DC Pride 2025: Tim Sheridan Talks Alan Scott's Green Lantern, The Return of a Fan-Favorite Hero, and More!

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Tim Sheridan is the writer behind the Eisner Award and GLAAD-nominated Alan Scott: Green Lantern, Teen Titans: Academy, Masters of the Universe: Revelation, and several DC Animated Movie Universe films, including Superman: Man of Tomorrow. Sheridan is set to revisit Alan Scott in DC Pride: 2025. We spoke with the talented writer to discuss what readers can expect in the issue.

Where did the idea for the interconnected story come about, and what was it like to work with all the talented creators on this book?

It came from DC! Andrea Shea, our amazing lead editor, reached out to me in December about contributing to DC Pride 2025, and the pitch was for me to create a wraparound “frame” story that would tie all the short stories we typically see anthologized into a single narrative. DC knew they wanted Alan Scott to be an anchor for this first-of-its-kind story, and since I’d recently come off Alan Scott: The Green Lantern, Andrea reached out to me to see if I’d want to take a crack at it. And since it would be the first time I’ve contributed to the main Pride offering, I jumped.

We started marking out the story; Andrea brought some brilliant and, frankly, essential ideas about how to tie the stories together, and I basically ripped off this very Grant Morrison concept of magically-charged “sigils” at the heart of the conflict. Then Andrea and the rest of the Pride editorial team (shout out to Chris Conroy, Jillian Grant, Michael McCalister, Ash Padilla and Arianna Turturro) began assembling the creative team and letting them run wild with big ideas for the characters and situations that would populate what we began calling the “bubble stories” around which the frame story would be woven. It was just a big, beautiful beast of a collaboration with the writers and editors from the start. Everyone brought something exciting and unique to the table and DC kept ‘yes and-ing,’ supporting and generally lifting up our voices. It was a wild time, but also easily one of the most fun and productive collaborative experiences I’ve had in comics.

How has it been to see the reaction to Alan Scott Green Lantern and the Eisner nomination? Does it feel strange to have helped make a major change to his continuity, but one that seems to be (mostly) widely accepted as the status quo, that feels like such a rare moment?

The Eisner nomination was so unexpected! Same with the GLAAD nom. But obviously incredibly welcome!! There are so many very talented, hardworking people who gave everything to this book and I’m so glad to see them being recognized. I also think of the loyal fans of the book, many of whom were vocal champions from before Day One, who stuck with us in the face of a vitriolic campaign being waged against us online; they were attacked and told, in service of a hateful political agenda, that they were wrong to like our book. Well I don’t want to shock you—but no one is “wrong” to enjoy ours or any other book (gasp!) and I think the award nominations are a glorious footnote that cuts through all that nonsense.

Funny enough, your question sort of repeats one of the talking points the haters have hurled at me, which gives me an opportunity to set the record, ahem, straight: I didn’t make any changes to Alan’s continuity! James Tynion did all that work between the GL 80th in 2020 and Infinite Frontier #0 in 2021; then Geoff Johns and Brandon Peterson created the Golden Age Red Lantern character in the New Golden Age one-shot that came out about a year before our series. Our job was just to weave all the pieces together in a story that revisits and recontextualizes the Green Lantern’s origins; so that’s what artist Cian Tormey and I, very happily, did. I’m so proud to have been given the opportunity to add my voice to GL canon in a very personal and, for me, meaningful way. I feel really close to Alan Scott now, in a way I haven’t felt with other characters, even those I myself created! Except for maybe one… whom I have a strange feeling you’ll be asking me about shortly...

Speaking of Alan Scott’s Green Lantern, how did it feel to see readers learn the truth behind Johnny/Vlad and Alan’s relationship?

I saw so many people “calling it” from issue 1, like it was a gotcha. But, like, it wasn’t meant to be a secret exactly—at least not to the reader. The mystery surrounding the Red Lantern’s identity was there for Alan’s benefit. It was important for me to, on the one hand, not be explicit about his secret identity right out the gate — but, on the other hand, to hint enough in that direction that the reader would have a chance to be a few steps ahead of Alan. It’s actually very similar to something I tried to do in my animated adaptation of The Long Halloween, in which Batman, for a while, isn’t as far along as the viewer in the solving of the mystery. For both Bruce and Alan, I wanted to show them on their back foot, just starting out, not as confident and established as we know they'll become later in their careers. I think it worked well enough in those two stories that I may just rip myself off again someday. But seriously, as for Johnny/Vlad… DC Pride 2025 #1 gives us another angle on Alan’s relationship to those two men (who happen to be the same man.) The final panels of Alan’s “bubble” were some of the hardest I’ve ever had to write. I know it sounds weird, but I care so deeply for these characters that putting them through the emotional wringer puts me through it too. If I have made any “change” to Alan’s character, it’s in the way that I openly portray him as a tragic figure. But I believe strongly in looking at him and dealing with him honestly; and this a guy who, even before we knew he lived an extra long closeted life, married two villains, one of whom arguably assaulted him to conceive his children, whom he doesn’t meet until they’re adults. And that’s just his personal life! He’s had many triumphs, sure, but the truth is that tragedy has always walked with Alan Scott. My heart both soars and breaks for him — and I’ve had a lot of readers say the same thing, which I guess means I’m doing my job? My sad, sad job.

