The final cultural barrier is shattered

SPIDER-MAN creator Stan Lee is to unveil the world’s first gay superhero.

High school basketball star Thom Creed hides his developing superpowers along with his sexuality.

Former Marvel Comics boss Stan, 86 — who also created the Hulk and the X-Men — will unleash the character in an hour-long TV drama being shot in the US.

If it’s a hit there it will cross to the UK.

TV execs hope it will rival the huge success of shows likes Heroes.

Lee developed the idea of a gay character from the award-winning novel Hero by Perry Moore.

A TV insider said: It was only a matter of time before we had our first gay superhero. And if there is one man who can make him a success it is Stan Lee.

There’s a real buzz among comic book fans.

I'm afraid that gay superheros have been around for years. I remember watching a TV show about them when I was a kid.

Think about it. Bruce Wayne, a never married millionaire who spends a lot of time in the gym, lives in his mansion with his "butler" Alfred and a doting elderly aunt who is so clueless that she cannot tell when people who live under the same roof with her are living secret lives.

Then he takes in Dick Grayson, a very athletic teenage boy - who throughout the entire series never had a girlfriend - as his "youthful ward".

Bruce and Dick dress in tights and spend a great deal of time associating with men who are steeped in American penitentiary culture, with all that implies.

When not "fighting crime" Bruce and Dick are avid patrons of the arts, attending the ballet, gallery openings and the theater.

Do I need to continue?

[Yeah, I know you've never heard any of those before]

As a powerful and influential member of the new media I have obtained an advertisement for the new series which is being shown to focus groups representing key demographic groups.

Seriously, I've known that Stan Lee was a wackjob since he apologized for making the communist North Vietnamese look like bad guys in the first issue of Iron Man.

Any doubt about where Mr. Lee stood on political/cultural issues was removed when he got so deeply involved with members of Bill Clinton's inner circle that he barely escaped a jail sentence.