Queering Other Peoples' Comics With a Shining Knight

With one quick flick of the proverbial wrist, in 2005, Grant Morrison and Simone Bianchi queered over three hundred comics they did not, themselves, contribute writing or artwork to. By introducing a younger, nonbinary trans Shining Knight, named, as the original, Justin or, without the anglicization, Ystin, and the element of pluralistic time travel, all Justins, all Shining Knight appearances became queer and queer representation. No degree of adding a beard to the Shining Knight, as some later takes have, can remove their queer and nonbinary element. Every older Shining Knight named Justin is Ystin, now and ever, in spirit if not in canon, and any attempt to re-bottle the faerie is made a naked and blatant queering, itself, in the sense that to address queerness openly is inherently, also, queer.

Similarly, making Ystin more slender, unbinding their breasts, playing with hair or hairstyle, only queers; cannot un-queer.

The Shining Knight of All-Star Squadron (set in the 1940s), who espouses rigidly gendered politics but also dismisses them as soon as they are countered, is now a study of a genderqueer adult, lost to their time, culture, and nation, trying to adapt to the rigidity of the 1942 United States of America.

Bare legs and svelte. Leading with a big chin massively-bodied. Small and baby-faced. Muscled. Un-muscled. All Ystins are Ystin. Anyone else donning the guise is someone dressing like this queer knight. They’re all drag artists and crossdressers and into genderqueer fashion now.