Lee

I find the idea that there's something unrealistic or inappropriate about established characters being revealed to be gay or bi hilarious. I made it it to fifty years old without realizing that I'm trans. I was married with two kids. No one (including me) suspected that I was anything other than a straight, cisgender man. And I know a ton of people in the same (or a similar) boat.
 
As long as society keeps moving in the right direction, I think this will happen less and less, but it's not going  go away, at least not in my lifetime. People figure out they're different at their own pace. Or they just don't reveal certain aspects of themselves until they're ready. It's the world we live in. Even though comic book worlds aren't our world, there's no reason to expect them to be different in that particular regard.
 
Just because you don't want to see something doesn't make it unrealistic or inappropriate.

OK, this Superman stuff: it looks like we are talking about the series Superman: Son of Kal-El.
 
This is not main continuity Superman, but a spin off title that may or may not sell and/or be cancelled. Traditional Superman is still being published alongside it.
 
It's nothing to be outraged about, except in the minds of the easily outraged.

I'm not sold that creating, say, the "matches pretty much every stereotype" Extrano back in 1988 was a better move than "outing" characters whose sexuality has never been a solid point in their prior appearances. I don't recall Apache Chief, Black Vulcan, Samurai and El Dorado being viewed as great examples of diversification in the Superhero genre when they appeared in Super Friends.
 
Would you also criticize the decision that Black Manta was actually black (revealed in 1977; first appearance was 10 years prior, in 1967)?  Aquaman was surprised.
 
What about something less visible?  The Thing was around a long time before 2002, when he was revealed to be Jewish.  Colossal Boy was revealed to be Jewish in 1980, 20 years after he first appeared.  Moon Knight retroactively became Jewish in #37 of his book, almost 10 years after he first appeared.  Magneto became retroactively Jewish in the 1990's. 
 
Sexuality, like religion (or even race if you are always fully masked) is pretty easily invisible.  We tend to assume "straight", but we also tend to assume some branch of Christian, and WASP until they unmask and prove us wrong.  All of these were the standard in the Golden Age, not just "straight".
 
Considering how many real people struggle with defining their sexuality, even denying or hiding it, the possibility that some existing characters whose sexuality has never really been a defining characteristic (much like religion may never have come up) being gay or bi (or Jewish) doesn't seem like it flies in the face of their character development.  We might discover after many years of publication that a character came from an abusive home (Hulk), is of a specific faith (Thing) or has a non-straight sexual orientation (Tim Drake; maybe Jon Kent), or even is not white (Black Manta).
 
Is the problem that the writers never disabused the assumption that they were straight WASPs from their very first appearance, or is the problem with readers who assumed one thing and are now uncomfortable with another being revealed?

You are correct. The conditions in Afghanistan did not mirror those in Germany and Japan. And America did spend a lot of money in Afghanistan. Over two decades. There was no plan for rebuilding at the start of the invasion. The goals were constantly changing. Efforts were haphazard, and often handed out to private contractors. There was little central coordination or oversight. The coalition was eager to hand over as much responsibility as they could to the proxy government they installed, which as you say, anyone local could have told them was corrupt and incompetent.
 
The mission was bungled from Day One, and the more time passed without addressing its fundamental flaws, the more intractable the situation became.

I dare say it won't be. But there is one other factor that Biden had to weigh in his decision. Donald Trump pulled the United States out of several key international agreements signed by previous administrations. Then he announced the troop withdrawal from Afghanistan, and made that formal commitment in talks with the Taliban. (Which, by the way, is completely the reverse order in which anyone with a lick of sense would negotiate. You don't reveal your intentions before the deal is struck.)
 
If Joe Biden had reneged on yet another agreement, it would have confirmed to the world that America's promises are worthless, which would have crippled the country's ability to negotiate long-term arrangements with anyone.

Sexual attraction isn't really binary. It's more of a spectrum, and the comics are now starting to reflect that.

I am still waiting for the canon evidence that Tim is clearly 100% straight. Show me how his sexuality (as an unshakably straight male with zero uncertainties) has been a part of his "core identity" at any time in his three decades of history.
 
He's had a few opposite-sex relationships which basically went nowhere, and which he didn't really seem to focus on, much less prioritize.  That could indicate a greater dedication to other aspects of his life (much like a career-focused individual), but it could also indicate that he wasn't so romantically inclined to the female gender. 
 
How was Tony Stark's alcoholism different?  We saw no indications for many years of Iron Man's history, then ZAP, he's an alcoholic.  Oh wait, he always was, it was just never prominent. 
 
