Northstar

Northstar was a Canadian superhero in the Marvel Comics universe, who, in Alpha Flight #106 (1992), broke a longstanding taboo by coming out of the closet and annoucing that he was homosexual.

Comics have long contained hints and innuendos about the sexual orientation of many major heroes.

In the 1950s, anti-comic activist Frederic Wertham imagined that there was the homoeroticism in Batman's relationship with Robin, his then teenage sidekick. Writers at DC comics utterly rejected this characterization of their characters as an unfounded attack. Over the years the writers of Batman at DC comics have consistently held to one overriding relationship between Batman/Bruce Wayne and the first Robin/Dick Grayson, and that was a father-son type relationship.

Nevertheless, Northstar was the first hero to openly state that he was gay. The story ended shortly after, and the revelation of Northstar's sexuality never figured in the remaining issues of the series.