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DC Comics announces Pride anthology to celebrate its LGBTQ characters

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DC Pride anthology cover
The cover of DC Pride, featuring artwork by Jim Lee, Scott Williams and Tamra Bonvillain (Image: DC Comics)

DC Comics has announced numerous plans to commemorate Pride Month 2021. This will include an 80-page anthology, DC Pride, celebrating its LGBTQ characters and creators.

DC Pride will feature characters from DC’s ever-expanding Universe, including Batwoman, Renee Montoya, Alan Scott, Midnighter, Apollo, Extraño, Poison Ivy, Harley Quinn, Constantine, among others.

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It will also have full-page profiles of DCTV’s LGBTQ characters and the actors who play them. It will feature the first appearance of Dreamer, a trans woman superhero, in a story written by actor Nicole Maines, who plays Nia Nal/Dreamer on Supergirl. Maines, an activist-turned-actor, is also trans herself.

Maines tweeted her own excitement at the news.

On top of this, DC will also release nine “Pride-themed variant covers showcasing DC’s leading characters through the month of June, giving fans the opportunity to purchase comics featuring covers with Batman, Harley, Ivy, Superman, Wonder Woman, and more.”

Superman with a rainbow flag
Superman Pride variant cover by David Talaski (DC Comics)

Thirdly, between June 2021 and January 2022, it will release an eight-issue miniseries, Crush & Lobo. Crush, who has previously featured as one of the Teen Titans, is a member of the LGBTQ community, so it’s fitting to see the series launched in Pride Month.

“Crush, daughter of the Czarnian bounty hunter Lobo, is in full-on self-destruct mode!” says DC in a statement about the series. “After rage-quitting the Teen Titans and blowing up her relationship with her girlfriend Katie, Crush decides it’s time to finally confront her father in space jail and get her baggage sorted before she wrecks everything.”

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Lastly, DC will also publish several comics with LGBTQ themes or storylines, including the GLAAD Media Award-nominated Suicide Squad: Bad Blood on April 27, gothic LGBTQIA+ romance Poison Ivy: Thorns on June 1, and Mariko Tamaki and Yoshi Yoshitani’s highly anticipated YA graphic novel, I Am Not Starfire, on July 27.