📘Comic Review - DC Pride🦇
This year to celebrate pride month, both DC and Marvel published special over-sized comics filled with anthology stories promoting their queer characters. We here at LGBTQIA+ Space have read both, and thought it would be fun to share our thoughts on the issues - are they just Pride cash grabs, or promises at a more inclusive future? Let's find out!
DC Pride was released on the 8th of June, with the tagline “Celebrating a parade of LGBTQIA+ Characters.” The first page held a strong foreword by openly gay writer Marc Andreyko. He talks about how as a child he wouldn’t have believed an issue celebrating pride would exist, and I liked how it spoke less about DC and more on society developing.
Over the next 80 pages we have 9 stories. There was only 1 I didn’t enjoy, and while few of them feel like a knowledge of the characters is needed most I was able to get into without prior understanding. The three main highlights for me all include characters I hadn't read before, and it was great to meet them..
By The Victors by Steve Orlando and Stephan Byrne starts with John Constantine hitting on Gregorio de la Vega in a bar. Vega goes on to tell a tale of Midnighter and himself stopping a neo-nazi Vampire from rewriting history. The story touches on how history has been “straight-washed” over time, and why it’s important to celebrate and remember the queerness of humanity's past and myths. It speaks to the importance of pride, and ends with two guys heading home together - what’s not to like?
He’s The Light of My Life by Sam Johns and Klaus Janson stars recently out the closet Alan Scott (the first Green Lantern) and his openly gay son Todd James Rice (Obsidian) as they meet up for lunch. The issue discusses how we choose a time to come out and how society has changed its attitudes generation to generation. This father son pair was a good choice for this story about time, and it uses the characters powers in fun and interesting ways.
Clothes Makeup Gift by Danny Lore and Lisa Sterle includes the most recent character in the line up - Jess Chambers, a non-binary character that has the mantle of the Flash, and was first introduced earlier this year as part of the Future State event. The story is the low stakes but relatable tale of them rushing to get ready for a date on time, and the fun misadventures along the way. With some amazing costume and a great non-binary character this might be my favourite story from both issues.
The book ends with six pages of interviews with actors that play queer characters in the DC television shows. The first one is with Nicole Maines - a trans actor that plays the character of Dreamer in CW’s Supergirl (and made her comic writing debut in this issue) - and while these interviews are fun they also feel a little disconnected due to their TV focus.
While this issue didn’t blow me away, I had fun with it overall. The characters picked were diverse and varied - I didn’t even mention Harley and Ivy learning to talk about their relationship, or Dreamer making her comic debut… This book is packed!
Sadly I don’t see this issue being a draw to new readers as it does feel like it has a barrier to entry, but it’s a good start for what I hope will become a yearly release.
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