Unsung Gay Superhero: Ultraverse’s Spectral

As Pride month draws to a close, I decided to take it upon myself to profile one of the unsung pioneers of gay superherodom. Yes, most of us know Northstar, who came screaming out of the closet in Alpha Flight 106, way back in 1992. But what of the guy standing right behind him, who debuted one year later in June 1993? Surely the second mainstream gay superhero deserves to be remembered. And so I present to Geeks OUT readers: Spectral, the Multi-Powered Man!

What’s that? You’ve never heard of him? That’s fair. The series in which he appeared lasted only twenty-four issues. He hasn’t been seen or heard since, though he was ostensibly absorbed into the Marvel universe (more on that later). He utterly fails to make any lists of gay superheroes. In fact, more than one friend of mine accused me of making him up when I told them about this post. I assure you, dear readers, Spectral was real. He may be a footnote in the history of LGBT comics representation (if that), but I hope to rescue him from obscurity if only because he is not merely a gay superhero. Spectral is the gayest superhero who ever was or will be.

 

I know, I know. Midnighter is obviously gay, and he’s hard to top (no pun intended), but let me explain: Spectral was a human torch who burned the colors of the rainbow! And he had a different power with each color! His friends died of AIDS (it was the 90s). And he lived in San Francisco! That last one is actually kind of a cheat, since Malibu, the publisher of Spectral’s book, set themselves up as the West Coast alternative to Marvel and DC and set most of their titles in California. However, short of a superhero who gains powers by actually having sex with a person of the same sex, it’s hard to think of a gayer hero than Spectral.

Spectral was a founding member of The Strangers, one of the flagship titles of Malibu’s Ultraverse imprint. Created by writer Steve Englehart and artist Rick Hoberg, it was actually one of the most diverse superhero teams in the history of comics. Not only did it feature a gay man, but it had two black characters and one Latina (we infer this last bit of information because she occasionally exclaims in Spanish, not because anyone ever mentions that a character named Elena La Brava might be anything other than another white woman). They each (save one) gained powers from a magic bolt of lightning that struck a cable car they all happened to be riding at the same time. Did I mention The Strangers took place in San Francisco? Because the book rarely lets you forget that fact.

Spectral, aka Dave Castiglione, was one of the most powerful members of the team. When he burned red, he gained super strength. Orange gave him standard fire powers, yellow granted him flight, and green flames gave healing powers. Blue fire somehow meant he had water powers (How were the flames not extinguished by going underwater? Shut up.). Indigo was a deus ex machina power (seriously, this post will be three times as long if I try to explain it). Finally, violet flame made him invulnerable.

 

The first few issues were the team’s origin story, during which Spectral spent time figuring out his powers and saving the day at the last minute. This in itself should make Spectral more heralded as a gay superhero. Northstar was always something of a joke, but Spectral saved his whole team’s collective ass more than once. His sexuality was hinted at, but usually when he was alone.

 

This was considered subtle back then.

It’s not until issue 5 that Spectral is finally outed. It’s not a very empowering scene, either. Grenade, one of the most aggressively heterosexual members of the team, who nevertheless has a costume that wouldn’t be out of place at a leather convention, angrily confronts Spectral and more or less demands to know his sexual orientation… And then is cool with it. It’s not great, but the acceptance the rest of the team exhibits is comforting, and was astonishingly progressive for the time.

For proof of that, the letters pages are unfortunate reminders of how regressive attitudes were as recently as twenty years ago. “If you intend to use your comic books to push a social agenda, the ‘comic’ book should make this clear.” (from Issue 11) “I have nothing against gays, I just tire of being constantly reminded of it. Why doesn’t he just wear a sign? Better yet, he could change his name to ‘Flamer’ and let the people draw their own conclusions.” (from Issue 16) The letters about Spectral were supposedly positive on a twenty-to-one ratio, but the negative ones overwhelmingly saw print in order to “keep the letters page interesting.”

 

The initial handling of Spectral’s sexuality was the unfortunate high point, as the rest of the team often paired off or he was the brunt of some insulting banter that was supposed to be funny. From issue 9:

It’s your loss, Bob. (Seriously, that character’s name is Atom Bob. This book is downright goofy sometimes.)

