Sometimes it takes a while to get to something, even with the best of intentions, but I was still surprised that it took me 20 years to read the Gotham Central comics. I always liked the creators involved, and always enjoy comics that look at the fucked-up world around Batman, but I only just read the series this year when I spotted the first three hardcovers at the local library.
It's aged fairly well - the art from Michael Lark is still rock solid, and while it's just a little too obvious that the writers were really, really into the works of David Simon at the time, it's generally a strong and occasionally complex read.
And yet, one thing that has aged weirdly is the storyline about Renee Montoya and her sexual preferences. She spends a large part of the series coming out to her family, and dealing with the fall-out from her orientation being exposed to her colleagues.
It's a 20-year-old comic that undoubtedly blazed some trails, and I'm sure was important for readers who really needed it at the time, but treating the coming out process with big, full page cliffhangers feels a bit crass now, when that kind of thing just isn't that kind of a big deal (or really, really shouldn't be).
Reading it now, you just want Renee to tell the homophobic fucks who treat her like crap for being her true self to fuck all the way off, because who cares what they think about anything?
Cops are absolute bigots in this comic, and obviously they largely still are now - the world ain't changed that much - but they might not be so openly brazen about it in 2024, without HR ripping them a new hole.
There is still a lot of absolute bigotry in the world - the shit my trans brothers and sisters and others have to put up with every day drives me to fucking despair - but it's just a little surprising how ham-fisted some stories could be over these kinds of subjects, even in a 21st century Batman book.
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