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For the past 100 years, there has been an LGBTQ+ bar amid the bustling streets of DC's Gotham City. At one point it was a speakeasy, and at other times it's been a restaurant - but in all its iterations it's been a place to find a drink - and find a community. But now in-story, the queer space announced it's closing its doors, and that's the heart of June 4's DC Pride 2025 #1. Whereas previous installments of the DC Pride annual have been anthologies with multiple stories linked together by the idea of representing queer life, in this year's edition all of the creators pulled together to tell one story - about the gay bar you may not know exists inside the DCU.

"We knew we needed a kind of 'safe space' for our characters; something with history — which is just necessary for the particulars of this story," says Tim Sheridan, one of the writers involved with DC Pride 2025. "Our incredible editor, Andrea Shea, pitched the idea that we could frame this around the closing of a beloved and important space, which is something that, in the post-COVID world, we’ve all experienced."

For Sheridan, he sees spaces such as this as LGBTQ+ people's "first connection with our true selves."

"These are very often the first safe spaces we discover, where we get to let down our guard and be our true selves, if only for a night," says the writer. "So maybe it’s unfair, but we really do have a knack for infusing these places with our very identities — let alone our hopes, our dreams, and even our fears. You think about some of the most consequential moments in queer history and names like Stonewall and Pulse come to mind. Triumph and tragedy, we’ve seen it all — and we keep on dancing."

While at one point, the creatives of DC Pride 2025 considered creating "a new, never-before-seen tavern and just playing it like it’s always been there," they quickly realized they had one in their midst - one that quietly debuted in the first DC Pride annual, back in 2021.

In that anthology, the original Green Lantern Alan Scott reveals that he began frequenting this unnamed sanctuary back when it was a '30s speakeasy after the fall of Prohibition. In the story by Sam Johns and Klaus Janson, GL Alan Scott recounts his personal connection to the place when he's brought there by the hero known as Obsidian (Todd Rice) - who didn't know his history with the location.

"I read and loved that story when it was published. I’m kind of obsessed with the Alan/Todd relationship because you rarely see a queer father/queer son dynamic depicted in media," Sheridan tells Popverse. "Thank the gods for DC Pride, which I think is the perfect place to start unpacking stuff like that."

While some might feel a story about the announced closure of a historic gay bar might be the wrong tone for a series such as DC Pride, Sheridan says the way they're handling it "just felt like the right sentiment for where our heads and hearts are in 2025."

For an entire comic to be centered on one space, you might be wondering why it hasn't been named. For his part, Sheridan says the lack of a name allows this community space not to be pegged as just one thing.

"What I love is that it’s not really about the building. Which is why we don’t reveal the name of the place. It’s not about the walls — it’s about the writing on the wall," says Sheridan. "I think about the cave on Dagobah in Empire Strikes Back when Yoda tells Luke that what’s inside is 'only what you take with you.'"

"We bring everything of ourselves into these spaces, and we hope that nothing and no one inside wants or needs to use it against us," the writer continues. "We trust that it’s safe in there — but sometimes, no matter how good it feels, it just isn’t. That’s the problem our heroes face."

Just as we all need spaces like this we can each find comfort in, Sheridan says that this furnishes a need for that in DC's superhero comics.

"I feel like it’s high time we saw the queer community of the DCU gather together; and this story, in this place, sees them not just gather, but stand together," says Sheridan. "And that’s pretty cool."

DC Pride 2025 goes on sale June 4.

Need more? Here's our picks for the best DC Comics stories of all time.