Interview with “Hero” author Perry Moore

AE: Have you gotten any response from the comic book community?
PM: I think probably the biggest one has been Stan Lee, who wants to turn it into a movie. That’s pretty affirming for a legend like Stan who happens to be an older, straight white male to think that. It’s just a wonderful shot in the arm for the genre. That’s just such a validation.

I don’t know about the rest of the comic book industry. I’d love it [Hero] to be its own comic book. I was so fueled by the horrible treatment of gays, which I’ve documented pretty clearly. In almost all of comic books, it’s just jaw-dropping. It’s sort of a white, straight boys’ club … The few exceptions are pretty wonderful, but by and large it’s pretty scary. I’d love for them to bring more people like me in to change it for the better.

AE: There are some really great comics writers out there, but the great things they do will eventually be handled by someone in the boys’ club.
PM: Yep. Terrible. That’s another reason I wrote this as a book first and not as a comic book because I was never going to create a character that another company could own and, all of a sudden, they bring in some other writer to say, “Oh, it was all a dream. He’s straight now.” There are certain characters and they turn out to be gay and they’re made straight, well, like Green Arrow’s son … or Rictor in X-Force, [they’re] hooking up with a woman now.

It’s sad that there’s such an incredible lack of role models for gay characters and even worse, there’s a very ugly side of comic books where they don’t even realize or care how they treat the gay characters. When Wolverine killed Northstar it just was so unbelievable and then they bring him back and he’s a murderous zombie assassin and they leave him drooling in the care of S.H.I.E.L.D. It’s just unbelievable. Can you imagine if they’d done that to the the most prominent female hero or the most prominent Latino or Black character? They would have never have gotten away with it.

I remember I even called GLAAD when it happened. They didn’t even bother to call me back for three months. They just didn’t care.

My parents taught me two really important things that played into this book. One was that we were not put on this earth to ride in the back of the bus, but the other was that the pen is mightier than the sword. So I really took that to heart when I wrote the book. If people think it’s bold or pandering then great, but why not ask for heroes of all kinds? Why can’t there be a gay superhero?

AE: In Hero you create your own superhero setting from scratch. There’s a balancing act between hitting familiar notes while still coming up with an original universe of your own.
PM: That’s true, that’s really, really true.

AE: How did that process work for you?
PM: You’ll see the older generation of superheroes [in the book], I model after very familiar comic book characters … I tell a lot of people, “Old bigots don’t really worry me. They’re not going to be around much longer. The young bigots terrify me.”

But young people aren’t stupid, they think for themselves. And they can still change their minds, shape their opinions about all sorts of things. So by design in my book, I had the older generation of superheroes be very familiar and tried to put my own little new twist on it. But really, it’s Thom’s generation of heroes that are supposed to be the ones that are a little more breathtakingly original or daring like Miss Scarlett and Typhoid Larry and even Ruth, even though she’s older.

Thom’s immediate team, which may seem a little more like a B-list squad of wannabes, they’re actually a lot more interesting and powerful because of who they are in their differences, and they were such a joy to write and I think that's why they’re sort of front and center.

AE: That was what I was coming to ask you next. The group Thom hangs out with they remind me a lot of D-list type groups like The Legion of Substitute-Heroes…
PM: Oh, yeah, well, Typhoid Larry for sure … Infectious Lass was such a hoot. I remember that was funny. You know, Golden Boy’s not like that and Ruth’s a true original. Miss Scarlett was based on one of my dearest, dearest friends today from childhood. I remember I spent the night at her house after I came out to my parents. She’s a really close friend of mine and in some ways I based Scarlett on her. Scarlett came very natural to me because I just channeled Bretta. And Ruth, coming from the South, they have a great tradition of older women who don’t mince words. There are a lot of them in my family. So her voice was really great to write, too.

AE: What do you think is the more oppressive secret that Thom was hiding from his father: His superpowers or his sexual orientation?
PM: Boy, they are both big ones. Both were strictly verboten in that household. I don’t know. It’s a big competition. That’s why I put them in the story, throwing them against each other. Give him as many obstacles as I could to overcome and then create a character and when you write well, the character tells you what to do.

I kind of want to impress with the book, too, that in some ways he just happens to be gay. It’s one of many issues he has to deal with, it’s not just that. Because people don’t ever say, “Oh, it’s about a straight superhero.” His whole identity’s not based on the fact that he likes guys.

The media likes to put labels on people, put you in your place and I think that’s a way to sell jeans and CDs. People are much more than that. It was really interesting because I was so down about comic books and their treatment of gay people and it was so wonderful — liberating — to write a book that’s so positive in its message.

AE: The book has some sexual references that are a bit unexpected.
PM: Yeah, it goes there.

AE: It’s a bit unexpected for a novel aimed at young adults. What was the age group you were aiming at and was there any discussion with the publisher about how sexualized the gay elements could be?
PM: Yeah, there are some things that are talked about that I don’t think survived [into the book]. Like I said, just tell the story as purely as you can. I guess it is bold, but the fact that a kid masturbates is — what kid doesn’t masturbate? Everyone does. I guess it’s probably bold, but it’s true and you have to be true to your story. And Thom, he’s 17. He’s very universal that way, like any other 17-year-old, he has sexuality. You have to be honest to that. You can’t ignore it or shy away from it.

AE: One thing we found in doing a little research we saw you interviewed on some Christian websites regarding your work as a producer on the first Narnia film.
PM: Actually, I’m a producer on all of them.