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In a recent Alex Ross interview with Wizard Universe about the upcoming Justice Society of America relaunch, Ross says this about Obsidian, one of DC Comics' few gay male characters, as seen in Marc Andreyko's Manhunter:

Quote:

WIZARD: The last character I'm noticing on the cover of Justice Society of America #1 is Obsidian because you get a table of all these other characters you get to do in full, and all you get to draw for him is his floating eyes. Will you ever draw the full Obsidian?

ROSS: I have no idea. I don't know that that would be the case. Obsidian being put into the JSA is a lot like—and I'm speaking for Geoff here, which he may not agree with—but it's him grabbing a character that's just going to get molested further in other writer's hands. So he's grabbing him and putting him in the group so he at least can be shepherding this character that belongs in this association. Maybe he'll make sure that no other writers get any "fun, creative" ideas with him.

End quote.

This has been taken by many to be a slur against Obsidian's "outing" in Manhunter, as that is the only major use of the character in a few years; indeed, the last writer to tackle the character before Marc Andreyko was Geoff Johns in the previous run of JSA, wherein Johns first portrayed the character as evil before depowering him entirely.

As Johns is writing the upcoming Justice Society of America series as well, Ross seemingly doesn't have a problem with Johns' previous handling of the character.

Ross' comments have started a veritable shitstorm of responses on one forum alone, comicbloc.com.

Geoff Johns has distanced himself from Ross' statement in the second of the above links but as yet, Ross has not clarified his stance or defended himself about possible misquoting in the Wizard interview.

Matt Kamen is a freelance journalist and so-close-you-can-taste-it comic writer from the UK. A regular contributor to UK Magazines NEO and 360 Gamer, Matt also writes a column for mania.com titled 'It Came From The UK!', a weekly look at geeky happenings in the UK. Openly bi but with a girlfriend of two years, Matt feels like the straight guy begrudgingly allowed into the gay world.

Prism Comics promotes the works of the LGBT community in comics. It does not implicitly endorse any other material or products associated with those works. Any opinions expressed are those of the author(s).