MARVEL VOICES: PRIDE #1: ‘LGBT-D’ Is A Fun Ride

LGBTQIA+ youth centers are incredibly important, and the naturalization of these spaces within comic book pages is, in itself, a need right now. But when it comes with a fun, superhero, trans teen meeting hosted by long-lost queer icon D-Man and with a fun visit by Spider-Man and his accompanying club of endless villains is just delightful to read. Cheerful honesty is what this story exudes, and the perfect character design of each of the new characters (obviously Pity Girl is a personal fave of mine cause she’s big emo energy, but I’m biased and every joke attached to each character’s name is both adorable and hilarious) only gets better by the mastery of action sequences and design Scott B. Henderson and Lee Townsend showcase, with Brittany Peer’s amazing coloring brightening the scene and adding gravitas to the superhero suits and characters’ personality, and Ariana Maher’s letters always taking advantage of the little or big details (that trans flag at the beginning was just, perfect). All of that added to the sweetness and over-the-top comedy of Grace Freud’s script, this is a really, really fun comic.

Plus there’s no better character than Spider-Man, who has been a trans headcanon for many for a while, to fully interrupt this trans meeting and showcase to these youngsters how they can also save superheroes, bringing D-Man’s lesson about how we all are constantly learning how to figure ourselves out into a sweet spotlight for these new characters. Honestly, the only failure of this story is I want more of these characters!