Donner and Blitzen. No, not Santa’s reindeer, but a pair of lesbian superheroes. Donner is the large, very strong blonde-haired one, Blitzen the very fast dark-haired one. Kick-ass attitude is mixed in with genuine affection. Donner and Blitzen are also featured in Heroes, a later series featuring some of the more popular Milestone super-heroes. A recurring sub-plot in this mini-series is the consequences of the two heroines coming out to the press in the third issue.

A later revival of the Milestone characters, Static Shock not only features Static and his gay friend Rick, but also follows the present circumstances of the heroes from Blood Syndicate and Shadow Cabinet. This mean we also see brief appearances of Blitz, as well as Fade, another queer superhero discussed on these pages. Part of this new story-line involves the apparent death of Blitz’ lover, Donner.

LGBTQ significance of the characters of Donner and Blitzen

Back in 1994, gay and lesbian characters were still quite rare. Milestone as a publisher was consciously pushing itself to represent a diverse range of ethnicities as well as sexualities. What was unique was that Donner and Blitzen represented a committed relationship between two heroes of the same sex. Midnighter and Apollo would not appear for another four years.