In Meta-Messages, I explore the context behind (using reader danjack's term) "meta-messages." A meta-message is where a comic book creator comments on/references the work of another comic book/comic book creator (or sometimes even themselves) in their comic. Each time around, I'll give you the context behind one such "meta-message."

Today, I take a look at an acclaimed issue of Quantum Leap that very boldly took the show itself to task for an early episode of the series and the show's general depiction of LGBTQ characters.

NOTE: I find this issue of Quantum Leap notable for another reason, and I'll be covering that other aspect of the comic soon. So if you're wondering why I don't bring up that other aspect of the comic, well, now you know. So don't worry, I'll be talking about that part soon. I think that this comic is worth talking about more than once!

Towards the end of Season 2 of Quantum Leap, the awesome science fiction TV series that ran from 1989-1993 starring Scott Bakula as Doctor Sam Beckett, a scientist who travels through time by replacing different people in different years with a chance to fix something that originally went horribly wrong in the life of that person (or the lives of the people around that person), at which point Sam then "leaps" into a different year (all the while hoping that one day, he will leap back to his original time), there was an episode called "Good Night, Dear Heart."

In that episode, Sam leaped into the year 1957, where he swapped places (everyone still sees Sam as the other person) with a small town mortician who also serves as the local coroner.

There is a young woman whose body he is preparing that Sam believes was actually murdered. Sam has different theories as to who killed her (as Sam gets kind of obsessed with the beautiful young German immigrant himself), but ultimately he discovers that the girl's friend who she modeled for, fashion photographer Stephanie Heywood (played by a young Marcia Cross), was actually her lover.

They planned to move to New York City together, with the young woman (Hilla) being the model (and muse) for Stephanie. But Hilla then fell in love with a local young man and became pregnant. She planned to break up with Stephanie and the photographer couldn't take it and so she murdered Hilla. With Hilla's murder solved, Sam leaps to his next time period.

However, a lot of people took issue at the time with the fact that the first gay character on the series (the ONLY gay character in the first three seasons) turned out to be a murderer (the show then later drew praise, and controversy, for an episode with a gay protagonist in Season 4). Gay people can obviously be murderers, but when you only show a SINGLE gay person and they're a murderer? It's not a good idea.

Well, comic book writer Andy Mangels (long-time editor of Gay Comix, which he was actually editing at the time that this comic book came out) was one of the people who didn't like the episode and so he pitched Innovation Comics, the makers of the Quantum Leap comic book, on a comic that would address the issue. It became Quantum Leap #9, released at the end of 1992 (half a year before the series went off the air).

Mangels (whose website is here), went one step further and asked (and was given permission) to write an editorial explaining his issues with the original episode. It was quite cool of Universal Television to allow a licensed comic book that took their show to task like this. Here's part of Andy's excellent essay (I've lightly edited it to take out references of the thing that I said I was going to talk about in another article soon):

In the current election, Gays and Lesbians have become the new Willie Horton, the new Red Scare, the new boogeyman for the masses. Hysterical politicians scream that we're destroying the fabric of America, that we're anti-family, that we're unnatural, that we don't deserve the same rights as God-fearing Christians. In this, we are akin to the Black civil rights movement; not too many years ago, Blacks were denied the same civil rights that Gays and Lesbians are now asking for. In Oregon and Colorado, constitutional amendments will be voted on in November 1992, which would require discrimination and actively take away civil rights from Gays and Lesbians!

Hatred and bigotry are all too real in our society. You'll notice a reference to the Rodney King beating in this issue, oddly mirrored in 1969. The difference is that there were no video cameras then, though the same savagery took place - and does so still. Besides the physical beatings that gays and lesbians endure on the streets, there are the televised "beatings" such as the speeches at the Republican National Convention, or the more subtle attacks from TV shows and movies which only portray Gays in a negative and unrealistic light.

This issue's story is a sequel to "Goodnight, Dear Heart," a second season episode of Quantum Leap that angered many Gays and Lesbians. This first portrayal of homosexuality on the show had a Lesbian kill her lover, who left her for a man. This was hardly a realistic or balanced portrayal of lesbians; although there had been lots of heterosexual killers on the series, there were also heterosexual heroes. Until two seasons later, there was never a homosexual "hero" on Quantum Leap.

Part of Sam's stated mission on the series is "to put right what once went wrong." This issue's story is about the pain and the bravery and the anger and the happiness and the despair... and the hope behind a group of people's struggle for acceptance and equal civil rights.

Sometimes that struggle is a small one between two people. On April 25, 1993, it will be a struggle between millions of Gays and Lesbians and their supporters at the 1993 March On Washington in our nation's capitol.

This issue has been my way of helping "put right what once went wrong." Now it's your turn. Be accepting. Nurture and honor diversity. Do unto your neighbor as you would have done unto you.

Put right what once went wrong.

The issue was drawn by the great Mike Deodato, early in his career, and he did a fine job with it.

The issue opens with Sam-as-Stephanie being released from prison, as twelve years have passed from the earlier leap and this one...

As it turns out, Stephanie has continued to be an excellent photographer while in prison and has now become a bit of a sensation in the art world for her depiction of prison life. A wealthy benefactor then brings her to New York City, making Stephanie's original dream come true. When Sam realizes who she is, Al (Sam's friend in the future, where Sam is from, who worked with him on the time travel project and appears to Sam as a hologram that only Sam can see and hear and fills Sam in on what he needs to change before he is allowed to leap to the next time period) fills Sam in on what she went through since Sam last saw her...

It's very rare that someone gets a chance to do something as cool as this. Well done by Andy.

And, as I noted, we'll get into the other fascinating aspect of this comic book very soon!

Okay, that's it for this Meta-Messages. If anyone else has a suggestion for a good Meta-Messages, drop me a line at brianc@cbr.com!