It may be a tad late to talk about DC Comics' yearly entry for Pride Month but here it is anyway.
Their annual DC Pride book is always a slick and engaging collection of stories that looks at characters from a perspective that may not always get a lot of attention during the latest "crisis that will change everything" event.
The opening story is to my mind the strongest with DC scoring a bit of a coup with long time Marvel writer Al Ewing making his DC debut with a short story based on the Mikal Tomas version of Starman.
I'm a big fan of Stephen Byrne's artwork and this story is an excellent showcase for his talents.
A few years ago, the late actor Kevin Conroy wrote an autobiographical story about his experiences as a gay man in an industry that was not always kind to the gay community and how what he went through gave insight to his performance as the voice of Batman/Bruce Wayne in the acclaimed animated Batman series.
This time out, long time comics artist and writer Phil Jiminez opens up about his life as an openly gay man and how that influenced his work, especially during the time he was in charge of writing and drawing Wonder Woman.
Overall, DC Pride 2024 is a strong package of stories.
There may be some issue that some of the stories are not self contained, serving as launches for other comics. For example, Nicole Maines is back to write a Dreamer story that will lead into an upcoming Dreamer & Suicide Squad series.
And it is distressing that in the current socio-political environment, several pages are given over to promote resources to make sure the LGBTQ+ community is safe. It is good to know those resources are there; it's just a damn shame they are needed.
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In my last Spinner Rack post, I noted I heard that Batman was dead.
Er, not quite.
Batman is fine but Bruce Wayne is dead.
Uh, not actually but...
As part of a plot in Chip Zdarsky's most recent storyline, a clone of Bruce Wayne was created and rapidly aged to adulthood. But the aging doesn't stop when adulthood is achieved so our Bruce Wayne tries to save the clone.
But fails.
With original Bruce by his side, clone Bruce gets to do what our Bruce figures he will never do: die in peace of old age.
More of Zdarsky's Batman in a future Spinner Rack post.
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