Alan Scott isn’t the only character you revisited in this book, you also bring back Stitch. What was it like to revisit that character? What about the meta joke about Titans Academy? I laughed.

OOM! Knowing you as I do, I knew we’d get to Stitch! Let me tell you, Liam, that I had only two… let’s call them DEMANDS… when agreeing to work on Pride. FIRST: I insisted on Lucas Gattoni as the letterer for all my pages. (Lucas is an indispensable genius who quickly became one of my absolute favorite collaborators after meeting on Alan Scott) and SECOND: Stitch’s triumphant return. Happily, Andrea didn’t just say yes, she said “HELL YES” to both demands. So now we’ve got Lucas lettering Stitch balloons…YOU’RE WELCOME, HISTORY.

Stitch is my id. They get to say all the things I wish I could say. They sit both inside and outside whatever story they’re a part of, which is kind of where I, as the writer, sit. I think I’m basically Stitch’s sidekick and they’re my mercurial, gender-free, magically-animated rag doll-in-a-badass-Matrix-outfit muse. I’ll follow them anywhere. And with the fame and fortune that accompanies an appearance in DC Pride, their cult-like fanbase can only grow in number. (The current number is two. You and me, Liam. That’s the number to beat.)

As for the Titans Academy reference… when I delivered that page, I told Andrea that I would die on the hill of that joke.

I’ve never raised the stakes that high for one joke, but I knew it simply HAD to make the cut. If only for my own sanity and closure. I don’t know what I was worried about, though, because Andrea loved it and I think it got some chortles from other editors too. But all credit goes to Stitch; I don’t tell them what to say, they tell me what to write.

Can we expect to see more Alan Scott stories from you in the future? Is there an LGBTQIA+ character you haven’t tackled that you’d like to write?

Oh man, I would love that. I have a file folder full of Green and Red Lantern stories I want to tell someday. One in particular has been nagging at me of late. It’s big though. REALLY big. In the end, it’s up to DC. And, I guess, the fans. If enough people ask for it, maybe they’ll give me a chance to write more!

I’ve been a DC kid my whole life, so there are TONS of characters of all stripes whose stories I want to tackle! But as a child of the Batman 80s, and a Marv Wolfman and Denny O’Neil acolyte, I’ve been itching to take Tim Drake down a whole new road. Robin was everything to me as a boy and suddenly there was one around my age who had my name that showed up. Now, as time has passed, we’ve learned that he and I have even more in common than I thought. I’m referring, of course, to the fact that I’m a world-class detective. (But really, DC!! Gimme the keys to Tim Drake for a minute!! I’ll be good, I swear!!)

How important are these anthologies in terms of representation, but also opportunity for new, diverse faces in the industry? Why should readers pick up this new collection? 

Comics are a tough business! I think, from that POV, reaching out to markets like the queer community is essential to the survival of the industry. The natural first-step in reaching new queer readers is with a special Pride-month offering like this book. It’s not only a celebration of the diversity that's been fostered in the DC canon of characters, but also among the ranks of creator talent. I see these books as an introduction to something amazing and cool that will hopefully entice new readers to pick up more comics outside the month of June. And that’s why continuing to publish books like Alan Scott: The Green Lantern is so important; that series was released in October to a mass audience with a lot of DC support behind it! Because I think DC knows that stories about queer characters aren’t just for queer readers. These are stories with something for everyone to enjoy and even identify with. The details of our experience may differ, but the feelings we feel are the same — and that’s common ground that ought to make it easy to pick up books we never thought we'd read so that we can not only see more of our world, but, perhaps, see it in a new light.

And to the already-loyal DC fans out there, I would say to pick up this book to 1. send a supportive message that these are the kinds of stories you’re looking for and 2. enjoy a heck of a fun story about safe spaces vs hiding places and the undeniable importance of community, especially in 2025!

*Thumbnail is from Jack Hughes’ 1:25 incentive variant cover.