With June fast approaching, comics publishers are set to unleash a torrent of LGBTQ+ themed books and stories for Pride Month, and as Them’s resident sequential art stan, I’m champing at the bit to get my adamantium claws on every one of them.
This summer’s crop is particularly abundant. Even ignoring DC Comics’ whole line of Pride-themed variant covers for LGBTQ+ characters like Jon Kent and Aquaman, there are more cool comics being made by and about queer people than ever before, and June is the perfect month to devour them all. And hey, if you’ve never picked up a comic book before, despite presumably having seen a Marvel movie or seven by this point, don’t fret. Now is an ideal time for queer readers to find an entry point in this ever expanding medium. If you’re an LGBTQ+ person and you like big, bold, dramatic storytelling — which is a Venn diagram that I expect looks more like a circle — there are so many great queer comics waiting for you.
The only trick is acquiring them: to get physical copies (and you’ll want them, because these pages are just too lush for a computer screen to do justice), your best bet is to order directly from your local comic shop using this handy tool. Preorders may have closed for some of these books, but you may still be able to reserve a copy if you don’t want to resort to a digital purchase.
Below are some of my most anticipated Pride Month releases.
Marvel’s Voices: Pride (2022) #1 by various creators
Marvel’s second annual Pride special lets LGBTQ+ creators run loose with LGBTQ+ superheroes, with eight stories of queer peeps in capes from all around the acronym. In addition to an Asgardian Pride parade, a Young Avengers story starring America Chavez (recently seen on the silver screen in Dr. Strange in the Multiverse of Madness), and the fulfillment of a long-intended romance between Wakandan characters Taku and Venomm, the special also features the brand-new trans mutant Escapade’s first adventure. Written by Charlie Jane Anders with art by Ro Stein, Ted Brandt, and colorist Tamra Bonvillain, Escapade’s story promises to be unmissable, especially the part where she has a genetically engineered flying turtle named Hibbert.
DC Pride 2022 by various creators
Like Marvel’s Voices, DC Pride’s second anniversary is overflowing with own-voices stories about queerness and love on the margins, featuring a special introduction by Supergirl star Nicole Maines and a heartfelt personal story from iconic Batman voice actor Kevin Conroy, who came out as gay in 2016. The anthology also features 13 new short comics, including a story revealing Connor “Green Arrow” Hawke to be canonically asexual (as first reported on Them) and a Batgirl adventure co-starring Alysia Yeoh, Barbara Gordon’s spunky trans friend, by the team of Jadzia Axelrod, Lynne Yoshii, Ariana Maher, and colorist Tamra Bonvillain.
DC Pride: Tim Drake Special by Meghan Fitzmartin (writer), Belén Ortega (artist), Alejandro Sanchez (colorist), and Dave Wielgosz (letterer)
This 64-page special collects the story “Sum of Our Parts,” originally serialized in Batman: Urban Legends, in which beloved former Robin Tim Drake sets out to save his old friend Bernard from a malevolent cult that’s been kidnapping teenagers, finally figuring out that he’s bisexual along the way. The collected edition also features a new Tim story co-starring the Batgirls and some familiar faces from the Young Justice series, plus a cuddly variant cover by Travis Moore that simply epitomizes “soft bois” as Tim and Bernard snuggle on top of a gargoyle. Ah, young superhero romance!
Multiversity: Teen Justice by Ivan Cohen and Danny Lore (writers), Marco Failla (artist), Enrica Eren Angiolini (colorist)
On Earth-11, your favorite teen superheroes have been genderbent, and there’s nothing the Republican Party can do about it. Centering on nonbinary super-speedster Kid Quick, the team’s debut issue finds them facing threats from H.I.V.E. and the Church of Blood (which we’re sure will be music to the ears of classic Teen Titans fans) while trying to stay together as a group — and also figure out what that brooding goth hunk Raven’s whole, like, deal is, you know?
Nubia: Queen of the Amazons #1 by Stephanie Williams (writer), Alitha Martinez (penciler), Mark Morales (inker), Alex Guimarães (colorist), and Becca Carey (letterer)
Hot on the heels of her coronation earlier this year, Queen Nubia faces a threat from the Amazons’ past in this first entry of a new ongoing series. In addition to Nubia’s blooming Sapphic relationship with Themysciran blacksmith Io, the series also promises further appearances of Bia, the Black trans woman introduced as a newly reincarnated Amazon in Williams and Martinez’s Nubia & the Amazons series. If you have “do more reading about powerful queer women” on your summer to-do list, this series has you covered. (And dig that gorgeous watercolor Pride variant cover by Kevin Wada of the happy couple themselves!)
Aquaman: The Becoming by Brandon Thomas (writer) and various artists
This new trade paperback edition collects last year’s six-issue series that established Jackson Hyde as the new Aquaman. The son of Aquaman’s longtime enemy Black Manta, Jackson is openly gay and has the hots for undersea rebel Ha’Wea. But with a villain stalking and framing him for an attack on the Atlantean palace, Jackson’s rich personal life might be over before it even begins! Well, not really, but you get it. There are stakes.
Sins of the Black Flamingo #1 by Andrew Wheeler (writer), Travis Moore (artist), Tamra Bonvillain (colorist), and Aditya Bidikar (letterer)
Campy noir from an all-queer creative team? You know we’re in. Sebastian Harlow is the titular Black Flamingo, a flamboyant narcissist and professional thief always in search of the next big score. Wheeler describes his protagonist as a “messy queer anti-hero,” and when you throw mystic artifact hunting into the mix, this is a series bound to end up in some strange, beautiful places. (It’s also colorist Tamra Bonvillain’s third appearance on this list alone. When does she sleep?)
Young Men in Love: A Queer Romance Anthology by various creators
Sometimes all you really need is a cozy collection of queer love stories. This anthology of romance comics by MLM creators, with a smoldering Kevin Wada cover, is bound to have something that warms your heart and quickens your pulse. In these pages, queer men are pirates, Power Rangers, and just plain pretty. Superhero love is all well and good, but us regular people need good old-fashioned love stories and meet-cutes too!
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