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DC’s 2021 Review Part 4: Diversity of Characters

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2.1.0 Diversity in Character Inclusion

In part 2, I talked briefly about DC’s lack of diversity during Rebirth and how Infinite Frontier has been a significant improvement. I want to look closer at the data. How many books were given to characters who are BIPOC and/or queer over the last four years? In order to do this, I went through every other solicit since January 2018 and wrote down the number of in-continuity books that had a BIPOC lead character or a BIPOC-majority cast. I did the same for queer representation. I wrote down the number of books each month with a majority-queer cast or a queer lead.

I only included queer characters and books where queerness was a prominent feature in the book. For example, Wonder Woman is canonically bisexual, but the comics consistently don’t showcase that side of her. As such, I did not include her. Similarly, Jonathan Kent is now canonically queer, but in 2018 he wasn’t. As such, Jonathan Kent only contributes to the book being a queer character in the year and era that he came out: March 2021 and after. So Adventures of the Super Sons doesn’t count, while Challenge of the Supersons does, because the latter book was written in late November but released physically during this period of time. [Read more…] about DC’s 2021 Review Part 4: Diversity of Characters

DID in Moon Knight, Part 2: Popular Runs

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We are not going to give a full history of Moon Knight here – if you’re interested in a Moon Knight curriculum vita, I highly recommend the reading guide by Dave Buesing. Instead, what we’re going to do is touch on a couple of the most influential runs, and the relationship they have with his DID. This won’t provide you the complete history of his diagnosis. but will hopefully highlight some of the themes we find around his DID, themes other creators carry through their own runs.

Previously: DID in Moon Knight Part 1 [Read more…] about DID in Moon Knight, Part 2: Popular Runs

DID in Moon Knight, Part 1: An Overview

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I’ve had Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) since my earliest memories, so when I saw the new Moon Knight show coming out, I immediately raised an eyebrow. Having DID, one’s expectation of media portrayal tends to be… let’s say fraught. But Moon Knight is an interesting mixed case on this subject. Moon Knight has at times portrayed some of the most problematic parts of typical DID media representation, but it’s also done some really interesting work experimenting with new lenses for grappling with what can be a pretty difficult disease to understand. Reading Moon Knight with compassion for mental illness, then, is challenging, but also rewarding in some very unique ways. [Read more…] about DID in Moon Knight, Part 1: An Overview

Who Watched The Watchmen?: Watchmen’s Legacy on… DC’s Legends

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It is often said that Watchmen is the most influential comic ever to be released. That comics wouldn’t be where they are without it, for good and for ill. But how did we get here, exactly? More to the point, just what influence did Watchmen provide to the larger world of comics? What, ultimately, is the legacy of Watchmen? Who watched the Watchmen?

As the first major response text to Watchmen, Legends is a tough book to find a starting point for discussion with, and an even more difficult one not to simply rant unabated on. The easiest may be the title as a statement of intent. In the immediate wake of Crisis on Infinite Earths, not only had endless ‘historical’ details profoundly shifted – the sprawling endless multiverse deleted, reams of stories cast aside, character-informing backgrounds rearranged – but the day-to-day status quos of the major players were palpably shifted. While Batman had a newfound spark of mythic import, Superman had shifted from a starlost godling forever seeking his place in a world not his own to a contented yuppie who was thrashed on the cover of his new #1; Flash and Green Lantern found replacements constantly framed in-text as being of dubious merit; Wonder Woman was a fledgling figure only making her debut to the larger world at the climax of this very miniseries; at the nominal center of the shared universe the Justice League of America was composed of charitably third and fourth-stringer heroes. In the midst of this iconic void, the likes of the Teen Titans, Blue Beetle, and Captain Marvel could now be positioned as tent poles. Following this collective deliberate scaling-down, building the first post-Crisis ‘event’ entirely around reasserting the primacy of these characters and the superhero concept was a reasonable, even inspired mission statement.

Legends is a title with an entirely different charge, however, when said superhero concept had just been turned on its ear. Crisis On Infinite Earths, first and foremost a paradoxical celebration and condemnation of DC’s history from a fan-minded continuity standpoint, had begun formal development in 1982; Frank Miller had only recently taken over writing duties on Daredevil and Alan Moore had yet to make his stateside debut in Swamp Thing. By the time Legends rolled off the presses in 1986, The Dark Knight Returns and, to a lesser extent, Whatever Happened To The Man of Tomorrow? had given definitive capstones to the companies’ two biggest characters, and Watchmen was in the midst of completely rewriting the rules of the game. Legends found itself in the position of defending a traditional interpretation of an idea at the exact moment in the industry’s history when said idea was most comprehensively and popularly uprooted.

Its approach to doing so is, again, right there in the name: ‘Watchmen’ is associated with a phrase evoking skepticism and accountability. ‘Legends’ are distant, misty, ahistorical. Unimpeachable. [Read more…] about Who Watched The Watchmen?: Watchmen’s Legacy on… DC’s Legends

The Nice House on the Lake Vol. 1 Review!

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Every friend group seems to have that one person who stands at the center of it. They’re the one who connects everyone else together; the one who organizes the hangouts, the parties, the group texts and vacations; the one who drops everything for a chance to catch up and makes each person in their life feel like the most important person in their life. As someone who tends to be on the more introverted side, someone who sometimes has trouble keeping in touch with people I care about, I’ve always been a little envious of those who can effortlessly balance a number of close, meaningful friendships and maintain them for decades, no matter the age or the time apart or the distance that might separate them.

The Nice House on the Lake #1-6, by writer James Tynion IV with art by Álvaro Martínez Bueno and colors by Jordie Bellaire, pose a question: What if that friend, that person you’ve bared your soul to, or dated, or look up to, or all of the above; what if that person you trust is not who you thought they were, and might be something a whole lot more sinister than you could have ever imagined? The answers to that question – at least the ones that are doled out in this first volume, released in trade paperback form on March 1 – make for one of the most compelling comics I have ever read.

I’ll note here that I’m going to do my level best to avoid discussing specific plot points, but there are some minor spoilers ahead. [Read more…] about The Nice House on the Lake Vol. 1 Review!