Comic Book / Pride High

"It isn't easy starting a gay-straight alliance at a school for super-powered youth, but the Out Crowd isn't giving in!"

— series tagline

Pride High is a comic book series written by Tommy Roddy and published by Pride Comics. It follows a gay/straight alliance at a superhero high school. The website also allows for readers to create their own characters on the message boards, and these characters have a chance to appear on the comic (and one of them has even joined the core group of characters).

Within the story, Pride High is the titular gay/straight alliance, and they act as a squad for the school's Inter-Squad Championships (ISC), in which students sharing a unifying interest form a five-person squad and compete with other said squads throughout the year in academics and, more noticeably, physical stadium matches. The prime antagonist squad to Pride High is called the Argonauts, a group of primarily super-strong characters.

Aside from the ISC, there is also a prevailing mystery, as one of the Pride High members dies early on, and the squad investigates what he was doing that may have lead to his death.

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Tropes:

Tropes in the official comic issues (Canon)

• A Mind Is a Terrible Thing to Read: How does Kid Mischief find out he is able to read thoughts containing strong emotion? When he hears people thinking homophobic insults about him. Also stated in Mindsweeper's bio as what happened when he gained his powers.
• Academy of Adventure: Poseidon Prep. Being a high school for superheroes-in-training it could hardly be otherwise.

• Anyone Can Die: Mindsweeper, Kid Mischief's boyfriend and, arguably, the Author Avatar dies in the events that take place between issues 1 and 2.

• Cast Full of Gay: Due to the audience, most reader characters are gay, or at least bi, which can lead one to assume the school is overrun by gay students.

• Crossover: Issues 5 and 8 cross over with the Legends. Issue 4 has Flaming Arrow of Heroscribe Comics in a cameo, and he appears in Pride High Freshman Flashback, originally posted on the Heroscribe Comics website.

• Disability Superpower: Suravi is blind but, having light-based powers, she can feel changes in light. Mostly, though, she needs a telepathic facilitator. Limbless also qualifies.
• Double Standard: Kid Olympus disparages Kid Mischief and Mindsweeper for being "so blatant" because they're holding hands. When Kilauea (formerly Pele) mentions that he holds her hand while in public, he responds with, "That's different."
• Due to the Dead: Mindsweeper's friends and family are sad and solemn at his funeral, and dressed in mourning colors. The protesters are loud and disrespectful and dressed colorfully.
• The Empath: Kid Mischief and his mentor, Mischief. Cameron Ashton is also an empath, though in his case, this is crossed with Emotion Eater.
• Expendable Clone: According to the ISC referee. Unison thinks otherwise, and hates to see his clones die. They do get hurt a lot though.

• Green Thumb: Verdant, one of the faculty members, is capable of controlling plants through manipulating their "life essence".
• Heteronormative Crusader: Tragically, the protesters at Mindsweeper's funeral.

• Make Me Wanna Shout: Howlé from Maka Koa has the power to focus his voice into a sonic blast.

• Me's a Crowd: Unison's power is to make duplicates of himself, who are identical to him in every way (including the ability to make more duplicates).
• Mind over Matter: Kid Mischief and Mischief are telekinetics
• One-Scene Wonder: More than one reviewer wanted to see more of Sister Bliss, despite only showing up in the background in a couple panels in issue 1 (though she was shown more prominently in issue 7, as she is a member of the Vixxens).
• Our Gods Are Different: Chip tranforms by invoking the Egyptian goddess Bast. Kid Olympus is similarly sponsored by, and has met, the Olympian gods. The Chinese gods are also mentioned, implying that the deities of all mythological religions are real in this universe, and apparently more powerful than superhumans.

• Schedule Slip: Due to the independent nature of the comics, schedules are rarely kept. For instance, issue 8 was scheduled for July 2008, but was finally released as a preview on the message boards on November 2011.
• Screams Like a Little Girl: Issue 7—"I heard one of the girls scream." "That was Chip."
• Shared Universe: Implied with Lucky Legendary and Heroscribe Comics. These could be alternate universe versions, however. This could mean that So Super Duper is in their universe, as well, but it is debatable whether said comic appears in the Heroscribe universe (the indication: a Psyche side-story was included in Heroscibe's Queeroes anthology and was originally posted on its website—the comic itself did not explicitly tie in with the other heroes). As well, some stories in the message boards may also take place in the main universe.
• Shoutout: So subtle it's almost a whisper out, but of you look closely at the beach scene in the latest update, you can see that KO is reading Hero, a real life novel about a gay teen superhero. If you've seen the cover before, it's obvious.
• Sidekick: In the original conception, the kids were supposed to be this to the adult heroes (upon whom the series was to revolve). Kid Mischief was obviously supposed to be Mischief's sidekick.
• Sins of Our Fathers: The faculty distrusts Cameron Ashton because both of his parents are villains.

• Superhero School: The core concept of the series is that these are students at a superhero high school.
• Tag Team Twins: Smash and Crash do this during wrestling matches for optimal results.

• Xtreme Kool Letterz: The Vixxens team name. Teh H4xx0rz often talk like this (ie: “pwned” and “stfu”) and their name shows instances of it, as well.

Tropes on the message boards (Fanon)

• Alternate Universe Fic: Some stories on the message boards are explicitly not canon (and others might be out of canon, as well), the most notable being My Deadly Valentine, Poseidon Preparatory Academy for Successful/Exceptional Youth and The Thirteen Trials of Dionysus Tan.

• Elemental Powers: Mystica's magic manifests as these, allowing her to cast spells based on the four classical elements.
• God of Evil: Lilith is presented in these terms for the most part, although she's not really a serious depiction for the most part.

• Light 'em Up: Bionique, though so far she can only produce normal white light, nothing more.

• Names to Run Away from Really Fast: Slightly subverted with Asmodeus, as while he IS that very demon, he is one of the good guys.

• Playing with Fire: Prideboy, Mystica and Asmodeus (both through spells), Red Shadow (who combines this with An Ice Person), Firesprite, Flaming Arrow, Damian, Jörmungandr and Itako (through the use of his spirit beast Aguni).

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