DC Pride: Through the Years is an anthology book collecting 3 stories of queer characters from DC’s history; The Flash (vol. 2) #53, Detective Comics #854, and Supergirl (Vol. 7) #19. Alongside these 3 historic stories there is also a brand new Alan Scott Green Lantern story at the end of this 80 page giant. While the whole book is good, for this post I’ll only be focusing on the story featuring Supergirl and Lee Serrano. Supergirl (Vol. 7) #19 was written by Steve Orlando and Vita Ayala with art by Jamal Campbell and lettering done by Carlos M. Mangual. The story is titled “One Life” and while it does have references to some of the larger story arcs Steve Orlando had been building upon, the story is for the most part a standalone. The story puts our main hero in more of a supporting role and instead follows Ben Rubel, a friend of Kara Danvers’ from CatCo, as he is interviewing someone who has become friends with Supergirl.
Lee Serrano is a brand new character introduced in this issue and is based somewhat on co-writer Vita Ayala’s life. Like Vita, Lee is non-binary and uses they/them/their pronouns and is Afro-Puerto Rican. As we learn about Lee’s life throughout this issue we fine out that they’re not out currently but their peers in school already bully them for their looks and how they present themself. One day as Lee is out in National City, the city is attacked and Lee is saved by Supergirl who promises Lee that she’ll be around if they need her. A promise that Lee initially takes as an empty one that any superhero would say to anyone that gets saved. Lee is soon proven wrong as they once again run into the Girl of Steel who not only remembers Lee but remembers to check in on their wellbeing.
It is at this point when Lee comes out to Supergirl as being non-binary and the pair have a good conversation about parents and how parents don’t always do what their children want. Supergirl discusses her own life and she knows her parents put her in the rocket to earth to save her but she still wishes she had more time on Krypton. She has a particularly good line at this point “Yes, parents can protect you. They can also hurt you deeper than anyone else. Both are rooted in love.” The story continues on as we see Lee suffer more bullying and as they spend more time venting to Supergirl and Supergirl continues to listen and give advice while still being entirely truthful to Lee that things wouldn’t suddenly be okay once they came out. At this point we get some dialogue from Supergirl that ties into the title of the story “You only get this one life, and no one but you should get to decide how to live it.” The scene then shifts to Lee at a coffee shop with their parents a few weeks later.
The scene is told rather naturally and serves both as a coming out story for Lee, as well as really explaining what being non-binary means to readers that may not be familiar with the term. While this scene does have a very happy ending with Lee’s parents saying they will always love their child, it does still feel like a natural coming out story and one that isn’t overly sugar coated. Coming out isn’t this easy for everyone and Lee seems to have particularly supportive parents, but something that seems almost universal is the fear that Lee has going into this as they come out and the text reflects this fear when Lee says “I have to be honest, I have to… Even if you hate me too.” This scene also has a familiar face in the background of the scene (Kara Danvers) that shows Supergirl has continued to keep her promise of being around if Lee needs her.
While this could very well be a happy ending to a pleasant coming out story, the story is over just yet. Lee once again encounters their school bully, Chuck, who has Lee cornered. Just before Chuck could take out his anger on Lee for not being heteronormative, Supergirl steps in. Instead of pummeling Chuck and his cronies, she merely takes a backpack to the head and allows Lee to stick up for themself. Lee stands their ground and calls out Chuck for only picking on them because his dad came out as gay and is divorcing his mom. Chuck, now feeling less in the mood for picking on Lee, walks away but not before Lee offers a listening ear just as Supergirl did when they needed it. Chuck, being the pinnacle of masculinity, of course denies that he needs any help as he punches his crony for making a remark about Chuck being gay and walks away.
The story closes out with Ben finalizing his questions for his article about Lee for CatCo and the pair part ways. The story ends as been sees his article “Supergirl: An Indestructible Shoulder” is shown advertised on a large screen out in the city.
As a trans person myself, seeing trans representation, or any queer representation, in a Supergirl story really makes me happy. Steve Orlando and Vita Ayala write a compelling and believable story that has a happy end while also showing Lee go through real struggles. Coming out isn’t always as easy as it was shown with Lee coming out to their parents but it shared a lot of similarities to when I came out to my parents so it can happen. Also sometimes it’s nice to read a story about queer people where they can have happy endings. I will say that Chuck being a bully to Lee because his dad is gay feels a little tropey and, to me, felt a bit on the nose. I do like seeing the parallels of Supergirl being there for Lee and then Lee being there for Chuck and how differently each character approached that. The story also does a great job of bringing Lee’s struggles up to the level of Supergirl’s struggles and showing that, while mundane, Lee’s problems in life are just as important and scary as when Supergirl has to fight space robots. All in all, this is a wonderful story with fantastic art by Jamal Campbell that is really worth reading and should be fairly easy to get a hold of. The issue is available on the DC Universe app, and aside from it’s initial print release, it has also been collected in Supergirl: Plain Sight that collected issues 15-20 of the series. The story was also bundled in the DC Pride: Through the Years as I mentioned at the start of this post.
Thanks for reading! If you made it this far and have any other thoughts, comments, or suggestions feel free to email me at blogofsupergirl.com!
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