Marvel's Voices is a line of comic books by Marvel Comics, based on their podcast of the same name. Just as the podcast aimed to spotlight creatives of color, each issue is an anthology of short comics focusing on various diverse groups of characters, with stories and artwork by creators from those demographics.
In publishing order, the books are:
- Marvel's Voices (2020): The original anthology, with each story consisting of a few pages and focusing on various Marvel characters from different backgrounds. Among other plots, Forge faces off against Shuri, Marvel's LGBT heroes throw a Pride Parade, and Wolverine fights The Incredible Hulk on Madripoor. Every edition of that followed this one focuses on a specific demographic.
- Indigenous Voices (2020) / Heritage (2022): Focuses on Native characters.
- Legacy (2021, 2022): Focuses on Black characters.
- Pride (2021, 2022, 2023): Focuses on LGBTQIA+ characters.
- Identity (2021, 2022): Focuses on Asian and Pacific Islander characters.
- Comunidades (2021): Focuses on Hispanic and Latino characters.
- Spider-Verse (2023): Focuses on various Spider-People from diverse backgrounds.
- X-Men (2023): Focuses on diverse characters and creative teams from the X-Men franchise.
The anthology comics are accompanied by an ongoing Marvel's Voices weekly webcomic, part of Marvel's Infinity Comics imprint. The webcomic, which publishes its own new stories, was launched in June 2022 to coincide with Pride month.
List of Stories
- Marvel's Voices: Indigenous Voices
- "Echo: Hitting Back": Echo goes on a mission to help a Badoon settlement against Saarl the Slaughterer.
- "Mirage: Multifaceted": Dani Moonstar is tapped to find a native mutant named Julian, who has disappeared into the Arizona desert.
- "Silver Fox: Blue Moon": As colonial settlers encroach on the Blackfoot nation, Silver Fox and her husband take matters into their own hands.
- Marvel's Voices: Legacy
- "Words Do Matter": Miles Morales muses on superhero life.
- "Decompression": Kamala Khan, Riri Williams, and Shuri have a decompression session.
- "Panic at the Supermarket": Monica Rambeau, Thor, and She-Hulk help Maria Rambeau go grocery shopping.
- "Good Luck Girl": Domino gambles in Madripoor.
- "A Luta Continua": Ngozi and her Symbiote, as well as Adoru and Setan, participate in Nigerian protests.
- "Nighttime Bodega Run": Blade gets the jump on some vampires who were about to attack two kids at a bodega.
- "Letting Go": Storm tracks down a South African mutant girl who is starting up a rock storm.
- Marvel's Voices: Pride
- "The Vows": Wiccan and Hulking write their wedding vows. (This ties in to Empyre, in which they get married.)
- "Under the Stars": Nico Minoru and Karolina Dean attend a concert.
- "Something New Every Day": Elektra helps Charlene McGowan out when the latter's hormone production research is mistaken for Mutant Growth Hormone.
- "When A Black Cat Crosses Your Path, You Give Them The Right-Of-Way": Black Cat investigates an impersonator.
- "Totally Invulnerable": Titania attacks a woman she thinks is She-Hulk, but turns out to be a trans woman named Jennifer Harris.
- "Colossus": David Alleyne tells his boyfriend Tommy Shepherd how he realized he was bisexual.
- "Good Judy": At a Krakoan dance party, Graymalkin and Anole have a good time.
- "Early Thaw": During the early days of the X-Men, Magneto comforts a young Iceman about his sexuality.
- "The Man I Know": Kyle Jinadu contemplates his marriage to Northstar.
- "The Grey Ladies": Mystique and Destiny try to get ahead of some blackmail.
- "You Deserve": Magik encourages Karma to ask Galura out.
- "Man of His Dreams": Daken muses about a past one-night-stand when the man, Carl Valentino, is reborn as a mutant on Krakoa.
- Marvel's Voices: Identity
- "What Is Vs. What If": Shang-Chi visits the Order of Uatu to retrieve an artifact.
- "That One Thing": Jubilee visits her parents' grave.
- "Jimmy Woo 1959": Jimmy Woo and his childhood friend May Takeuchi assist a Venusian ransacking a city lab.
- "Seeing Red": Kamala Khan spends time with Red Dagger during a visit to Karachi.
- "Personal Heroes": Wave helps Bishop out when he fights a water monster in her hometown.
- "Singular/Plural": Silhouette Chord tries dating in New York while wrestling with her identity.
- "Traditional Pink Sushi": Silver Samurai and Armor debate sushi traditions.
- "New York State of Mind": Amadeus Cho and Cindy Moon visit the Statue of Liberty.
