Pride Profile: The Aerie: Created by Tom Taylor and Bruno Redondo, Aerie debuted in Suicide Squad #1 where they were kidnapped and eventually turned over for illegal experiments to create metahumans. As a result, Aerie developed wings and the ability to fly. Injured by Killer Croc, Aerie was nursed back to health by Wink and the two would fall in love. The gender nonbinary Airie and their lover Wink also play a prominent role in Taylor’s DCeased: Hope at World’s End.
Pride Profile: Devin Grayson. Best known for her DC work on Catwoman, Nightwing and The Titans, Grayson is also the first female to create and writing an ongoing Batman title with Gotham Knights in 2000. She has also written the DC novels Smallville: City, Batman: Rise of Sin Tzu and DC Universe: Inheritance. Devin describes herself as openly bisexual, a passionate advocate for the LGBTQ community, a committed environmentalist, and an advocate for T1 Diabetes awareness and Diabetic Alert Dogs.
Pride Profile: Jack Larson. For one hundred and one episodes, Jack Larson played Superman’s best pal opposite George Reeves with a style and enthusiasm that elevated the role of Jimmy Olsen in the 1950s TV series Adventures of Superman. But Larson was so much more than America’s most famous cub reporter. A veteran of the U.S. Marine Corps, Larson was looking toward Broadway when he was offered the Olsen part. Like many actors who become widely popular and famous for an iconic role, Larson struggled with separating himself and his work from Jimmy. It was also during this time that Larson came to embrace his sexuality with other closeted Hollywood figures such as Montgomery Clift and his eventual life partner director James Bridges (The China Syndrome).
A talented writer, Larson wrote a poem to accompany a gay-themed Joffery Ballet production and the libretto for the opera Lord Byron. Eventually, like many other actors in his position, Larson began to embrace his iconic role later in life, appearing on television’s Superboy and Lois and Clark, and in Superman Returns on the big screen.
Jack Larson is not Jimmy Olsen’s only connection to the LGBTQ community. The comic book character famously appeared in drag in four stories from 1963 to ‘73. While these adventures are born out of Jimmy’s need to ‘get the story,’ he is depicted as an attractive woman and not exactly uncomfortable presenting in the new gender. Despite the limited number of these appearances, they struck a chord with some readers, including Grant Morrison who nodded in that direction with his Jimmy Olsen-focused issue of All-Star Superman.
I am really enjoying Tamaki’s run on DETECTIVE COMICS right now.
I also rvemqlty came across the first issue of her SUPERGIRL so I need to read that as well.
Really like her Detective, which is very different from Supergirl Being Super. She’s made Bruce’s move into the city feel very natural
I agree 100%. I dropped Tynion’s BATMAN at 106 and one of the things I hated was how much each issue would reference “how much money Batman lost” and “how hard it is to work without the Batcave.”
DETECTIVE on the other hand started showing him working and not just referencing it, while also dropping the money talk and started showing how valuable his name is in high society.
I can relate to social circles, but once money goes over a certain number it becomes unrelatable. So every time Batman whines about how he no longer has “unlimited” funds I roll my eyes because there really isn’t a difference it millions and billions of dollars to me.
Also, Tamaki writing Bruce Wayne into the story and giving him some focus is way more relatable than just Batman and his Bat problems.
Pride Profile, Tremor: Roshanna Chatterji is an Indian-American capable of generating shockwaves in the earth. Created by Gail Simone and Jim Calafiore and introduced in The Movement #1 in July 2013, Tremor was forced to let a team member know that a romantic relationship between them wouldn’t work because she is asexual.
Pride Profile: Lilah Sturges. Currently working on the popular Lumberjanes series for Boom! Studios, Lilah made a huge splash with DC’s Vertigo imprint co-writing Jack of Fables, then solo helming forty-two issues of House of Mystery. Add to that, work on Shadowpact, Salvation Run, Blue Beetle and more made Sturges a DC powerhouse. In 2016, Sturges announced she was a transgender women and was changing her first name to Lilah.
Pride Profile: Nightmare Nurse. Asa was a demon who decided the best way to save her dying human mistress was to take over her body. Having sworn the Hippocratic Oath to Apollo and Panacea, Asa became the Nightmare Nurse. Created by Dan DiDio, J.M. Dematteis, and Philip Tan, Nigthmare Nurse debuted in The Phantom Stranger #8 where she worked with Zatanna to heal the injured Stranger. When she’s not enjoying the company of dryads and sylphs, or John Constantine, this naughty nurse sometimes helps out the Justice League Dark with her abilities to heal and wield magic.
Pride Profile: Comet. Warning if you haven’t read Peter David’s Supergirl this is spoiler city. And, the entire series is really, really worth the read. Andrea Martinez struggled coming to terms with her sexual identity leading to a failed marriage, rejection by her parents, substance abuse, and life risking behavior. Facing death on the slopes of Mt Everest, Andrea was saved by superpowered human-horse hybrid Comet/Andy Jones. Merging into a single being, Comet and Andrea became friends with Supergirl and eventually found true love. David Peter introduced Comet/Andrea in Supergirl vol. 4 #10 and explored issues of sexual and gender identity throughout this 1990s series.
Pride Profile: Phil Jimenez. The incredibly talented artist Jimenez was hired right out of college by DC Comics where he met and fell in love with Neal Pozner. Following the DC Comic Creative Director’s passing several years later from HIV related complications, Jimenez wrote and illustrated a Tempest miniseries that he dedicated to Pozner and used to come out as a gay man himself. Jimenez’s other DC works include Wonder Woman, Superwoman, and much more.
