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Detective Comics Wins GLAAD Award For DC Comics

Published Sun, 14 Mar 2010 03:57:57 -0500

Detective Comics has won the Outstanding Comic Book category at the GLAAD awards, held in New York last nightcelebrating portrayal of gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgendered in popular culture.

Of course, this journey has been quite a tumultuous one.

The Batwoman character, Kathy Kane, was initially introduced in the nineteen fifties to counter Seduction Of The Innocent's Frederick Wertham's allegations that Batman had homosexual undertones, before being retired due to falling sales in the seventies.

A number of characters used that title in the interim. It was towards the end of 2005, that it was leaked that Kathy Kane would be a new Batwoman in the DC Universe – and that she would be a lesbian to boot.

It was announced a few months later to much press coverage in 2006 by Dan DiDio but subsequently DC seemed to clam up repeatedly about the project, embarrassed by the coverage they were receiving and wondering if it were appropriate for a Batbook, one of the major licenses.

Devin Grayson, a noted bisexual comics writer, was hired to work on a Batwoman book and several issues were completed, only for DC Comics to perform a reverse ferret and cancel the project. She found this out in a newspaper article.

Then Greg Rucka and JH Williams III were hired to create a new Batwoman series. And we waited. And waited. And not just, it seemed, because Williams was taking his time.

The character instead launched within the high-profile weekly series 52, as Kate Kane. Her sexuality was addressed. DC suddenly didn't seem to be shying away from the character after all. And then, after its conclusion, very little again – and still no sign of the series. Finally, last February, it was announced that the Batwoman series would instead take over the Batman comic Detective Comics, paradoxically giving the book a higher profile amongst comics fans traditionally averse to a lead female character in the title of a spinoff book, but also a lower media profile title by not actually calling the book Batwoman.

DC have played a strange game of one part of the business wanting a prominent lesbian character, the other wanting anything but. And the company as a whole has swung between one and the other. This award is a testament to those who succeeded within the company, against many an objection at many a level.

Of course, if I were Devin Grayson right now, I'd be feeling a little bit miffed.

The other nominees were Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Madame Xanadu, Secret Six and X-Factor.

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