Review: Marvel's Voices: Pride

 


    This is part of a really cool project that Marvel has been doing the last couple of years where they compile work by creators of a certain identity about characters of that identity – in this case, queer characters. It includes original segments, selections from comics dating back decades (including Northstar coming out as the first openly gay Marvel hero in 1992), and essays by queer Marvel creators. As anthologies tend to be it was a bit hit or miss for me, probably partially depending on the amount of context I had for each character. Interestingly, the two I found most compelling were the two pre-2000 segments included.

    One is the Alpha Flight one mentioned above, in which Northstar comes out. It’s intensely emotional and in my opinion, shockingly compassionate for early gay representation. It deals with Northstar adopting a baby girl born with AIDS and then being confronted by a man who blames the media obsession with this so-called ‘innocent’ girl for his gay son being abandoned to die of AIDS. Again, I found it to be incredibly nuanced, making the kind of arguments that I’ve only really seen understood in queer communities.

    The second was the Incredible Hulk issue “In the Shadow of AIDS,” which goes back and forth between Hulk trying to save his friend who’s dying of AIDS and his wife working at a call center trying to convince a young man who’s been recently diagnosed not to kill himself. It is incredibly intense but very powerful, especially given that the editors chose to follow it by Marvel employees’ stories of their own experience with AIDS (which was almost perfect except for the one guy who felt the need to start talking about God and encouraging people to make good decisions). These two were by far the most memorable to me, but the rest was also filled with queer joy and lovely artwork, so definitely still worth a read.

    One point I do have to make: Marvel has definitely had its own ups and downs when it comes to queer representation, and certainly isn’t perfect. For obvious reasons this collection isn’t super interested in talking about that aspect of things and definitely tries to paint Marvel in a really positive light. Not a reason to hate it, just something to think about.



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Review: Heartless Hunter

Image
  I have to say, I was pleasantly surprised by this one! It’s a fairly traditional enemies-to-lovers setup, and there’s not anything super out of the box, but I was shocked by how invested I got in Rune and Gideon’s relationship (I know – JAY getting invested in STRAIGHT PEOPLE?). There were also a few elements that I particularly enjoyed.  First, despite this being a YA romantasy, there’s actually a shocking amount of complexity and nuance that gets conveyed. We’re introduced to a world in which witches are brutally hunted and executed, which of course sets the reader up to side with Rune, the witch in hiding. But as the book goes on, it becomes very clear that the revolution that overthrew the witches was very much justified. The story does a really good job of showing the ways that privilege can change rapidly and how people can be talking about two entirely different things without even realizing it when it comes to power dynamics. Spoilers on this one! Another thing I thought this
Read more

Review: Cleat Cute

Image
  So I’ve seen a lot of stuff pitching this as lesbian Ted Lasso, and alas, it simply is not. The side characters are charming enough, but they lack the brilliance of the Ted Lasso ensemble and aren’t given much attention throughout the book. Grace and Phoebe are very much the primary focus, and almost every scene revolves around them. And yeah, it is a romance, but those of you who follow my reviews will know that I firmly believe that the best romances have excellent side characters and spend time developing other relationships – not to mention, other aspects of the characters. This book is trying to touch on some of those things, but the proportions weren’t quite right for me.  For instance, one plot element is Phoebe and Grace exploring their potential neurodivergence. I didn’t realize that would be a plot point going in, and I was excited when it was, but it wasn’t explored as much as it could have been. Grace in particular is really reduced to a throwaway line about maybe looking
Read more

Review: The Queer Girl is Going to Be Okay

Image
  First off, I absolutely love both the cover and the title of this book. The art is just SO GORGEOUS. Unfortunately, those were probably the most compelling elements of the book to me. The story follows three best friends in Houston and their various senior year challenges, with the sort of core being Dawn’s entry to a film competition, after which the book is named. Each of the three girls has a very distinct story, connected to the others only by virtue of their friendship, and unfortunately I think this made the pacing kind of weird. When one character was having a crucial story moment, it felt like the other storylines were just kind of dragging along for the sake of being there.  One thing I did really appreciate was how this book handled representation. It switched the stereotypical roles that the best friends would have played based on their race – the Black character was the one with strict parents who fixated on her grades, and the Asian character was the one with a fun singl
Read more