Today it was announced by DC Comics that the character who is out of the closet is Green Lantern. OK so the geeks out there are asking which Green Lantern, since there have been a couple that have wielded the ring. The answer, Alan Scott. Wait, Alan Scott? Alan Scott of the Earth-2 Alan Scott? So not Hal Jordan, who is mostly associated with the Green Lantern, nor Guy Gardner nor John Stewart nor Kyle Rayner. It's not even one from what could be called Earth prime.

That's the thing with big announcements with comic book companies with Earth shattering events; they seldom are very big, very permanent or effect a main character for years.

The mainstream press of course is treating this with all the subtlety of Guy Gardner. Most have headlines stating Green Lantern is Gay in big bold letters. Fox News did it. The New York Post did as well as other websites. Judging my the comments I have seen, very few people are bothering to read past the headline before putting fingers to keyboard in denouncements about how their 'favorite hero' has been changed or talking about some 'hidden gay agenda.' A few 'knowledgeable' souls have gone on to rant about how this will kill the Green Lantern film franchise. There are the typical 'I will never let my kids read comics again' or my childhood has been destroyed' rants going on. All of this belly aching because 1) people aren't reading past the headlines and 2) reporters are willing to mislead people into reacting without giving them full information.

What I'm upset about is how much of a non-story this is, and not just because of making Alan Scott gay. He is part of Earth-2. While Earth-2 is important to the comics community, to the mainstream public it means nothing. He's not part of the core of the DC Universe. This announcement reminds me of the old TV show Hello Sidney (man, talk about dating myself). This was a show in the mid 80s, on air for a few years, and in retrospect was the first gay character to have his own TV show. The thing is he was never called gay, had mannerisms that could be considered gay, and years later, after much speculation, a producer claimed the character was indeed gay and the audience would know this because of a picture of his dead lover that was always on his bookcase. Say what? That's how you made it so he was gay?

That's Alan Scott to me. Yes he is gay but he's on Earth-2. Yes he will be a big part of that universe but anyone reading the first Earth-2 book which came out last month would know the canons of the DC Universe, Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman, were killed off in the first issue fighting off Darkseid's minions. This is going to be a very radical universe from the one we are accustomed to. I do have to give credit with the fact DC looks to make this gimmick to one up Marvel. Time will tell.

As I have said many times with stories like this, regular public and the mainstream media, please stop giving us fake outrage about issues you don't bother to research. When the announcement was made a few weeks ago, along with the Marvel wedding of Northstar, you went crazy assuming there were no gay characters in comics when there are quite a good number of gay characters. Now some are mad about Green Lantern being gay when it is Alan Scott, which has nothing to do with the main Green Lantern (and for those who care, won't change the film) so just take a deep breath when these stories come out, and the next time you see a story about a comic book character, don't go crazy, just ask a comic book person to educate you.