When last we left our lively little Pride Month character review, we were talking about rainbow-colored comic book villains. It was all very festive (Go back one review if you missed it). We left off our bitchy recollections with the infamous Doctor Spectrum, who distinguished himself in comic book history not just for the use of his power prism, but also as one of those rare characters who was both a villain and a hero. As discussed last time, Spectrum showed up first as a member of the Squadron Sinister, then later as a member of the Squadron Supreme (pronounced "Oh my God, it's totally the Justice League, I mean just LOOK at them!"). Doctor Spectrum was probably best known, along with the rest of the Squadron, for being mind-controlled every other week and forced into fighting the Avengers. Considering what a big gay fetish mind control stories have become online, I think that says something about the doc right there. Different people (from different earths, even) have donned the Technicolor costume of Doctor Spectrum, one even being a woman. Last I knew, Doctor Spectrum got all rough 'n tumble and now resides in the Marvel MAX line, dishing out mature content along with his butt-whuppings.

Sounds an awful lot like a journey out of the closet, doesn't it? Doctor Spectrum starts out all snotty and angry, lashing out at heroes like Iron Man, later accepts himself and becomes a much nicer guy, winds up being unduly influenced by a bad crowd, eventually girds his loins and is willing to face anyone who gives him trouble and bash right back. Welcome to the Community, Doctor! [Yes, the theory has many sizeable holes in it due to the parade of different characters who have taken up the role of Doctor Spectrum, but it's just so much more fun to run with it anyway.]

No Pride Month hero lineup would be complete without Color Kid. Alien teenager Ulu Vakk was rejected by the Legion of Superheroes (Adventure Comics #342 in 1966) since his power to change the color of random objects was deemed exceedingly lame. Color Kid found refuge with the Legion of Substitute Heroes (Adventure Comics #351 1966), where he was accepted as a loser among losers. The gang of outcasts, a pack of goofs that would have made the cast of GLEE chuck slushees at them, soon became lighthearted comic relief, as epitomized in their outing to help planet Bismoll fend off the deadly Pulsar Stargrave (Legion of Subs Special #1 of 1985). Along the way, teammate Infectious Lass struck Color Kid with a bizarre gender-changing virus and turned him into a girl. I swear to God I am not making that up. Ask Paul Levitz and Keith Giffen. They wrote and drew it. Later on, Color Kid's powers evolved to become formidable, but as that's not worthy of ridicule, let's move on.

The first contender in our "Wow, That Was Fast" category, is an oft-forgotten rainbow hero who appeared for a whopping 1 ½ pages and was never seen again. He's Color Commando, and was one of the many one-shot heroes summoned when dialing "H" for Hero (Adventure Comics #479, 1980, with art by comic legend Carmine Infantino and the writer uncredited). Christopher King, whose own name was actually cooler than any of his heroic alter egos', dialed up the Commando to combat a talking sphinx and unleashed something he called "rainbow energy". I have no idea what that is or what it does, but the hero declared he gushed out enough of it to "blow up New York". While this summons images of Wall Street, Brooklyn Heights, and Battery Park all being magically converted into throbbing and flashing techno clubs, there must be something else to it, as the flamboyant energy did reduce the sphinx to dust and gravel. I do still think, however, that due to his name choice, the possible total lack of undergarments on the Color Commando remains suspect. Let's hope his hero's code keeps him from taking off anything more than his shirt if he hits those clubs in the rainbow-detonated Big Apple.

Coming in a close second in the speedy exit category was the aptly-named Rainbow, the female cyborg spaceknight from my favorite '80s series, ROM Spaceknight. Rainbow was introduced by team supreme Bill Mantlo and Sal Buscema in ROM #25 in 1982 and killed off a mere issue later—and only 9 pages in, at that. Rainbow made the mistake of trying to go toe-to-toe with Terrax, the most ruthless herald of Galactus, while wielding nothing more than empathic abilities. Terrax bitch-slaps the valiant heroine and blows her away in three panels. We never get to see what the extent of her emotion-manipulating powers could have been, as we only get a glimpse when Terrax proclaims while under the wash of her rainbow eyebeams—enervating him, yet—that he was "losing all desire to fight!" If this means he was struck with the desire to put on a pleated shirt and leather pants and boogie down, we can only guess. It is telling that Rainbow's dying words are to cry out to her sister spaceknight, Starshine, the golden cyborg with the bad pony tail. Hmm...

