andyjy

@Suprman: I don't hate the art in Superboy, but I definitely love Brett Booth's art style in Teen Titans...

(I also really didn't mind the gratuitous skin we got in issue 10 of Titans hehe)

@CircularLogic said:

@andyjy: I agree that the Culling was pushed out WAY too fast, which I feel happened in order to get the Ravagers set up and out on the shelves to fill the first round of cancellations (not too mention to give some much needed sales to Legion Lost). I personally feel I would have enjoyed the Titans much more if they just set the team up and had more conventional stories happen for a time before getting mixed up with Superboy and the rest. So I will concede that pacing kinda soured the writing of a character. And who knows, maybe the Bunker-centric issue will give him a much more interesting slate to build on. Writers have made completely unlikable characters (eg. the wife and child abandoning cyclops) actually appealing (Whedon's Astonishing X-men), so it wouldn't surprise me if somewhere along the line someone took a hold of the character and made something of him, but right now I'm not liking him at all.

And I was poking fun a bit with him wearing purple, but still it's a color so deeply ingrained as being "gay" (a ridiculous concept, at one point pink was considered the "masculine" color and red the girly one) that seeing a character I interpret as stereotypical being given the literal ability to control purple light (or hard light constructs or kinetic bricks, I can't recall which) just reads as a little suspect. It COULD mean spirit, but Teen Titans is such a 90's flavored book I doubt that much thought and detail was given to it IMO. As for if the stereotypes are negative or not... well, I said above it's like saying Asian's are good at math. That's a very positive thing to say about someone, in almost all respects, but people still get offended when you say it.

I suppose a bit of my anger, for lack of a better word, comes from my disappointment that out of 2 gay characters to come out of the reboot, totaling around maybe 4 gay men with active roles DC's current title, they couldn't give a better example than this. Then again, Gay men are still better represented than bisexuals, who to my knowledge only have Richtor and Shatterstar to represent them, so it's still a long time before any meaningful change is done to our pop culture.

Aside from Issue 0 (I think that's what they are calling it) Issue 10 of Superboy will also feature Bunker going to NYC with him to beat up Detritus, so here's hoping Bunky gets some character development then as well.

And I'm not going to deny that purple is a color attributed to gay men (Though now I think the color belongs to Justin Beiber to be honest, haha)... But I don't think there's anything offensive about him wearing it, not to mention it's hard for me to picture him in any other color... Also you bring up the fact that his powers are purple... Again I think you are jumping the gun... If you think about comics, and even video games, Psionic powers are almost always given a purple/pinkish hue... No matter the gender of the user... It's probably because most other colors already have something they're attributed to: Red - Fire, Blue - Water, Yellow - Lightning, Green - Earth... Also it's not like Bunker's costume is some flamboyant shade of purple... It's very muted

As for your last statement, maybe the problem is that I am a Marvel reader for the most part, and as I pointed out there are plenty of gay characters to choose from with them... And all of the Marvel gay characters are gay only because they say so, not because they really exihibit any 'gay' traits... And I don't think it is stereotyping to say that there are traits exhibited by a majority of gay men... On a personal level, Bunker is the first gay character in comics that I personally can really identify with... He is the first character that everyone just knew to be gay (Aside from wonder Girl, haha)... And that is me... I could never hide the fact that I'm gay, and there are plenty of people out there like me... It's high time, that in comics, we are represented, because as I said, I really can't think of any character (at least semi-prominent) that is like Bunker... Definitely not in DC, and not even in Marvel

@CircularLogic said:

Now, I think you misunderstood my point a bit, and I want to make sure that i never meant any offense to people like you or people with the same attitudes, habits and personalities as displayed by Bunker. I was not attacking the personality, but more to the point, how often that personality is used. I attached the Patton Oswalt clip because in it, he clearly says that in mainstream media (film, for instance) most gay men are written in a very, very specific way. Yes, there are people who do in reality act like what is shown, but when you show basically the same character, over and over again, with VERY little to define them as people other than those specific tropes I listed, then you border on insulting. As you've said, gay men and women can be masculine, feminine, kind, mean, and everything else in between, but you never see more than a few archtypes in popular media. Bunker, in all the issues of Teen titans and Superboy I've read, shows almost nothing to separate himself from the thousands of depictions of gay people in late 90's rom coms. Now, I can almost guarantee that you, as a gay man who acknowledges being similar to this character, have some kind of defining characteristics that makes you different from just any old homosexual. You have interests and quirks. You are an individual. And from what I've read of Teen Titans, Bunker hasn't really had much to define him besides being, as I've said, the Gay Best Friend. Besides his ability to control the color purple (ok, it's one thing to like the color purple and wear it occasionally, straight or gay, but to make his power such a stereotypically gay hue? Clearly Scott Lobdell spells "subtlety" as SUBTLETY )

I firmly disagree it's "refreshing" to see, because you see it everywhere. Please don't think I'm an insult to those who behave that way. I suppose I should say he is less of a bad character and more of an UNORIGINAL character, if that clears up my point. And while you may feel that he is the kind of character comics needs, and there's really nothing I can do to change your opinion, I would really prefer that DC would have used this opportunity with the new team to make a truly positive homosexual character, one who may not have represented someone "manly", but someone original we haven't seen before. And I can't help feel disappointed about that.

