My own "Queer" experience, and how some gay cowboys influenced Batman & Deadpool

    I've never really given much thought about my own sense of identity, yet lately it's more that has been on my mind. I grew up in a very Baptist Christian family, raised on usual Christian beliefs. I didn't really understand the concept of church though as I really just wanted to stay home or do something more creative. As a kid I just wanted to be a good person to people, I was honest, I wore my heart on my sleeve, I cried easily. To be able to walk that path is a road with its own obstacles. 

    I've talked about this before in other writings I keep around the place, League of Comic Geeks and other friend groups, but I'm very open about my own personal experience with CSA, Child Sexual Assault. The trauma and pain of remembrance in those events, and the gullible nature of being young and innocent killed that child I once was. Throughout my Middle School career, I became more reclusive, severely depressed and underweight, I had to start therapy, not of my own volition, and things didn't really get any better. I had, and though mentally I've relapsed at times over the course of a decade and a half now, considered suicide as an option multiple times. I really had nothing.

    Middle school ends and I enter my High School years. I was very much a loner in this new world; I had one friend of mine who went to the same High School but in reality, I was alone. The few friends I had made in Middle School were gone, and the ones that I did have would eventually split away from me. I eventually made a friend, her name was Maddie, I haven't spoken to her in years, (I hope she's well; I should try and reach out to send her this, but it's been almost a decade), and she showed me a lot of kindness and introduced me to her friends, our schools LGBT club, the gay kids. 

    I was still very reserved in a lot of ways towards them; I never opened up much about my experience with CSA to them all, a few, but they treated me like a genuine human being, they didn't care that I was the awkward, geeky kid trying way too hard for people to accept him, I really felt happy even though many of them were Juniors and Seniors and would make their way through High School and into the adult world. I ended up discovering more things I really enjoyed through that gang, I joined a theatre class and even though I was meek, many of them showed me much the same kindness, some other kids clearly working through their own problems lashed out on me a few times I recall, nothing I recall doing but that's High School for you, pointless arguments of developing teens trying to find their own way.

    Years later I still struggle, it's not something you can really just get over, but the kind actions of those that society have casted off as "queer", ended up refueling some of that artistic innocence that I once had. 

    "Growing up Queer!" I guess you could say. 

    I ended up gravitating towards these kinds of outcasts in the media that I would consume. Your Freddy Mercury, David Bowie, Gregg Araki, Grant Morrison, Hirohiko Araki. These artists who would create these wonderful pieces that emotionally resonated with a boy who didn't really have a place of belonging outside of those few friends. Personally, I don't consider myself gay, I have an attraction towards emotional maturity and femininity in appearance, but I never really liked putting labels onto myself like many others have. Of course there's nothing wrong with that though, I believe that people have the right to live the way they wish, being true to themselves instead of hiding behind mountains of insecurities and anger. I've kissed a boy once or twice at a party or two after a dare or game, nothing I'm ashamed of. I had an online relationship with a trans woman I know and even though we felt it wasn't going anywhere, she's still my best friend and I love her like family. 

    Queer has always been an umbrella term for LGBTQA+ peoples. It's base definition meaning, "strange, odd", the outcasts of society, people who fall outside that social umbrella of "normalcy", truly though what is normal but a term to hide behind any meaning of individuality? Nothing is wrong with being you, how you talk, walk, dress, and impress. I would consider myself queer, for a 27-year-old man from the South I clean up fairly well on my best days and have some studs on my right ear as a form of self-expression. On my right ear, didn't mean for it to be that ear but it's the ear that is considered that many homosexual people get earrings on. I see nothing wrong with it considering that day and age was so long ago of people having to truly hide who they are before the days of the internet and worldwide unification on information. It's an expression of myself, my odd, my strange, my queer.

    Of course, I love talking about comic books, as any form of artistic creativity is ripe with the expressionisms of so many. Being able to find sympathy and understanding of young women's works like Peach Momoko's Ultimate X-Men (2024-2026) and Luana Vecchio's Doll Parts: A Lovesick Tale (2024-2025), books that I feel should be celebrated for their emotional expression of wonderful artists who want to be able to change at least one person's life, and the more I talk people's ears off on Immortal Hulk and it's use of trauma and identity as core themes, the more I fall in love with these pieces of art.

    What always got my focus was Grant Morrison's era on Doom Patrol (1989-1992) and The Invisibles (1994-2000) that would drive my love for these stranger casts of characters, and how their own pasts and experiences drive their own self expressive identities and the post-human dimensional adventures they go on. The character designs of these brightly colored, strange individuals and Morrison's own experiences in queer/drag culture which became a major influence on these works along with their own use of an ongoing Meta-Commentary between their works. Morrison's most recent work was on the popular Batman/Deadpool (2025) 2nd crossover issue, a story which covers their entire career and the Meta-Structure that they've been building up, but there was a Variant Cover I saw and read into that truly caught my attention. 

Morrison is quoted saying:

    This cover to me seemed to fly heavily under the radar. Quietly is always one of my favorite artists to bring into conversation along with their many contributions with Grant Morrison on their works. Two characters defined in pop culture as homoerotic, queer icons from Batman's Silver Age days of running around in multicolored tights with Deadpool's more blatant and flirtatious personality that he uses to hide those past traumas he has himself. This cover represents those two sides of Marvel and DC meeting together in an earnest, near romantic way.  While the original piece is obscenely erotic in base nature, there's this a real spirit of genuine and pure kindness in the way interact from the waist up. It's crass, it's blunt, it's humorous, but isn't that what love and affection are? This piece completely understands these kinds of boundaries and confidently being able to overcome the social norms of sexuality and expressive emotion. 

    It was a few months ago after many bad dates of trying to meet people online that I really noticed that physical and emotional attraction to people are two different ideologies. There's nothing wrong with finding someone attractive, its pure human nature, but discovering what makes someone tick and the emotional day to day is what relationships are even about.

    To be "Queer" is not just a term for being LGBTQA+, it's a term for us who live outside of the comfortable confines of status quo normalcy.