Gay superheroes

We’ve put together this list to introduce some of the most influential gay superheroes, ranging from groundbreaking figures like Marvel’s Northstar to characters like Harley Quinn who. From a sexually-fluid, gender-fluid shapeshifter to a gay teen superhero couple to a gender-queer stretch of road, here are 25 LGBT Superheroes and Villains You Probably Thought Were Straight.

These are our picks for the most iconic LGBTQIA+ superheroes of all time! One of the most recent heroes to come out as queer is also one of the most well-known to be part of the LGBTQ+ community. America Chavez is one of the trending superheroes today because she is set to appear in Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness. And what MCU fans should also know is that America Chavez is set to become the first lesbian MCU character on screen, considering that she is already an LGBTQ icon among different fans of her Marvel comic book series.

The world of superheroes is getting more and more diverse every day. Soon, it'll even maybe catch up to real life! The MCU just introduced it's first gay superhero last year, and we're seeing more. But there are trailblazers who paved the way, including queer heroes whose identities have been a part of their stories from the start, and those who, like many of us in the real world, came to understand their sexuality and gender identity later in life.

After years of speculation and headcanon from fans and numerous relationship difficulties in comics, Tim came out as queer in 's Batman: Urban Legends 6 , agreeing to go on a romantic date with his male friend Bernard. Though Tim's exploration of his own sexuality is just beginning, and Tim himself hasn't named his specific sexuality yet, he's officially joined the queer community.

And like many of Tim's fans have done over the decades since his introduction, his sexuality and the labels he uses will likely evolve along his journey. Get the best comic news, insights, opinions, analysis and more! Kitty Pryde's sexuality remained a matter of speculation and unconfirmed implication for many years after her introduction. Her particularly intimate relationships with Illyana Rasputin and Rachel Summers in their younger years hinted at Kitty's burgeoning sexuality - a fact later confirmed by her creator Chris Claremont, who stated in a interview that he always intended Kitty not just to be bisexual, but to ultimately end up with Rachel Summers.

Then, in 's Marauders 12, Kitty's bisexuality was finally confirmed on the page , as she shares a kiss with a female tattoo artist. The moment marked a major turning point for queer X-Men fans, with decades of subtext, hints, and unconfirmed intent finally coming to fruition before readers' eyes. Unlike Kitty Pryde, her fellow mutant Mystique's sexuality has been open - if not specifically, verbally confirmed - for many years, owing to her marriage to precognitive mutant Destiny, as well as her relationships with characters of other genders.

Incidentally, Mystique was co-created by Chris Claremont, who also co-created Kitty Pryde, and who developed a strong reputation for incorporating queer themes and characters into superhero comics for decades. Though he debuted as Aqualad, half-Atlantean Jackson Hyde has graduated to the mantle of Aquaman - which means that one of DC's flagship characters will be a queer Black man, something almost unthinkable in a mainstream comic even just a few years ago.

Jackson - a fan-favorite character since his simultaneous debut in DC comic books and on the Young Justice animated series - has become somewhat emblematic of the rise of characters with queer identities in modern comic books, now coming full circle into the role of Aquaman as one of DC's most unique legacy characters. The original Green Lantern Alan Scott has been in comic books since , but it's only been since that he's been out as a gay man.

Though this revelation first took place with an alternate Alan Scott in DC's Earth 2 title during the 'New 52' era, the mainstream DC Universe version followed suit in , coming out to his children Jade and Obsidian. Interestingly, Alan Scott's son Obsidian has been out as a gay man since , beating his dad to the punch and reflecting a rare, but very real experience shared by many readers who have multiple family members - even parents - who are queer.

Being magical in nature has lent Loki the ability to take on many different forms and in those forms display many different forms of attraction.

gay superhero couples

Characters regularly switch pronouns when referring to Loki based on his presentation, and Odin calls Loki his "child who is both [male and female]" indicating an acceptance of Loki's gender-fluid nature. While Loki has been a longtime villain and codifying villains as queer can be problematic, the character's recent hero turns have made them one of comic books' most popular and identifiable queer heroes. Creator John Byrne has explained that Northstar was written as gay from the get-go, "even if I would never be allowed to say it in so many words in the comics themselves.

Despite not uttering the words "I am gay" until 's Alpha Flight , Northstar has long been accepted by X-Men fans and comic book fans at large who picked up Byrne's nods as one of the first canonically gay superheroes since his inception. And Marvel changed their tune as time went on, opting to have Northstar marry his boyfriend Kyle Jinadu and publishing the first depiction of a same-sex wedding in mainstream comic books in 's Astonishing X-Men If we had a list of great Marvel romances of the 21st century hey, that's not a bad idea!

Enduring Civil Wars, Secret Invasions, Original Sins and every event in between, openly-gay writer Allan Heinberg created the pair in 's Young Avengers 1 and reminded readers that Marvel's "world outside your window" included more than just the definitions of love that had been portrayed to that point. The two also enabled other writers to create more realistic portrayals of sexuality in their team books as evidenced by Kieron Gillen and Jamie McKelvie's Young Avengers volume that also featured queer characters in Miss America, Prodigy, and Loki.

Recently, Wiccan and Hulkling were married as part of the Empyre crossover. There are very few out trans characters in superhero comic books, but when transwoman writer Rachel Pollack took over the reins on Doom Patrol from Grant Morrison, she aimed to shift the focus. In wanting to create a positive portrayal of a queer trans woman, she created Kate Godwin a.

Coagula, a superhero with the ability to coagulate liquids and dissolve solids at will. Initially rejected by the Justice League, Coagula found a home with the Doom Patrol, though she's rarely been seen in recent years. While Jean Grey's invasion of Bobby's privacy was problematic because he did not choose to come out on his own, making one of Marvel's oldest characters gay is notable in the way it reframes past and future stories.

The controversy surrounding Iceman's outing may have muddied the waters a bit on what is an important moment in Marvel history, but it did allow readers and creators alike to participate in a dialogue about the realities of these situations in everyday life.