I guess that Batman and Robin can get married now

DC Comics plans to reintroduce a character as gay in a future issue, it has been revealed.

Co-publisher Dan DiDio previously said that the company would not change the sexual orientation of an existing superhero and would bring in a new one altogether. 

But at Kapow Comic Convention in London on Sunday, he revealed that an existing character - who was previously assumed to be straight - will become ‘one of our most prominent gay characters’, according to comic blog BleedingCool.com.

It has been a good many years since I was into comics, and I haven't been into the DC universe since I was a small child, so I don't really care about this.

But, if I were black or gay I think I would find it insulting to be told that my sense of self worth could or should be influenced by a comic book publisher's decision to take a character that was created before I was born, before my parents were born in some cases, and make them gay or black.

Some of these comic book characters gave comfort and diversion to the nation's children (and more than a few adults) during the Great Depression and the Second World War.  Is there no sense of shame at DC that would lead someone to consider that tampering with the fundamental identity of these iconic characters is a bad idea and deeply disrespectful to the multiple generations of fans who loved these characters just the way they were?