Spoilers ahead for Dead Boy Detectives. Deceased detectives? Murder? A queer storyline? Say less. Netflix’s new hit series Dead Boy Detectives puts gay and queer relationships and reckoning in the forefront.
The show is based on the DC comics of the same name written by Neil Gaiman and is part of The Sandman universe. Both comic and TV series follows two boys who skip going to the afterlife to investigate different scenarios. Edwin Payne (George Rexstrew) was murdered in his school in 1916 after a hellish ritual gone wrong and was trapped in hell for quite some time. After narrowly escaping hell, he finds Charles Rowland (Jayden Revri) who dies from being bullied and together, they team up with their own investigation company. With the help of a clairvoyant named Crystal (Kassius Nelson) and her friend Niko (Yuyu Kitamura), they crack some of the mortal realm’s most mystifying paranormal cases.
By the time the finale rolls around, Edwin ends up confessing that he feels romantic feelings for his best friend and partner in crime, but they end up being fine by just being friends. On the storyline for the show, showrunner Steve Yockey told Out Magazine, “Some of the characters are queer, and they’re just queer and it’s a part of their life. Some of them are discovering their identity. There’s a lot of variety and types of queer representation. That’s really important too because every story can’t be a coming out story. After you come out. You have to live your life. So it’s nice for people to be able to watch a show where being queer is a piece of it, but they’re also solving cases, fighting monsters, trying to avoid death. A lot of stuff is going on.”
Read on below about if the Dead Boy Detectives are gay in the comics.
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Is Edwin gay in the Dead Boy Detectives comics?
Image Credit: Ed Araquel/Netflix © 2023 Like the show, Edwin is a closeted gay man in the comics. Since he went to a very religious Catholic high school, he was repressed in expressing his true sexuality. He comes out of the closet when he tells his best friend that he has feelings for him. “We always felt that Edwin died before he understood that he could be with a man,” Yockey told HuffPost. “As a ghost, he’s spent all of his time with best friend Charles, and that was good enough for him. So when Crystal comes along, that upsets this siloed dynamic.”
In the show, Niko helps Edwin come to terms with his sexuality—with the help of none other than Yaoi (gay Japanese anime). “You do know two boys can like-like each other, right? I have a lot of manga about it,” she quips. “It’s very sweet. And explicit.”
On the progression of the relationship with Charles, Yockey told TV Insider, “That was going to be the story, and because Charles is the person that he is, of course, Edwin’s going to fall in love with him and, of course, he’s going to handle it very well. The important thing to me was Edwin developing the bravery to confess his feelings, and Charles having the sort of confidence to accept those feelings and kind of be honest with his friend.”
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Is Edwin from Dead Boy Detectives gay in real life?
Edwin’s actor George Rexstrew has not said anything about his sexuality. In an in-depth interview with Teen Vogue, he heavily related to his character’s understanding of himself. “Edwin’s fundamental arc, to me, was always a discovery of love. It always felt like something more profound than just a sexual awakening. It’s a real, sensitive, and in my opinion uniquely represented story of male and male love,” Rexstrew says. “I think learning how to love is a universal experience that we go through as teenagers.”
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Is Charles from Dead Boy Detectives gay in the comics?
Image Credit: Courtesy of Netflix Charles is bisexual in the Dead Boy Detectives comics. Yockey revealed that Charles still loves Edwin in a platonic way and still wants to be connected to him after the confession. “Charles’ gut is: ‘I don’t want to go to the afterlife. I want to stay here longer. Why don’t I stay with you?’ We put [those words] in Edwin’s mouth,” he told Teen Vogue. “He’s like, ‘That’s not how you make decisions.’ But that’s what Charles does. … They’re complementary characters in a really beautiful way.”
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Is Charles from Dead Boy Detectives gay in real life?
Jayden Revri who plays Charles in the Dead Boy Detectives hasn’t said anything about his sexuality.
Like Rexstrew, Revri reflected on how the whole coming out arc transpired. “I think it says a lot for Charles and Edwin’s relationship because he accepts it with open arms, and there’s no weirdness after, and there’s no weirdness before, really. I think that is exactly how it should be,” the actor told TV Insider.
Dead Boy Detectives is now streaming on Netflix.