The Hulk's core was Jekyll & Hyde.  But wait, no, we can integrate his personalities.  No, surprise, they weren't integrated - a third personality was created to protect the public.  Oh look, rampaging Hulk who does not realize he is also Banner is back.
 
Bucky is dead.  Dead, dead, dead.  He and Uncle Ben are the only Marvel characters that stay dead.  Oh wait, he's actually alive and has been alive and working behind the scenes all these years.
 
Thor is a persona  Dr. Don Blake takes on when he "possesses the power of Thor" because he is Worthy.  No, wait, he really is Thor and switches identities with Dn Blake.  Oh, fooled you - there is no Don Blake, he's just a construct created by Odin to humble Thor.  Oh, but it turns out ANYONE worthy can still wield the hammer and be granted powers like Thor's - but they aren't Thor's because he does not -de-power.  Well, until another writer changes that.
 
For some inexplicable reason, Tim Drake's sexuality is considered more canon than a lot of other canon, despite being far less central to the character's portrayal over the years than many elements of other characters that have simply changed over time.
 
 
 
Clearly I was fooled by the fan fiction in the 1960s and 1970s, wherein he was not depicted as superhumanly strong.  Although I will admit the Golden Age examples are less fair as "canon" was not really valued all that much. 
 
Although the Spectre was the ghost of Jim Corrigan for a long time.  Until he wasn't, but instead was the Wrath of God, affixed to a mortal soul.
 
Remember when Swamp Thing was really Alec Holland?  Until it was revealed that he wasn't in the '80's?  Until he was again in the 2000's?  Which version is true canon, and which are just fanfic gone wild?

What really stings is that DunDraCon 44 was the last time I shared a game table with him. Had it happened, DDC 45 would have marked the 40th anniversary of Champions. (sort of) and there had been talk of trying to arrange a bunch of commemorative games and events to mark the occasion. Steve was in charge of DunDraCon's seminar scheduling and I'm sure something would have been arranged with hopefully a reunion of as many of the original Heroes as could be managed, but well, Coronavirus happened, so none of these plans panned out. DDC 45 was scheduled to be the first con back on the peninsula after a long stretch of events in Oakland and then San Ramon and it was going to be held at a hotel with much more capacity for attendees and events, too.
 
But what really bums me out as a Champions player is that Steve ran what was kind of an old timers game with a very limited invite list and anyone from the OG hero team the Guardians always had an invite. Whenever they were available, Dove and IceStar made fairly regular appearances and once in a while we got Marksman too. The players for Force and Gargoyle had passed away some time ago and the players for Rose and Mercenary were no longer in California. So DDC 45 marked the best opportunity to gather what remained the majority of the first hero team in Champions history and due to the pandemic, it didn't happen and now it probably never will.
 
Another thing I learned just recently - in the summer of 2019, Steve had a story published in Joker Moon, the latest collection of short stories set in the Wild Cards universe. The last convention we were at was in the spring of 2019, and while it hadn't hit the shelves yet, he had to have known that it was accepted and probably going through final edits prior to publication. He never mentioned it to us. He ran the seminars, he ran several Champions games. He was the most humble Secret Master of Gaming I ever knew.
 
about 30 years ago, I had just graduated from UCSC. I had played at Steve's table on a small handful of occasions, as he always welcomed visitors. He could run groups of up to a dozen without flinching. He was working as a technical writer and game designer at a computer game company at that time and when an opening in the art department came up, he got me an interview there and changed my life. I can't believe he's gone.

That's a fine sentiment when it it comes to judging the quality of a given piece of art. It's nonsense when deciding whose art to support. I didn't go looking for some way to be offended.  Carano used the much bigger platform she gained by being on the Mandalorian to mock my identity and minimize the culpability of Nazis for the holocaust. If giving a little less money to Disney might to help, even just a tiny bit, to remove that platform, then that's what I'll do.
 
So, thanks for the advice, but I think I'll keep trying to deplatform transphobes and other bigots.
 
 

And heaven forbid I not support a company that employs a transphobic bigot in a public facing position.
 

There's obviously nothing wrong with having an opinion that doesn't toe the company line (in this case, Disney's). However, there are consequences to one's actions, and if you are a highly public figure and your highly public actions conflict with the optics your employer depends on for the integrity of its brand, then you must be prepared to accept the consequences. That is simply how the adult world works.
 
