As time goes on and society becomes more open, so does our pleasure reading material. “Marvel and DC have come a long way over the past few decades, and you can no longer count the out LGBT characters on one hand.” Ramzi Fawaz, a professor of queer studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, says comic books featured LGBT superheroes as early as the 1950s. Those superheroes that we read about as children; Prodigy, Catwoman, Deadpool for example, all openly identify as queer. Green Lantern comes out as gay in the comics. Catwoman as bisexual says cnn.com. Deadpool’s sexual identity is lesser known. It’s only very recent that he came out. He identifies as pansexual which less people know about because the identity itself is less common. This is more common in the movie than the comic.
Catwoman or her alter ego Selina Kyle was introduced as bisexual in Catwoman #39. Author Genevive Valentine states that Catwoman is canon bisexual which means that it is more than just an act or a mindless flirtation. These updates are from a combination of Huffington post and advocate.com’s slideshow on superheroes in the LGBTQ community. To be bisexual doesn’t make one selfish or needy. It doesn’t mean one cannot make up their mind or that they’re confused. Yes in the comics she has relations with Batman; however she also has flirtations openly with females, specifically Eiko Hasigawa who is her girlfriend.
Alan Scott more commonly known as the Green Lantern wasn’t originally introduced as gay but when the comic was rewritten the character was reintroduced as gay. The Washington post states in Earth 2, the Lantern comes out as he kisses his boyfriend hello at the end of the story.
In the comic created in the show Queer as Folk, the two main characters are both openly gay. Zephyr and Rage are an openly gay couple that protect a city named appropriately “Gayopolis”. They protect the city as well as the inhabitants of the city. The main characters of the comic are based on two of the main characters in the television show “Queer as Folk”. The plot of the comic matches closely to the plot of the book with the main character of the comic (Rage) almost identically to Brian Kinney in the television show. Rage’s boyfriend Zephyr matches from comic to show with Justin Taylor.
A fan favorite in the comic world is the pairing of Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy. There are rumors that flow freely on the “shipping” of them. Yet, DC has not made it known in any regard as to what either of their sexualities are except for the fact that it’s obvious they’re hooking up. One of the worst-kept secrets in DC Comics is that Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy are in love with each other. It might not look like the cookie-cutter monogamy society pushes, but it’s real and it works for them. The only problem is that there’s never been any proof — just innuendo and body language, especially in HARLEY QUINN #2 states hitfix.com