Grant Morrison quote has some Batman fans in a tizzy on CBR....

[EmarAndZeb]

Actually, I thought Morrison was more on the mark when he talked about modern superheroes as the extension of the cultural myth hero.

Look at Beowulf or Gilgamesh. They come from a society where women aren't really important and as such their entire world is pretty male centric.

All of their best friends are male, all of their companions on adventures are guys. Their idea of a good time is hanging out in the mead hall and swapping bullshit stories.

Their world isn't so much "gay" as it just is 'male-centric'. And really, that is Batman's world perhaps more than most other heroes because his world is, just like those culture heroes of old, male-centric.

This is pretty much how I'd read Batman, too. In a lot of older and more martial cultures, your domestic, romantic, and/or marital life weren't considered as central to your existence as your role on the battlefield and your relationships to your comrades in arms. Old epics have a bunch of examples of male warriors forming extremely close friendships with one another, which often get played up to what seems like an extreme degree to modern eyes (we're the culture that created the term "bromance" as a thing; we've still got some weird hang-ups about how close male friendships are supposed to be).

A lot of pulp heroes, Batman included, are sort of throwbacks to this kind of attitude. So it puts them out of step with the heroes that take the more modern attitude towards living (find job, find partner, have kids), and just happen to moonlight as a vigilante.

[Personamanx]

I think he was mostly poking fun to be honest. He comes off as far more of an asshole here than he usually does in interviews.

[Jim Schnobrich]

So is he trying to say that anyone who chooses to put his career first is gay?

[scout1279]

I think people need to stop treating every single thing Grant Morrison says about superheroes as some sort of gospel that needs to be parsed out at length. A) It's not nearly as important as the actual stories he writes; and B) the man is getting very tiresome.

[Morrison_Lad]

Oh, please.

Grant is just fucking with people. That's not obvious?

[Patrick Gerard]

Which I frankly don't see. Morrison starts his example with all of the women that have thrown themselves at Batman, some of which he -has- had sexual/romantic relationships with over the years, and then says that he prefers to spend time with Alfred and Robin ... which he does not do in a sexual or romantic way. Batman is not gay by Morrison's yardstick, he's asexual.

I think Batman is one of the most inherently pre-sexual characters if you look at how he put his power fantasy quest for justice above romance (as if you can't do both), a little boy in many respects.

But I think when you look at how many bromances he's in and how they're deeper than his relations with women, the gay argument begins to crystalize.

I see people at Bleeding Cool blaming Adam West and Wertham for the Batman/Robin thing...

But Batman and Robin were sharing a bed and showers together for years before that.

And it's not pedophelia because, on a symbolic level, Batman is an adolescent boy like Robin is.

Batman is thematically a Yaoi franchise.

On a literal level, yes, he's heterosexual and Robin is his son figure. On an archetypal/psychoanalytic/magical level, Batman is a total Yaoi franchise about adolescent boys' love for one another.

[Corrina]

To me, Batman is all about a little boy trying to make the world *fair* and settling for trying to make it just.

His best villains reflect this, as Joker is all about unfairness, but then the Riddler plays "fair" but he beats Batman at it, and Two-Face is at war with justice within himself.

I'm not sure I'd characterize his trappings as any more or less "gay" than any other superhero.

[Chris Jones]

I'll crosspost what I said on Robot 6 and say that while I think there's an argument to be made that there's a homoerotic undercurrent in superhero comics in general, his specific points about Batman are pretty trite.

[Danimal]

I think his takes on Superman and Wonder Woman are spot on. I also agree that his take on Batman seems more tongue in cheek. It is kind of interesting that if you look at Wonder Woman's history, how often has she owned her sexuality? Or even been sexual? I feel like Gail was starting to introduce some of that when she was employing her Amazonian courting ritual, but there has always been, at least since Marston, something extremely virginal about the character. Virgin Mary meets Mary Tyler Moore does describe a long stretch of her history.

[Patrick Gerard]

I think his takes on Superman and Wonder Woman are spot on. I also agree that his take on Batman seems more tongue in cheek. It is kind of interesting that if you look at Wonder Woman's history, how often has she owned her sexuality? Or even been sexual? I feel like Gail was starting to introduce some of that when she was employing her Amazonian courting ritual, but there has always been, at least since Marston, something extremely virginal about the character. Virgin Mary meets Mary Tyler Moore does describe a long stretch of her history.

I think Morrison has long argued, and I don't think he's wrong, that the Golden Age takes on the big three have a power to them that's hard to deny.

With Wonder Woman, I kinda feel that Power Girl -- particularly the Palmiotti/Connor take -- usurps her role as a brassy, funny alpha female. The kind of woman who could tell dirty jokes and challenge people to arm wrestle.

Even though that take ended decades before I was born, I feel like it resonates with me more and you see it, albeit less comical, in the Cooke Wonder Woman.

I would love it if Wonder Woman was the one person in the JLA who had a mouth like a sailor. (Hal's the closest but he's an uptight flyboy who uses a forced show of bravado.) Maybe in terms of a modernized take, closer to Marvel's Hercules.

I think it'd be great if every third line out of Diana's mouth had to be bleeped.