Pride Profile: Midnight Rider & Seafarer. Before there was the Midnighter, there was the Midnight Rider. A costumed adventurer in the ‘40s, her relationship with her fellow heroine Seafarer was caught on film and printed in the papers. From there, they ended up in suspended animation, a Winter Soldier like program, and eventually squared off against their successors and the Authority. Created by Scott Beatty and Chris Sprouse, Midnight Rider and Seafarer are another great reason for Pride fans to dig into the Wildstorm Universe.
Pride Profile: Allan Heinberg. Heinberg is the definition of a multi-talented threat. He launched a Wonder Woman series as a writer with the Dodsons, co-wrote a JLA arc with Geoff Johns, co-wrote the screenplay for Gadot/Jenkins’ Wonder Woman, as well as wrote and produced television programs from Party of Five, Sex and the City, Grey’s Anatomy and the upcoming Sandman series. Over at the House of Ideas, Heinberg, a gay man himself, created the teen gay characters Wiccan and Hulking.
Pride Profile: Ghost-Maker. James Tynion and Jorge Jimenez have created a new rival for Batman that shows us who Bruce Wayne might have been without Alfred’s influence. Ghost-Maker, introduced in Batman vol. 3 #100, considers himself a hero with all of Batman’s training, money and skill. He also has a taste for the high-life, including the pleasures of men and women, that Bruce only pretends to have. He’s also willing to kill. If you want to know more about this new entry into the Batman mythos, you’ll have to keep reading DC Comics because he’s just gotten started.
Pride Profile: Mazikeen. If you’re a fan of the television show Lucifer, you must be a fan of the incredibly talented Lesley-Ann Brandt and her portrayal of Mazikeen. Consort to the Fallen One, lover of an angel and Eve, and the baddest bounty hunter in LA, the pansexual demon brings every scene she’s in alive. The character was originally created by Neil Gaiman and Kelley Jones in Sandman vol. 2 #22, and appears with Lucifer in his Vertigo series. For a demon with more than a few rough edges, Maze has a lot of people and angels who care deeply for her.
Lucifer Vertigo
Pride Profile: Caitlin R. Kiernan. There’s being accomplished and there’s being Caitlín R. Keirnan. The Irish born non-binary paleontologist/novelist/screenwriter/comic book creator/singer Keirnan is a winner of the Bram Stoker Award for Best Novel and World Fantasy Awards for collection and short fiction; co-author of paleontology papers describing new genus and species of ancient marine reptiles; and was the front person for the goth-folk-blues band Death’s Little Sister named after Neil Gaiman’s character Delirium. And Gaiman is where they come into the DCU when they were asked to write The Dreaming spinoff from Gaiman’s The Sandman, helming the title for its entire five year run.
Pride Profile: Artemis. Artemis, or a version of her, has been a DCU staple for decades as a butt kicking archer. The version we see today is most closely tied with William Messner-Loebs and Mike Deodato’s creation for Wonder Woman in 1994. That Artemis took on the role of Wonder Woman and later a mentor for Cassie Sandsmark. Our current Artemis, shares all of that version’s looks and attitudes with a somewhat different backstory. Now she’s an Amazon of the Bana-Migdall who left her people to recover the Bow of Ra. Eventually falling in with Jason Todd, Artemis joined the new Outlaws. Despite her reputation as the angry Amazon, Artemis has shown her more caring side through her love affair with fellow Amazon Akila and her attraction to Red Hood.
Pride Profile: Steve Orlando. Asked what’s it like working for DC, Orlando said, “I grew up as a DC guy…I was, you know, knocked over when they offered me that contract… young Steve, who is reading DC books out of flea markets in the 1980s and early '90s, you know, it’s a dream job.” Sentiments any comic fan can understand. Beginning with DC on Midnighter, which was nominated for a GLAAD award, Orlando went on to pen Wonder Woman, Batman, Martian Manhunter and more. Orlando infused his work with a personal perspective that elevated the final results. Discussing Martian Manhunter, Orlando who identifies as bisexual, said “I understand what it’s like to have something inside of you that you have to wrestle with and come to terms with, but also maybe isn’t noticeable on the street to folks. And having something inside of himself that he has to wrestle with and overcome and eventually use to empower himself, that’s J’onn J’onzz’s journey as well.”
Pride Profile: Tefe’ Holland. Originally introduced in Swamp Thing Vol 2 #90 by Doug Wheeler and Pat Broderick, Tefe’ is the daughter of the Swamp Thing, Abby Arcane and John Constantine (it’s a long story). This human-plant hybrid was tutored by former plant elemental Lady Jane and eventually manipulated by the Parliament of Trees into waging war on humankind. It took all three of her parents conspiring to subsume her personality into the body of a dying fifteen year old girl to end the threat. And that is where this starts as she stars in Brian K. Vaughan’s Swamp Thing (2000). Though she has had difficulty connecting to humanity at times, Tefe’ is later revealed as bisexual.
Pride Profile: John Constantine. This popular character needs no introduction, but we’re giving him one anyway. Created by Alan Moore for Swamp Thing #37 because Steve Bissette and John Totleben wanted to draw Sting, Constantine is a chain smoking working class con artist, manipulator, and magician who has saved the DCU more times than your average magical hero. With the creation of the Vertigo imprint, Constantine’s Hellblazer became one of its centerpieces running for three hundred issues. Adding to that are starring turns in subsequent comic series, a movie, appearances on five different television shows, multiple animated projects and more to come. For a man who likes to present himself as uncaring and cynical, Constantine sure seems to fall hard in love a lot. From Desmond in the Arrowverse to Zatanna in the DCU, Constantine cares more than he would like to admit.
