The book, by “Chronicles of Narnia” executive producer Perry Moore, who is gay, has prominent supporters: Stan Lee, co-creator of “Spider-Man” and “The X-Men,” and author Maurice Sendak lent blurbs; Lee wants to produce a movie version. “Hero” will surely take fire. The American Library Association says last year’s most frequently “challenged” children’s books included four with gay characters. “Parents worry that a child who reads a book with a gay character or theme will be more likely to become gay,” says Columbia University psychiatrist Justin Richardson, co-author of the most-challenged book, “And Tango Makes Three.”
“Hero” is part of a kid-lit trend: gay characters with “more positive” stories, says the ALA’s Erin Byrne. “It’s not like, ‘I’m a gay teenager, here’s my miserable life’.” Gay characters have often met awful ends—like Marvel’s Northstar, who was impaled and resurrected as a zombie assassin. In “Hero,” Creed saves the world.
