The newest DC Pride special is here! Justice League: Dream Girls - A DC Pride Event showcases two groundbreaking characters that have made their mark on DC fans over the past few years. The limited series follows Dreamer and Galaxy as they are transported into different scenarios (and art styles) where they have to fight to remember who they are and find a way back to each other. It’s fun, it's adventurous, it's girly, it's gay and it has a lot of heart. Best of all, it accomplishes all of this while exploring the internal struggles of these incredibly layered characters. The four-issue comic comes courtesy of writers Nicole Maines and Jadzia Axelrod, and artists Nicola Scott, J. Bone, Ted Brandt and Ro Stein!

Recently, we had the opportunity to talk to Axelrod and Maines about the first issue, the importance of trans representation and what it feels like leading this year’s Pride comic. Here is what they had to say!

Justice League: Dream Girls is so fun. I love that you are reimagining Dreamer and Galaxy in these different DC storylines and settings! How did this miniseries come to be?

Nicole Maines: Well, I think the first part of that is we had the name and we knew that “Dream Girls” was something! We were like, “This is definitely on the right track.” So, we started with a great name and built from there.

Jadzia Axelrod: It’s where you have to start! I think Andrea [Shea, Justice League: Dream Girls editor] approached us both, because this is kind of Andrea’s…not necessarily idea, but the idea of doing a miniseries was. She came to us and was like, “Now you fill it with whatever you want!”

NM: Her big goal has always been to make sure that queer characters are not relegated to just June. Also, she’s been fighting to make DC Pride bigger and better every year. Last year was the first one where they explored having some kind of timeline, or narrative, in the story rather than standalone one-shot anthologies. This is kind of the natural next step in that. Like, “Now, let’s try a miniseries!”

JA: And tell a larger story that has some real meat on it.

NM: That’s also rooted in canon. Being in canon gives it extra weight. When it’s in canon, it means more!

What do you recommend people read before they start on Justice League: Dream Girls?

JA: The only thing you have to read is Justice League Intergalactic Special #1, which is kind of our issue #0. It sets everything up for Justice League: Dream Girls. It catches you up on who Galaxy is, who Dreamer is, their relationship and how that has changed since they were kids.

Speaking of Dreamer and Galaxy’s past, can you elaborate on their relationship and history? It feels like these characters were written in the stars for each other!

NM: Completely! They started interacting in my first and only graphic novel, Bad Dream: A Dreamer Story. When I started writing that, DC had come to me and said that they had just released Galaxy: The Prettiest Star, and it was blowing up. It was this huge success. They said, “We have this other trans alien hero, and we would love to have these stories crossover because we have never really had our graphic novels interconnect in the way mainline comics do.”

That’s how I met Jadzia, and we started talking and workshopping characters and then we traded off for Galaxy: As the World Falls Down, which also features Dreamer and is also illustrated by Rye Hickman. They draw those characters so cute and perfect and I LOVE the way they draw hair!

Art from Galaxy: As the World Falls Down

JA: Yeah, they’re amazing! And it’s really cool to have these two characters together. It’s so rare to have trans superheroes at all. When we do, queer characters and trans characters are usually isolated. They are in with straight characters or cis characters in an ensemble.

NM: Always the token.

JA: To have these two come together. To have them be in the same books together and be close friends, ride or die, was really wonderful and a great experience. I was so happy because Galaxy was sort of my first character to take off in this real way. To have her go to another writer and be in another book was a little nerve-racking. Then I read what Nicole had written and it was perfect. Nicole has such a great understanding of the character. Everything was exactly as if she had walked out of my book and into hers.

Justice League: Dream Girls is a part of DC Pride. It’s an important event and an important month, now more than ever. Why is Pride important to you, and what do you want people to take away from reading your book?

JA: The biggest thing is that there are so many people who want us to hide, and want us to be ashamed, and want us back in the closet, and to not have pride in who we are and what we do. To have a special like this, that is very loud and proud about these characters and what they do, how queer they are, and how openly trans they are—

NM: We take a couple swings too!

