31 Days of Scans - Day 16

I’ve been thinking about this one (Favorite LGBTQ Character), and mostly drawing a blank. It seems like most of my favorite characters are established as being heterosexual. I know there’s a strong fan contingent that thinks Tim Drake could be gay and/or bisexual (mostly with regard to him and Superboy), but I don’t think DC’s ever officially gone that route with him. I like Shadowcat fairly well, and I’m pretty sure Claremont established that Kitty is at least bi at some point, but I’ve never read the story, and I don’t know if anyone else has ever paid it any mind. Harley Quinn is pretty clearly bisexual these days, between whatever is going on with her and Ivy, plus her interest in her tenant’s son who escaped from prison, plus her trying to cajole Power Girl into fooling around with her (although that may have just been teasing. Hard to say with Harley). Mystique is an interesting character, but hardly one I’d describe as a favorite. Cable/Deadpool had a lot of references to Wade having an interest in guys, but I’m not sure how seriously we were supposed to take his fantasies about him and Cable on a beach with suntan lotion. Also, I don’t think it’s been followed up on by anyone else.

I settled, such as it is, on Felicia Hardy, but even that’s perhaps shaky. Kevin Smith made one reference to Felicia being interested in women as well as men in his Spider-Man/Black Cat mini-series, but a) it was one caption in one panel, and b) that mini-series is generally better left forgotten. However, Tom DeFalco did establish very clearly in Spider-Girl that Felicia was bisexual. She’d been married to Flash Thompson, and they’d had two kids together. But at some point, they got divorced, and Felicia met Diana, and the two of them were together. I’ll confess, I’m pretty sure the implications of what Felicia was saying didn’t sink the first time I read that comic. You’d think them holding hands would have tipped me off, but I’m a little slow sometimes, and I think this was an interlude during some big fight scene at the Fantastic Five’s headquarters, so I was probably rushing through it.

I don’t think it got a lot of play. Felicia wasn’t in the book a whole lot, mostly during the stretch when her daughter, Felicity, was trying hard to convince Mayday they should be a crimefighting duo (with Felicity dressing as the Scarlet Spider), much to Felicia’s consternation. Mayday wasn’t terribly thrilled with it either. We did find out Felicity wasn’t entirely happy with her mother’s decisions, though I think DeFalco meant it as Felicity blamed Diana for breaking up her parents’ marriage, or blocking any chance of them getting back together, rather than Felicity being homophobic. We didn’t ever get to see mother and daughter sit down and clear the air the way Mayday did with both of her parents so often, and Felicia never showed up during the stretch when Mayday was dating Gene Thompson. I’d have been interested to learn what she thought of that pairing. Would she have seen enough of Peter’s sense of responsibility in Mayday to obliquely advise Gene to stay away?

Anyway, it never struck me as an out-of-character development for Felicia Hardy. It wasn’t difficult to see her and Flash drifting apart, or to see her meeting Diana, feeling a connection, and pursuing a relationship with her. She’s spent most of her life making her own choices, saying how she felt, doing what she liked, and dealing with the consequences as best she can. I can’t see her letting other people’s expectations of what they think is right deter her from being with someone she decides means something to her.

Both pages are from Spider-Girl. The first is probably issue 47, so DeFalco (script and co-plotting), Frenz (co-plotting and pencils), John Livesay (inks), Heroic Age and Christie Scheele (colors), and John Workman (lettering). The other would have been shortly after that, probably 48 or 49. So it's probably Defalco (script and co-plot), Pat Olliffe (co-plot and pencils), Al Williamson (inker), Angelo Tsang and Calvin Lo (colors), and Randy Gentile (lettering).