Cloud debuted in The Defenders #123 (June 1983) and was created by J.M. DeMatteis and Don Perlin, though the bulk of their Defenders appearances were written by Peter B. Gillis. Originally, they took the form of a teenage girl — a completely naked one, made Comics Code-compliant by little wisps of cloud hovering around their chest and pelvis. Sigh.

Arnie first appeared in Captain America #268 (April 1982), and was created by J. M. DeMatteis and Mike Zeck. He and Steve Rogers were childhood best friends, but polar opposites: while young Steve was scrawny, frail, and awkward around girls, Arnie was strong and popular, protecting Steve from bullies and dragging him around on double dates—the more stereotypically “masculine” of the two. When the war came, Arnie enlisted, and Steve, of course, became Captain America.

Okay, unless you’re a Black Panther superfan—or a collector of obscure queer-coded superhero-adjacent characters (ahem)—you have probably never heard of these two. They’ve only appeared together in about a dozen issues, scattered over half a century. So why do they merit their own post? Because while there are plenty of characters who spent years or even decades exuding homoerotic subtext from within the confines of the Comics Code, in Taku and Venomm’s case, we know for a fact that that subtext was intentional—even as far back as 1974.

Northstar is often called the first gay superhero, although he wasn’t allowed to come out until 13 years after his debut. But he was almost certainly the first mainstream superhero deliberately (albeit subtextually) depicted as queer, he was Marvel’s first gay superhero, and his coming out in 1992 was a landmark event, as was his eventual wedding to his husband, Kyle, 20 years later.

The Pied Piper is the first costumed character in superhero comics to use the word “gay” in relation to himself. Minor civilian characters had used it before, but never someone from the capes and tights set. He’s also the first canonically queer supervillain (albeit a reformed one), and the first character to come out decades after his introduction, as opposed to being introduced as queer from the get-go.

Maggie first debuted in Superman #4 (April 1987), and was created by John Byrne. She’s a captain in the Metropolis PD’s Special Crimes Unit (SCU), which deals with superpowered menaces. She becomes a recurring character in the Superman books and eventually, a grudging ally of the Man of Steel’s.

Publishers would submit their comics to the CCA, and if they met all the requirements of the Code, they would be allowed to publish with a seal on the cover that said “Approved by the Comics Code Authority.” You could absolutely publish a comic without CCA approval, but many retailers wouldn’t carry it if you did. So most publishers bent over backwards to comply.

Gregorio de la Vega, better known as Extraño, debuted in 1988 and is the first openly gay superhero in a mainstream comic. Though Extraño and the characters around him never originally used the word “gay,” his publisher, DC Comics, did. And Extraño’s sexuality is repeatedly made perfectly clear in the text, as opposed to being heavily veiled to sneak past the Comics Code Authority.