DC has announced their plans for Pride Month in June, the annual commemoration and celebration of the LGBTQIA+ community. This year will include their annual anthology DC Pride 2024, as well as two YA graphic novels and a tribute to the late Rachel Pollack.
DC has been releasing the Pride special for four years now, and the theme for this year seems to be “Journeys and Destinations,” whether we’re talking Metropolis, Gotham, the Fourth World or “the farthest edges of the DC Multiverse.” DC’s announcement spotlights five different books that’ll arrive between now and September, along with a series of Pride-themed variant covers
Read more about them below …
DC Pride 2024
DC Pride 2024 will arrive in stores May 28, and like previous years will include stories by LGBTQIA+ creators featuring LGBTQIA+ characters. It’ll also include an autobiographical story written by Phil Jimenez about “the fantastical worlds that shaped him,” drawn by artist Giulio Macaione.
Other stories will include:
- Dreamer makes a first-time pilgrimage to her ancestral planet, Naltor, in a story by Nicole Maines and Jordan Gibson;
- Poison Ivy and Janet from HR go spore-hunting on Portworld in a story by Gretchen Felker-Martin and Claire Roe;
- Superman (Jon Kent) gets Jay, Bunker, and the Ray together for a boys’ night out in A-Town in a story by Jarrett Williams and D.J. Kirkland;
- Steel (Natasha Irons) works up the courage to face Traci 13 at the Oblivion Bar’s Pride party for the first time since they broke up in a story by Jamila Rowser and ONeillJones;
- Aquaman (Jackson Hyde) catches an unexpected ride to the Fourth World just in time for their annual Love Festival in a story by Ngozi Ukazu;
- Circuit Breaker’s unstable powers fritz him into the Phantom Zone in a story by Calvin Kasulke and Len Gogou; and
- a Blue Starman story written by Al Ewing .
DC PRIDE: A CELEBRATION OF RACHEL POLLACK #1
Trans writer Rachel Pollack, who passed away last year, introduced DC’s first trans character Coagula during her run on Doom Patrol back in the 1990s. As a part of Pride Month, DC will release DC Pride: A Celebration of Rachel Pollack, which will feature reprints of Doom Patrol #70, Coagula’s first appearance; Vertigo Visions: The Geek, the long out-of-print one-shot by Pollack and Mike Allred; and a new Coagula story by Joe Corallo and Rye Hickman.
The oversized one-shot will arrive in stores on June 6.
BAD DREAM: A DREAMER STORY
Leading into Pride Month, DC will tell the origin story of Dreamer in Bad Dream: A Dreamer Story by Nicole Maines, Rye Hickman, Bex Glendining and Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou. The YA graphic novel arrives in stores on April 2:
Nia’s spent her whole life taking a back seat to her older sister, Maeve, who was expected to inherit their mother’s Seer powers: the ability to see the future through dreams, passed down to one woman in each generation. But when Nia, a trans girl, starts having visions of the future, she must suppress her powers to protect her relationship with her sister.
Soon Nia’s dreams become impossible to ignore, and she has no choice but to distance herself as she navigates her new reality. Taking off for Metropolis, Nia is quickly swept up in the bustling city and, guided by her dreams, connects with a group of queer girls who feel more like sisters than her own. As Nia starts to discover her powers may be more than just a burden, she’s given a choice: accept her new responsibility as a Seer or give it all up for a chance at normalcy.
Here’s a preview:
In addition to Dreamer, the story will also feature characters from another YA GN, Galaxy: The Prettiest Star.
THE STRANGE CASE OF HARLEEN AND HARLEY
The Strange Case of Harleen and Harley, a YA graphic novel by novelist Melissa Marr and artist Jenn St-Onge, was announced back in 2022 and will arrive in stores next September. Here’s the description from DC:
When Harleen signs up to participate in a clinical research trial with her girlfriend, Pamela, her only goals are extra cash and a chance to control her anxiety. But what she gets instead are increasingly larger gaps in her memory and stolen mementos from some guy named Jack. Soon Harleen discovers she’s sharing her life with Harley—a take-no-prisoners, who-cares-about-attendance, maybe-we-oughta-save-the-bunnies kind of girl. She is the opposite of Harleen in every way. And although she’s throwing Harleen’s life completely off track, maybe she ain’t so bad either…
DC shared some interior pages from the project:
DC Pride: Uncovered #1
Pride Month typically brings Pride-themed variant covers from both DC and MArvel, and this year DC will collect many of their past covers in DC Pride: Uncovered #1, on sale June 11. This gallery comic will include covers from Jen Bartel, Phil Jimenez, Jim Lee, Joshua “Sway” Swaby, David Talaski, Babs Tarr, Kris Anka and more.
Bartel provides the main cover, shown above, and here’s a look at the varaint cover by Jim Lee, Scott Williams and Tamra Bonvillain:
And finally, this year will bring a series of new variant covers as well. This year’s list includes: Action Comics #1066 (Betsy Cola), Batman#148 (Skylar Patridge), Green Arrow #13 (A.L. Kaplan), Poison Ivy #23 and Harley Quinn #41 (W. Scott Forbes), Nightwing #115 (Bruka Jones), Outsiders #8 (Don Aguillo), Suicide Squad: Dream Team #4 (Fatima Wajid), Superman#15 (Angel Solorzano), The Flash #10 (Nick Robles) and Wonder Woman #10 (Phil Jimenez and Arif Prianto).
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