So if you are an actor working for Disney, then by all means have whatever political opinions you want, just don't express them on social media unless you are content to sabotage your relationship with Disney in doing so. Gina Carano only has herself to blame; I just hope she feels that speaking her mind--as was her right to do--was worth it in this instance.

Exactly.  Few long-term comic book characters are controlled  by their creators.  Many of their creators are retired or even deceased.  Was it FanFic when Roy Thomas wrote the Invaders and the All-Star Squadron?  He was a fan in the 1940s who became a writer in the 1960s. What's with Batman hating guns?  Originaly he carried a gun and even machine gunned a crowd from his plane.  Superman did not start out so squeamish around killing either, nor could he fly or see through walls.  He gained a lot of powers we now consider canon over time.
 
That may not be the story you want to read.  Maybe you don't want to see Superman and Lois sharing a bath either.  But that does not invalidate the story.  Tony Stark was not an alcoholic in Tales of Suspense.  Or was he, but we just did not KNOW he was an alcoholic?  By #128 of his own book, he was most definitely an alcoholic. The creator of Wolverine envisioned him having claws in his gloves,not embedded in his body, and his adamantium skeleton only showed up around #126 of X-Men, when he's been around since #94 (plus the Giant-Size and Hulk appearances before) so that's also fanfic.  So is Peter Parker's appearance.  Stan Lee once noted that the only thing Romita could not draw was Peter Parker, "the little nebbish".  Stan noted he ultimately accepted that Peter grew up from nerdy, awkward teen to a pretty good-looking guy.
 
Someone once wrote to the Justice League book in the 1970s suggesting Aquaman have "the strength of a whale". In later years, it developed that, due to evolution to deal with the ocean pressures, Atlanteans were much stronger and more durable than surface men.  Fanfic?  It wasn't part of the character for decades.  I recall an issue where Aquaman was hunted through Seattle by an assassin.  The assassin had clearly won - he's kept Aquaman out of the water for well over an hour, and we all knew by canon that he needed to go underwater at least every hour.  Only he didn't - it depended on his environment, and in heavy rain in Seattle, he could last a lot longer than an hour.  Pure fanfic, right?
 
For years, we criticized comic book movies because they were not true to the characters - the writers weren't fans.  We still see that in the criticisms of many DCU movies, not so much Marvel.  But when writers are fans, and they develop the characters, now fan fiction is a bad thing instead?  [EDIT:  Sorry for the thread drift towards the title of the thread itself 😇]
 
 
How many long-term romances has he had, making it clear that he is most definitely straight and this is a complete, jarring change?  High schoolers go with the crowd.  Have kids grown out of mocking, bullying or ostracizing those who are different?  Do the football teams welcome homosexual guys?  Are a couple of trans cheerleaders the norm? Were any of those nine alternate future Tim's married with kids, much less clearly straight and not, say, bisexual? People struggling with understanding their sexuality are hardly unusual. 
 
 
Show me the character history that says "for sure he is straight".  Or any issue of Tales of Suspense that suggests Tony Stark has a serious drinking problem, rather than being a casual or social drinker.
 
 
Having not read the story, I'm not clear how this "big reveal" comes out, so I'm not prepared to pass judgment on the writer quite yet. But we do not see every minute of any comic character's life.  I have no great desire to see them in the bathroom, for example, and while Reed and Sue have a child, I don't recall ever seeing them engaged in more than a pretty chaste kiss. I do know they have been in a long-term straight relationship.  But I have not seen Tim Drake's long-term relationship with any romantic partner, really.  Maybe he just has not had enough interest in the various girls he has had shorter-term relationships with?

I don't see how this is fake diversity.  The character of Tim Drake has been around for 32 years, but Tim Drake the character has only been in the hero business for maybe 3 years.  Moreover, most of his previous girlfriends are no longer canon for the him because their have been like 3 DC reboots since his his introductions.  So a teenage boy goes 3 years without having any same sex romantic relationships, and that is suppose to be proof positive that the boy has absolutely no interest in guys?  That is not how it works in the real world.  A lot of bisexuals don't have there first same sex romance until they are in college or later (sometimes much later).  At the end of the day a character's sexual orientation is whatever the writer says it is, and the current writer has decided that Tim Drake can be romantically interested in at least some guys.  So, his LGBTQ status is as real as anything else in the story or in Tim Drake's cannon.
 
 
New writers coming onboard with stories they already want to tell and then proceeding write the those stories is currently the norm.  This how it works now and has been for quite a while.  In a sense most major comic books are now fanfiction, in that there writers grew up reading them and are fans of the books for which now write.  This is not having some sinister agenda, this is just writers having stories that they wish to tell, and it is a natural thing.

