Casting a gay eye over Comic-Con 2010

The fan-geeks have packed away their lightsabres, wizard staffs and Wonder Woman bracelets and San Diego’s wet dream to everything sci-fi and fantasy, Comic-Con, is mothballed for another year.

And we’re going to have to wait at least another year for any hint of a gay superhero or major gay character in a comic book movie – in fact the only gay superhero news to come out of the weeked didn’t originate from Comic-Con at all; the revelation that Superman actor Christopher Reeve had a gay affair with another dead actor is the kind of ‘news’ that only crops up when someone’s got a book to sell.

Probably the biggest hope of some kind of homo representation lay with Buffy creator Joss Whedon’s just-cast superhero mash-up movie, The Avengers, which will feature a host of Marvel Comics’ most famous caped crusaders in one film. This ensemble approach, spreading the action among a broad set of characters, offered a chance to show some real diversity and maybe a screen role for Northstar, Marvel’s first gay superhero, but his skin-tight lycra suit will be staying in the cupboard for this movie.

Whedon had this to say: “I’ve been toying with a great, gay super hero with some guy-on-guy action for awhile now. I think that there needs to be some balance.”

So some hope, then. For now we’ll just have to look forward to Hollywood hunk Chris Evans doing duel acting duties in this movie and next year’s Captain America blockbuster.

Chris Evans also crops up in another film which had an exclusive screening for fans at Comic-Com and which features a prominent gay character. How to describe Scott Pilgrim vs. the World? Maybe if you crossed a PG-friendly Kick Ass with (500) Days of Summer you’d be somewhere close. It’s about a nerdy, bass guitar playing, 23-year-old slacker who falls in love with a mysterious young woman. In order to be with her he has to dispatch her seven evil-villain-type ex-boyfriends.

If you watch the trailer, Kieran Culkin’s wiser character dishing out the advice is actually Scott’s gay roommate. They share a bed, but ‘nothing’s going on,’ – isn’t that what Kieran’s older brother said?