Blogging is such an interesting thing. There are so many of us out there on the blogosphere, all trying to get our thoughts out there and, if we’re lucky, build a readership. In July, after different attempts at blogging, I decided to refocus on diversity in comic books. I’ve had an invested interest in seeing diversity in media in general, having always searched for images of myself, an out gay Asian American man. It was a unique topic that I felt one could write volumes on and, thankfully, I’ve found that this is the case. Thus, ONE DIVERSE COMIC BOOK NATION was born. Over the last six months, I’ve looked at different topics such as Marvel’s Wedding of the Century between Black Panther and Storm, offered suggestions about diversifying the Birds of Prey, shared my experiences on being an openly gay man in a comic book store, and explored what it would be like to bring Milestone comics back. It’s been a great experience.

In December, I started thinking about writing a year end entry. The obvious choice was to look at the year that was in diversity in comics. As I reflected, I was amazed by how many things happened. When we go by, day by day, it is difficult to see how all these things interconnect. 2006 has ended up being both a time of great achievement as well as a year of experiencing a few bumps. So, I share with you the impressive year that I saw.

DC’s Brave Diverse New World

One of the big announcements of 2006 was that the DC Universe was going to be a more diverse universe. While Jason Rusch as the new Firestorm lead the way a couple of years ago as a major name in the DCU, 2006 saw the launch of an Asian All-New Atom (the first iconic character to be of Asian descent), a Latino Blue Beetle, and a lesbian Batwoman. For all intents and purposes, I do laud DC’s attempt to reflect the real world. But, I did have a big problem in the way that they marketed this move. It almost felt as if they were saying, “We have a new Asian Atom…isn’t that neat?”

Actually, I did a little research and why this marketing comes off the way it does is because of a May 28, 2006 New York Times article. The article said, “At DC Comics, an effort is under way to introduce heroes who are not cut from the usual straight white male supercloth. A mix of new concepts, dusted-off code names and existing characters, the new heroes include Blue Beetle, a Mexican teenager powered by a mystical scarab; Batwoman, a lesbian socialite by night and a crime fighter by later in the night; and the Great Ten, a government-sponsored Chinese team.” Later, about Batwoman, the Times wrote, “In her latest incarnation, Batwoman is a wealthy, buxom lipstick lesbian who has a history with Renee Montoya, an ex-police detective who has a starring role in 52.”

This raised a red flag for many who worry about the tokenism of the character. Is it going to be all about her sexual orientation, a titilation factor or is it really going to reflect the world we live in?

There have been similar reactions for the All-New Atom and Blue Beetle. There have been some, including myself, who wonders how Ryan Choi could be so assimilated to American culture if he just immigrated to the country, but there were hopes that Ryan could bring greater understanding to the immigrant experience. Jenn Fang from Reappropriate said, “Even though he’s the F.O.B. [Fresh off the Boat] superhero, this still gives writers the opportunity to write a decent ‘Coming to America’ storyline. It will give the writers the opportunity to write about the difficulties and adjustment that comes with immigration to America. Perhaps the immigration narrative will finally be treated in comics as more than just a peaches ‘n cream experience. Nonetheless, as of right now, Ryan seems unnaturally well-adjusted to America for having just landed, Fresh Off the Boat.”

For Blue Beetle, some saw Jaime as Mexican in name only. William Gatevackes, in his Broken Frontier column Guiding Lines, wrote, “…after reading the first few issues of the Blue Beetle series, I don’t think much would be changed if the character was an Irish-American teenager instead of a Mexican-American one. There might be some subtle nuances in the character that I am forgetting, but I think you could tell the same story about a Sean O’Leary Blue Beetle as you did with a Jaime Reyes Blue Beetle.” Others, interestingly enough, thought that he was TOO Latino. Andrew “Captain Comics” Smith from Comics Buyers Guide wrote in his August column, “So, the appeal of this character is presumably A) he’s Latino, B) he’s a teen, and C) he’s Latino. Sorry, DC, we need a little more than that. I give it a year before the ax.”