It's bitter irony that the avowed party of small government and personal freedom is eager to use big government to quash any freedom it doesn't like.

His resemblance is just a happy accident

How did Bob Ross get in there?
 
(Yes, I know, Jeff Lynne.)

What properties are only "meant for boys"? What properties are only "meant for girls"? Dr Who has always featured strong female characters, and the audience demographics are split pretty much down the middle when it comes to gender. There's a large male following for My Little Pony, which was originally to sell toys to girls. Fandoms expand, or they die.
 
Is Hero System only meant for boys? What about D&D? Pathfinder?
Is it wrong for me to give out Hot Wheels to girls and boys on Halloween?
 
And back to topic, are comic books and their various spin-offs only for boys, or can girls like the Guardians of the Galaxy or the Avengers, too?

Since we can't rerun the universe a little differently, we'll never know who's right. I just find the idea that it's position in the release schedule added half a billion dollars to it's box-office take to be ridiculous on its face.
 
 
Wow. That's utterly ridiculous. Marvel's marketing team guilted the world into making Black Panther the number four top grossing movie of all time? Seriously? I'd love to see examples of this '"you're a terrible person and bigot if you don't watch this movie" woke marketing.'  Or is this like the horrible things Larson and Johansson said about men that we're just supposed to assume really happened, without evidence given? 
 
Further, I'd love to hear why, if that kind of marketing happened, and was so effective, Marvel didn't do the same with Black Widow.
 
It seems like the idea that there was an audience that had been clamoring for movies like these and came out in droves to see them is just unfathomable to y'all.
 
Black Panther was easily one of the best two movies in the MCU. Captain Marvel, not so much, but it was a solid superhero movie, and the first MCU movie with a female solo lead. 
 
 
 

Hmm. That reminds me of an actual index entry in the old Borland Turbo C manual for "recursion":
 
Recursion: see recursion

Once again, this is the lifetime gross for Captain Marvel: $1,128,462,972
 
To put that into context, also released in 2019: Spider-Man: Far from Home: $1,131,927,996
 
Does that mean that Far from Home wasn't a blockbuster?

That was a pretty standard Captain America speech. Cap has been a social justice warrior since way back.

I think that's a completely valid viewpoint. I disagree with it, but I can definitely see where you're coming from. Larson gave a very understated performance in many ways. There were lots of barely there smiles, and bits of understated humor. I think this was most likely a directorial choice (which worked fine for me), because I've seen her play much more emotionally broad characters. I find the accusations of arrogance against the character unfair, but, once again, that's a question of perception.
 
Overall, it's a matter of the character as written/Larson's performance working for some people and not others. And that's fine.
 
I think part of why it worked for me is that I identified with the character a lot. Most of my life I didn't display much emotion. People tended to find me arrogant, when really, I just didn't connect well. And until recently, for as long as I remember people had told me I was something I wasn't, and I had believed them. So it makes sense that I would connect more.
 
 
 

This is, to put it politely, somewhat overwrought, and entirely inaccurate.
 
Is the Falcon (now Captain America) nerdy or gay, submissive, or an idiot? No.
 
Sure, the Winter Soldier is a reformed villain, but, then again, so was the Black Widow.
 
Black Panther? None of those things. And if the actor hadn't died, he'd be back for another movie soon.
 
The Vision died again recently, but we may well see him again.
 
Spider-man is nerdy, I'll give you that but what's wrong with that?
Dr. Strange doesn't fit this categories either, although he is a bit of a pompous ass.
 
I won't include Hawkeye, since he's a serial killer (but other than that he's an okay guy), or Starlord, because I'd say he does tend to fall in the idiot bucket (and is also an arrogant, insecure jerk).
 
I've seen Ant-Man criticized because Wasp is a better fighter than him, but there's a lot more to being a positive role model than being able to kick ass (which he still often manages).
 
There are also a ton of supporting characters who are good role models.
 
And, guess what, a gay character can be just as much of a positive male role model as a straight character, not that we see many of them in the MCU or other action movies (The Old Guard is a nice exception there). 
 
And Terry Crews is, this very year, playing a badass character on Brooklyn 99.  A smart, accomplished bad ass. He just happens to also be a dad, and a caring person. It's a sitcom, so of course they give him an amusing tic (he tends to refer to himself in third person), but he looks like a pretty positive role model to me.