#wildstorm comics

some Dustin Nguyen art.

Perhaps the most insulting thing about DC wanting credit for having such groundbreaking queer superheroes is that Midnighter and Apollo weren’t even DC characters during their most creative and successful years. They were created by Warren Ellis and Bryan Hitch in 1997 in Stormwatch, published by Wildstorm Comics, which was then an imprint of Image Comics before being purchased by DC a year later. DC didn’t create their success or foster their status as pioneering gay superheroes (that was all due to Wildstorm’s independent and edgy creative team)—if anything, DC fought against it. In 2000, DC vice-president Paul Levitz infamously censored a kiss between the couple because he felt they were “making fun of Superman and Batman.” (It was only a few years later, during Levitz’s presidency at DC, that he apparently didn’t have a problem with Brokeback Mountain jokes in Batman/Superman comics, but that’s another story). And that, really, is the crux of it. DC hates Midnighter and Apollo not because they’re gay, but because they’re gay pastiches of DC’s two most iconic heroes. Progressive as modern DC can be, it’s hard to believe they’ve truly gotten over their discomfort about Midnighter and Apollo’s unsubtle and satirical origins.

There’s also the fact that while the New 52 screwed over basically everybody, it began the DC tradition of absolutely destroying everything good and interesting about the former Wildstorm Universe. Yes, DC gave Midnighter a solo book and then a miniseries he shared with Apollo that centered their romantic relationship (one written by a gay man, no less) but those were still lackluster efforts when contextualized with the fact that the DC versions of these characters are heavily sanitized and depowered, barely a shadow of their former selves (especially Apollo). Wildstorm (in spite of DC rather than thanks to DC) made them the first gay couple to get married in comics and gave them an adopted daughter during an era when gay adoption rights were even more hotly debated than they are now. Post-Flashpoint, DC then broke them up, eventually let them get together again, and then basically stopped using them (and then when they did, like in Superman and the Authority, Apollo thinks Midnighter’s cheating and he’s doesn’t really deny it). A far cry from their glory days as devoted husbands and co-parents in the 2000s! Now they usually only appear in Pride specials, and even then it’s either “we’re using them for laughs and also Apollo’s the housewife teehee” (2025) or “Midnighter’s there but Apollo’s not despite them sharing a cover” (2021). They’re given no mainstream exposure, no meaningful character development, no creative endeavors.

Rest in peace, Sam Kieth (1963 – 2026)

2000's The Authority Vol.1 #20 cover by Frank Quitely, Trevor Scott and David Baron.