This week’s Marvel vs DC showdown: bisexual icons

Tim Drake, the third iteration of Batman’s young pupil, Robin, officially became bisexual. In this week Batman: Urban Legends # 6, we see Drake become aware of his sexuality, and even land a date with a nice young man named Bernard.

“Have you ever had a blistering moment?” Drake wonders as he fights alongside his friend Bernard Dowd. “As if something in the ether is taunting you, teasing you.” As you know, you are supposed to be on the same page as your brain, but it just doesn’t make sense. People keep asking me what I want. But I couldn’t grasp it. It didn’t matter what it was. It always seemed out of reach. Until now. Until now.

“I thought a lot about that night and I don’t know what it meant to me,” Drake later told Dowd. “But I would like to know that.”

Dowd replies, “I was hoping you would. Tim Drake… do you want to date me? To which Drake replies, “Yeah… yeah. I think I want this.

Wow, a bisexual (and male too) character who thinks deeply about their sexuality and embarks on the same journey many others find themselves taking to find out, then immediately pursuing a romantic relationship with a male partner? And, it’s presented in a way that’s sure to continue, and not instantly be thrown to the side? Start the slam on the table by shouting, “Robin TV show! Robin TV Show! “

Meanwhile, more on the Marvel side of bisexual representation this week, Queer like folk Creator Russell T. Davies called the sidebar inclusion of his ‘pathetic’ sexuality and a ‘ridiculous, cowardly, weak gesture towards vital politics and the stories that should be told’. The most offered in terms of LGBT + representation in recent years at Marvel has been slyly included comments or asides, most recently seen in Loki, when the anti-hero confirms his bisexuality by telling Sylvie (his romantic interest in women) that he has been with “a bit of both”. That’s all he says, with no further exploration, let alone showing a romantic interest in someone of the same sex on the show.

While LokiKate Herron’s manager says she hopes to explore her sexuality later in the series, what we were really given in the first season was manual queer bait. While there are a host of canonically weird characters in the comics, Marvel has done this time and time again in promoting their films, as in Avengers: Endgame and Captain Marvel, expecting applause for their “innovative” performance which consists of of a background character mentioning a partner with the same pronouns as them. This bisexual writer? Not at all impressed. While DC certainly lacks representation in the same areas when it comes to their movies and TV series, they aren’t creating a buzz for them by promising LGBT + characters. However, Marvel has the chance to right its wrongs by Thor: Love & Thunder, what was teased two years ago as featuring strong queer representation with the bisexual Valkyrie, played by Tessa Thompson.

This week’s winner in terms of bisexual representation easily goes to Dvs.