After years of queer-baiting around Captain Kate Pryde's sexuality, the fan favorite X-Men's bisexuality was finally confirmed in the pages of Marauders, and Kate's status as a bonafide LGBTQ+ icon is now being celebrated in a gorgeous new piece of fan art by Angel Solorzano. Pryde, who went by Kitty for most of her life before "coming out" as Kate during the latest Krakoan Era, is one of the most beloved X-Men of all time, not least because of her earnest and obvious attractions to important men and women in her life.

Kate Pryde was first introduced during the legendary Dark Phoenix Saga of the 1980s by X-Men architect Chris Claremont, and has been heavily hinted as to being queer for decades. Although she famously was in a long term on-again-off-again relationship with Piotr Rasputin, the X-Man Colossus, that almost ended in marriage, she has also had intense flirtations with female X-Characters like Rachel Summers, Illyana Rasputin (aka Magik), and Marvel's first out lesbian Karma.

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After years and years of queer-baiting, most likely due to Marvel Comics leadership's orders to not make characters explicitly queer for much of the 70s, 80s, and 90s, Kate Pryde finally was able to express her queer sexuality on-panel in Marauders #12 by Gerry Duggan. Pryde went to get some truly badass knuckle tattoos at a local tattoo parlor and after receiving her ink she confidently gave her female tattoo artist a kiss on the lips, with artist Matteo Lolli giving her the perfect expression of sheer joy after the fact. Now, during the height of Pride Month, artist Angel Solorzano (@THE_saintart) has shared a beautiful portrait of Kate adorned with the bisexual Pride flag, finally allowing her to step into her rightful role as a true bisexual mutant icon. Angel, a wildly talented artist at the age of only 18, portrays a confident looking Captain Pryde wearing the bisexual pride flag over her already-iconic pirate captain coat that she has been sporting since becoming the Red Queen of the Hellfire Trading Company.

Kate Pryde has a long history of being enamored with powerful women in her life, starting with her adolescence where she was obsessed with Emma Frost who was operating as the villainous (but gorgeous) White Queen at the time. Since her debut, many fans have seen her relationships with both Rachel Summers and Illyana Rasputin (sister of her ex-boyfriend Colossus) as being queer-coded. With Rachel Summers potentially entering into a relationship with Betsy Braddock, Magik being confirmed as pansexual, and Marvel's acknowledgement of just how queer Krakoan society is, it seems like there is a high chance readers might actually get to see Pryde enter into a queer relationship. What is so beautiful about Solorzano's Pride portrait of Kate Pryde is that she is holding herself up with such confidence and self-assurance, deftly displaying Pryde's emerging role as a true leader of Krakoa while also highlighting the journey she has been on to finally be able to outwardly, explicitly show off her bisexuality. Her last two major straight relationships, with Piotr and Star-Lord, ended a while ago, and she is currently heavily distracted by her important work on the Marauders team. Eventually romance will enter back into Pryde's life—as it does with all X-Men characters.

Angel Solorzano's fan art depiction of Captain Pryde proudly showing off her bisexual identity is incredibly meaningful for queer X-Men fans, who have desperately been asking for better LGBTQ+ representation for years, and hopefully Angel's design is a premonition of more bisexual Kate Pryde in the near future.

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Source: Angel Solorzano