X-Factor #45

It's a good week for gay characters in comics.

Detective Comics #854 features the first openly gay lead solo character in a flagship title in the DC Universe -- Kate Kane, Batwoman -- with a backup feature starring a second lesbian character, Renee Montoya.  Guardians of the Galaxy #15 has lesbian couple Phyla-Vell and Moondragon being open and affectionate -- and kicking ass.  Runaways #11 features the always-awesome gay character of Karolina.  Uncanny X-Men: Utopia touches on the classic mutants-as-gays metaphor by featuring a Proposition 8-like anti-mutant law, San Francisco riots, and the rhetoric of the anti-gay movement ("Adam and Eve, not Atom and Eve"), all the while including gay characters like Northstar, Karma, Anole, and Graymalkin among its cast.

And in X-Factor #45, Rictor and Shatterstar, long rumored to be a couple since an aborted storyline during Jeph Loeb's 90s X-Force run, kiss on-panel.

This shouldn't be as big a deal as it is.  But to my knowledge, this is the first male/male romantic kiss ever to appear on-panel in a Marvel comic.  I don't know where the storyline will go from here, and I don't know if the two men will be a couple.  But the fact remains that this panel, this kiss, exists.  That a barrier has been broken that even Marvel's most prominent gay couple -- Hulkling and Wiccan of the Young Avengers -- have not managed to break.  Kudos to Peter David for taking that leap of faith (in an issue that is, frankly, awesome and entertaining regardless of the kiss).

It's a small step, but it's a step.  And put into perspective with all those other titles, the chances for equality in representation are looking just a little bit brighter this week.  Color me pleased.