For now, though, despite the bumps to get to diversifying its universe, DC seems to be genuinely interested in incorporating these characters into their universe. Yes, there are things they could be doing better, such as getting writers from the communities these characters are from to give authenticity, but I do believe they have good intentions and are trying to do the right thing.

On a related note, Entertainment Weekly’s Ken Tucker picked The All-New Atom as the best new ongoing series of 2006. Hopefully, with this added publicity, the Atom will have more and more issues to come!

Marvel drops its controversial policy on LGBT lead characters and also drops the ball on Freedom Rings

In late August, Marvel Comics reverses its controversial decision to require an adult warning label for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender characters in a solo series. The policy came into effect after the media storm and furor that seemed to erupt after Marvel announced, in 2002, that it was bringing back a beloved character from the 1950s — the Rawhide Kid — but, this time, he’d be gay. Actually, truth be told, I don’t think anybody really knew about the policy until Marvel Editor-In-Chief Joe Quesada mentioned in a February interview with Newsarama, “Well, understand that if we were to go with the gay Kid we would have had to label the books MAX and that’s not what we wanted for this event. So, for the commercial betterment of this mini Western event, we felt it was best to keep it out of the MAX world for now.”

This, of course, baffled people and forced Quesada to try to clarify what he meant. He later told Newsarama, “Rawhide was labeled MAX because the major hook and focus of the project was the sexuality of the main character, a 50-plus year old established character. The reason the books featuring the characters you named in your question don’t carry a MAX label is because that’s not the focus of their books. The sexuality aspect of their lives is just one part of the whole that makes up their books, as opposed to Rawhide, where the fact that he was gay and his history was the major point of the book.”

This, of course, only baffled people even more. And, after months of brewing controversy and a win of the GLAAD Media Award for Young Avengers, Marvel suddenly reiterated its policy. Quesada, at Wizard World Chicago in August, told the crowd that their policy on LGBT characters would remain in place. He added, “I hope it changes next week.”

He was almost right…two weeks later, Quesada told Newsarama that Marvel had reversed its decision. He said, “It’s given us the opportunity to spark some internal discussions and revisit this issue, especially in light of the fact that we have characters like Freedom Ring, who is the current star of ‘Marvel Team Up’ without much fanfare mind you, and that we’ve had more gay and lesbian characters appearing in Marvel comics than ever before. In many ways, the old policy over the last few years has just sort of faded away, so let me just say that there is no longer any policy.”

Speaking of Freedom Ring, Marvel ended up dropping the ball on this character that Quesada kept pointing out as a shining example of a new gay character in the Marvel Universe. Or, not so much dropping a ball than violently throwing the ball on the ground and shattering it into a million pieces. A furor arose on the Internet about the treatment of this character and the way he was killed off.

Joe Palmer at Gay League wrote, “Maybe I’m overreacting. It does happen I was prepared to toss in references to England’s homosexual King Edward II and his alleged cause of death (sodomy with a red-hot poker) and gay icon, the martyred Saint Sebastian. For a few minutes I wondered if it might be time to start an LGBT version of ‘Women in Refrigerators,’ called either ‘Homos in Refrigerators’ or ‘Queers in Refrigerators.’ It’s just a story with colorfully clad characters, most of who were heroes, and gay characters shouldn’t be subjected to a set of different standards.” Ray Randell from Super Underwear Perverts wrote, “So what exactly was it about Curtis that Kirkman felt deserved such a brutal, graphic death? Was he just an idiot? He certainly didn’t act all that bright at times, especially in battle. But many Marvel heroes screwed-up early in their careers, and yet they all survived their first outings. Spider-Man famously let a thief run-away without stopping him because he couldn’t be bothered, and that same crook ended-up murdering his Uncle Ben. It was a pretty harsh lesson, but Pete survived it. He didn’t get impaled or spiked twenty-to-thirty times just for the crime of being a bumbling self-interested jerk.” Unfortunately, we may never know why as this character no longer exists in the Marvel Universe.

