The SCI FI channel is set to launch the second season of their hit reality show Who Wants To Be A Superhero and as with last season's program there is an out gay contestant competing for the right to be comic book legend Stan Lee's next superhero. His name is Dan Williams and the twenty-eight year old college head department head from Orlando, Florida is competing as Parthenon, an archeologist whose powers arise from his “Armaguard” an ancient bracelet he found on a dig. AfterElton.com recently caught up with Williams to learn more about Parthenon's superpowers as well as the man behind the suit.

AfterElton.com: We've all heard that Ancient Greece was supposedly a pretty gay place. Did that have anything to do with the Parthenon name for your superhero?
Dan Williams: It's actually kind of a funny story. The Parthenon name for my superhero wasn't the original name for it. My original name for superhero was called Paragon, which is — like my powers — gemstone based. A paragon is like an unfiltered gemstone or a pinnacle of perfection, but at the last second they found out another superhero used Paragon, so I couldn't be called that anymore. So then we worked together and came up with Parthenon.

AE: What's the story behind Parthenon? I know he's got Atlantian gems ...
DW: Atlantean gemstones, yes. Basically, how he got his powers is he was an archeologist. And he was on a dig and — the shortened version is there was an earthquake and he found a secret chamber and inside of it was a bracelet. The bracelet, when he put it on and when he touches it, morphs into this big gauntlet thing that he wears on his wrist. It gives him a little bit of super powers — invulnerability, flight and super-strength. And then there are Atlantean gemstones and when you put a little gemstone into each little slot on the gauntlet, it gives you another super-power. Right now he has three different gemstones — the moonstone which gives him illusion powers, the echo emerald which gives him sonic powers and the Eye of Apollo diamond that gives him a protective shell.

AE: What was the inspiration for the character and the look?
DW: The inspiration for the character came about from the gauntlet, that was my original idea for it. I knew I wanted something to wear around my wrist and I knew I wanted it to be kind of interchangeable where it's continuously growing. And that's how I came up with the jewels and putting them in it — almost like The Mandarin's rings. Are you familiar with comic books a little bit?

AE: Yes.
DW: Mandarin's rings — each one gives him a different super power, kind of like that sort of thing. So I came up with the gauntlet first, then the costume I kind of morphed out of that. And I knew I wanted an off-the-shoulder cape — I had to have that. I wanted to keep the Greco-Roman look, that's why I wear a little bit of a toga-type thing.

AE: Superheroes are often meant to be looked up to as role models, but gay fans have had few they could look up to — is that part of your inspiration for being on the show? And who did you look up to as a kid?
DW: That's actually a really good question because there's not actually a lot of gay superheroes out there. As a kid, I used to look up to the normal superheroes, that's all you had to look up to. Some of my favorite gay superheroes come from when I got a little bit older. There used to be a comic called Young Heroes in Love, did you read it?

AE: Oh, yes.
DW: It was in the 90's or something crazy and I used to love it because it was a superhero soap opera. And they were very sexual — almost — in that one. Off-Ramp and Frostbite were two main characters in that one and finally, in the end of the comic book, they got together. And then they canceled the series, so you never find out what happened. But that was it for gay superheroes that I liked. But nowadays there's more to choose from like Wiccan and Hulkling from Young Avengers and things like that. But as a gay superhero, now, I do like the whole aspect of being a role model for them.