What the Decision on Same Sex Marriage Could Mean for Comics

When the Supreme Court of the United States of America made it legally clear that not allowing people to marry because they happen to be the same sex is a messed up relic of the past, there was much rejoicing: rainbow confetti tossed into the air, rainbow wedding cakes sliced with delight, and I hear even Rainbow Batman made a guest appearance at the Rainbow House in DC. Rainbow Batman has trained for years to sharpen his senses against your homophobic bs and is having none of it tonight.[divider type=”space_thin”]But where exactly does that leave queer Blerds and their allies? While we already know that the m-word is forbidden in the comics world when it comes to keeping heterosexual superheroes in the limelight (just look at Peter Parker and Mary Jane Watson, Clark Kent and Lois Lane, T’challa and Ororo Munroe, and the whole confusing mess with Arthur Curry and Mera for starters), it’s easy to see that for queer couples, much like in real life, the problems are far more severe. One notable example occurred back in 2013 when creative team J.H. Williams III and W. Haden Blackman left what at the time was really one of the few consistently flourishing New 52 titles, Batwoman, due to editorial intervention preventing Kate Kane from marrying her girlfriend, Maggie Sawyer. After Dan DiDio himself spoke on the subject and claimed that the job of a superhero is to set their personal lives aside (read: tumultuous unhealthy romances for everyone!), it became even more clear how entre…