Why you little MINX!

On November 25, in a New York Times article, DC announced that it was going to launch a new line of original graphic novels aimed at teenage girls. The line would be called Minx. While everyone agrees that any outreach toward a demographic not normally targeted by comic book publishers is a good thing, the news did raise quite a few eyebrows.

First, while DC said that the name “Minx” tested the best in focus groups, the use of the word “Minx” was viewed by many as a more offensive term. Karen Healey from Girls Read Comics (And Are Pissed) wrote, “But does the heroine ever describe herself as a minx, little or otherwise? No. It’s a term directed towards women, not a self-description. In male mouths, it’s often a term of approval for the heroine’s sass and fiery strength of character – but it’s then masculine approval. So applied, it’s a word that trivialises feminine anger, boldness or resistance as necessarily sexual, and is directly concerned with the attractiveness or otherwise of such cutsey, flirtatious impudence.” Mister Fanboy asked, “…what marketing genius decided that a word that’s synonym colloquially translates as ’slut’ would be appropriate for this line?”

But, more than the name, the fact that only a couple of women creators would be on board for the launch of a line aimed at teenage girls got people talking. Johanna Draper Carlson from Comics Worth Reading asked, “But I can only imagine what the press would do if the Logo channel, targeted at gays, had over 85% of their shows created by straights. Perhaps that’s not a fair example, given that gays already get a lot of Hollywood work, and the same can’t be said about women in comics. How many black creators does BET have? How many black actors are represented on that network? I know Lifetime has a ton of visible females. In short, how do you talk to a target audience if you’re not allowing members of that audience to speak?”

Regardless of the controversy, the launch of Minx is a bold new move that everybody, in the long run, hopes will succeed. Heidi MacDonald at THE BEAT reported, “Minx is a momentous undertaking by DC because they have set aside a quarter of a mil buckaroos to market a new line of graphic novels. $250,000 is small in the larger scheme, but far from chump change in the historically parsimonious comics field, and by teaming with Alloy Marketing, DC has proven they’re serious. No one has EVER done anything like this in mainstream comics before. Marvel doesn’t have two pennies to rub together towards outside marketing, and according to Paul Levitz this is their biggest outside marketing expenditure in 30 years. It’s also something of a tacit admission that traditional comics marketing doesn’t reach the outside world in a targeted, modern way. In the real world, marketing isn’t sending out press releases, it’s partnering, pacting, blasting, placing and so on.”

Fangirls Are Doin’ It For Themselves

While, certainly, there have been fangirls out in the blogosphere and the podcast world making their voices known for years, it could be argued that it was in 2006, when Lisa (Ragnell) Fortuner and Melissa (Kalinara) Krause launched When Fangirls Attack, that fangirls started having a more united voice. On January 3, in a post entitled “The Project,” When Fangirls Attack was born. Ragnell wrote, “We started this blog because we noticed the large amount of posts on the subejct of Women in comics, how to get female readers, misogyny in comics, over the Blogosphere. We thought it would be an interesting project to catalog them. This way all of the points, and counterpoints are in one place for if you want to seriously think about and research the subject. So, here we are.” I know, for myself, the links that they have provided have not only been invaluable to me, but have introduced me to a wide array of other fangirls out there all getting their voices heard, many of whom I like to call friends.

2006 also saw the birth of Girl-Wonder.org. Created to address a “rising level of frustration at the treatment of female characters in the books was driving these fans to desperation, to the point where some felt that they had no choice but to abandon a hobby which once gave them great joy,” Girl-Wonder.org has become a marketplace of ideas, discussion, and activism.

But, while there’s been lots of positives, there’s also been negatives. Heidi Meeley from Comics Fairplay points out that some of the bad has been, “I have never seen fans so divided as I have witnessed this year on the internet. The women in blogging are pissed as hell and they aren’t going to take it anymore. The men in blogging are a bit frightened and confused. It doesn’t make for much cohesiveness. Women in the industry have come forward with sad tales that have garnered both sympathy and ridicule. That age old battle of the sexes is alive and well here in the computer age and doesn’t appear to be leaving anytime soon.”

