We're here, we're queer, we fight crime

Where are my manners? Yesterday, I wrote about lesbian superheroes and forgot to add a link that lists gay/lesbian/bisexual and transgendered crimefighters that have appeared in a comic book near you.

There's also the Queer Nation online comic featuring gay superheroes that blends aspects of gay culture, soap opera themes and plenty of battles with evil forces. The setting of the comic takes place in a future where the Religious Right has just gained political supremacy. Just beforehand, a comet passed by Earth, spreading comet dust which gives all homosexuals super powers. At the same time, all lesbian except one vanish from Earth (Don't worry, they come back). Naturally, the righties and the gay superheroes face off.

It has its good and bad points. At times, it's too over the top for me and the comic descends into some frightening anger fantasies. The world the comic is set in is also too black and white: If you are gay, you're a misunderstood superhero who can only find shelter with other gays in urban gay ghettos. If you are straight, you're more or less evil and bent on wiping out all the gay superheroes in a radical right Christian frenzy.

My knowledge of comic books is sparse compared to all the fanboys out there, reviewing the latest issue from their online treehouse. However, I do remember being a fan of the X-Men, that group of mutants who were feared by a world they swore to protect from other evil mutants. In the X-Men world, the good mutants struggled with their powers while trying to find acceptance among non-mutants. Reading the comic, one could draw obivious parallels to every civil rights movement over the past four decades. In the comic, there were militants fighting those who wanted to unite with the non-mutants (Think the clashing of philosophies of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King). Families who gave birth to a child with mutant powers rejected their child outright (think a teen coming out of the closet and being kicked out of the house). Meanwhile, non-mutants were drawn along lines of being sympathetic to mutants or wanted mutants kicked out of public life (think the intergenerational kitchen counter shouting matches between parents and kids about protesting Vietnam).

The X-Men comic, while also flawed in places, grew into a textured world of mutants trying to do the right thing and trying to find a place in the world amid social upheaval and cartoonish chaos. It also was one of the premiere examples (along with Spider-Man) that having super powers wasn't everything it cracked up to be.

I get a kick out of "Queer Nation;" some of its characters, including Outlaw, Swan, Lily and Armaggedon are either compelling or a clever take on a facet of gay culture; but on the whole, I can't say I like Queer Nation. Maybe it's because I'm not gay, but it seems the comic isn't as much an adventure with social commentary as much as a bunch of homosexuals with costumes who have the opportunity to bash back against a majority culture. It's far too over the top (and surprising callous) in casting all straights as inferior, stupid and cruel (except if a straight is really gay, then he comes around within a few frames, admits he's gay and everything is neato). There's no inroads made to a potentially supportive straight population and the superpowers belong to a private club. There's no nuance, no shades of gray, not even a witty poke at Batman's relationship with Robin. It's a bunch of heroes who crash and thrash and flip the finger at the rest of us, like the popular kids in high school who are cool to be in a clique that none of us can be a part of, unless we meet certain criteria.

Where's the fun in that?