DC superhero Green Lantern comes out as gay: ‘There was something about myself I was hiding’
Alan Scott, the first Green Lantern (DC Comics)
DC Comics’ original Green Lantern Alan Scott will be returning to the mainstream comics as a gay man with two children.
The Golden Age Green Lantern – aka Alan Scott – was first introduced by DC in the 1940s and eventually married a woman named Rose Canton.
But the latest reboot will see Scott reimagined as gay, with the loss of his boyfriend serving as one of the catalysts for his transformation into the Green Lantern.
The retcon takes place in Infinite Frontier #0 in a touching scene where Scott comes out to his twin children Jade and Obsidian.
“Back in an earlier time I kept a part of myself hidden from my friends and peers,” he confides.
“I even let myself get married a few times to women I did love with all my mind, but I did that knowing there was something about myself I was hiding away.”
After some gentle prodding from his superhero family, he finally lets it out.
“I’m gay,” the Green Lantern reveals. “I let a few of the boys in the society know back in the day, and I’ve had a good deal of… friends over the years.”
The page ends with a comment from Wonder Woman: “How incredibly brave of Alan.”
The story was penned by James Tynion IV, who previously hinted at Scott’s sexuality in last year’s Green Lantern 80th Anniversary 100-Page Super Spectacular.
Previous parallel universe incarnations have also presented the hero as a gay man, but the Infinite Frontier storyline is the first to do so within the continuity of the mainstream comics.
It follows the lead of a new live-action HBO Max show out next month which introduces the Green Lantern as openly gay from the start.
The long-running character’s future had been in question since Ryan Reynolds’ ridiculed reboot in 2011, but the ten-part series promises to revive him for good in what will be “the biggest DC show ever made”.