One of the biggest examples of this was the furor over comments made Erik Larsen made in a May Comic Book Resources column. Speaking about how artists tend to be more politically correct for fear of retribution from “whiners” out there, Larsen wrote, “Self-censorship is still censorship. Drawing a comic about the Barbi twins and having them have chests like Little Lulu because of a few balkers on the Internet strikes me as pretty cowardly. Is that where we’re all headed? Artists censoring themselves because of a few vocal whiners? Comics have always featured characters with impossible or near-impossible figures. Men in comics all have washboard stomachs and square jaws. I don’t have a have washboard stomach and square jaw — should I feel justified in calling for more heroes with spare tires, double chins and thinning hair? Should all women in comics be plain or homely because some real women find attractive comic book characters threatening or offensive?”

Lisa (Ragnell) Fortuner from Written World wrote, “Wow, all the years I’ve been following these characters and I’ve before never realized that the only likeable thing about them is their breasts. I guess Power Girl’s brassy attitude, unapologetic honesty and feminist aspirations were fabricated by my own sick imagination. And here I didn’t realize that there were dozens of women running around with invisibility powers, a Golden Age legacy, a socialite background, in a political backdrop with a patriotic superteam and the only thing that distinguished our Phantom Lady was her humongous bazongas! Thank you, Mr Larsen, for enlightening this foolishly idealistic woman!” Persona Non Grata from ?????? wrote, “Something I’ve noticed when the issue of objectification of women in comics has come up (and probably can be applied to other forms of media too), someone will defend the status quo by pointing to the design of male heroes. Sure, heroines may have this and this and this, but look at how men are drawn! But this assumes that all things are equal, and idealization is the same as objectification.”

Comments like these stirred the pot with some righteous fanboys crying foul and rushing to Erik Larsen’s defense. Unfortunately, Larsen himself couldn’t leave well enough alone, writing in his next column, “Women don’t avoid all magazines because the covers on a few of them offend their sensibilities — the very notion is ridiculous. There are magazines aimed at women that sell hundreds of thousands of copies. The reason women don’t go into comic book stores is not because of a few covers –it’s because there’s little to attract them into these stores and, if they did dare to wander into one of these often filthy little dens there’s very little in there for them to read. Women simply aren’t interested in adolescent male power fantasies.”

And, so the flame wars continued. Sarah from Alert Nerd wrote, “First of all, why do you think you know what every female comics fan is thinking, especially since you just pissed a bunch of them off with your last column? How do you know what does and does not attract them to a store and what they are and are not interested in reading? I’m a female comics fan. Some of my first loves were the X-Men, Spider-Man and Batman. And yes, I also love the things that I guess are thought of as “girl comics” — Sandman and Ghost World and Blue Monday. I don’t think I’m as easy to pigeonhole as you seem to think — I don’t think most female fans are.”

Regardless of how this particular event turned out and the other flame wars that tended to erupt about feminism and comic books, one thing is clear, fangirls are doin’ it for themselves. And, that is powerful!

Obsidian Comes Out (And We Better Get The Party Started)

This year, starting with issue 18 of Manhunter, Todd Rice (aka Obsidian) was given a new lease on life when it became quite clear that, after years of hints and suggestions, he is gay. He becomes part of the supporting cast and in a loving and committed relationship with Kate Spencer’s assistant Damon Matthews. Unlike many gay characters in comic books, Todd and Damon have a fully developed relationship in which we see them kiss and in bed together.

Manhunter writer Marc Andreyko told Jennifer Contino at PULSE News, “I… wanted to make him a well-adjusted gay guy. After all the stuff Todd has had to deal with, I portray him as a happy guy in a healthy relationship.”

