Buckle up Marvel fans, you will be meeting the world’s first ever drag queen superhero in the pages of a comic book. The drag queen named Shade made her first appearance in Marvel’s monthly series Iceman and fans are ecstatic with hopes that she will be a regular in the series or even get her own comic. Shade’s superpower is teleportation through her hand-held fan.
Openly gay Iceman writer Sina Grace revealed on social media that Shade was inspired by RuPaul’s Drag Race luminaries such as Shea Couleé, Monét X Change, The Vixen and Dax ExclamationPoint. While speaking to The Advocate, Grace said that she really wanted this series to push readers to new and better stories about the whole queer experience and how it applies to being both a mutant and a superhero. “There’s a million different queer perspectives and we’re only scratching the surface,” Grace further said.
While sharing the original sketch design for Shade on twitter, Grace praised colleague Stockman Nate who is the artist for Iceman for perfectly capturing her idea.” Here’s my original design for Shade. @StockmanNate did a great job interpreting my chicken scratch, and I’m really grateful that @Toonfed kept working at getting the makeup just right haha,” she shared.
It should be noted that Iceman is also a gay superhero, a trend that is quickly gaining momentum at Marvel. Batwoman., in her 2016 reintroduction, came back as a lesbian- a clear indication that Marvel is changing with the times and being more queer community inclusive.
In Uganda, a publication such as this would not see the light of day and would automatically be deemed a crime; the annulled Anti Homosexuality Act clearly criminalized a person who participates in production, procuring, marketing, broadcasting, disseminating, publishing of materials for purposes of promoting homosexuality. Any materials that attempt to explain and demystify the negative rhetoric that surrounds LGBTQ persons is considered promotion of homosexuality However, Kuchu Times and the Ugandan LGBTQ community continue to defiantly out the annual publication, Bombastic Magazine in the hope of humanizing same gender and sexual minorities.
