Superqueeros! for December 3th, 2009

Each week we bring you a summary of which new comics are featuring LGBT(etc.) characters! Now, I'm no Amadeus Cho, so I may miss one or two. If you spot an omission, please let me know in the comments section and I'll correct it!

It's pretty slim pickings this week, which is understandable after last weeks feast. We've got, basically, only one title with any front-and-center queers:

The Authority #17

This issue, at least, is homo-centric. Midnighter is back and ready to cure his refrigerated hubbie! And given that someone from the old team is in possession of the vaccine this issue may be a reset button for everyone's favourite deus ex machina superhero team. Either way, this is the end of World's End, which means that I'll be jumping on next month when the book is turned over to a new team and storyline and the Authority once again takes to the Bleed!

Also we have three gay-adjacent titles:

Uncanny X-Men #518

Scott goes spelunking in Emma's brain! I'm UBER excited about this storyline, partly because it means an end to perpetually-diamond-form-Emma. Unfortunately, it looks like Emma doesn't think about her hot male teammates the same way Scott fantasizes about Rogue and Storm jello wrestling in French maid outfits. #dang Also unfortunate: The likelihood of any Anole/Northstar cameos is minimal.

Blackest Night: Wonder Woman #1 (of 3)

No one told me that Gail Simone's Greeks were all queers! Its our implicit wonder-lesbian versus her homicide victim Maxwell Lord! Simone's not penning this book, and the scariest thing I can think of Lord doing is reforming his for-hire Justice League, but I have faith that we'll get some good catharsis-battling out of this mini. Once again, queer forecast looking low.

Dark Avengers Annual #1

This issue is also high on my pull list, but it's for the hot art, not any man-on-Wolvie action. Bachalo, whose art I fell in love with when he teamed up with Mike Carey on adjectiveless X-Men, is illustrating this Marvel Boy-centric double-size issue of the Dark Avengers. So even if the view is straight, it won't be a waste. Still, is it too much to hope that MB will decide to go save Kitty and Xavin? I'm really hoping for a way for those two to return to Earth that doesn't involve them joining the Starjammers. #K.R.I.S. #KeepRachelInSpace

In Which Our Anti-Heroine Gets Douched By The Corporate System

You'll have to forgive me for flaking. No, seriously, you have to. Because between the holidays and passing my resume around like it was a Green party pamphlet, I haven't had time for redeeming myself. Or crafting half-decent apologies, for that matter. Mea culpa, punks.

Last week I interviewed for a job testing video games. I figured, if anything, a BA proved I would be capable of two things; tedious, arbitrary busywork, and bitching about shit doesn't work. A background in tech support couldn't hurt either, I thought. If it did, it'd be one of those "good hurts" you get from exercising or giving yourself a black eye to give you an excuse for being late to a meeting.

I arrived at 9:30am to some corporate casual hellhole with unlabeled art on the walls and a clock on a desk that was purely decorative. I hope one day I am important enough to have a lobby full of timepieces that don't work.

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Dragon Age: Origins - Humans Top and Elves Bottom

So, I won't deny that a large part of Dragon Age: Origins' squee factor for me was the possibility of getting it on with hot elf assassin, Zevran. What can I say? I always had a thing for Legolas. (I'm also convinced Orlando Bloom only looks good with blond extensions.) While it would have been nice to do Alistair too have multiple male same-sex options, I was quite content with the opportunity to bed and wed the limber elven Lothario.

I had been working up to this achievement for quite some time; carefully selecting the adequate gifts to woo the object of my virtual affection. I even did some research on the correct conversations strings that would unlock the much anticipated man-on-man cut scene. So when I finally accrued enough affinity from Zevran to unlock the key conversation points that would get him into my tent (double entendre intended) I was surprised to discover that my elf mage PC had entirely different sex choreography scripted than the prior human/elf videos I had already seen online.

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Superqueeros! for November 25th, 2009

Each week we bring you a summary of which new comics are featuring LGBT(etc.) characters! Now, I'm no Amadeus Cho, so I may miss one or two. If you spot an omission, please let me know in the comments section and I'll correct it!

It's Thanksgiving weekend and I'm giving thanks that three of today's best queer heroes are seeing action this Wednesday!

Detective Comics #859

It's a Don't Ask, Don't Tell crossover this week as we see the next chapter in Batwoman's secret origin and I can't wait to see how JHW3 illustrates "homophobia"! Plus, Batman, military uniforms, and the cover teases a queer-bashing! Let's get this party started!

Also, a Question/Huntress team-up as DC beats the lackluster co-feature to death. Evidently, the kick-ass final installment from last month (that redeemed the long-winded tale in my eyes) was NOT the final installment. Greeeeeat.

