Warning: SPOILERS for DC Pride 2023 #1Another winter has come and gone, meaning it's time once again to celebrate the yearly DC Comics Pride anthology. DC Pride 2023 #1 is the publisher's third Pride anthology and arguably its best—and most meaningful—yet.

DC's annual Pride anthologies have become highly-anticipated over the last few years, especially as DC continues to expand its roster of LGBTQ+ characters, series, and creators. Though queer characters feature and even star in DC books year-round—the critically-acclaimed Poison Ivy ongoing launched as part of DC's 2022 Pride line-up—DC Pride 2023 #1 is an intentional celebration of these characters' queerness, as well as an opportunity for the publisher to spotlight both veteran and up-and-coming queer creators. With a grab-bag of stories, essays, pin-ups, and remembrances, this year's anthology moves between the joyful and the angry, the playful and the bittersweet, all with grace, humor, and pure, queer fun.

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DC Pride 2023 Celebrates All Kinds of Queer Love

Harley Quinn Poison Ivy and Crush DC Pride

DC Pride 2023 #1 begins with a moving foreword by comics icon Phil Jimenez, which provides essential context for the entire anthology. Not only does Jimenez write about his personal experience being a gay man in the comics industry, he also acknowledges the very real political challenges for queer folks in the United States this year, including a record number of anti-LGBTQ+ bills introduced on the state and federal level. Given that political reality, DC Pride 2023, despite its corporate sheen, feels like a radical statement of queer love, joy, and even anger in the face of a culture that would deny that love, joy, and anger. In the pages of this anthology, readers will encounter the romantic love of Earth-36's Flashlight and Red Racer in a story by Grant Morrison, Hayden Sherman, Marissa Louise, and Aditya Bidikar, as well as the vow renewal of Midnighter and Apollo in "Anniversary" by Josh Trujillo, Don Aguillo, and Lucas Gattoni. They'll also find stories about queer friendship (and rivalry) starring the likes of Tim Drake, Connor Hawke, Nubia, newcomer Jules Jourdain, and more. One particularly delightful story, "And Baby Makes Three" by Leah Williams, Paulina Ganucheau, and Frank Cvetkovic, paints Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy as queer mentors to Crush, Lobo's daughter.

All of this to say that DC Pride 2023 #1's strength comes not from traditionally-wrought superhero romances that just so happen to feature LGBTQ+ characters, but rather from how it spotlights a range of queer relationships—some romantic, yes, but many platonic, some petty, a few familial, and all rendered through the eyes of real queer people. More than that, these characters have real history, and that history has given all of DC's Pride offerings over the years both heft and depth. Some of these characters are decades old; "Hey, Stranger" by Nadia Shammas, Bruka Jones, Tamra Bonvillain, and Frank Cvetkovic is made all the more charming knowing Tim Drake and Connor Hawke's '90s-era team-ups. It's that kind of history, diagetic and otherwise, that makes this a meaningful anthology.

Sueprhero History Meets Queer History

Steel Natasha Irons Nubia Io DC Pride

Because DC Pride 2023 #1 honors its own queer history, the real stand-out segment is the tribute to trans icon and former Doom Patrol writer Rachel Pollack, who passed earlier this year. The eight full pages dedicated to remembrances of Pollack—a trans woman who made a real impact on other very real people—says everything about DC's aims with this year's Pride line-up. And, like Green Arrow Connor Hawke, DC's aim is true, creating the best DC Comics Pride anthology yet. Now the wait for DC Pride 2024 begins.

DC Pride 2023 #1 is available now from DC Comics!