love or hate new alan scott?

[Kymeric]

Well its a total reboot, this isnt really earth2 its more earth2.1. None of these characters are the same as the old ones and to expect them to be would be stupid. I mean its like getting pissed ultimate nickfury is black. OMG!!1111!!11RUINED FOREVER

[DCFanboi]

He has the exact same personality in amost every single way. I think it's so funny how comics fans are more upset that he's gay---which has little bearing on how he's been portrayed, it's not like he's acting as a stereotype in any way---but he's not a WW2 vet and he's a young modern man, which are way bigger changes.

Again, I'm sorry, details about characters and their personalities change to reflect the society they exist in. They always have. Batman may not have had a gender change, but he is portrayed VERY differently than he was in the Golden Age or the Silver Age. The differences in the Batman or Superman characters of that era and this era are faaaar more vast than making Alan Scott gay. To accept one but not the other is hypocritical.

While I do not agree the changes to Superman or Batman are "more vast" than those to Alan Scott, I do agree that to accept one but not the other is hypocritical. Thankfully, I am not.

[Johnny P. Sartre]

the difference is batman trained all the robins. so he knows theyre "worthy" or trusting enough to represent the bat name. theyre skilled enough. they arent newbs. its been done before. any time a vigilante comes to gotham batman destroys them and kicks them out of gotham. it shouldnt be any different with batwoman.

id have no issue with it if batman trained her. but he didnt. shes the strong independant woman that can do it all on her own without any help. its also a gimmic.

No she's ex-military with special training and has help from her father. She doesn't NEED Batman training because she well off on her own (due to her training) and Batman has spied on her and trusts or puts up with her.

There's that strong independant woman phrase again. Those strong independant women you talk about have and still continue to kick-butt in gotham and in other DC places with and without the help of men and other women. So I'm failing to see the gimmick here.

What is it with people not being able to accept that a woman or women are able to defend themselves/herself?

[RohanRiderX]

No she's ex-military with special training and has help from her father. She doesn't NEED Batman training because she well off on her own (due to her training) and Batman has spied on her and trusts or puts up with her.

There's that strong independant woman phrase again. Those strong independant women you talk about have and still continue to kick-butt in gotham and in other DC places with and without the help of men and other women. So I'm failing to see the gimmick here.

What is it with people not being able to accept that a woman or women are able to defend themselves/herself?

I dont thin his(her?) argument has anythng to do with her being a woman, and everyhing to do with batman being a fucking paranoid control freak

[Byzantine]

QFT. A character's race, sexuality, religion, and gender is part of what makes them them. It's like if they turned Batman into a girl (Brianna Wayne) in the New 52. I actually told my friend that when the New 52 was happening he FREAKED OUT.

Yep, because as it's been mentioned in every single one of these threads before, one's sexuality is something that NEVER EVER CHANGES. You know, despite the fact that my sexuality has dramatically changed as I've gotten older, but hey, whatever. No one can relate to that at all, no sir, not even people for whom that very thing happens gradually. Yep, no way. Those people aren't real. Nope. Also, one's sexuality is a huge determinant of who they are and what they value. Yep. Definitely.

I find arguments like this to be either convenient excuses for people who have certain hangups but are ashamed to admit it or coming from places of pure ignorance on the functioning of human sexuality and it's really fluid nature, or both.

[Sk8maven]

Also, gimmick and bean counting as this may be, at least they gimmicking and bean countering towards diversity.

Except they're not. They're imposing a homogenous concept that ALL superheroes MUST be young, single and childfree. Not even any current attachments. (Animal Man apparently has a grandfathered exception to this - for now - but he's the ONLY one.) Before, DC had a wide range of ages, marital status, offspring, etc. You don't increase diversity by reducing it.

[Darkness275]

I find arguments like this to be either convenient excuses for people who have certain hangups but are ashamed to admit it or coming from places of pure ignorance on the functioning of human sexuality and it's really fluid nature, or both.

Oh that's BS.
I'm sorry and you may hate or flame me for this but are you really going to play that card? So now anyone who has an issue is suddenly racist or homophobic or whatever? So now that you've played that card and taken that stance anyone who doesn't share your viewpoint is suddenly a repressed homophobe? Bull.

What about the fact that DC has seemed to go out of their way to alter a long established character to be gay in this new universe? All they are saying is that it's a gimmick. It's DC's: "Oh hey, one of our main Superheros is gay". Why not just use this opportunity to bring a pre-established Gay superhero into the limelight? Because that wouldn't cause publicity like this, that's why.

Things about a character that make them relate-able DO make the character, so yeah that includes Race, Gender, Sexuality, etc... Romantic troubles, money troubles, etc... You know, there is a reason Spider-Man is Marvel's flagship character. So yeah, changing that (whether or not the character is a real life person) does give reason for some people to cry out BS - because that's what it is. YOUR argument is the one that's flawed, because as far as I've seen (and PLEASE correct me if I'm wrong), this isn't a character who has been introduced as having recently discovered he's gay (your argument of someone whose sexuality changes as they get older) but instead he's simply being presented as having always been gay.