New Mutants #7

The Hellions are back!!! And Karma is going to kick @$!!! Now I just need Grace Jones on the radio and Robbie Williams to make out with me and my 80's wet dream will be complete! But seriously, Roulette and Cat's Eye win all the internetz. #lolcatzeye

Uncanny X-Men #517

The classic X-Team doesn't make my list too often, but the preview clearly shows Northstar chillin' with the other X-men gathered to defend their new island nation. Let's cross our fingers for some gay-boy vs. faceless-death-machine beat down!

Also, we've got the Ambiguously Queer Duo of Dark Wolvie and Gotham City Sirens! And from the Wolvie preview, it's looking pretty betchin' over in sociopathic-sexuality territory!

Dark Wolverine #80

Daken is supposed to neatly apprehend and arrest the villains who just kicked his ass. HAHAHA! Yeah, sure. Plus, this shot! Hawt.

Gotham City Sirens #6

Poison Ivy's on the cover! I haven't been reading this title and the preview is really vague, but evidently the Joker guests and Harley Quinn as EARTH-SHATTERING CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT!! I'm hoping that they mean this issue is gonna be a Sapphic classic, but I'm not holding my breath.

Scarlet Betch Episode 10: "X-Plosion!"

Jason and Anthony are back at it again with a great new issue of Scarlet Betch! The new comic lists exploded with new X-titles this week and we dish about Dark X-men, X-men Legacy, X-force, and X-Factor! Featured music this week is Lady Gaga's new single, Bad Romance that I'm just a little obsessed with... :P

Hope you enjoy!

Direct Download

xoxo,
Scarlet Betch

Verti Go-Go

For the past two weeks I've been trading e-mails and splitting pizza with C.L. Minou, aka transfeminist from BelowTheBelt. What happens when you put two geek bloggers from other sides of the country together and feed them curry caffeine? Why, they start working on a comic, of course! And then one of them gets the idea to just run with it like it was once owned by Margaret Cho and form their own label.

Voila! Cowgirl Astronaut Comics, the first queer trans feminist comic label (run by bloggers). I can now add "editor/creator of comic label" to my ever-growing list of things I will probably never get paid for no matter how passionate I am about it. Mama be so proud. I bring this up not because I think you care what it is that I do during my "me time", but because it is a convenient and awkwardly relevant segway to my topic for this article: my favorite comic label, Vertigo.

For those who either don't know what Vertigo is, or love explanations for explanation's sake, Vertigo is DC's "darker, more mature" imprint. While it's hyped and marketed as the gritty "No Kids Allowed!" answer to DC's more kid-friendly mainstream, it is home to some of the most artfully rendered and poignantly worded comics available. And they sort of started the "trade paperback" trend, which is what 90 percent of my comic collection consists of, so yeah, read as much bias into that as you want, you'll still be way off.

The future me who might have a job and some actual follow through would like her label to a template somewhat like Vertigo (sans the megacorporate connection): mature, socially relevant themes, gratuitous but fabulously drawn sex and violence, subversion of mainstream archetypes and tropes, and the occasional dabbling in absurdism. Gotta put that college learning to use somewhere.

Below is a modest list of my favorite Vertigo comics, all of which would appear on my "top ten comics OF ALL TIME. OF ALL TIME!"

Note that while worshipping/admiring Alan Moore than I already do would probably result in a "restrainingus orderus" curse cast upon me, Moore never actually penned anything for Vertigo, although his works are cited as helping necessitate the creation of Vertigo, and V For Vendetta was re-issued under the Vertigo name after Moore swore never to work for DC again. So, yeah, just in case you were curious.

And by no means should this list be construed as a "best". I don't do "bests" on anything. I rate things based on my own peculiar and admittedly random tastes. Sometimes I like things that suck and hate things that are beautiful. Try not to think about it. You, like the Netflix suggestion system before you, will lose your damn mind.

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Who Was the First Gay Superhero?

It seems like every time a new LGBT comic book character debuts there's always some uninformed sensationalist ready to proclaim him the first gay superhero. Which, as any real comic book fan will tell you, is ridiculously false. But how do you, as the informed voice of reason the you indubitably are, rebut those claims? Who was the first gay superhero?

Well, the kids over at Bleeding Cool have done their research and they have an answer. Rich Johnston has compiled a list of the first firsts in comics for the gay, if not the LGBT, community. Is he the first to have done so? Probably not. But he's definitely the first whose article I've linked to in a Scarlet Betch blog post on Thursday, the 19th of November, 2009. And, as we say on tweeter, #precision.