Stan Lee Goes Gay (Again)

Stan Lee is at it again. Pushing the lines of social acceptance. The iconic comic book creator—you know, the one that brought us X-Men, Hulk and Spider-Man—has always been a fan of the underdog (or basically anyone that's ever been picked on for being different in one way or another).

Back in 2006, Lee spoke out (I said "spoke out" not "came out" you rumormongers) about the characters he creates: "The thing I had in mind was to make [stories] against bigotry of all sorts, because here were people who were certainly different than everybody else, but they were good, they were trying to do the right thing," the then 83-year-old Lee told the San Francisco Chronicle, "But as so often happens in real life, if you have a different religion, a different country, a different sexual orientation, whatever the difference is, people not all people, but it happens are going to dislike you, distrust you, fear you."

Well, Lee is back in the gay press with his latest switch hit. He's bringing a gay superhero to the screen in a one-hour special meant to blow the popular TV show Heroes out of the ratings box. The character, who hides his superpowers along with his gay powers, is based on the novel Hero by Perry Moore.

Now, the media is all abuzz about Stan creating the first gay superhero. That's not exactly true. In his commentary The Press Gets It Wrong Again, comic book fanatic Travis Pullen gives a pretty lengthy (and thorough, I might add) analysis of the gay history of comic book heroes. Even Kathy (our lesbian sisterhero over at Lesbian Life) wrote about the dykehood of Batwoman back in 2006. Following her lead, I gave Rawhide Kid a mention and have even speculated about Superman.

But, back to Stan. The news of Stan's gay superheroness is still new on the wires, so there's no word yet on when this 1-hour special will air. It will, however, be on Showtime so the chances of them actually using the word "gay" are pretty high.

Image © Michael Buckner/Getty Images.