The Pride Volume 1: I Need a Hero

Wraparound cover art by Ricardo Bessa

Anyone could be forgiven for suffering from “superhero fatigue” these days. This genre has long dominated the comics medium, not to mention film and television, seemingly to the exclusion of any other kind of story. It is therefore too easy to dismiss any comic with a cover featuring a man with a cape. Fortunately, there are ways to tell a fresh superhero tale. One of the best approaches is to deconstruct the themes of such a setup and how it relates to the demographic it represents. This is exactly what The Pride does, not just with superheroes, but with the gay community.

The gay community’s relationship to superheroes is so celebratory there may as well be one in the Village People. Likewise, the diversity of the Village People is a better example of that community than most mainstream media that depict a monolith of wealthy white cisgender men (even after we admit that the “Indian” is downright racist). The Pride is a gay superteam that provides more representation than the entire roster of most mainstream comic book universes, including an HIV-positive bear (who is literally a bear), people of color, and trans members. It eventually adopts a straight ally, the aforementioned bear’s son (who, it should be noted, is kidnapped as part of one of the first adventures). With this one plot point, the true nature of being an allyship is explained: sacrifice. How many “allies” would allow themselves to suffer when they have nothing to gain?

The Pride ran for six issues between 2011 and 2015, and spawned a three-issue sister series, The Pride Adventures, all of which was collected into one hardcover volume thanks to a Kickstarter campaign (full disclosure: I was a contributor). Writer and journalist Joe Glass, who created The Pride, said in an interview with Comics Creator News, “Back when I was a young teen, reading comics and coming to terms with my own sexuality, I just felt like there weren’t any characters that really represented me.” He did better than most people who write the stories they want to read; almost anyone can feel represented in this book. As he explained to The Advocate, “Representation is vitally important.”

Various artists worked throughout the run of the series, including Gavin Mitchell, Mike Stock, Dan Harris, and Kris Carter. The Pride literalizes metaphors about the gay community and its struggles in fun, campy, but also serious ways. The collection includes special bonus material and a foreword by Dax ExclamationPoint. The first issue was one of the top 25 comiXology Submit Titles of 2014. The whole series is available at the official The Pride website and comiXology.