JA: We do! These stories are fantasies certainly, but I think we need power fantasies right now. There is so much out there trying to rob us of any sort of joy, any sort of feeling of power. Especially now, these kinds of stories are necessary.

Can you talk about the internal struggles Galaxy and Dreamer are facing in this series, and how they will influence and help each other?

JA: Well, they are mad at each other, first of all. *laughs*

NM: *laughs* It starts with a great argument that’s also been a long time coming because Nia doesn't know how to pick up the phone. She’s been dealing with a lot, mostly on her own, because she hasn't wanted to burden Galaxy with it, as Galaxy is in a really great spot—which is one of the things I love about having multiple trans characters. They get to have different stories and take up different spaces in the continuity. The burden is not on one of them to be everything for all of us.

When we start Justice League Intergalactic Special, we find Galaxy at this place where she is the up-and-coming new hot thing on the Watchtower, and Dreamer is currently residing in the House of Secrets, kind of wallowing in, “I have created a monster named Jay Nakamura. I have tried to help. I have tried to fix my mistakes. I have tried to deliver vigilante justice where I could. All I seem to be able to do is make everything worse.”

We start Dream Girls on Themyscira where now they are living out the life of Wonder Woman as the champion and the princess, respectively. We start this journey through a series of vignettes of different superhero origins. To what end? Who can say? What we can see is that their relationship is a lot better here. They are not in the middle of an argument. They are trying to get back to each other. They are trying to help each other.

JA: They have such similar origins. They both have alien heritage, they both have powers they are still working with, they both are trying to find their place, and they both are trans. At the same time, they do diverge in how they react to things and how they do things. That’s baked into the characters. What is a galaxy but a gravitational pull that brings in all sorts of planets and stars to itself? What are dreams but something that only you see, and you have trouble explaining to other people? Galaxy is going to try to pull people in, and Dreamer is going to assume nobody understands off the bat. That is going to be their first move.

I love these vignettes that put them in different circumstances, where we see the friendship and we see how much they mean to each other, even when everything has changed.

Speaking of the vignettes, what was it like working with this incredible team of artists?

JA: Oh my gosh! Heaven!

NM: Ahhhh! Ted and Ro, let me tell you a little something about Ted and Ro! Best acting in the biz. I am obsessed with the way they draw Green Arrow, specifically, and Wonder Woman!

JA: To work with legends like Nicola Scott and J. Bone, people who I have read their comics, who are now here drawing my girl. It’s indescribably amazing.

NM: No spoilers, my favorite vignette is the Jonah Hex and Bat Lash page!  I am so obsessed with it. I have it all saved on my phone. I go back and look at it when I need a boost!

JA: My favorite one might be the Gotham one. How perfect is it to have these vignettes, these clear moments of DC history, like Wonder Woman Rebirth, Batman: The Animated Series, Justice League International, the Old Western comics, the Hard Traveling Heroes—all of these eras that did not have queer and trans people in them. How cool is it to have these characters in these stories in this way now? They should have been there the entire time!

One last question. If your characters were to be members of a Lantern Corp, what would they be?

JA: Red!! Galaxy is so angry! To see your whole family, planet and culture destroyed is going to cause some rage. On top of that, to have an unwavering moral compass—she knows what the right and wrong thing to do is and to see so many people not do that, it makes her angry! She’s got to be red.

NM: I’m torn between whether Dreamer would be a Star Sapphire or a proper Green Lantern.

JA: I see the proper Green Lantern!

NM: There is a lot of willpower in that girl!
 

Justice League: Dream Girls – A DC Pride Event #1 by Jadzia Axelrod, Nicole Maines, Nicola Scott, J. Bone, Brandt&Stein, Annette Kwok, Marissa Louise and Dearbhla Kelly is now available in print and as a digital comic book. It can also be read on DC UNIVERSE INFINITE.