Archie Comics has announced its first transgender character, and she’s someone who has been around for a while, albeit not on center stage: Danni Malloy.
Danni will tell her story in the upcoming one-shot Chilling Adventures Present… Strange Science, by writer Magdalene Visaggio (Eternity Girl) and artist Butch Mapa (Star Wars), which Archie will publish in August. The title is a throwback to Danni’s first appearance, in the 1989 series Dilton’s Strange Science, where her chief interests were science, inventions, and Dilton Doiley. In the updated Strange Science, she has moved on and is more involved in art and music, which Dilton frowns on even as they try to extricate themselves from a time-travel mishap.
Danni’s introduction into the Archie Horror universe came in the Free Comic Book Day title Archie Horror Presents the Cursed Library, and her second appearance will be in Jinx: A Cursed Life, written by Visaggio, with art by Craig Cermak, which is due out on May 17, 2023.
Chilling Adventures Present… Strange Science will be released on August 16, 2023, with a main cover by Mapa and an open to order variant by Skylar Partridge.
“I’ve been wanting to make this happen for a long time, and it’s really cool to see it finally come to fruition,” Visaggio said in a statement accompanying the announcement. “I never wanted Danni’s trans identity to be gimmicky, or for her to feel like she was only created to be trans. So, I’d like to apologize for sneaking her over the line like this! I wanted you to have a chance to fall in love with her for who she is, not what she is. I’m honored I got to make it happen, and I’m grateful to Archie for never, not even once, pushing back on my insistence on making their books a little bit more queer. I hope Danni finds a good home at Archie with supportive writers and artists helping to keep her alive for years to come.”
“Strange Science is one of, if not the, most important one-shots we’ve released to date,” added Archie Senior Director of Editorial Jamie L. Rotante. “It also showcases how versatile horror can be, as it deftly blends sci-fi with horror and tells a beautiful, poignant tale about confronting the past. That’s all thanks to writer Magdalene Visaggio, who had the idea to have Danni Malloy tell her own story about her transition. We just needed to figure out the best way to make it fit, and a callback to her character’s classic origins mixed with the new horror surroundings she’s been re-introduced in just made the most sense.”
Archie Comics’ first openly LGTBQ+ character was Kevin Keller, who was created in 2010 as a guest character in Veronica #202 and went on to headline his own series (see “Dan Parent Kickstarts ‘Kevin Keller’ Omnibus”).
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Source: ICV2
