Long reduced to merely being Jean Grey and Cyclops‘ time-displaced daughter, Askani has steadily come into her own in recent years, and now she burns bright in official Pride art. Since her introduction into the wild world of the X-Men, fans have speculated Rachel was a queer hero. Recently, Marvel made that official, and has wasted no time in commissioning her portrait among others as part of its Pride 2023 series of variant covers.
This year artists Lucas Werneck and David Talaski are the talents behind the six Pride variant covers. The initial announcement released covers featuring Black Cat and Captain America among others, with Talaski’s final 2 covers remaining a mystery. That was until recently, when critically-acclaimed fan podcast CEREBRO exclusively shared one of the final Pride variants. Each of Talaski’s 2023 Pride covers share structural elements such as a white background and an iconic queer Marvel hero posed at the center surrounded by a hoop colored with a Pride flag palette. Rachel’s portrait adorns the Immortal X-Men #12 Pride cover and includes butterflies, evoking the scene of her first kiss with her current girlfriend Betsy Braddock, aka Captain Britain. Askani is clothed in her Knights of X costume and blazes with the flaming power signature granted to her in Otherworld through her lapsed connection with the Phoenix.
Askani’s New Era Is Undeniable
Despite solely engaging in heterosexual relationships for decades, Rachel Summers has been coded as queer since her debut, with fans speculating she was intended to be a lesbian struggling with her identity during a time where Marvel would not have made this explicit. Comic critics have pointed out how she embodied the feeling of queer children being ostracized from their families through her own relationship with Cyclops and Jean Grey being complicated by time travel and alternate futures. This subtext became text with Betsy and Rachel’s kiss, which finally made a long-implied romantic connection text rather than subtext.
Rachel & Betsy’s Romance Is a Major Win for X-Men Fans
Thankfully, Rachel’s coming out was not limited to a single splash-page kiss. Her relationship with her girlfriend is central to the story of Tini Howard and Vasco Georgiev’s Betsy Braddock: Captain Britain series. Further still, Rachel’s time with Betsy has given her the inspiration to take up the name Askani, giving herself an identity which fully ties to her origin and past, rather than her famous parents Cyclops and Phoenix. In many ways, Rachel is the embodiment of Pride, as her coming-out has begun a new era where the character has more agency and self-identity than ever. This makes her the perfect hero to showcase during the celebration.
The main thrust of Marvel Comics’ Pride offerings remains its annual ‘Voices’ anthology. However, Pride variant covers are also a beautiful way to give fans an iconic memento and turn comic store shelves into a celebration of queer heroes. Fans can see Cyclops and Phoenix‘s daughter Rachel Summers, aka Askani, on variant covers for Immortal X-Men #12 this June 7, 2023.
Source: CEREBRO
