Terry Berg
Gender: Male
Orientation: Gay
Publisher: DC
Character Type: Secondary
Alignment: Good
AKA: N/A
Summary: Terry Berg, who is gay, served as the assistant to Kyle Rayner during his time as a cartoonist at Feast Magazine. Notably, Terry is featured in a story line named "Hate Crime," in which he is the victim of a severe, and nearly deadly, beating by homophobic men after leaving a club alongside his boyfriend, David. This arc received a GLAAD Award for "Outstanding Comic."
Database Links: DC Wiki, Comic Vine
Important Issues: It is revealed that Terry has unreciprocated feeling for his boss, Kyle Rayner, in Judd Winnick's Green Lantern (Vol. 3) #137.
With good will being generated toward Terry, why then are things taking such a dark turn with the gay bashing?
''It's a story that needs to be told,'' Mr. Schreck said. Some real-life tragedies have also played a role. ''Where we're bringing Terry is very similar to the Brandon Teena and Matthew Shepard moments,'' Mr. Schreck said, referring to the cross-dressing woman in Nebraska who was murdered in 1993 and the gay University of Wyoming student who was beaten, tied to a post and left to die in 1998.
(Read more)George Gene Gustines, "A comic book gets serious on gay issues; A major character becomes a victim of a hate crime," New York Times, August 13, 2002.
The Green Lantern hate crime story line provides a compelling opportunity to examine reader response to an important moment in the history of the US comic book industry... In order to assess reader reactions to the anti-gay hate crime story line, we analyze twenty-nine unpublished letters written in response to the story line [and] argue that there was a meaningful level of understanding regarding issues of concern to the gay community among these particular letter writers. (Read more)
Valerie Palmer-Mehta and Kellie Hay, "A superhero for gays? Gay masculinity and Green Lantern" The Journal of American Culture, 28(4), December 2005. [Note: Full text available from ResearchGate.]