PRIDE MONTH 2025! It is, of course, very rare for us to cover super-hero comics here at Broken Frontier. But Pride Month is one of those occasions when we are happy to make an exception. It is so important for members of our LGBTQIA+ community to see themselves represented in their favourite pop cultural media, and books like DC Pride 2025 #1 are a reminder of how diverse a reality the DCU has become in recent years. Projects like this from bigger publishers are sometimes casually dismissed as rainbow capitalism but anyone coming away from this giant-sized one-shot will have no doubts as to the sincerity and sense of true community at its heart.
Cover by Kris Anka
Unlike many other of DC’s “seasonal” specials this is presented as one ongoing story comprising multiple mini-chapters rather than a collection of discrete, self-contained tales. The premise revolves around a bar in Gotham that has been a vital centrepiece of the queer community there for decades. When it unexpectedly announces its closure many of its past patrons go to say goodbye to a focal part of their lives. For Golden Age Green Lantern Alan Scott the bar is where he marked his affection for his first love. But his visit to his old haunt sets something strange in motion, and the queer heroes of the DCU suddenly find themselves in alternate realities, living the lives they thought they always wanted…
Page by Tim Sheridan, Emilio Pilliu, Triona Farrell and Lucas Gattoni
DC Pride 2025 #1 takes the reader back to the days when jam comics were a recognised thing and not something needing explanation. Indeed, there are thirty-something creators attached to this 96-page book which makes for a rollercoaster read; established cast members like Harley Quinn, the Question, the Tim Drake Robin, Apollo and Midnighter interacting with lesser known or even new players, including Green Lantern Jo Mullein, Bunker, Blue Snowman and Ethan Rivera. Characters get vignette stories by the differing creative teams as we build up to the revelation as to what’s behind the new timelines they find themselves in.
Page by Tim Sheridan, Emilio Pilliu, Triona Farrell and Lucas Gattoni
It’s an ambitious set-up but it’s also, to a degree, an unwieldy one. Whether this is a comic that is accessible to newer readers, for example, is debatable. Characters come and go with great rapidity and while the themes of hope, acceptance, identity and empowerment are communicated in a consistently uplifting and positive manner the cast is so huge that few of them get the on-page time their stories deserve.
Page by Tim Sheridan, Emilio Pilliu, Triona Farrell and Lucas Gattoni
That said, if you are more familiar with recent continuity there are lots of nods here that will appeal. Particularly via Tim Sheridan who uses it to provide a touching and poignant coda to his acclaimed Alan Scott: Green Lantern miniseries. Artistic highlights include the wonderfully jaunty and expressive cartooning of Alex Moore on the Blue Snowman sequence. Alex’s work reaching expanded readerships is long overdue and this will surely be a springboard for that. And Don Aguillo’s page layouts on the Bunker story are also of note in the imaginative way they project a sense of environment and movement.
Page by Vita Ayala, Skylar Partridge, Jodie Bellaire and Ariana Maher
Backing this up is a short story by Jenny Blake, the veteran comics writer who recently came out as trans. Blake, as Tony Isabella (as Blake underlines in the strip there is no deadnaming issue here as she will continue to write under both names), is the creator of the influential 1970s super-hero Black Lightning. This 8-pager, illustrated with animated appeal in the trans flag colours by Sara Soler, is unflinchingly honest and engagingly witty at the same time, as she details the realities of accepting her trans identity in later life. Blake has indicated that’s it’s a precursor to a planned graphic memoir and we can only hope that comes to pass.
Page by Jude Ellison S. Doyle, Alex Moore and Ariana Maher
The final 6 pages are given over to DC fans to tell their own stories of how the DCU has connected to them and their queer identities via text and fan art. This is a lovely gesture that emphasises a genuine community aspect to the book. Whether or not they hit the mark on every occasion we need far more comics like DC Pride to represent, celebrate, advocate for, and elevate all LGBTQIA+ voices. Books that clearly come from a place of love from all involved. Especially now, given the world that surrounds us in 2025.
Page by Jenny Blake, Sara Soler and Jodie Troutman
Vita Ayala, Jude Ellison S. Doyle, Maya Houston, Sam Maggs, Tim Sheridan, Josh Trujillo and Jenny Blake (W), Don Aguillo, Vincent Cecil, Derek Charm, A.L. Kaplan, Giulio Macaione, Alex Moore, Skylar Patridge, Emilio Pilliu, Max Sarin, Phillip Sevy and Sara Soler (A), Don Aguillo, Eren Angiolini, Jordie Bellaire, Vincent Cecil, Derek Charm, Triona Farrell, A.L. Kaplan, Marissa Louise, Giulio Macaione, Alex Moore (C), Aditya Bidikar, Frank Cvetkovic, Lucas Gattoni, Ariana Maher, Morgan Martinez, Jodie Troutman (L), Kris Anka, Sozomaika, Julia Reck and Jack Hughes (CA), Jillian Grant, Michael McAlister, Ash Padilla, Andrea Shea, Arianna Turturro (E) • DC Comics, $9.99
Review by Andy Oliver
