The year is 1986. Spiral City is the main city and superhero nexus in Jeff Lemire and Dean Ormston’s Black Hammer series of comics. Knight Klüb is Spiral City drag royalty. Described by gay and AIDS activist Miguel Cruz to a newly made friend named Luke (in reality Luke is the gay Martian superhero Barbalien) as the “queen of the ball”, she is the top performer at Cafe Knight Klub. Writer Tate Brombal gives readers two facts about Knight Klüb’s life: she was one of the drag queens at the Stonewall Inn who confronted police making the fateful raid in 1969 and ten years later was performing in San Francisco when the White Night Riots broke out. That night she confronted a cop and beat him with his own club. When Spiral City cops raid the bar later that night she is the only person to confront one of them and also prevents Miguel from being arrested. From what little we’re told in dialog and shown in the few panels in which she appears we know that she’s proud, joyous, inspiring, determined, loyal, courageous, protective, and very beloved among the queer community.
Knight Klüb was created by Tate Brombal and Gabriel Hernandez Walta. Her first appearance is in Barbalien: Red Planet #2. While this isn’t “written in stone” I think Knight Klüb can be presumed to be transgender and representative of trans rights activists Marsha P Johnson and Sylvia Rivera based on the mention of her placement at Stonewall.
Please read the profiles for Miguel Cruz and Dr Rosalyn Day.
Art by Gabriel Hernandez Walta and Jordie Bellaire.
All rights reserved 171 Studios Inc and Dean Ormston