3 days ago
Review – DC Pride 2025 #1 – A Farewell to Friends
DC Pride 2025 #1 cover, via DC Comics.
Ray: DC's Pride anthology is always a highlight every year – they go all-out, with a massive collection of stories celebrating the company's LGBTQ heroes and creators. But this year they're doing something different – the anthology has a central framing story about the DCU's pre-eminent gay bar, almost a century old in Gotham City. It's closing down, and the queer luminaries of the community are turning out to pay tribute. This segment is written by Tim Sheridan, who did the incredible Alan Scott miniseries last year, and comes in and out of the book tying everything together. Notes from the past. Via DC Comics.
'The Heart Wants', the central story, focuses on Alan Scott and a new character named Ethan – a young trans man who is visiting the bar for the first time. But Alan has been going there for close to a century – and his first time was with Johnny, the first man he ever loved. Of course, knowing what we know about Johnny now, this is a story with a long, painful history – one that Sheridan is able to tie up in this issue, in an epilogue that's essential reading for anyone who loved his initial miniseries.
After this, the story shifts to tell individual tales of the various heroes who make up the guests of honor that night. Renee Montoya is up first, in a story by Vita Ayala and Skylar Partridge, which finds Renee having a night out at the club. She's tempted to drink, but encounters both Kate Kane – and surprisingly, her long-dead partner Crispus Allen. But her Question instincts are never far away, and she quickly picks up that not everything is as it seems.
Sam Maggs and Phillip Sevy are up next, with a story focused on Connor Hawke. This one finds him as Green Arrow, encountering an attractive vigilante patterned on Black Canary – but the asexual archer quickly figures out something is up as well. It seems that the club itself has turned into a lotus eater machine of sorts, giving them visions of a life that could have been. This is a really good take on Connor Hawke, as he realizes that his father's life isn't what he wants.
The format of this issue can be a little disorienting at times, as it jumps from story and creative team very quickly. There's a brief segment by Doyle, Trujillo, and Kaplan focusing on Ethan's past in the army, and then we dovetail quickly into a brilliantly funny Midnighter and Apollo segment by Maggs and Charm as they find themselves in a parody of American suburbia where Midnighter can go up against an army of cartoonish bigots. It's a hilarious little bit – until Ethan falls out of the sky right into their reality.
There are a whole lot of amazing indie cartoonists in this issue – like Max Sarin, who teams up with Maya Houston on a Harley quinn story that finds her waking up as one of the top psychiatrists in the world. As she digs into her new life – and tries to figure out why Ivy is nowhere to be found – she discovers that maybe she doesn't like this version of herself. This is a great Harley story, and Sarin is one of the most expressive cartoonists in the business.
Houston, Ayala, and Cecil take us into the world of Jo Mullein, who is a very different kind of Green Lantern. In this reality, she's a lover of Nubia, and the two have a relationship so passionate it kind of makes me want to see this relationship explored in the main DCU. As each fantasy or nightmare plays out, it becomes clear that something is pulling the strings – and as Ethan continues to ping-pong between realities, he discovers that there's a ghost hunting the bar. One who has been there for a very long time.
Not all the fantasy segments work perfectly – Blue Snowman's take by Jude Ellison S. Doyle and Alex Moore is over-the-top satirical and casts Wonder Woman as a stammering clown as she gets called out for accidentally outing the non-binary antihero. The story's heart is in the right place, and the segment that follows with Ethan and Blue Snowman is surprisingly touching. Trujillo and Aguillo tackle Bunker's story, and the art here is gorgeous. While Bunker is definitely one of the less-known DC heroes in this issue, his segment has a great message about how it's impossible to have a utopia if people are stuck outside of it.
And of course, there's one person we haven't followed yet into the world of dreams – Alan Scott. His segment is written by Sheridan and drawn by Giulio Macaione, and it finds him and Johnny living quietly in their utopia as happily retired old men. This story is brilliantly poignant, and is spliced together with a story of Ethan confronting the power behind it all – and making a fateful decision. The ending hints at something much bigger for this character that I hope we get to see Sheridan follow up on. He was the undeniable all-star of this issue.
But it's not over yet! The issue finishes with a cartoony closing tale and a very personal narrative by Jenny Blake and Sara Soler, as the newly-out writer takes us into her daily life. Blake has been pretty cautious on her social media for good reason, so this story is a first look into a lot of the more personal details about her transition and her personal awakening over the last several decades. It's funny, heartfelt, and very emotional given all the social factors lurking at the fringes. Another brilliant addition to the works of Kevin Conroy and Phil Jiminez over the last two years.
To find reviews of all the DC issues, visit DC This Week.
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