Marvel Voices: Pride 2022, Recap and Review (Spoilers)

[Dante Milton]

We open with an introductory essay by Alex Phillips, “Visibility Does Not Equal Liberation, But It’s a Start”

The first story is by Alyssa Wong and Stephen Byrne, a mini Young Avengers reunion between Hulkling, Wiccan, America Chavez, and Loki. Loki calls for help from his former teammates after being abducted by a group of disgruntled exes.

Then a story by Andrew Wheeler and Brittney Williams about Hercules and Noh-Varr rescuing a Kree research satellite while updating their relationship status.

Followed by a story by Grace Freud and Scott Henderson about a trans superhero support group led by a “retired” D-Man. We are introduced to Nora aka Pity Girl (she/her) who can hypnotize people with sad stories, Reed aka Aphelion (they/them) who contains an entire universe and has freeze powers, Rex Ridley aka Good Arson (a dude) a pyrokinetic, and Soph (she/her) a shapeshifter. The group is crashed by Spider-Man being attacked by the Sinister Six, who the support group and D-Man help to subdue.

Then we have another essay, “Comics De-Coded”, by Angelique Roche.

Then a story by Danny Lore and Lucas Werneck featuring Venomm and Taku, which explicitly confirms the characters are queer and married after only previously being allowed to be subtextual.

This is followed by a story by Christopher Cantwell and Kei Zama, featuring Moondragon and the other Guardians of the Galaxy. Moondragon has dream inserting herself and her lover and other teammates as the cast of a biker movie and manages to repel an attempted mental invasion by the Grandmaster.

Then a story by Ira Madison III and Lorenzo Susi, about the Valkyrie Runa staging a Pride event for Asgard that Loki attempts to hijack and take the credit for.

The final story is by Charlie Jane Anders, Ro Stein and Ted Brandt, it introduces two new trans mutant characters, Shela Sexton aka Escapade (she/her)who has the ability to switch circumstances and other physical and mental attributes with another person within range, and Morgan Red (he/they) who has the ability to transform any organic material into chocolate. The two are established as Robin Hood style thieves. Escapade is infiltrating a helicarrier that has been bought by some rich guys as an offshore tax haven with Morgan acting as “the guy in the chair”. We get some background history about the two and learn that Emma Frost and Destiny have visited Escapade and warned her that Morgan will die due to a mistake with Escapade’s power. Escapade is attempting to find something called the Onyx Needle to prevent Morgan’s future. She doesn’t find it among the helicarrier loot, which leads to her reluctantly agreeing to go to Krakoa to be trained by Emma Frost. Escapade and Morgan’s story will be continued in New Mutants #31.

The issue concludes with character profiles on Kyle Beaubier-Jinadu, Jumbo Carnation, Escapade, Somnus, Runa, and Viv Vision.




Overall I really enjoyed this. I like that the essays emphasized the struggles that creators have had getting queer stories out there after last year’s special felt like Marvel was being a little too self congratulatory about their own history.

The YA story was sweet, I liked the scene of Teddy and Billy in the throne room. They followed up on America’s wonky powers, and although I kind of wish that America’s last solo was being quietly ignored, the scene of her star portalling was fun and well composed by Byrne. Loki has some interesting exes.

The Herc and Noh story was cute, but felt kind of inconsequential. I’m glad that the relationship is being reaffirmed after GotG ended. I wish we had gotten some clarification on the possible Nova, Gamora, and Starlord triad in either this or the other story featuring the GotG cast, but I get that it wasn’t part of the story the writers were telling.

The trans hero support group story was great, I’m really glad we got these characters and hopefully they show up somewhere soon. My favorites of the group are Pity Girl and Aphelion, with the later having very intriguing powers. I’m not clear on whether all of these new characters are mutants as seems to be implied in the later Escapade story. I didn’t care for the lame Spider-Man joke at the end of the story though, particularly coming from a (presumably) straight, cis character.

