Green Lantern Comes Out Of The Closet

Superheroes get reinvented all the time. With different names, different abilities, different jobs, many of our favorites have slowly or dramatically evolved over the years, but it’s not often either DC or Marvel decides to change a character’s sexuality. Last week, DC Comics’ publisher Dan DiDio told fans at a convention that one of the company’s more popular heroes would be reinvented as a gay man in an upcoming issue. Not surprisingly, speculation raged on the Internet as to whether the hero was Wonder Woman or Robin, fighters long-rumored to be hiding secrets, but it turns out neither of those are the one in question.

According to The Guardian, Alan Scott, the original Green Lantern, will officially come out of the closet next week. He’ll be given a new job as a media mogul and a new boyfriend to worry at home while he’s off saving the world. Assumedly, the wife and children he had before will not come up again.

Since the announcement, DC has made very clear Scott will be just as masculine and dreamy as ever, but those promises haven’t stopped several hate groups from vehemently opposing the decision. Luckily, DC Comics seems poised to follow its decision through, and fans should expect a series of new crime-fighting adventures for the ring-toting hero.

As for how this might affect any future movies, it’s unlikely to. The Ryan Reynolds version of Green Lantern featured Hal Jordan, an entirely separate version of the hero. He was created some two decades after Scott pioneered the character.