Marvel Voices: Pride #1 (2023)

[shakalooloo]

Well, Marvel finally gave their annual Pride anthology the squarebound treatment rather than the usual staples, so that's an improvement. Still having a #1 issue with the same title several years in a row though, the contents pages remain a nightmare and they have ads interrupt stories rather than place them in-between, so nothing's perfect.




Oh yeah, and not everyone on the cover is within the issue.





Marieke Williams, story; Héctor Barros, pencils; Oren Junior, inks; Andrew Dalhouse, colors; Ariana Maher, letters.





Sarah Gailey, story; Bailie Rosenlund, pencils and inks; Rachelle Rosenburg, colors; Ariana Maher, letters.

Comments

[cygnia]

KICK 'EM IN THE 'NADS, GWEN & JEFF!

[beyondthefringe]

I read that run of Excalibur and I still don't remember who Felicia's hitting on. Huh. I'll have to go and look it up.

I like having multiple ace characters running around.

[shakalooloo]

It's Candra, the goddess of thieves, one of the externals that got ganked by Apocalyse's mystical ritual prior to X of Swords.

[beyondthefringe]

Oh yeah. Forgot about her. :)

[scorntx]

Candra seems surprisingly easily flustered there for an immortal.

Maybe it's silly, but I'd have thought someone who's spent time in New Orleans, never mind lived for untold thousands of years, has probably done and heard more salacious things than "I'm up for whatever".

[dan_ingram]

I imagine immortals reset their personal standards every few decades, just to be able to keep having fun.

[remial]

well, if Spiderman has 8 legs, then him putting his foot in it is a certainty.

I'll get my coat....

[zachbeacon]

Ah, yes "Ace Force". A team consisting of Yelena Belova, Nadia van Dyne, Gwenpool, and, um, Elsa from Frozen.

[lbd_nytetrayn]

I'd read it.

[beyondthefringe]

Now we just need a male-presenting ace hero.
Alex Power, maybe? Be an interesting counterpoint to his sister, Julie... I know he's had a few female crushes in the past, but he's both been kept relatively young and off-screen enough that it's not hard to have him come to realizations about his identity...

The Sam Alexander version of Nova? Again, not a lot of baggage to deal with to my recollection.

[zachbeacon]

Sam is the worst, though. Also he's pretty young isn't he? That's uncomfortable to me for a bunch of reasons.

I'd be happy to see more Power Pack even if it is only once a year for Pride...on a variant cover.

Apparently Shatterstar was intended to be ace but (a) obviously they didn't end up going in that direction and (b) the creator the claim is attributed to often comes across as less than sincere about things so I'm not sure I believe him.

The Marvel universe has long been a wasteland for ace representation. I mean, at least with Star Trek you had Data the ace coded robot and I guess that's better than nothing. Marvel goes out of it's way to make sure you know their robots fuck.

[alliterator]

I also loved the introduction of Lacie Lorraine, immortal and indestructible trans woman, who has been everywhere, even space.

[melancholiahemlock]

Huh, even in comics, people dump all their shit everywhere as soon as the event is over.

I'd really like for this kind of thing to make me happy, but it just doesn't. It feels so.....Hollow and self-congratulatory. Especially when I have to think....

How many of these characters have their own series?

How many of them actually get to BE bi, ace, gay, etc, except during pride month when Marvel puts out the self-congratulatory wanking issue? It's such a pitiful offering.

[shakalooloo]

Characters that will continue to display their sexuality after this? Black Cat certainly will, as will Hulkling and Wiccan.

The newer characters... Some of them don't even display it IN THIS ISSUE. The Nightshade story, besides confusing me with the weird timeline*, seemed like an odd inclusion for the theme. Did I miss something, or is prior knowledge assumed?

*Opens with no timestamp.
"Years ago".
Now.
Two days ago (concurrent with Ultimates #7 from 2016 per an asterisk box).
One year later.
Later that day.
WHEN IS THIS STORY SET!!?

