The Untitled Comic Book Newsletter Vol. 32

Let’s talk a little bit about representation in superhero stories. I’m a white, cishet male, so I’m not exactly starving for fictional characters who look like me, but — and this may shock longtime readers — I have a specific affinity for Matt Murdock, a.k.a. Daredevil. My dad was a lawyer, so a superhero lawyer was cool to me, but also I’ve always lived with a lot of anxiety about my increasingly poor eyesight and it’s somewhat comforting to see this guy swinging on rooftops and beating the shit out of The Owl even though he can’t see (granted, he does have a “radar sense” from being splashed in the face with chemicals, but I think the point stands).

Similarly, there’s an episode of The Simpsons where Bart and Milhouse are put in charge of the comic book store for some reason, and Bart gets mad because Milhouse buys a ton of issues of a comic about a superhero who wears glasses. That’s basically what I’m talking about. (This may also shock longtime readers, but I’m a big Milhouse guy.)

Anyway, years ago, I was writing a review of Marvel’s Echo show on Disney+, which was a spin-off of the very underrated Hawkeye show. In the comics, Echo is a deaf Native American woman, and the actor cast to play her in live-action was Alaqua Cox, a deaf Native American woman. Cox also uses a prosthetic leg, which was not only integrated into the character for Hawkeye, but there’s a scene in Echo where she gets a new prosthetic that is customized to reflect her indigenous ancestry.

As I was watching that scene for my review, I thought about how it would feel for a deaf Native American woman who uses a prosthetic to see a genuine Marvel superhero onscreen who happens to be a deaf Native American woman who uses a prosthetic, and I thought about how cool it must be for Alaqua Cox to get to be a superhero who is so much like her actual self, and I got choked up. Superhero stories have a special kind of power, especially when they can reflect different kinds of people and different kinds of experiences (see also: The X-Men, the most famous example this).

So I’ll always value and welcome diversity and representation in any story, but, for the purposes of this newsletter, especially in superhero stories. And that brings me to Dreamer, a pretty new newcomer to the DC universe who made her debut on The CW’s Supergirl show but later made the move to comics in the DC Pride story “Date Night” (I guess it’s non-canonical, like most DC Pride stories, but she’s in the regular universe now). I fell off of Supergirl long before that, so I’m not an expert on the character, but she’s an ancestor of Dream Girl from The Legion Of Superheroes (a thing I know really nothing about, to be honest) who has precognitive dreams and can shoot energy beams or whatever (write to your representatives if you’re a DC hero who can’t shoot energy beams).

Dreamer, a.k.a. Nia Nal, is also transgender, as is Nicole Maines, the woman who played her on Supergirl. That’s cool, but what’s even cooler is that Maines has essentially become the character’s main steward in the comics. Maines has written a bunch of comics involving Dreamer, including this “Date Night” debut, and she continues to write for DC here and there long after Supergirl has ended. A trans writer having the opportunity to claim such ownership over a trans character is great, though things could obviously be better. I’d love to see the DC Pride mainstays like Dreamer (and Batwoman, and Apollo and Midnighter, and Renee Montoya) be embraced by regular DC continuity the way characters like Jon Kent, Harley Quinn, and Poison Ivy have.

But still, I’m glad these annual collections and specials exist, I’m glad Dreamer exists and that Nicole Maines gets to write comics about her. Representation is good! Everyone should do more of it!

NEXT WEEK:
Another surprise, a.k.a. I haven’t decided yet.