The Golden Age Green Lantern's Sexuality: An Exploration
A thorough look at Alan Scott's history of gaycoding.
When Infinite Frontier (2021) #0 had Alan Scott speak the words that would retroactively make him the first canonically gay character in comic book history, the official DC Comics press release called it "a story that’s been decades in the making". However, many have wondered just how true that is when this historic revelation has so often been under fire from 'retcon' accusations.
Press release by DC Publicity from March 2021.
The answer is that Alan Scott has indeed been gaycoded since his very first appearance in All-American Comics (1939) #16. To some, that's a highly controversial line of thinking but it's one reliably proven by any dedicated read of Alan's entire publication history.
I don't believe Mart Nodell had necessarily sat down with the intention of creating a gay character, it was a much more natural development than that. While Bill Finger does occasionally get co-creator credit, it's important to note that the Golden Age Green Lantern had arrived fully-formed when Nodell pitched the character to editor Shelly Mayer and it's plain to see from most interviews regarding his creation that there had never been intended for any woman to feature heavily in GL's adventures.
Nodell speaking about creating GL in Alter Ego #5.
It's likely that Bill Finger attempted to insert a degree of normalcy into Alan's daily life with the introduction of secretary Irene Miller but whatever the intention behind Irene, she vanished into thin air just two years after her debut without having ever become anything more than an occasional friend and ally.
By the time now-renowned sci-fi author Alfred Bester became Green Lantern's primary writer in mid-1943, any pretence of such normalcy was abandoned — Irene disappeared, Alan explicitly and angrily rejected any woman's advances, and he and male best friend Doiby Dickles moved in together. It was Bester who wrote the vast majority of Alan's 1940s stories up until the twilight of the Golden Age, and it was Bester who invested time and care into a consistent characterisation and well-written stories that still stand out amongst their contemporaries. Considering some of Alfred Bester's later work like The Demolished Man (1953), Who He? (1953), and Golem 100 (1980) all feature gaycoding or explicitly gay characters (in the case of the latter), there can be no argument made that straight writers of the period had no awareness of LGBT people. In fact, it was around this time that Doiby and Alan's relationship was called into question in Gershon Legman's Love & Death: A Study in Censorship — the precursor to Fredric Wertham's infamous Seduction of the Innocent.
In fact, there is a treasure trove of telling moments throughout all of Alan's Golden Age appearances. Here are a few notable examples:
In All-American Comics (1939) #71, Alan is completely immune to a mad scientist’s daughter who has been specifically created to be irresistible to men. He’s the only man shown as immune.
In Green Lantern (1941) #34, Alan refuses to go on a date by pretending his dog dislikes women.
In Green Lantern #33, he reacts with disgust to the idea of marrying a woman.
In Green Lantern #13, Doiby falls for a debutante that only has eyes for Alan. Meanwhile, Alan can’t stand any affection from her.
In All-American Comics #60, Alan & Doby are showing sharing a bathroom and a bedroom.
A couple other examples of such intimacy from GL #29, AAC #54, The Big All-American Comic Book (1944) #1, and GL #34 — this is the status quo for most of their Golden Age stories.
John Broome, who took on writing duties after Bester, not only kept the now-established status quo of Alan's dislike of women but he kept it all the way into the Silver Alan: all of Alan's appearances in Green Lantern (1960) have him as a confirmed bachelor still living with his male best friend; a fact made especially notable by Alan's employees at the Gotham Broadcasting Company being aware of this and calling Doiby Alan's 'man friday' in GL #40.
The aforementioned Silver Age Green Lantern issue.
It is this portrayal of Alan that also carried over into the 1976 revival of All-Star Comics, where his lack of female companionship is emphasized by his complete dedication to his job.
Writer Paul Levitz’s retrospective on his and Gerry Conway’s All-Star Comics run in The Amazing World of DC Comics #16.
It was Infinity Inc (1984) Annual #1 that introduced the retroactive continuity regarding Alan's relationship with Rose Canton — the would-be mother of his children — and Molly Mayne. Up until that point, Alan Scott had been a confirmed bachelor for forty-five years and a certain reading of him was starting to become inevitable. That is the real retcon, now incorporated into current continuity by having Rose and Molly act as 'beards' during the long and perilous period of time Alan had been in the closet. Still, it is impossible not to acknowledge the fact that outside that story only male friendships had ever been prioritized in Alan's life, and he had been explicitly and repeatedly portrayed as a lonely man married to his job and an oddity among the JSA's many happy couples.
The confirmation of Alan Scott's sexuality did not come out of nowhere and in fact, for more than half his existence, it was quite frankly the only possible reading for those willing to look beneath the shallow surface.