Marvel 616: Billy Kaplan/Wiccan

Full name: Billy Kaplan (Real first name: William; no one uses it)
Alias: Wiccan, used to be Asgardian
Fandom: Marvel

One day a few years ago, some pretty awesome people decided to start a series called "Young Avengers". My first reaction to it was that they spend two of the four first pages talking about Bucky and doing some exposition on him – who he was, how he died – and I liked that Bucky was getting some attention. I also immediately pinged Allan Heinberg as a Bucky fan and he got cookie point in my mind. And they hadn't bullshitted up Bucky's age to seventeen or whatever. I loved it.

I knew the series had a couple of gay teenagers before starting it; it was the reason I picked it up. So I was rather happy that the very first thing to make me smile wasn't anything to do with non-straight characters. It meant the series was probably going to be good, and not just keep my interest because of the LGBT characters. Series have done that before.

First... well, the first gay pairing to show up in that series is Captain America and Iron Man.



I remember seeing this picture with an arrow added, pointing to Iron Man's hand on Captain America's waist with the caption "Do you see this hand? Yeah, fangirls saw it, too." Yes yes, everyone knows they're not really together (except in that universe where they are), but the hand is still smirktastic.

Billy is, at first, known as Asgardian. He is the Thor Junior of the Young Avengers, wearing a costume that resembles Thor and going around flying and producing lightning.



He also takes a moment in the middle of battles to eye-flirt with another Young Avenger (Hulkling – Teddy Altman).



This is the first sign of Billy possibly being into guys (and with Teddy). In the same battle, Billy and Teddy look out for each other. There's a moment when Billy's thrown on the other side of the room and Teddy makes sure to catch him.

One issue of possible flirting was all that was needed for people to notice. At the end of the second issue of Young Avengers, there is already a fan letter that talks about Billy and Teddy and are-they-really-flirting-what-is-going-on?

Then, at the end of issue #3, you get not one but TWO fan letters out of five that ponder about Teddy and Billy. One is rather positive and hopeful, from a gay guy that wishes there had been gay teenagers in his superhero comic books when he was younger. The second includes the words "I'm not some anti-gay bigot" and we all know where this usually leads! Here's the letter in question and Heinberg's answer to it (the letter references to the first letter that brought up Teddy and Billy at the end of the second issue):


TRANSCRIPT:

Fan letter: Philip's statement about hoping that Hulkling and Asgardian are gay—and your promise to "explore the kids' identities—sexual and otherwise"—truthfully has me concerned. Now, I'm not some anti-gay bigot. I have no problem with people being who they are or living how they choose. But I do think that a super hero comic is not the platform for exploring "sexual identities", especially for characters that are teenagers. Make no mistake, I by no means condone closing off the topic to never being discussed, but I would hope that you and Marvel would not be so gung-ho to pander to every taste within society that you would forget that comics were never meant to be an outlet for changing society's view or forcing sensitive issues to be discussed among the readership. They are meant, first and foremost, to entertain in an all-ages type of manner. Sexuality issues were never needed in the past to make super hero comics exciting and interesting. I don't think they need it now to be so, either.
Signed: James Meely (via e-mail)

Heinberg's answer: Your point is well taken, James. But just as AVENGERS was about the super-heroic lives and loves of the classic Avengers—from Hank Pym and Janet Van Dyne (a heterosexual couple) to Scarlet Witch and the Vision (a mutant witch and a robot who married and had twins)—YOUNG AVENGERS is about the super-heroic lives and loves of the Young Avengers—black or white, mutant or robot, straight or gay. It is indeed an all-ages book, and one I hope will reflect the extraordinary diversity of the world in which we live.

