A to Z: Apollo and Midnighter

Comicvine

Apollo and Midnighter are thinly-veiled versions of Superman and Batman, but bloodier and married.

And if you just sat up in your chair with a “Please… tell me more” expression, you’re in the right place! I think it’s fitting that our first installment of “LGBT+ comic characters” is about Apollo and Midnighter. They’re kind of the ur-couple, after all, and I happen to adore them… One of the earliest same-sex couples in comics, existing from 1998 in the Wildstorm Comics series Stormwatch, with a romantic reveal a year later in The Authority. Warren Ellis’s brainchild, the series takes the Justice League and raises them a level in grimdark, turning the whole thing into an unsettlingly-plausible vision of how superheroes might really behave if given the keys to the universe. The first two volumes of The Authority, before Warren Ellis left, are the ones you just gotta read. (If you’re me, you just gotta read all the rest of ’em too, but those first volumes will give you what you need!)

The relationship reveal happens at the end of volume 1 — and I’m sorry I had no choice but to drop the spoiler, I mean, it’s my whole topic — but you’ll see hints all the way through.

I can’t even with that smirk.

Recommended Reading: 

• The Authority Vol. 1: Relentless by Warren Ellis & Bryan Hitch, 978-1563896613.
• The Authority Vol. 2: Under New Management by Warren Ellis & Bryan Hitch, 978-1563897566
• The Wildstorm properties are now part of DC Comics and there’s a New 52 version of the couple in the new Stormwatch, but I haven’t read it yet!