Put on your spandex: it’s going to be a super summer this Pride month with Marvel Comics.
In celebration of Pride, this June, Marvel is releasing Marvel’s Voices: Pride #1, an anthology full of all our favorite queer Marvel characters and creators. The project is a part of its ongoing Marvel Voices imprint. But it's not the only thing they are doing for Pride month: superstar artist Phil Jimenez is doing nine variant covers featuring Marvel’s LGBTQ+ characters.
Marvel’s Voices: Pride #1 is set to be "Marvel’s first-ever queer-centered special spotlighting Marvel’s growing tapestry of LGBTQ+ characters" according to the company. It features stories about Mystique and Destiny, Nico Minoru and Karolina Dean, Iceman, Daken, Karma and a lot more. Wiccan, who we recently saw in WandaVision, and his boyfriend Hulkling, are getting a brand new chapter in their love story written by Allan Heinberg and Jim Cheung, their original creators! The anthology will also revisit some of Marvel’s most important LGBTQ+ moments.
As for creators, the anthology features Kieron Gillen, Olivier Coipel, Steve Orlando, Anthony Oliveira, Tini Howard, Vita Ayala, Kris Anka, Javier Garrón and more.
"I think this is one of those history-making touchstones for LGBTQ+ representation in Marvel, one of those moments that sets the bar higher and starts a lasting paradigm shift, and I’m just grateful to be lucky enough to be asked to contribute to it,” artist Luciano Vecchio said in a release.
“When I was a very closeted, very lonely kid, these characters saved my life,” Oliveira added. “It's an honor to tell stories about them and to see the kind of stories queer people can tell about queer people deepen and grow.”
To top it all off, Jimenez is doing a total of nine variant covers for Pride month. The LGBTQ+ heroes featured on the covers will be America Chavez, Black Cat, Hulking and Wiccan, Iceman, Moondragon, Daken, Mystique, Northstar, and the new Valkyrie, whose identity will be revealed in The Mighty Valkyries #1 in April.
“As an (ahem!) older gay creator, I’m always thrilled by the opportunity to draw iconic LGBTQ+ characters from Marvel’s past and present, and grateful to contribute to Marvel’s future: one that truly represents the world — and the wonderful diversity of humanity — right outside your window," Jimenez said in a statement.
Four of the covers are out now, Marvel will reveal the rest later.
