Growing up as a cinephile, I loved watching 70s movies especially those starring a young femme fatale named Pam Grier. The way she commanded he screen had just about every man in my family grinning from ear to ear. As years went by I saw an older yet still very much attractive actor in movies when she played a supporting character but that smile still got every man that was in her presence. So, it was pretty much kismet, when I found out she was going to be in a TV show on Showtime, The L Word.

I went into the show because of Grier but came out of the show, a massive fan, of the characters, the stories, and the culture, as it opened my eyes to a world I never knew existed. As the show explored the many intricacies surrounding sexual identity and the discrimination that women and any person who identifies as LGBTQ face daily. This opened my eyes to just how marginalized they were, or rarely they see themselves reflected in the arts without the utilization of stereotypes, especially comics. It was only within the past few years, comics have started to delve into telling these narratives with standouts being the superior Sunstone and the gone too soon Midnighter. Another standout that I came across was Joe Glass’ The Pride, which revolve around a team of superheroes who just so happens to be LGBTQ.

In the opening pages we meet a well-meaning superhero, Fab-Man, who is openly gay and who is not taken as seriously as his cisgender counterparts. This leads him to create his own, his “Justice League” full of LGBTQ superheroes who fight injustice as well as they face villains who are homophobic and evil and struggle to find a synergy to work with each other. One of the standout stories is “You Think You’re a Man,” one of our heroes finds out he has a son and a one of the villains has kidnapped him, leading our heroes to a trap which looks to silences one member forever. In “It Gets Better,” Fab Man talks a young boy who wants to commit suicide after being harassed because he was gay. In the last standout story, we get the origin of “Muscle Mary,” a warrior who can do battle with anyone but who originally came to the world of men, to avenge a death, but eventually came to defend mortals.

Overall, The Pride is a comic which shows that heroes are never black and white and usually contain multitudes of layers. Some times those layers is what makes you extraordinary. The stories by the different writers is well developed, smart, and exciting. Th art by the different artists complement the stories well. Altogether, a strong book.

Story: Joe Glass, PJ Montgomery, Mike Garley
Art: Kris Anka, Kris Carter, Elizabeth Swann, Hector Barros, Nathan Ashworth, Ben Wilsonham, Mike Stock, Ricardo Bessa, Gavin Mitchell, Maxime Garbarini, Dan Harris, Ryan Cody, Christian Wildgoose and Cory Smith
Story: 10 Art: 9.0 Overall: 9.7 Recommendation: Buy