It will not surprise many that I was cringing as I was writing up the transcript of that fan letter, and I am six years too late to answer it. Anyway, my answer would pretty much be "Hello moron, you do not deserve to read this comic, go away now" because I am so very bad at being polite when people say things like that. It will be obvious to most why it is an offensive piece of crap, so I am not going to dissect it or anything even though I sort of want to. All I want to say is that I've been told a lot of homophobic bullshit over the years and that variations of "I'm not homophobic, but I just think this is a family-friendly/kid-friendly situation so homosexuality shouldn't be there!" is the one I hate the most. When I have kids, my family will be family-friendly. Any love is kid-friendly.

REAL STRAIGHT MALES DO NOT WANT GAY GUYS IN THEIR SUPERHEROES-IN-TIGHTS COMICS! They just want to... look at their muscled bodies! Bodies that look like they're covered in paint!... yes...

That said, let's get back on topic.

The first six issues of Young Avengers are not actually about Teddy and Billy's relationship, even if the letters might make you think that! The amusing thing is that, in all seriousness, this first arc is 100% action and plot. There is little to no character study for any of the teenagers. We don't know anything about Billy as Billy Kaplan (other than the fact he has parents, so we're not facing an orphan trope, here) and basically only see him as Asgardian. He spends more time with Hulkling than the other Avengers (he's on his way to flying him home at some point in the second issue when they encounter drug dealers) but it's all pretty limited. The one responsible for putting together the team says he's part of the Avengers fail-safe program and that it means he's probably somehow related to one or several Avengers. Nothing gets more specific than that.

Oh, also he's a superhero fanboy and a geek. He knows all of the Avengers when he meets them – including Jewel who is pretty obscure – and starts basically reciting Growing Man's stats when they encounter him.

It doesn't take very long before Billy has to start using his other powers because they're all in danger and things are going to hell. Turns out that Billy isn't a mini-Thor, he's a witchboy and can do magic, which includes a lot of random things that he can't control very well.

In the midst of things going to hell, Teddy gets hit pretty badly and guess who's the one who freaks out instead of just going "oh my god"? Yes, that would be Billy.



He's also the first one by Teddy's side and they're touching more than most superheroes would. Still nothing official but that's still a lot of hints for all of four issues – especially considering Heinberg's answers to the fan letter. By the fourth issue's fan letters, everyone had a comment to add about homosexuality in their fan letter. ALL THE LETTERS have a couple of lines about it. The ones in the fourth issue are pretty good, some of them simply stating they disagree strongly with the letter I've posted up there, which was nice. Overall, let's just say we all knew they were gay by the fourth issue. By then, the discussions about "Are they gay? Are they not gay?" were really all over the place on the Internet, too. Billy and Teddy weren't subtle, but they weren't out, after all. Discussions were Needed.

More things explode, Billy gets hurt, Teddy takes care of him in the background. And then, time travel does its worst by making the Avengers not exist. And we have our proof that Billy is somehow related to some Avenger because the Avengers' history changing makes him vanish from the timelime.

He calls for Teddy for help as it's happening and then Teddy freaks the hell out.





And then everyone ever just knew. And I guess Heinberg knew it because they come out at the end of that issue, when everything's better again. It's also when Billy changes his alias from Asgardian to Wiccan. It's a suggestion of the girls because "Asgardian" can make really bad puns, considering Billy's gay and all that.



I really enjoy that it's not brought up in a dramatic manner. It's not a declaration and doesn't have to be spelled out, either. They all know and "hey, since you and Teddy are together, you should change your alias". It's a great example of the concept of the character just happening to be gay, but it's not a big deal.

Now, Billy just needs to come out to his parents. AS A SUPERHERO of course!



Which he will try doing the following issue.



So that doesn't work quite the way it was supposed to, but Billy's parents are rather fantastic.

Billy's background is explored a little in the Special that doesn't take place at any moment in particular, but it's been published between issue #6 and #7, and then a little more in following issues when Vision joins the team and has magical knowledge of everything. Billy also gets a twin (magic-twin!) in issue #9. His name is Tommy Shepherd, aka Speed.