The Venomm and Taku story was just okay. I’m glad that characters got to be explicitly confirmed after so much time only being allowed to be subtextual, but the writing felt stiff to me and the story felt kind of disposable. The accent for Venomm was grating.

The Moondragon biker story was fun. I’m glad that there was more context to the scenario, the brief solicit made it seem like an AU. I loved that full page image of Heather shaving her head by Zama.

The Runa story was fine. I don’t really know much about the character or the Thor books in general so it was a little underwhelming to me. It’s odd that there were two stories where Loki manipulates things because he just wants to hang out, is the character being shunned over in the Thor books?

I mostly really enjoyed the Escapade story. The history and friendship established between the two new characters is very sweet and well written. Escapade’s powers are a little confusing, seeing them in action helped a bit, but there are still ting I don’t quite understand about them. There were a couple of lines of dialogue and narration that felt weird to me, or maybe I just don’t get the context? Like that line on the first page of the story about a drink order? The story sets up that both Shela and Morgan have a fairly negative view of Krakoa, which concerns me only because it could limit their use in the X-books. It’s nice that we know they will be showing up again soon. In the previews Morgan had a poster of Kitty Pryde’s infamous “Professor X is a jerk” moment, in the issue it was replaced with a wedding picture of Northstar and Kyle. I wonder why the switch was made, is it just as simple as the logistics for the Kitty image existing as a poster not really working?

[Nyssane]

It was cool seeing Cylla Markham back, but I wasn't super impressed with any of the stories.

[Kingdom X]

Thank you for writing this up!

I like that the essays emphasized the struggles that creators have had getting queer stories out there.

I hope Marvel takes this to heart and we get to see more representation throughout the line instead contained to specials like this.

[Fokken]

Anyone have the inside scoop on the the Marvel Voices Pride TPB that also came out?

I ordered my copy online but it won't be arriving for a bit. Do we love it? Is it gorgeous?

I was ELATED with the YA story. It was very charming and I really enjoyed the acting/bodylanugage the artist brought to the characters (particularly in the Throne Room scenes)

[Chris0013]

How badly was Dennis Dunphy portrayed in this?

[Dermie]

How badly was Dennis Dunphy portrayed in this?

Not badly at all. He did really well in his short story here, given that he was also sharing space with 4 brand new characters being introduced. He also got a cameo in one of the other stories.

[Digifiend]

With respect, indeed. One of the four newbies can copy other people (but only if she thinks they're cool), and shapeshifted into D-Man in his current costume. Dennis himself was wearing his old one, which was mentioned as being an old suit.

[legion_quest]

I really enjoyed the essays in here. They were easily the highlight of the whole book for me.

The stories were ok. Inconsequential on the whole, but they did the job in as far as having some LGBT+ characters getting little spot light stories. Wiccan and Hulkling continue to be presented as 'the gay couple' before anything else - obviously for this particular book - but it's starting to get grating that every writer feels the need to make their entire character now just the fact they are together. They can and are more than just each other's other half. America was written as best she could given the absolute state she's been written in to, the Hercules/Noh-Varr story was sweet and there is so much more they could give. I hope the MCU debut of Hercules doesnt destroy them. The Moondragon story was good fun.

I didnt gel at all with the trans support group and the new characters introduced there. I found nothing drawing me to any of them.

The big 'point' of the book was the final story with the other new trans characters. This was the most fleshed out pointed story in the book, and it definitely did the job of introducing the new characters, introducing a hook and setting up their journey in to the X-books. I hope that goes well, as aside from the pointlessly dumb power one of them has, the rest of the story was well written and did make me care what happened to them, and what may happen going forward. So job done well on that one.

[Rift]

Thank you for writing this up!



I hope Marvel takes this to heart and we get to see more representation throughout the line instead contained to specials like this.

Yeah. Put D-Man on a book.

[The Invincible Beawulf]

Last time D-Man was a vampire at Ravencroft (actually his vampire status wasn't confirmed) and now he's retired?

Yeah. Put D-Man on a book.

I absolutely agree with this.