I don't know that there's really been time to see anything substantial from any of the characters though, and that is in part due to Lobdell's writing... I mean the first Story Arc leading up to the Culling has been insanely fast paced and there hasn't be much character development for anyone... I mean of course we all have a feel for Robin, Superboy, Kid Flash and Wondergirl since they've been around... and yeah I know Solstice isn't brand new, but I don't think she was in very much prior to this (looking at her Comicvine page she doesn't seem like she had much going for her, haha)... So Solstice, Skitter and Bunker are all underdeveloped, and sure that you could say is bad writing, but that doesn't mean Bunker's character at the moment is bad... I feel like you are almost over-exaggerating just how much of a stereotype he is... Lets compare a character like Kurt from Glee to Bunker... Kurt is a hell of a lot more 'Gay', and I don't think anyone really has a problem with him... Does Bunker have qualities that made it clear from his first appearance that he was probably Gay? Yes, yes he does... But are they overly done, and offensively stereotypical? No, they aren't... And trust me, I'm someone who is easily offended by overly stereotypical portrayals of Gay characters

As for the purple thing, all I can say is... YOU HAVE TO BE KIDDING ME... Really? Do you realize how many Manly, Straight Heroes wear purple? And I could also point out that in Gay Pride, Purple stands for Spirit, so maybe Lobdell thought that was a nice message to attach to Bunker

And while it may be true that in DC comics (which has few gay characters to begin with), there aren't any not so obviously gay male characters... As all the ones I pointed out in my previous post were from Marvel, but that doesn't mean that the first gay character they make has to stray as far away from what you see as being a 'Cliche' as possible... You keep saying that all the gay characters in main stream media are portrayed that way, but comics aren't main stream media and to be honest I find it hard to think of any other gay character in comics that is as outgoing and out there as Bunker... At least in recent years when Gay Characters have actually been respected... I'm trying not to think of the dark ages (the 80s and 90s when the gay heroes were punching bags)

So I guess I just feel you are judging Bunker a tad harshly and jumping to conclusions... But I do agree he could use with some character development, but like I said, I think they all could... To be honest, since I never read DC comics prior to the new Teen Titans (I've always been a Marvel fan), I would like to just see development for the whole team, because even Robin, Kid Flash, and Wonder Girl seem a bit 'unknown' to me at the moment... Superboy is lucky he has his own series, so we actually get to be inside his head all the time and get to know him... But now I am getting into the overall writing of the series, which isn't my original point or yours, haha

I guess in conclusion I'd just say, give Lobdell some time... Hope that he gives the whole team development, and when he does, I think you'll see that he gives Bunker more to his personality... Who knows, maybe that special issue coming out in Fall that will have Bunker's origins will do just that!

I just wanted to leave a comment to say that while I agree with and enjoyed most of this article/blog post... I find what you had to say about Bunker to be a bit disconcerting, and even a tad offensive...

You make it seem as though there are no gay men in the world who actually act like Bunker, but, you're really mistaken... There are plenty of gay men who are the 'Gay Best Friend' to all their female friends, and who always have a sassy quip in their back pocket... I am one of those Gay Men, and I'd like to think there is nothing wrong with that... I think that you calling Bunker a 'Pet Homosexual' is really taking it too far, he's just a caring person... Whenever one of my best friends, who are mostly girls, are hurting I'm always there to comfort them... And I know a lot of other gay guys who are the same way...

Now then are all gay men like that? Flashy and flamboyant? Ready to come to the aid of their girlfriends? No, there are plenty of masculine gay men that you would never think were gay... And as Brett Booth pointed out, that kind of gay man is already represented in comics... Wiccan, Hulkling, Rictor, Shatterstar... even Northstar, none of them have very apparently gay qualities about them, aside from when we are told they are gay, or the fact that they have male partners

I think it is refreshing to see a character like Bunker who is clearly gay, and is totally okay with that... There are gay kids like him out there... Kids who have no way of hiding it... I was one of those gay kids... So please, don't call Bunker a bad character... Personally, I think he's the type of gay character comics needed