The current series, Avengers: Children's Crusade is pretty much centered on Billy and on his quest to find his biological mom (it's not quite biological... magical mom? It doesn't really matter all that much). I have issues about this series because Billy keeps insisting that it's so important to him because she's his real mom and... just... no. Billy's real parents are in New York. The concept of "real parents" in the series so far is not one I agree with and I don't like it. Billy's parents aren't even his adoptive parents since they don't know about the history of Billy's soul going around... but even if we decide they count as adoptive parents, adoptive parents are real parents. And yes, Billy is a teenager, but he's a gay teenager. He's in a category of teenagers that should know that adoptive parents are real parents if he's ever considered having kids ever – which he probably has.

Even though I love the series and keep recommending it to everyone, it has flaws. It tends to skip over a lot of issues and doing so damages continuity pretty badly. I know, I know, who am I to expect continuity in superheroes comics? I realise that, but still... When they find Tommy, they break him out of a government prison in which they kept him and used him as a super-powered test subject for who knows what experiments. No one ever talks about it again. It's like "oh good! We've got another Young Avenger, let's move along!" and it bothers me. Are there other kids being tested on in there? Is Tommy traumatised forever and no one cares? He shouldn't be nothing else than fire power, but fire power was what the plot needed. That, and for Billy to run into his twin. It's not the only occurrence of important things being ignored because the plot needs to keep moving, but the other ones would be huge spoilers and this contains enough spoilers already.

Billy and Teddy, even though they've been officially together for six years, have never kissed. The closest they've ever gotten to a kiss was in September 2010 in Children's Crusade #1, and they were interrupted by Tommy.



We're not talking about two characters turning around each other without being together, here. We're talking about an established relationship that is now more than six years old and they still haven't kissed. I can't think of a heterosexual established relationship not including kisses within four months. A lot of people are saying that other writers than Allan Heinberg don't want to write their first kiss and that we're pretty much waiting for Heinberg to do it right now. I don't know what's going on, but I know it started being annoying quite a while ago, and that people will flip out if they don't get a kiss before the end of Children's Crusade. It feels like a case of But Not Too Gay, and TV Tropes agrees with me, too: when I looked up the article to link it here, I realised Billy and Teddy are the only ones in the "Comics" section of the examples.

If they kiss, we'll make a post right away!

You will be able to read more about Billy in the companion entry on Teddy that will be here soon.

Recs: Young Avengers (#1-#12, Special, Presents #1-#6), Avengers: Children's Crusade (#1 - #7, ongoing).
If you are a Marvel reader already, the Young Avengers have minis related to Civil War (a crossover with Runaways, 4 issues), Secret Invasion (3 issues) and Dark Reign (5 issues).

DC New Earth: Batwoman/Kate Kane

Full name: Katherine Kane
Alias: Batwoman
Fandom: DC

In 2006, DC announced Batwoman would be back, that it was going to be Kate Kane, and that she was totally a lesbian. Nothing else. "Hey readers! This character you all know nothing about because she was last seen in the seventies will be reintroduced also, ahah, check out that lesbian chick." That is not how they said it, to be fair, but, well... it seemed a bit shady. Especially when you're in a bad mood and you hate the comic industry because you feel they only cater to straight white males – I thought "Well damn, a hot lesbian that will have hot lesbian relationships so that more straight white males will read comics. Yoopidoo."

I was wrong. Kate Kane is, in fact, really not a horror story in the world of lgbt superheroes. Now that this is established and that everyone knows that I judge things too fast, let's get to this character introduction.

Kate was introduced in 2007, in the 52 series. The best thing about 52 is the worst thing about it: it's full of minor characters no one knows about. If you are a DC geek, it's pretty awesome; if you don't know that much about DC, you are lost after a few issues and drop the title.

Back on topic, the richest family in Gotham is the Waynes, as everyone ever knows. The family that owns everything the Wayne family doesn't own is the Kanes. We meet Kate for the first time at a rich party-thing being held in her family's bigass manor as we follow detective Renee Montoya there. The scene is reminiscent of all the functions held in the Wayne manor. They have an Alfred called Jeeves, who isn't as awesome as Alfred by a long shot.

