I'm a teenage gay super-hero!!

*Em inglês, pq faz mais sentido.*
*Alerta de nerdismo, alias. Codigo laranja!*

Now, come on.
I know the comic books industry is getting invaded by writers from various famous tv series. I know, also, that we have a actually significant increase of gay charcthers.

Are those two facts linked?
I do believe so. But i used to think of that as not-quite-an-advantage. Someone changed my mind on that, and actually made me like a recent gay couple of super heroes!

Being gay meself -- or bissexual whatever the label is, i get laid with boys and that is what matters here -- aware and relatively ok with it since early teens, I read those americans comics a lot, and the only gay character i can remeber was northstar. And honestly, he was as gay as, huh, me, at the time. That meaning, tit's only said he is gay, it never shows. He is never in love, he never kisses a man, he never even talk about it! Oh, i was in love with a boy at that time, but it never showed (much) and I never kissed a boy until later. Anyway... I wasn't really connecting with a character who wasn't exactly important, had no love interest in fact and had no real sexuality other than theorical. Everybody else is intensively sexual in a super-hero comic book. Look at the girls outfits and their usual poses in the panels, the fact that they usualy have love interests and, obviously, there is always sexual tension between male hero and female villain.

I don't mind all the straight sexuallity of it. I kinda like that too (although i must confess girls in uniforms are not a turn on for me) and it surely satisfied some part of my sexuality at that time, but there was that other part wich i seem to find lacking. And being so much of a artist wanna be as I was and still am (only now i can claim that i'm amateur, not wanna be) i used to actually make tales and histories that would satisfy that. Not as hot as you might be thinking. I kept the really hot plays for the toys. My toys were very liberal. Same genre couples were far from being the most bizarre pairings...

But back in the comics... From some time on we have a few gay characters showing up. Even Northstar got FINALLY a crush (but it was on a straight guy. Oh well. I can relate to that). The most proeminent exemple, i suppose, is midnighter and apollo, from The Authority. I used to like them, mostly because they were gay and not sissy at all. Northstar isn't really sissy... but he kinda shows as a bit more delicate, doesn't him? I dunno. Maybe it's just that midnighter and apollo are real heavy violent freaks and near to them, everyone seems a bit sissy. Anyway. I used to like them. They kissed. They talked about their relationship... they were a couple! But come to think of it... they are so.. self-contained. There is no reality to them. They are two big muscled guys who can kill you in a blink, and they happen to kiss. Sure i can relate to them more than to northstar. They are more real than that old northstar, but... at some point, they are just not interesting to me anymore. Sure, i still read The Authority. Sure I still like them. But they are not any more in my list of real favorites (The Authority, as a series, however, still is).

So, i had been reading a title i really thought i would mostly hate and despite, but i got hold of a edition just-in-case, you know. The title is the Young Avengers. YEAH! it has the lamestest name ever and the whole thing of teenager versions of the avengers doesn't stands like a very good idea, does it? Only the writer, who I later found out wrote for Sex and the City, simple took that lame idea and made it absolutely great. Basicaly, he explores the idea that it is a damn lame idea. He used the cast from Pulse, which i so love, and a few characters he created and, huh, was it me, or there was some real tips that two guys from the team were actually a couple? So, few editions later, i was real sure about it. And it was somewhat discrete, it wasn't over-explored (that might be the problem with apollo and midnight! yeah!) and the same time, it wasn't "slightly suggested" it was pretty clear, after the first few might-be's even the worst case of reality denial would perceive that as a fact. And then they talk of it openly. I really enjoyed the way that couple was being written. And suddenly, mister Allan Heinberg, the writer, makes me definitely fall for the guys. One of the boys is codenamed Wicca (ops! I might have spoiled for someone, huh?) and their day-to-day life is so... daily ordinary, commun holds to lots of young gay boys i know, and i don't even live in the U.S. you know?

It was then that I changed my opinion about screen-writers in comics. Particularly in the gay characters case, this guy actually made them feel real. Although I can smell the television style on his writting still, it doesn't feels bad or misplaced. It is actually very good. The latest issues, those i didn't like much so far, 'cause i hate when everything starts to get galatical, but maybe it will get better... But, huh, back in the track... On other issues of the narrative, not only the gay thing, he actually makes a difference from the others too. I mean, sure, kevin smith made a great Daredevil tale. But kevin smith is a comic book freak, started in the comics, if i recall correctly, right? But that guy from buffy really didn't do too well. Neither did the Babylon 5 guy. Even if i LOVE babylon 5, i hated his spiderman, and I'm not too found of his rising stars either.

This Allan Heinberg guy, he really got it working, and i believe it is because he read lots of bendis work on Alias and Pulse. Bendis does a narrative that i understand as closer to television series. Also, this guy worked for series of different tones, closer to most of the works of Bendis and Wellis and all those excellent authors of our time. Thus, I do think this one series, that wasn't particularly promising, shows us the best of the use of the television series narrative transported into the comics series. He brings characters to life, made our gay guys look real, gives a rythm that is close to the cinematic/televise narratives. Something that surely follows the path set by the works of Neil Gaiman and Alan Moore.

Not to say he doesn't have a flaw, i want to say that that black-hero-with-drougs-history is an old one on marvel. Wellis brought my attention to it, actually, talking of his Ultimate Falcon. It's damn true, isn't it? But well, I still think the Young Avengers is a great work, perfectly capable of competing with teen titans and sounding a bit more mature than runaways, whose trick to get the young feeling to it is mostly fashion style and a dumb "parents are vilains" plot. So, Young Avengers now actually sounds like a great teen title, with quality material.