Apples and oranges comparison The Nu52 Alan was a new version of the character. This wasn't the same guy that fathered Jade & Obsidian and had been around for decades.

The Jane Foster as Thor was a really well-done story by Jason Aaron, because he had an excellent idea for a story, that being "What if the Odinson was no longer worthy to hold Mjolnir but another person was?" No nefarious plot, no underlying "SJW agenda" (whatever the hell that is), just an interesting concept in the hands of a very capable writer. Odinson was still around doing Odinson things, but he couldn't access his powers or hold his hammer.

As I wrote in the past couple of days, there's a difference between putting someone new in the Iron Man armor (be it Rhodey, Riri, or someone else) and doing something drastic to the character of Tony Stark. A writer just can't expect to do something completely out of character (such as having Tony question his sexuality, after nearly 60 years of establishing him as 100% hetero) and not have fans, some of whom have been following the character since the beginning, not to take issue. Writing a story where the usual secret identity (Stark, Murdoch, Wayne, etc.) can no longer fill the role and a replacement has to step in will usually be met with eventual grudging acceptance and maybe a little more scrutiny, but I never heard of anyone being uber-pissed that Rhodey wore the armor when Tony couldn't. Of course, that was before the internet, and I'm sure there were crazy-ass racist letters sent to Marvel that were promptly shredded and never considered for publication, so maybe I am just being naive in thinking it was different back then.

On the flip side, while I certainly understand passion among fans (heaven knows that I wrote time and time again on the forum how much I hated the "Hydra Cap" retcon, even though I knew it was never going to be permanent), there's a line that they have to respect. Complaining about it on a message board or at the LCS is one thing and is completely understandable when the complainer actually cares about the product, but threatening to burn down the writer's house and shave their pets are the actions of folks who are simply looking to make a name for themselves as being assholes (or, to use a term you taught me last week, an Edgelord). While they portray themselves as standing up for whites or males or heterosexuals (or any combination of the three, along with Mom, apple pie, and the good old USofA), they really are thriving on the rush they get from having other idiots support them in the chorus of "Down with Diversity", although I doubt many, if any, of them actually believe the crap they spew. They're part of the internet entertainment generation, creating a unique persona (and hopefully some cashflow) for themselves by any means necessary.

No, it's not.

The Nu52 was touted as the younger, edgier new version of the modern DCU, their characters re-structured to reflect that goal. As such, Alan Scott was re-introduced as now being gay. 

Why? If I was a fan of the character, that would've been my immediate first question. That's a serious change especially if their intent was that these are the new definitive versions of these characters. There was no 'classic' version of the DCU being offered exclusively to offset any difference (ala Ultimate Iceman and MCU Bobby Drake). This is Alan Scott from now on, moving forward.

Why was this change necessary? Was it even required? Why pick Alan and not some other member of the JSA possibly?

No, I find the questions surrounding this particular change to a Golden Age character more disturbing that what was done to Bobby Drake.

High profile enough to make the news, low-profile enough not to have lots of fans complaining.



That is of course for you to decide, but in one case it’s a reboot of an old character (Ultimate Old Green Lantern, for all intents and purposes) and in the other case it’s the original character being retroactively transformed into someone he has neve4 been.

To me there’s a balance. I personally don’t see any issue with the businessman part of comics. We do need business minded people divorced of the stories to make decisions that help Marvel or whoever company profitable. Leave the passion to the writers. Both sides can keep the company alive. Because we as readers are (well maybe before Disney bought them) what keep the cash flowing in for them.

It’s not comic book related but a good example is Digital Extremes and their free to play game Warframe. It’s the best quality free to play game on the market. Because they listen to the community. In fact early in Warframe’s release DE was close to bankruptcy. So they bundled free in game stuff that would give players the edge in the game for real world money. From $10 to $200. And DE was so surprised at how many people supported them. Now those people that did that then now have exclusive items no one else can get anymore. And the ones that bought the $200 packages actually design cosmetic items that are sold in the game for people to buy with their gamer username as credit for it. I watched the livestream this year for Tennocon, the annual convention for Warframe and it’s amazing how much this company thanks, appreciates and listens to its clientele. I got a free frame (suit or armour) just for watching the live stream. DE realizes their success is thanks to the clientele. So I do very much think that is necessity and a good part of a business’ relationship with it customers. But the “cold hearted” so to speak business man is needed too.

Well, the same can be said of Iceman.

The difference here is that Bobby's reveal is plausible to a degree. That is, he could have been repressing such feelings, masking them or afraid to confront them. This could be part of the real fear and anxiety of coming out even in later adult years. (Adding the missive that Bobby was afraid to be hated for being both a mutant and gay is a bit of a stretch but then again, anytime you push the general metaphor of mutants symbolizing an actual persecuted minority group, the allegory tends to fail).

Those X-fans that I know who are gay have no problem with this reveal only with how it was handled by Bendis. It should have been given more of it's own focus due to the emotions and fears that were being confronted and dealt with. Instead, it culminated under the sledgehammer pen of Bendis in an anniversary issue that was meant to solve ALL of his run's plot threads before Secret Wars took out/over everything, a few jokes, wink-wink and we're good to go.

I don't mean to trivialize this trauma in anyway for anyone who is currently undergoing it or has gone through it, that's not my intention for I cannot speak on any grounds about the possible swirl of emotions and feelings such a epiphany or revelation could cause but I can more readily accept the possibility of a long-time character having repressed/hidden such feelings than I can a company who all of a sudden decides to reboot a classic Golden Age character as gay for no better reason than to say, 'Hey, we're being diverse!"

It's okay to want Iceman to be straight. It's not important to me that he be bi or gay even though from the comics I read I thought it could fit. I hope it's okay for me to not really feel the Doctor changing sex fits. I'm not reading or buying Iceman comics myself, I have no stake in it, and past the Eccleston season I haven't bought the new Who, but I will watch the new season when it starts and try it out, I don't expect it to ruin the show or character anymore than it has been before, but if it doesn't work for me I will just cross it off as a bad job with perhaps good intentions... like the first story and full season with Colin Baker. As much as I'd like to write out that era of Doctor Who, or go back in time and fix it and make it work mostly as intended, it's there along with a computer referring to Patrick Troughton as 'Doctor Who', some dodgy paper-mache dinosaurs in a Jon Pertwee story, and Tom Baker reading a Doctor Who paperback in one scene!