Stan Lee recently announced that he just created the first gay superhero. The character's name is Thom Creed, a high school basketball player who hides his sexuality and superpowers. Kind of like a superhuman Zac Efron in High School Musical. Stan Lee is awesome but the guy cannot have that bad a memory. Of course, there have been many gay superheroes over the past 30 years or so, but he's probably saying that his is the first because the others aren't super-well known. Well, here are just a few gay and lesbian heroes to geek out over: Northstar (X-Men) - Considered to be among the first gay superheroes to come out of the telephone booth, Northstar is a super-fast mutant in the X-Men universe, and has been a member of both the X-Men and Alpha Flight, a Canadian superhero team. In the late 80's, Northstar contracted a 'mysterious illness' -- it was going to be revealed as AIDS, but Marvel was really homophobic at the time. So the illness was explained as the result of him being away from his homeland too long because, I'm not making this up folks, Northstar was actually a magical fairy. Thankfully they retconned all of that, so now he's just a gay mutant, no Tinkerbell wings required.

Batwoman (Batman) - Ironically, Batwoman was created in the 50's as a love interest for Batman, specifically to disprove rumors about Batman and Robin's special partnership. She was killed off in the 80's, because nobody gave a shit about Batwoman, and therefore was easy to axe. In an effort to diversify their characters, DC re-launched Batwoman in 2006 as a super-hot Jewish lesbian. She dated Gotham Police detective Renee Montoya, who's also hot. Though some have complained, my dreams have not. Apollo and Midnighter (The Authority) - These are two Wildstorm/DC characters from a book called The Authority, created by Warren Ellis, who mirror the far more famous Superman and Batman. Apollo is solar powered, super strong and practically invulnerable. Midnighter is a masked, all-black wearing badass. However, a big difference is that Apollo and Midnighter are married and have an adopted daughter. So now we know approximately what Batman and Superman would look like kissing, via these two characters. Actually, the internet being what it is...

Hulkling and Wiccan (Young Avengers) - Conceived in 2005, shapeshifter Hulkling and spell-casting Wiccan are gay teen superheroes in the Marvel Universe. They're an outed gay couple, despite Hulkling being half-Skrull (that would make for an interesting marriage ceremony). Deadpool even joked about them in an issue, referring to Wiccan and Hulkling as "looking especially nubile." Or maybe he wasn't joking? Pretty Much Everyone in Sailor Moon - Okay, not everyone. However, in Japan they have more relaxed attitude towards gay and lesbian couples, so while there's fan speculation about every character being gay, there are two confirmed "canon" couplings: Sailor Uranus and Sailor Neptune, as well as bad guys Kunzite and Zoisite. Also gay: dudes who watch Sailor Moon.