Edited to add: I like the new character. I just feel that it's a gimmick and a pretty cheap one at that. I feel it's DC's attempt to hop on some bandwagon and/or announce their pro-gay stance in a way that they were actually hoping would be controversial. Which doesn't make a lot of sense, I know, because they have already had well established gay characters in the past but that's what it feels like to me. Something which is added to by DC's own comments: "James Robinson: ...But I thought it was a shame that we lost Jade and Obsidian, who are Alan Scott's children. Obsidian has been in the comics for years and was a positive gay character. And then, in the way that one idea can spring forward to the next, I thought, well, let's make Alan Scott gay. And to DC and to Dan DiDio's credit, when I ran the idea past him, there wasn't a moment's hesitation. He was like, "Yeah, that's great. Let's do it." " To me that looks like DC saying "Well we just lost a gay character... we need a new one." An if THAT is the case then yeah, I find this a little offensive tbh because it's a gimmick, like the sex in Red Hood and the Outlaws and Batman (a means of trying to keep male readers) - but if it's not the case.. if they don't just want a gay character for the sake of a gay character, well then that's fine and I look forward to seeing what comes of it. But if they just want that character as a representation of a 'voice' then don't you think that's kind of cheap? They already have/had established gay characters, they could have used them.

[Joseph_Kerr]

I dont thin his(her?) argument has anythng to do with her being a woman, and everyhing to do with batman being a fucking paranoid control freak

Exactly. Lol.

I have nothing but love for batgirl. I love her. Time out.

While we're on the subject of batgirl I'm gunna respond to whoever it was that brought up according to my argument I'd have a problem with batgirl too. And your right. I would. And I did. Until batman trained her. And let her into the family. That changes things.
Time in.

Don't get hung up n the strong independent woman remark. It's my way of making a mockery of her. It's not a valid bullet point for debate. Batman is exactly that. Paranoid and a control freak. So that's why it bugs me being such a huge batman fan myself and seeing so many times in his history where he only allows things to be done a certain way. And then here comes batwoman who does whatever she wants and uses the bat name without permission and batman just says oh... Well... Ok. You're cool? Makes no sense to me.

[Joseph_Kerr]

Yep, because as it's been mentioned in every single one of these threads before, one's sexuality is something that NEVER EVER CHANGES. You know, despite the fact that my sexuality has dramatically changed as I've gotten older, but hey, whatever. No one can relate to that at all, no sir, not even people for whom that very thing happens gradually. Yep, no way. Those people aren't real. Nope. Also, one's sexuality is a huge determinant of who they are and what they value. Yep. Definitely.

I find arguments like this to be either convenient excuses for people who have certain hangups but are ashamed to admit it or coming from places of pure ignorance on the functioning of human sexuality and it's really fluid nature, or both.

I gotta agree with darkness here.

Stressing his last point, youre point has no bearing here considering Scott didn't have any kind of transformation period. There was no him realizing he Fancies men too. Then realizing he likes them more. There was no one guy that caused a realization that his sex drive responded to something else. It was hey. A year ago he was straight and with kids. Soooooo he's gay now. K everyone?

You'd think that some homosexuals would be offended by the process. Wanna make a gay character? Fine. But make a gay character. Wanna change the sexual preference of an existing one? Then make it believable and more realistic. Comic books have for the most part been in a fantasy element, but the relationships these imaginative characters contain have always mirrored realistic chemistry.

[Kid Montana]

I gotta agree with darkness here.

Stressing his last point, youre point has no bearing here considering Scott didn't have any kind of transformation period. There was no him realizing he Fancies men too. Then realizing he likes them more. There was no one guy that caused a realization that his sex drive responded to something else. It was hey. A year ago he was straight and with kids. Soooooo he's gay now. K everyone?

You'd think that some homosexuals would be offended by the process. Wanna make a gay character? Fine. But make a gay character. Wanna change the sexual preference of an existing one? Then make it believable and more realistic. Comic books have for the most part been in a fantasy element, but the relationships these imaginative characters contain have always mirrored realistic chemistry.

I am on board with this point to.

That said, I don't 'Hate' the new Alan Scott, I just don't like the book or the re-re-imagined characters. Really, the Flash's stupid helmet is the most annoying thing to me. Gave the book a shot, but it didn't stick. Having alternate versions of alternate nudc versions of characters is just not appealing to me.

[RohanRiderX]

"He is gay, guys. Only he doesn't talk about it all the time, on account of having interests outside of being gay?"
—Ryan North on Utahraptor, Dinosaur Comics*

i found this qoute on tv tropes.com lolo i thiink it fits what they are doing with him in the new 52

[Sk8maven]

What do I think about New Alan Scott? I'm ambivalent, frankly. IMHO DC is recycling the old names onto new characters for nothing more than name recognition and trademark protection, and it feels like a cheap trick. On the other hand they are all-new and may become interesting in their own right, given enough time and good writing. But...I'll always miss the old characters. (And FGS give New Alan a cape!)