- Marvel's Voices: Comunidades
- "Just as Strange as You": Reptil's cousin Eva Quintero goes off to Strange Academy and befriends fellow Mexican student Germán Aguilar.
- "Pa'lante Juntos": In 1970s Spanish Harlem, Hector Ayala fights a monster made of garbage.
- "Mom's Cooking": Germán enlists his mother to help him make enchiladas for a potluck.
- "Legados": Ava Ayala confronts the Tiger God, who questions who she furthers her brother's legacy.
- "Corn Husks": Reptil tries to cook tamales.
- "Latinx and Proud": Miles Morales and Anya Corazon discuss the term "Latinx" with Miles's mother Rio in preparation for an upcoming rally.
- "You're Not Alone": America Chavez enlists Amadeus Cho to help find Catalina.
- "Hands": Robbie Reyes passes on a tortilla recipe.
- "Fate and the Sorcerer Supreme": Nina the Conjuror uncovers the truth behind a mass extinction.
- "Loco-Motion": At the risk of making Gabe late for an appointment, Robbie steps in to stop a hate group.
- "Shark Hunt": A moment in the life of Iara Dos Santos.
- "Operation: New World": Risque goes on one of Abigail Brand's missions to expand the solar system.
- "Homecoming": Sunspot visits his old friend Juliana's home.
- "Bienvenidos": The featured characters have a party.
- "¿De Donde Eres?": When an affordable housing initiative by Black Panther is interrupted by Shocker, Miles Morales jumps into action.
Marvel's Voices #1
- Giant Spider: Inspiration is about a black widow spider exposed to gamma radiation, turning into a large, sentient, animal who becomes inspired to fight crime after seeing Spider-Man and Silk. The scientist studying her nicknamed her "Spider-Hulk".
- The Grim Reaper: Wolverine encounters what appears to be a Grim Reaper representing Death in Death, and asks them to take him instead of a dying man.
- Pride Parade: In Assemble, Wiccan and Hulkling organized a pride parade for Marvel's LGBT heroes.
- Wacky Racing: The high-tech car race Forge and Shuri partake in involves multiple terrains and teleportation portals. Prodigy comments that Forge's car also has an espresso machine.
Indigenous Voices
- Gladiator Games: According to Dara, Saarl makes the Badoon women partake in gladiator-style violence for the irony, since they are pacifistic.
- Mugging the Monster: A purse snatcher quickly finds that mugging Julian's family is dangerous, since Julian is a mutant who can summon monsters.
- Psychic Nosebleed: Trigo can look into a being's future by touching them, but doing so clearly takes a toll on his health, including starting large nosebleeds.
- Sword over Head: Echo handily beats Saarl and holds a spear over his face, but decides not to kill him because there has been enough violence.
- Superman Stays Out of Gotham: Justified. Wolfsbane asks Mirage why the Marauders aren't handling Julian's disappearance, since they specialize in mutant rescue. Mirage replies that the tribal government reached out to her specifically.
- Translation Convention: Blue Moon's dialogue is in Siksiká, with a caption box clarifying that it's rendered in English.
Legacy
- Advertised Extra: Jubilee is front and center on the cover, but only appears in one panel throughout the entire anthology.
- Dishing Out Dirt: Abeni can control rocks and earth.
- Human Shield: Domino uses one of the men at the poker table to shield herself from bullet fire. He dies, of course.
- Lethal Chef: Shuri admittedly can't cook, and once set the kitchen on fire.
- Shout-Out: The Trust Password to enter the bonding session is "Vandellas", after Martha And The Vandellas.
- You Are Not Alone: The prologue to Legacy is Miles Morales shunting the notion that he fights alone, since other heroes (America Chavez, Storm, Ms. Marvel, and Jubilee) show up to help him.
Pride
- An Ice Person: Reed, aka Aphelion, contains an empty universe, which grants them cold and ice powers.
- Back from the Dead: Angerboda, a giantess who was killed in a 1980s issue of Thor, returns in the 2022 issue when Loki's exes gather to get revenge on them.
- Blackmail Backfire: After a man named James finds out about Irene’s relationship with a woman, he tries to blackmail her. Turns out the person he was talking to was really Mystique in disguise. She promptly broke his neck and threw him out of a moving train.
- Break Them by Talking: Nora, aka Pity Girl, has a variant of this. She tells sad stories, using them as a conduit for her power to hypnotise and emotionally demolish listeners.
- Brought Down to Badass: D-Man may no longer have his Super-Strength, but he still holds his own when fighting the supervillains of the Syndicate.
- Cast Full of Gay: Prodigy calls the Young Avengers the "first mostly-queer superteam".
