't know jack about any of them!)

Also, you double-posted. Please combine or delete.

The Thorn identity I copied from the wrong file, so that I have corrected. Otherwise, there's nothing off about the info shared. As for Irene, Nodell said in interviews himself that he didn't recall/care for her in the stories so I think it's safe to assume that he and Finger had no great plans of or love of the character and her failure to take hold in the strip was as much on their shoulders as anyone else's.

I don't know what your Gotham note is in reference to. That wasn't a focus of the article.

You strike me as a very angry person. Please calm down and discuss things civil-like.