 

Or he would be left to stand around awkwardly while his teammates paired off. You can practically hear a slide whistle in the background of panels like these from issue 11:

For the rest of the short run of the series, Spectral was the odd man out. The rest of the team consisted of two straight couples and the two black members of the team, because if you have two members of a superhero team who ostensibly belong to the same minority group they are obligated to become friends even if they have nothing in common. He disappeared for months, sometimes barely appearing in issues, often being chastised for arriving late to team meetings. This may have been because he was so powerful that any superhero fight would have ended too quickly if he were involved, but also because he was being set up as a red herring for a mystery, and because it was more comfortable for the gay guy’s personal life to happen off panel.

 

This did change, though! Spectral was eventually given a boyfriend — in the final issue. Granted, there were clearly plans for more issues, but the boyfriend survives the superhero battle that ensues! And he gets a line! (It’s: “Hi.”) I’d like to think that this would have led to a more prominent role for Spectral, closer to what was promised in the beginning of the series. It’s just as likely this would have led to him being sidelined more often.

 

I’ll admit I stretched the truth to call Spectral mainstream. Ultraverse comics, at the height of their popularity, were never going to become as culturally relevant as Marvel or DC. Like Image and Valiant in the early days of those publishers, they were seen as a bracing alternative to the status quo. Ultraverse rode the comics boom of the early 90s hard, developing a tight continuity and conspicuous advertising. It was seen as groundbreaking at the time, full of innovation and diversity. The Strangers were going to be developed into an animated television series, too. Spectral could have been the first gay cartoon superhero!

Then Marvel, as they are wont to do, ruined everything.

 

In 1994, they purchased Malibu and ran it into the ground. That’s the most charitable way I can describe what happened. Whether Marvel was trying to acquire better coloring technology or simply beating DC to the punch because they had designs on Malibu (both of which have been given as reasons for the buyout), the quality of the writing nosedived. The Strangers was one of the luckier titles, as it was cancelled early and kept from having to shoehorn Marvel characters into its pages. Loki, Thor, Black Knight, and Silver Surfer all showed up in Ultraverse titles before the whole line was mercifully cancelled. According to the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe: Alternate Universes 2005, the Ultraverse universe exists on Earth-93060. I doubt it will be making any appearances anytime soon.

 

This is a shame, really. For all of the faults of the book, The Strangers was a comic that provided a positive role model for gay kids. They had to do a bit of hunting for him, but he was there. As one fan put it: “I feel that [Spectral] has been all the things gay people would like in a role model…I know of only two superheroes in all of comics that are gay. This is hardly overkill…it’s interesting for a change” (Letters page, issue 22). Valiant and Image have undergone renaissances in recent years, so why can’t Marvel take a chance and hand over the reins of these characters to capable creators?

 

I won’t hold my breath waiting for that to happen. But now we know of one more superhero who was out and proud. And Spectral gives us one more reason to be out and proud ourselves.

Null Space: LGBT Representation in the Final Frontier

From the very beginning, Star Trek has garnered a reputation for being a trailblazer on minority representation. Each of its series has featured a diverse cast and strong female characters that stood out from it’s contemporaries. Whoopi Goldberg is perhaps one of the more prominent Star Trek fans to have been inspired by Nichelle Nichols role as Lieutenant Uhura in The Original Series. The same role has inspired a few actual astronauts as well. It is for this reason that the lack of LGBT representation across nearly two decades of Star Trek television (1987-2005) was such a disappointment.

The one honest attempt to take on LGBT issues came in the form of the 1992 Next Generation episode “The Outcast.” While it has some truly great moments that clearly depict the writer’s intentions, it ultimately falls short of having any true representation. I’m not the first person to do a present day analysis of this episode, and I doubt I will be the last. The fact that it is the one episode out of roughly 700 (and 12 movies) to honestly tackle LGBT issues head on, it stands out. With a new series set to launch in 2017, it’s worth taking a closer look at one of the franchise’s more unfortunate shortcomings.

