Cheryl Lynn with the brief comeback
January 13th, 2011 by david brothers | Tags: cheryl lynn, Colored CommentaryStill thinking about February and Black History Month. Formulating a plan of attack, striking things from lists, and catching up on things I missed.
Anyway, my homegirl Cheryl made a brief return to comics blogging with a trio of posts over the last week or so. There’s ten things she wants out of DC in 2011, some stuff she wants from Marvel and DC in other media, and how DC is kind of a lost cause when it comes to getting books that aren’t lily white.
She writes a lot, and I agree with most of it. Together, you have sort of a general list of things that Marvel and DC aren’t doing that they should, and could, be doing to push comics and their characters harder. The point about diversity being a lost cause at DC stings, but it’s true. Marvel’s a little better, mainly due to having created a decent group of black characters in the ’70s and then again in the ’90s, but who do they have that can support a book on their own? Not Cage, not Storm, not Night Thrasher… Black Panther has a solo book, but how absolutely awful has that series been for the past couple years? Right now, he’s batting clean-up in someone else’s book. Six months from now? Who knows? Maybe DC will get Aqualad off the ground, but I’m not sure the market wants it.
Similar Posts:
- Black History Month 21: Bad Mutha
- A Perfect Storm
- Black Future Month ’10: The Stereotype
- Black History Month 2011: Marvel Interlude
- “Diversity Marketing”
The only thing I don’t particularly agree with is the “just put Cassandra Cain back as Batgirl and we’re square” sentiment, and this is coming from the biggest Cass fan on the planet. Yeah, it’s shameful that DC has made it so that all their most prominent role models for young girls look exactly the same and have fairly interchangeable personalities, but that’s a ship that’s sailed. It’s not really okay, but the last thing we need is more sidekick shaking-up.
What’s definitely not okay is having great characters of color like Cass and just not using them hardly at all, and treating them as completely unimportant. I think she’s one of the only minority characters DC has had that has been somewhat successful (what with carrying her own book for about six years). What grinds me is that we get tons of fairly pointless events and miniseries, but we can’t even get an issue where this character (and others like her) is recognized as an important member of the Bat-world.
I mean, Batgirl and Supergirl is a fun teamup, but I long for one where I can tell the characters apart when they’re out of costume. And that we’re not given one is just baffling to me. I guess it just comes back to the point about diversity being pretty much a lost cause. And yet, I still look at the solicitations each month with hope, and then disappointment.
Regarding Titans #31 and DC’s Lily Whiteness:
I was very excited to follow the Titans storyline especially after the lineup included two characters who really stood out to me in their previous stories: Osiris and Mark Richards, The Tattooed Man. In addition to being featured in two events that I thoroughly enjoyed (52 and Final Crisis respectively) it was nice to see characters who fought to be on the side of good in spite of their surroundings and who were people of color with unique origins outside of simply being a palette swap of another hero or villain.
That said, seeing both characters lose control and cruelly take the lives of others in brutal, mindless fashions in the same issue made my heart sink. Now I make no claims to thinking Titans is a book full of sunshine and rainbows, but seeing the characters fall so low after they both sought redemption was outright depressing. It hits on two levels: 1) that it plays into the stereotype of the savage men of color and 2) these new characters that joined the ranks of my favorite DC heroes are now portrayed as violent pawns.
Now, this doesn’t mean I’m not interested in seeing the fallout or that I think there was any particular malice behind these plot points. I am and I don’t. It’s just that when Ryan Choi, Mark Richards, and Amon Tomaz all do or have bad things done to them in the same book it starts to sting, especially if they are one of the few prominent characters in comicsdom representing your culture. No hate coming the creators way, just saying it’s something to think about because some folks don’t have the liberty not to.
How much fucking brand could DC build in one corner by finally, FINALLY putting a logo over Power Girl’s breasts? Just use an explosion symbol from Wingdings or something and give her a full body suit.
The only (terrible, horrible) people who would complain or even notice are going to buy any Power Girl book anyway.
If I was writing a Power Girl book, that would be my first two-issue arc: she tries to figure out a new costume and deals with the fallout of finally admitting how ridiculous the old one was. I’d call it “TOP CONCERN”. Feature all female DC characters and have some of them say “yeah, I wanted to say something, but . . .” and some of them say “flaunt it, girl” and leave it unanswered why exactly she ever had that costume to begin with.
Throw in some science fiction about how she gets or makes something new but indestructible, and a few ironic Patsy-Walker-style fashion panels, with Power Girl as an irritated anti-Patsy, a workaholic CEO and exo for the Justice Society who wants all of this to just be over and forgotten. Amanda Conner on art, of course.
Funny, topical, female-friendly, and guaranteed to spark conversation for DC on blogs like this one.
I just want to point out that the market does not want Aqualad, will never want Aqualad, be he white, black, purple or blue. I at least hope and pray I never see the day when Aqualad is “a thing.”