I’ve interviewed so many queer people whose favorite characters from books, movies, and TV are not the heroes, but the villains. Ursula, Magneto, the Wicked Witch, Loki — to say nothing of crushes on Bowser, Maleficent, and Skeletor. The best explanation I’ve heard for this phenomenon is that in a world where LGBTQ+ people are routinely identified as evil, it’s empowering to associate with a character who’s emphatically, gleefully, powerfully villainous.

That attitude undergirds Save Yourself, a promising and very queer comic out this week that, I’m sorry to say, doesn’t fully measure up to what I’d hoped it would be. But despite the story’s stumbles, it’s a