“The Outcast” opens with the USS Enterprise assisting the J’naii (an androgynous race) with locating one of their missing shuttle craft. In their search they come across what appears to be a pocket of null space–a theoretical concept which had never been encountered before this discovery. Null space is described in Memory Alpha as “a pocket of space filled with the bright light of condensed turbulent magnetic and gravitational fields, absorbing all electromagnetic energy from anything that enters the phenomenon. The fields also bend all outside energy around the pocket, making it essentially invisible.”

After the crew is briefed on the abnormality they are dealing with, Commander Riker teams up with the J’naii pilot Soren in order to attempt a rescue mission. In doing so, the two begin to talk about their respective culture’s views on gender. Here we learn the J’naii once had two genders like humans, but they evolved to a higher form and now share a single gender. When Soren asks Riker about what attracts males to females, he gives a coy response filled with his winning Riker charm, but fails to mention the existence of homosexuality among humans. This is repeated later on when Soren questions Dr. Crusher about the female perspective. On both occasions the conversations lent themselves perfectly to both Riker and Crusher including the alternatives to heterosexual relationships in their answers to Soren. It is as though same sex attraction is something neither character has ever heard of.

I stress this point because I believe it is the most telling flaw in the entire episode. Even in a story that uses an allegory to represent modern day LGBT issues, there is no acknowledgement of queer humans ever existing. Even in our own episode we are invisible. Null space feels like an an unfortunate and unintentionally fitting metaphor.

All of this undercuts the episode’s stronger moments. When Soren “comes out” to Riker as being different and professes her attraction to him as a male, it is a powerful scene. She touches on the bullying she’s seen her peers go through and the constant fear of being discovered. She minces no words describing the evil and abusive practice of forced “curing” those who are outed are forced to go through. The scene can easily resonate with anyone who’s ever dealt with any of those things. In Soren’s particular case, she identifies as female (hence the use of the she/her pronouns). This is considered a perversion in J’naii society.

Soren’s character is nothing if not brave, and not just for “coming out” as female. “Commander, tell me about your sexual organs” might be the best pickup line ever used in the history of Star Trek. It certainly worked for Soren, as it wasn’t long before she and Riker were kissing. This too has been a point of criticism (the kiss, not the pickup line). Jonathan Frakes (the actor who plays Riker) said himself that he thought the scene (and episode) would have been more powerful if Soren were played by a man. If that had been the case, it could have born parallels to the Original Series episode “Plato’s Stepchildren,” which featured the first interracial kiss ever aired on television. Instead, like numerous other parts of the episode, it fell short.

The episode ends with Picard asking Riker if his business with the J’naii is done before moving on to their next mission. Riker confirms that it is, and Picard gives the command to go to warp speed. The one criticism I have here is not that it was an unhappy ending. It rightly portrayed the “curing” of Soren’s so-called perversions in a negative light. What is unfortunate is that the “cure” worked, and it set in quickly. It a difficult thing to stomach when science has shown us repeatedly that so-called conversion therapy does not work. I don’t know how sound or well-researched the science was on this in the early 90’s, so I would give them a pass here. They at least did the part of portraying it as abusive and unjust.

All in all, “The Outcast” is a mixed bag. There are reviews that have praised it, and others that have torn it apart. I don’t think it would be this heavily scrutinized if it weren’t the only real offering of queer issues in the franchise’s long history. The criticism on this front is valid because Star Trek had established itself as a progressive, forward thinking series right from the very beginning. We know it could have done better because it had done better. With a new series coming in 2017, fifty years after the first Star Trek episode aired, should we have hope that the show will once again embrace its progressive roots? Only time will tell.

Further Reading
Homosexuality in Star Trek – a really in depth look at homosexuality in the franchise on the Star Trek fan site Ex Astris Scientia.
Gay “Trek” – a nice detailed article written before the debut of Enterprise for Salon.
Scrapbook Enterprise – my own super geeky documentation on my journey through the Universe of Star Trek.

Follow me on twitter @danielstalter and check out my comic series on dreamcrashercomic.com.