- Concert Episode: Under the Stars sees Nico and Karolina try to get tickets for a surprisingly popular band. In the end, it's sold out, but Karolina uses her powers to fly the two of them high above to watch.
- Empathic Shapeshifter: Jessie Drake describes her powers as being an "empathic metamorph", who reflects the appearances of people around her.
- Medium Awareness: Jennifer pushes her Internal Monologue box away as she's trying to run from Titania.Jennifer: Out of the way, internal monologue!
- No Bisexuals: Discussed. While sorting out his sexuality, Prodigy read about the research claiming bi men didn't exist.
- One-Steve Limit: Justified. Jennifer (a trans woman) chose her name after Jennifer Walters.
- Playing with Fire: Rex Ridley, aka Bad Arson, has fire powers. Loki's ex Queen Sinda also seems to have fiery abilities, although she opts to leave before the battle, so we don't see much of them.
- Public Domain Character: James is implied to be Professor Moriarty.
- Rainbow Motif: Not a coincidence that Julie Power's rainbow contrails are in the background of the LGBT-centric issue.
- Shout-Out:
- In the 2022 special, when Scorpia realises that the Syndicate's battle with Spider-Man has wrecked a LGBTQIA+ youth center, she worries that she'll now be banned from the (real) New York lesbian dive bar Ginger's.
- In the 2023 special, four-armed mutant Jumbo Carnation responds to tight deadlines for Hellfire Gala outfits by commenting that if people with just two arms can put costumes together so fast on Drag Race, he'll be fine.
- Stereotype Reaction Gag: Redline asks if Charlene knows his cousin, who is also a trans woman. Charlene comments that it's not good to assume all trans women know each other. At the end, though, it's revealed Charlene actually does know his cousin.
- Teacher/Student Romance: Prodigy remarks that being a bisexual guy going through puberty around the X-Men was terrible for his hormones, because they were all attractive.David: Imagine trying to pay attention when Emma Frost is your teacher.
Identity
- Evil Counterpart: As a result of asking What If?, the coin makes Shang-Chi fight the version of himself who had not defied his dad and become a hero.
- The Knights Who Say "Squee!": Wave is excited to be teaming up with Bishop, since he's one of her heroes. Bishop responds in kind — he knew of her in his own time, and is similarly excited to fight alongside her.
- Meaningful Name: Silhouette wants to change her name to something that isn't as associated with superheroics and doesn't feel as fragile. She settles on "Janelle".
- Mirror Match: Played With. The coin sets up a match between Shang-Chi vs. the version of him who became a villain, since the two of them are both expert martial artists. However, Shang-Chi beats him by utilizing moves learned from his Avenger allies.
- "Rediscovering Roots" Trip: Pakistani-American Kamala is on another brief trip to Pakistan. She tells Kareem that she doesn't like visiting long-term, because she doesn't exactly fit in; Kareem calls her a self-hating Pakistani.
- Translation Convention: Parts of the Pakistan- and Philippines-set dialogues are in Urdu and Cebuano, respectively; the caption boxes clarify they're translated from English.
- What If?: Directly invoked. The monk guarding the coin Shang-Chi wants tells him to look inwards and asks "what if?". Shang-Chi wonders what would have happened if he had not defied his father.
Comunidades
- Commonality Connection: Eva and Germán bond over being Mexican-American students of magic.
- Ear Fins: The Megalephallians, a race of Fish People, have different aquatic fins on where ears would be.
- Fish People: The Megalephallian, a race of aquatic humanoids with tentacles for feet, who live on the watery planet Gloria is exploring.
- Gaia's Vengeance: Anhangá, a spirit from Brazilian myth, wants to destroy humanity for the havoc they wreaked upon the environment.Nina: [Anhangá] is the Earth's wrath... and now she seeks vengeance.
- I Come in Peace: Invoked.Gloria: I come in peace.
Gloria's internal monologue: That works in the movies, right? - Mother Nature: According to Nina, the spirit of the earth is fairly universal. The protective deer being she knows as Anhangá is also known in Estonia as Metsik, and in Japan as the kodama. Once Nina gets through to it, it appears to her as a winged, green-skinned woman who resembles a fairy.
- Muck Monster: King Basura, a sentient monster made out of garbage. White Tiger helps the Young Lords put a stop to him. The events of the story were inspired by the 1969 Garbage Offensive
. - Power Incontinence: America's powers are not working correctly, which is a disadvantage against the monster she and Amadeus are up against.
- Unfortunate Names: Gloria (being part-Latino and part-Native) comments that she wants to balk at the name "Operation: New World").
- You Are Not Alone: Amadeus asserts to America that he and the other heroes have her back even when things feel difficult.
