DC knew what they were doing. The news of "The Green Lantern is gay" has appeared in the news and has been reported on lazily. Most media sources show headlines of just "DC Comics' Green Lantern is Gay" without clarifying which Green Lantern it is, only the Associated Press clearing up early on that it is not Hal Jordan, nor any other member of the Green Lantern Corps., but instead the Golden Age superhero, Alan Scott. Their strategy has worked perfectly, as seen on TMZ Live today. TMZ showed an image of Hal Jordan to get their audience to know who they were talking about, but people on staff clarified that the gay Green Lantern is not the one featured in last year's Green Lantern and that Alan Scott once had a gay son. HLN's website also used an image of Hal Jordan, although they clarified that it is not him who is gay.
It's an interesting strategy, getting people to investigate which Green Lantern it is that is gay, discovering that there is an alternate universe where there is only one Green Lantern and with the absence of Superman, Supergirl, and Wonder Woman, he is the world's most powerful superhero... and he's gay, possibly leading people to go buy Earth 2.
It's not going to work. Non-comic book fans see the move as tokenism, making the character gay for the sake of making him gay, with no substance. Others who hate homosexuality just plain hate the move for obvious reasons. Comic book fans hate the move because of the cop out of making a character from an alternate universe gay. Probably the only people who actually like the move are writer James Robinson and DC Co-Publisher Dan DiDio. Robinson was a writer for the book Starman, about another gay superhero.
Dan DiDio is the man most well-known for saying Countdown was 52 "done right" and for angrily responding to a fan complaining that the New 52 cut down female creative talent from 12% to 1%, asking in an angry tone repeatedly in different ways, "who should we be hiring?" as if he were not aware of female writers and artists in the comic book industry other than Gail Simone (currently writing Batgirl) and Amanda Conner (fired during the New 52 relaunch). DiDio is also responsible for coming up with and overseeing the New 52, which has received mixed reviews, although the members of the Justice League have all received good reviews and great sales in their own comics, which is what DC is most concerned with, beating Marvel in sales.
I don't really care about Alan Scott being gay, I'm more concerned about his boyfriend. Gay characters haven't been handled well in comics, especially supporting characters without superpowers. DC, please don't kill off Alan Scott's boyfriend just to make him ANGRY AND FULL OF REVENGE, ok? He's supposed to be your flagship character of Earth 2, so make him likable in a good relationship, please.
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