To give our two-part character review a grand finale, I had to do some digging. Who to focus on? Wasn't there a Golden Age hero named Rainbow? What about Rainbow, the leggy, colorfully-coiffed telepath from the DNAgents? No and no. This is Pride Month. We need something big, something fun, someone so laughably gay that he makes you want to dress up as him at the next comic convention just for the giggles. For that, we need—Rainbow Boy!! Never heard of him? Oh, goodie! That makes for even more fun. Get this:

In 1942, when comics were just chuckabang full of sexual subtext (do you have any idea how many times Wonder Woman and other heroines got tied up back then??), plucky little Jay Watson flitted onto the scene as Rainbow Boy, in—honest to God—Reg'lar Fellas Heroic Comics #14. But it didn't take more than a panel or two to make it crystal clear that Rainbow Boy was anything but a "reg'lar fella". Clad in white tights that hugged his lanky twink frame, Rainbow Boy wore a red executioner-style mask straight out of a bondage catalog, along with tiny matching red boots and rainbow wrist manacles. If you're pondering whether his ensemble could get much worse, atop his hood he had an actual arcing rainbow that stood out like a Roman centurion's helmet brush. Oh, my. Rainbow Boy's power of blinding light beams and flight worked best when sunlight shined upon him, but even in dim light, he could call upon his, and I quote, "ingenious solar battery" and fuel his abilities that way. So we've got a sexually overt barely legal lad who works best while in the spotlight, has a brightly fluttering inner flame, and a permanent Pride flag flapping behind him. Could he GET any gayer? Oh, yes he could.

Rainbow Boy hung around a guy called Hydroman, who seems straight enough, but the fact that he's bolted himself into what looks like an industrial rubber drysuit makes you wonder. There's a scene in which Rainbow Boy zips into a cell where the rubber-clad Hydroman is being held captive, and his mentor's expression is clearly one of, "Kid, get the damn red thong out of my face already."

Rainbow Boy's main mode of transport is rainbow propulsion, of all things, and he always moves as if he's prancing on air. With all that he has going against him visually, to top it all off, twinkie Rainbow Boy is totally ineffectual when it comes to saving innocents. In a bid to convince Hydroman's captor that doing bad is, well...bad, he treats the antagonist to a tour of fascist atrocities. There the gaily-outfitted Rainbow Boy stands on the sidelines, watching torpedoes blow up passing ships and innocents being mowed down by firing squads. Despite having displayed his powers as strong enough to stop enemy rocket ships, Rainbow Boy could not have done less to save those endangered lives than if he'd struck a pose, snapped his fingers at the Nazis and lisped, "Oh, no you di-int!"

I have no idea what eventually became of Rainbow Boy. If he was a kid in World War II, he may have opened a gay speakeasy in the fifties with Hydroman, or perhaps he was recruited by the American Modeling Guild when he ventured to a big city that Color Commando would eventually speak of blowing up. We may never know. Yet on this pride-filled month of June 2010, if while spying attractve slender gay college boys out and about we but imagine them in white tights and rainbow accessories, Rainbow Boy will surely live on in our hearts forever. I know he'll always live on in mine.

Happy Pride!

Brian Douglas Ahern (Briz), a cartoonist best known for his long-running strip The Adventures of Bumpkin Buzz, writes reviews for Prism and is also a photographer and a certified hypnotist. He's presently working with fellow Prism-featured creator Randall Kirby on an adventure/humor comic book featuring gay characters. Brian's videos of his cartoons and hypnosis can be seen at http://www.youtube.com/user/BrizyComics.

Doctor Spectrum © 2004 Marvel Comics. Review © 2010 Brian Douglas Ahern.

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).