Extraño
Real Name Gregorio de la Vega

ADVANTAGES: Attractive Appearance -2D, Charismatic -3D, Contact (Justice League Foundation) -5D, Leadership Ability -2D, Magically Adept -5D, Renown -3D, Wealth -4D
DISADVANTAGES: Dependent (Young Daughter) +3D, Dependent (Sylvan Ortega, his apprentice) +1D, Moral Code (Against Killing) +2D

POWERS: Wizardry 10D

EQUIPMENT: The Boots of Dalphi (Flight 6D)

BACKGROUND: Created by writer Steve Englehart and artist Joe Staton, Extraño was very open about his queer identity. He tended to dress and speak in an overtly flamboyant manner, insisting all the while that his team members call him “Auntie.” But then, subtlety didn’t really play much of a role in New Guardians, especially when it attempted to address the social issues of the 1980s. After all, this was a series which included a villain named Snowflame who gained powers through snorting cocaine—and another who gleefully spread HIV and called himself the “Hemo-Goblin.” Though well-meaning and intended to reflect a more modern world, New Guardians does not stand the test of time. It was a series which may have stood to benefit from some sensitivity training.

When New Guardians was canceled in 1989, Extraño vanished along with it. But in his wake, many characters even older than he became open about their own identities as gay men. This included Obsidian, Infinity, Inc. member and son of the Green Lantern Alan Scott; Tasmanian Devil, Australian representative of the Global Guardians; and Pied Piper, reformed enemy of the Flash. As awkward in execution as many first steps are, Extraño helped pave the way for more diverse sexual representation throughout the DC Universe.

For over 25 years, Extraño enjoyed retirement in obscurity. That changed in 2015, when Justice League of America and Supergirl writer Steve Orlando was called upon to write a limited series which would conclude the New 52 romance between Midnighter and Apollo. A queer author himself, Orlando felt it was time to bring back DC’s original gay character from limbo to help celebrate DC’s first comic headlined by an openly gay couple. Orlando introduces us to a Gregorio De La Vega who acts more demure with age, but who holds no less power. De La Vega demonstrates passing familiarity with Midnighter and even aids Midnighter’s journey into Hell to retrieve his love Apollo from Neron’s clutches. The matured De La Vega alludes to “Extraño” almost as if he were some other man, as far from the person he is today in space as in time. He has made his home in Peru, where he practices powerful magic, and raises a young angelic daughter with his husband, Hugh—heavily implied to be Tasmanian Devil of the Global Guardians.

De La Vega goes on to make an appearance in the final issue of Orlando’s Justice League of America, as part of Vixen’s newly founded proactive “Justice Foundation.” Thanks to Orlando’s reintroduction, De La Vega has returned to a role of prominence in the mystical corners of the DC Universe, recently playing host to one of the Lords of Order in writer James Tynion IV’s Justice League Dark.