Second page in and we know two things: she's rich and beautiful, and she and Renee used to be in a relationship.





Notice Renee's reaction to Kate punching her in the face: 'Somewhere along the line, someone taught her how to throw a punch.' Remember it, it will come back later.

We see Batwoman for the first time on the last page of 52 #9, doing nothing, and we theoretically don't know it's Kate at that point. I have thus decided that her first real appearance is in 52 #11, in a pretty good full page.



Renee recognizes how Kate punches right away, of course.



Kate and Renee end up having some sort of on/off relationship through 52, as they do share a kiss eventually in 52 #33.



Nightwing also spends part of 52 flirting with Kate and not really understanding why it's not working for a while. (Then again, if someone who looked like Dick Grayson existed in real life, I would also be puzzled by someone who didn't show even the tiniest bit of interest. And this is not a post about Dick so we shall return to Kate, now.)

The thing with Kate and Renee is that even though they quickly have something going on in 52, it's not written to pull the straight white male into reading this comic. It's not written in a hot, brainless way or with a 'lol lesbians' feeling to it. It's simply Kate, new awesome character, doing stuff from within a huge story, who also happens to be a lesbian. The relationship with Renee is complicated because they were once in love, and are they still, and what is going on there? And maybe now's not the best time to think about it, because other things are happening? It... honestly, the bits in 52 about Kate read more like they were written for a female audience than a male audience. I enjoyed it.

Kate sticks around through all of 52 and is the key character of one of the storylines going on there. After 52, she got an arc of 7 issues in Detective Comics.

Her arc in Detective Comics reveals a lot about her past, about how she came out to her father, about her family, about The Event(s) That Traumatised Her in her life that made her become a Bat. And okay, okay, it's not a direct cause-consequence thing, but all Bats need shitty things in their past. It's mandatory to have a membership card.

People have had mixed feelings about her background because, well, without getting into details here, there's rape in it. It is always touchy to put abuse perpetrated by men in a lesbian's background, because it tends to end up reading like 'oh, poor woman, she was traumatised by men and therefore she's a lesbian.'

I didn't get that vibe from Kate. Kate is a lesbian because she's a lesbian and she just went through some shitty stuff in her life. As I said – that's mandatory for Bats. And come on, Bruce was raped, Dick was raped, Tim's virginity was nearly taken through rape which I disliked a lot, holy shit... What I mean to say is that the dramatic past isn't there because Kate is a lesbian in a discriminatory way. It's not a lesbian thing; it's a Bat thing. I mind it a lot less that way.

To go back to her arc in Detective, she's a lot less feminine in it. There's yet another rich people function and she goes there with a tuxedo, which is a huge change from the flashy dress with the enormous cleavage from 52.



It can easily be attributed to the fact she was in the closet in 52 and isn't anymore by then. She is a lot more masculine in Detective Comics, overall, and her hair is shorter, so it seems pretty obvious that how feminine she appeared to be in 52 was an act to keep up appearances, and that she pretty much kicked it very, very far away since. The fact that she used to be in the army backs this up, too; hard to be a lipstick lesbian in the army, I would think.

I am now going to take a few minutes to show off the art in Kate's Detective Comics arc.





Traditional paneling? What is that? I find the art gorgeous when Kate is Batwoman and during action scenes, but I don't feel strongly about it when she's just Kate and mundane activities are going on. Your mileage may vary, obviously.

Since these issues, she's been around during Battle for the Cowl, Batman and Robin, and others. She has a title in DC's New 52, "Batwoman", which is drawn by the same artist who did her Detective arc. Not a bad time to pick her up!


Recs: Detective Comics: Elegy (issues 854-860), Batwoman #1 (ongoing), mainly.
52 is not a bad idea for Kate and Renee, but Kate only appears in the following issues: 7, 9, 11, 28, 30, 33, 34, 36, 47, 48, 52; also, there are many other storylines with various other characters happening in 52.