[zachbeacon]

I'm more worried it will become their entire personality at the expense of the complex character they were before (not going to name names because I really don't want an argument) or they'll become someone they ONLY use for the annual Pride issue*.

*Until they get cycled out to clear up pages for a new character. I miss The Ray; DC doesn't even let me see him once a year now.

[melancholiahemlock]

And how often do they actually get the panel space to do that?

Black Cat doesn't have her own series, generally. The Young Avengers are mostly relegated to appearing in events and other people's books. Gwenpool doesn't, either.

[deh_tommy]

I dunno, this is probably going to sound really offensive but I’m not entirely sure I like the idea of Gwenpool being aro/ace (moreso aro than ace anyway). Or at least not in the way it’s written here. Is she even going to get another book after this or will she just get stuffed back into the closet until the next MARVEL Voices comes along? And after Krakoa I’m positively fed up of those self-indulgent “and then everyone clapped” moments of disproportionate consequence-free retribution against harassers and hecklers.

[bruinsfan]

It does kind of fit with how her romance with Quentin Quire had pragmatic motivations in West Coast Avengers though.

[deh_tommy]

I guess, but honestly while it was never going to last I’d kind of grown attached to that ship and it (and West Coast Avengers in general) deserved better than how it got written off. She’s very clearly crushed on and showed attraction to folks before and it kind of makes everything that goes down in Gwenpool Strikes Back even more gross in hindsight. I’m not inherently opposed to her being aro or ace (I actually rather liked her Love Unlimited arc that preludes this outside of the ending) and I’m always glad to see more aro/ace stuff, but with her history up to now I don’t buy Gwenpool specifically being both aromantic and asexual at the same time, and even though I know this is being written by an ace person, this dialogue (or at least these scans) of “Finally I know who I am” and “I am an Aro/Ace icon <3 UwU” and the meme/reaction baiting feels really inauthentic to me.

[shakalooloo]

Weird how QQ, noted Omega-level telepath, never picked up even the most subtle tell about her sexuality, though.

[zachbeacon]

*character has a string of failed hetero relationships and showed no interest in their own gender*

"Obviously they're gay"

*character dates one person and it doesn't work out*

"She can't be ace; I saw her kiss that one guy"

[deh_tommy]

Again, I’m not saying she can’t be aro or ace, I’m just saying I don’t really see her as both at the same time because she’s shown undeniable attraction to folks before. In her regular book she got tongue-tied at seeing Doctor Strange, in that Venomverse tie-in she crushed hard on Daredevil (and while it was an alternate universe it was written by the same dude doing her main book and she was pretty much identical to how he always wrote her), in West Coast Avengers she dated and regularly made out with Quentin Quire, then Gwenpool Strikes Back was pretty much her being really uncomfortably horny to just about everybody almost the entire time and making a ton of random sex jokes (including, like, a whole page or two about how it’s totally okay to sexualise her because she’s actually 18 you guys). And I doubt any future writer is going to want to reckon with stuff like her Civil War II tie-in having her clothes reduced to scraps and she’s all “ugh, isn’t it just the worst when artists indulge in gratuitous objectification?” and again in Gwenpool Strikes Back where she dedicates several pages to sexualising herself because “it’s what you the readers want”.

And maybe I’m not being fair, but it also strikes me as a bit unintentionally unsympathetic that it turns out she really did have some very close friends the whole time in her world but she deliberately cut herself off from them when they had the nerve to start dating and that’s pretty much the sole reason why she was so lonely and depressed before getting isekai’d.

[mastermahan]

It's got to be horrifying for onlookers, seeing people get shoved out of existence with no idea what happened to them.

EDIT: Hell of a lot better than stranding them on an alien planet, at least.

[iamrman]

First that selfie on Johnny's phone in Fantastic Four, now an appearance in the background of the Gwenpool story. Two Squirrel Girl cameos in as many months?! Marvel is really spoiling us.

[shakalooloo]

Such power cannot be unleashed carelessly.