Straight (and Not) Out of the Comics: Both DC and Marvel are making efforts to have a more diverse slate of superheroes. Marvel has had the famously gay Northstar for a while, but apparently the current efforts are more extensive.

Another effort to link old and new characters centers on Kathy Kane, the gay Batwoman who will appear in costume for the first time in a July issue of “52” [a yearlong DC Comics series]. Batwoman was introduced in 1956, but she was one of several, often silly additions to the Bat family, including Ace the Bat-Hound (1955), Bat-Mite (1959) and Bat-Girl (1961). In her latest incarnation, Batwoman is a wealthy, buxom lipstick lesbian who has a history with Renee Montoya, an ex-police detective who has a starring role in “52.”

That’s kinda neat.

The concern is understandable given DC’s uneven history with introducing minority characters en masse. In 1988 it published “The New Guardians,” about a super-powered team that included an aboriginal girl, an Eskimo man and Extrano, an H.I.V.-positive gay man who wanted to be called Auntie, who was dismissed online by a fan as a “limp-wristed caricature.”

That sound you hear is me cringing. Yes, I’m cringing so hard it’s audible.