DC Pride 2023 // Review
Hank Hallmark lost his love--the Red Racer. Now, he’s going to confront the Custodians of the Cosmos about matters pertaining to the late hero. He’s going to try to get him back. Hank’s going to find that things are more complicated than he can imagine in DC Pride 2023. Once again, DC celebrates LGBTQ in a warm anthology featuring a strong introduction by Phil Jimenez. Writer Grant Morrison returns to Hank Hallmark in the issue’s opening story, which has the distinctly detailed art of Hayden Sherman. Also, writer Leah Williams tells a charming tale of Poison Ivy and Harley Quinn with the aid of artist Paulina Ganucheau. The massive issue contains a number of other stories, including a promising excerpt from writer Nicole Maines and artist Rye Hickman’s graphic novel Bad Dream: A Dreamer Story.
It’s not going to be easy for Hank. His feelings of loss and duty might be clouding his judgment as he picks up the torch and makes his way out to consult the Custodians. Elsewhere, a young Nia Nal is dealing with the awakening of her powers...a particularly transformative experience given the nature of her powers. Elsewhere still, Poison Ivy and Harley Quinn just want a little bit of alone time together. Along comes Lobo’s daughter, Crush. A little bit of alone time becomes something else altogether with the added chaos of Crush.
Williams’s work with Ivy, Quinn, and Crush makes for a quick-witted, fast-paced little story that serves as an interesting contrast between three different personalities that are each quite strong and overpowering in their own way. Morrison’s prose for the Hallmark story has a dreamy poetry about it that almost seems to rest on a completely different level from the rest of the DC Universe that it is so deeply rooted in. The addition of the Bad Dream excerpt broadens the scope of the issue considerably as it presents a smoothly surreal moment with a young precognitive girl.
Ganucheau’s light and breezy art style in the Poison Ivy/Harley Quinn feature takes the mood of the story in an interesting direction given the fact that it IS a story focusing on three different anti-heroes. Sherman’s art for the Hank Hallmark story seems to have been drawn from a place that is totally at peace with more elegant notions of pulpy design aesthetic. Hickman’s work on the Dreamer graphic novel brings a sense of wonder to the anthology that adds considerably to the energy ricocheting between the covers of a very satisfying anthology.
As with any anthology, DC Pride 2023 has its weaker moments as well. Not everything feels completely in sync with the format of a short-form comic book story, but there’s more than enough here to make for an inspiring series of stories told from angles not often found on the pages of a mainstream comic book. The whole thing feels like it was pulled from a parallel dimension that might have had a more inclusive mainstream comic book industry stretching all the way back to the Golden Age. As always--it’s really nice to see the mainstream embrace a bit more of the full spectrum of human experience.
