Flash Thompson Is Gay: A Comprehensive Visual Essay

Flash Thompson is Gay: A Comprehensive Visual Essay

TRIGGER WARNINGS: alcoholism, abuse, homophobia, brief reference to The Child Within, which contains pedophilia 

Over the last year and half or so, I have read a number of Spider-Man comics and have reached many conclusions about them, but my utmost conclusion is that Flash Thompson is a gay man. It is very difficult for me to label male characters as gay, since we’ve all seen the way fandom can completely brush off women in favor of imagined gay men, but once this idea took hold, it stuck. I do not see Flash as truly having been intended to be gay since his conception, or even highly coded that way like Kitty Pryde or Johnny Storm. But along the lines of Bobby Drake, I just feel that it would be the final puzzle piece that would make his 50+ years of character development make sense.

This is not intended as propaganda or a way of seeing representation where it doesn’t exist, but a simple compilation of evidence.

We begin in high school.

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excuse me, he asked for no pickles

Hello, I was wondering who do you think Peter's best male friend is? I've seen it come up a lot that it's Flash or Johnny (usually saying Harry's the worst. I don't know why guess they hate him. I specifically remember reading someone say Flash is Harry done right, and i was like these are two different characters that represent different things) I know in real life people can have more than 1 best friend, but for you personally do you prefer one over the others?

I don’t know where this “Flash is Harry done right” thing is about but I keep seeing it and my only guess is it’s because the MCU made Flash an obnoxious rich kid, and that’s what people think Harry is? Which is a disservice to both characters, in my opinion, but then I’m generally not a fan of conflating versions of characters – especially from the same series – and saying one of them is a better version of another, like when people claim TASM!Gwen is only good because she’s really more like Mary Jane. (No.)

I would say that Peter has three men in his life who have best friend status, and they’re Harry Osborn, Flash Thompson, and Johnny Storm, and that who is the best-best friend changes depending on who is he focused on the most in the moment or depending on who currently needs him the most. I don’t know that I personally prefer one friendship over the other, because they all bring very different things to the table. I ship Peter with Johnny the most (though I’ve been very PeterFlash since Flash’s death crushed me emotionally), for example. I also think Johnny and Peter have something special because Johnny is the one who has gotten to spend the most positive time with Peter both in and out of the mask and because, unlike Flash and Harry, he forged a deep personal friendship with Spider-Man before Peter Parker. They also have an understanding of each other’s lives as superheroes and they can connect to each other on that level.

On the other hand, I think Peter’s relationship with Harry has the most complexity and it’s because of their deep friendship and their history that, when Harry is the Green Goblin, it makes for such compelling storytelling, because it’s not just a hate connection, it’s Harry’s trauma and his mental illness warring with his friendship for Peter, and Peter’s fighting the dual instinct to protect himself and to protect Harry. Spectacular Spider-Man #200 and Harry’s final action within it are, in my opinion, perfect comics. Harry and Peter have some real highs in their friendship, and when things are good, they’re really good, but when they’re bad, they’re some of the worst times Peter’s faced. There’s very few people in his life who know how to hurt him precisely as well as Harry does. That being said, there’s no denying that they love each other.

I actually think Flash and Peter’s friendship is the most underrated. Flash has known Peter longer than the other two, and although they weren’t friends at first, they’ve spent more time during the course of their relationship being friends than honestly disliking each other. Flash was Peter’s best man at his wedding, and he’s good at talking to Peter and offering him advice and support in ways not a lot of other characters are. In some ways I think they have the simplest connection on the surface; they’ve known each other so long, and in their own ways they’re both very athletically inclined people. In Amazing Spider-Man #341, while playing frisbee in the park with Flash, Peter says Harry’s “a terrific friend” but that he missed having “a pal, someone to buddy around with,” while referring to Flash. And Flash very clearly relies on Peter for emotional strength; when he’s sent out to look for his abusive father, his girlfriend at the time offers to go with her and he rebuffs her, only for him to appear on the next page having asked Peter for his help in the search. It’s a really deep friendship, but the fact that Peter’s always holding back by not telling Flash about Spider-Man – who, I don’t think it’s a big jump to read Flash as in love with, if he’s not also in love with Peter himself – means I don’t think it ever went as deep before Flash’s death as it could have. 

So they’re all really interesting, really layered dynamics that have been going on a long, long time, and they all bring something different to the table, so it’s hard for me to pick between the three of them. I think if I had to settle up, though, like if there was money on the table for me making this decision, Johnny is Spider-Man’s best friend, and Harry is Peter Parker’s when he’s not being Spider-Man’s worst enemy, with Flash as a very, very close second.

One thing that I feel most Spider-Man fans/writers get wrong about Peter Parker is that he’s… kind of an ass? Thinking specifically along the lines of baby Peter in high school, Lee/Ditko Peter? Baby Peter was not an innocent little angel child. He was an arrogant little smartass who has this air about him like he is going to open his mouth and say something extremely condescending, even from the standpoint of the reader. He’s rude. I want to smack him a little. There’s very much something there that gives the impression that he’s uptight and thinks he’s better than you.

And he never really does anything to disprove that idea, either, to his high school classmates- and in college at first. Harry, Gwen, and Flash being the little mean girl trio that follow Peter around campus and insult him is something so personal to me. But he’s so aggressive, both in that he picks fights and in the way he talks to his peers, in a way that I rarely see in adaptations. His responses to Flash’s taunts are often genuinely hurtful and aimed at his insecurities, whereas the Puny Parker stuff is annoying but Peter is always  internally laughing “if only he knew…” about it and shaking it off. Flash in the early comics reads as comic relief to me. He’s more of a rival, not a bully? There’s a difference: “Peter was bullied in school” and “Flash didn’t bully Peter” are two statements that are far from mutually exclusive. Obviously this is kind of void now given how their high school days are portrayed in modern times, but still.

Yes he always talks about wanting friends, and yet nothing about Ditko Peter screams friendliness or “please come talk to me” lmao. The only member of the gang he actually got off on the right foot with is MJ, and she’s introduced in a specifically romantic context. Flash and Peter have known each other forever, and Gwen and Harry both meet Flash first and are introduced to Peter through him insulting their new friend. Which is not the best first impression. Gwen and Harry hate him for a while and it’s wonderful. Flash and Peter are both stupid kids Filled With Rage but part of what I love about the coffee bean gang era is that both of them had growing up to do and their mutual realization that they had seen each other in a bad light when they were in high school. It’s about how BOTH of them subvert their stereotypes, not how they play into them.

Dreaming about them 🥰