PS: Anyone who thinks that Old Alan Scott ever was or ever could have been gay really doesn't know a thing about the character. He was aggressively heterosexual from about his third appearance - when Irene Miller debuted in his strip. He flirted openly with her throughout the story and ended with a brazen pass - a pattern that would repeat through many of their shared stories. (Unlike Lois Lane, however, Irene seemed to appreciate Alan for his own sake - and probably caught on to his secret pretty soon, though she never let it slip that she knew.)

Irene disappeared abruptly once Alan was relocated away from "Capitol City" - but not too long after he was resettled in Gotham, we got Molly Maynne, aka the Harlequin, and things cranked up several notches. She almost pulled off a coup that was never within Irene's reach - getting him to marry her. It didn't work, thanks to his ring intervening, but the thought was there.

When reintroduced in the Silver Age, Alan seemed to be "all work and no play", partly because he was never seen on his own, but only teamed up with the JSA and/or Hal Jordan. (He took some interest in Princess Ramia, but didn't seem at all disappointed when she chose Doiby over him OR Hal.)

That lasted until Roy Thomas got his hands on him and filled in the backstory from the missing years. Alan had been aggressively heterosexual all along, even letting himself get captivated into marriage by a mysterious young woman who turned out to be not at all what she seemed - not even as young, in chronological years, as she seemed. He lived for years with the belief that she had been killed on their honeymoon by some unknown foe(s) who had been targeting him and got her instead - and with self-blame for putting her in that kind of danger. Eventually he found out that 1) she was actually a Golden Age super-villainess with a malignant case of Dissociative Identity Disorder (Rose Canton, aka Rose/Thorn); 2) she had spent years, during which she did not age, in Amazon territory while the Amazons tried to cure her - and thought they had succeeded; 3) she had deliberately seduced him into marriage because she had fallen in love with him as Green Lantern; 4) the explosion that supposedly "killed" her was caused by her trying on his Green Lantern ring - which re-evoked her evil Thorn personality, causing her to try to kill him, but her "Rose" side regained control long enough to take the ring from her finger and throw it in the fireplace, causing a fiery explosion; 5) she was pregnant when she left him, and the mysterious twins "Jade" and "Obsidian" were in fact his own children - her "Thorn" identity had terrorized her into giving them up for adoption; and 6) he was now a widower for real - Rose reasserted her control over Thorn one last time, long enough to kill the body they shared rather than let Thorn use it to harm Alan or her children.

Alan's somewhat bizarre reaction to this info-dump (most of it from Molly Maynne, who had resurfaced as his Executive Assistant - long backstory) was to ask Molly to marry him. She accepted, and the Scott-Hayden-Rice menage became one of the few examples of a full-on "nuclear family" in DC history. And Alan and Molly joined Jay and Joan as even rarer examples of older couples still deeply devoted to each other.

Nope, Old Alan Scott was 102% str8 in the shade - which caused some discomfort when his son Todd (aka Obsidian) came out as gay. (Alan wasn't homophobic, he Just Did Not Get It and came from a generation that did not talk frankly about sexual matters at all.)

[tony ingram]

I like what I've seen so far. I have absolutely no problem with his change in sexuality because you can't take a cast of all white straight men and say how diverse they are. So between changing them or erasing them, I think the right choice was made.

I don't see why some arbitrary 'diversity agenda' justifies changing or erasing much loved characters. That is not what comics are for.

[tony ingram]

Some of us grew up with him that way. (On Earth 2, not being gay.)

And want him the way he was when we were growing up with him.
I still love that story. One of the best JLA/JSA stories ever.

[tony ingram]

The new Alan Scott is unquestionably a lot better than the old Alan Scott.

Why? I don't see it.

hate it. absolutely hate it.

why?
not because of the gay thing, but because I LOVED THE FREAKIN JSA!

i loved the middle aged alan scott and jay garrick.
my ONLY hope when I heard about earth-2 was I was getting them back, but no, I get a trendy, de-aged team.

the was a time the JSA was better read than the JLA. I loved the history of the characters.

this just feels..... forced. and I dont like it.
if others do, great for you, but me, I miss my all-star squadron, my jsa.

Quoted very much for truth.

He has the exact same personality in amost every single way. I think it's so funny how comics fans are more upset that he's gay---which has little bearing on how he's been portrayed, it's not like he's acting as a stereotype in any way---but he's not a WW2 vet and he's a young modern man, which are way bigger changes.

Again, I'm sorry, details about characters and their personalities change to reflect the society they exist in. They always have. Batman may not have had a gender change, but he is portrayed VERY differently than he was in the Golden Age or the Silver Age. The differences in the Batman or Superman characters of that era and this era are faaaar more vast than making Alan Scott gay. To accept one but not the other is hypocritical.

That's fine. How about those of us who don't accept either change, becausing changing a character's age, history and sexuality totally destroys the original character?