And, interestingly enough, all of this is done with relatively little fanfare or complaint. That is, until Alex Ross made a statement in Wizard magazine that baffled the gay comics community. The use of the word “molested” was a key word that made people fear Ross to have made a homophobic statement. Word got out around the ‘net and, fortunately, out gay comic writer Andy Mangels went to the source to get a clarification and it turned out Ross used an unfortunate choice of words. Ross said in a written statement, “To anyone offended by my remarks about Obsidian’s being ‘molested’ by writers and his sexual identity being a ‘fun, creative’ idea that I obviously disagreed with, I do apologize. These were purely boneheaded comments I voiced poorly and flippantly. I clearly did not understand how the remark would be interpreted. The use of ‘molested’ was purely meant to be a passionate phrasing of ‘meddling,’ which I probably use far too often. I wouldn’t wish anyone to think I saw a problem with gay characters in comics, and I do recognize that my words could be taken that way.”

All was good in the kingdom once more. It also demonstrated how powerful the Internet can be.

Black Panther and Storm have the Wedding of the Century, but not quite a honeymoon for Storm

Amidst a Civil War and an epic galactic battle, Marvel also celebrated what it dubbed “The Wedding of the Century.” This, of course, was the wedding between two of Marvel’s most beloved black characters - Black Panther and Storm. The pairing seemed a little strange because it seemed so sudden. Storm editor Axel Alonso said at the Black Panther and Storm Wedding conference call kicking off the event, “Basically we’re building to an event in July that has been decades in the making.” But, in reality, this event decades in the making was a retcon expansion of what happened in one issue (Marvel Team-Up #100 by Chris Claremont and John Byrne). Jenn Fang from Reappropriate told me in an interview for one of my columns, “I am troubled by the message sent by the act of simply romantically pairing two seemingly completely disparate Black characters together on what seems to be simply on the basis of race. Just because Storm and Black Panther are both African doesn’t mean that they can or should make a good romantic couple; the act of ret-conning their origin stories to put them together suggests that the writers have thought no further into their rationale than seeing two Black characters from the same geographic region and thinking they would automatically fall in love with each other. It places too much emphasis on their race as a basis for their relationship, kind of like trying to set up your two Asian friends just because they’re both Chinese or automatically assuming that your two gay friends are perfect for one another just because they’re both gay.”

While the Wedding went off without a hitch and Captain America and Iron Man were able to keep it in their pants, the next concern was, now that Storm was part of Black Panther’s book, what would happen to this powerful character? Lisa (Ragnell) Fortuner from Written World wrote, “Everyone does realize that taking Character A, when Character A is one of the major players in a teambook, and putting her into the supporting cast of Character B’s solo book is a demotion, right? It makes Character A subordinate to Character B’s story. Character A will be hurt, maimed and written out of character in order to advance Character B’s story…So, you all realize, this is very, very likely to happen to Storm in Black Panther? Which is why I’m so damned pissed about this pairing, right?”

One could never have thought she could have been so prophetic for, in the very next issue following the Wedding, Storm seemed uncharacteristically pushed to the sidelines. The Keeper at Fortress of Fortitude wrote, “Come on, Hudlin. This is Ororo Munroe, arguably Marvel’s premiere super-heroine, we’re talking about. It’s like taking Wonder Woman and making her the new Robin.” D. Edward Suave from Governed by the Prophet King cried, “WHY wourld a strong, noble, SMART man like T’Challa mistake that Milksop for his beloved goddess Storm? This woman is supposed to be a QUEEN? He’s not smart enough to listen to his wife, who’s AN EXPERIENCED WARRIOR IN HER OWN RIGHT?”

While things have gotten a little better for the series, it remains to be seen if Storm will continue to be relegated to a sidekick or whether we will see her return to her former glory.

Virgin Comics brings South Asians to the mainstream comic table

Virgin Comics seemed to appear out of nowhere, a fledgling company with the backing of one of the richest men in the world. With Virgin (the main company) diversifying as much as it has into music stores, cell phones, and what not, it seemed like only a matter of time before it would try to dip its hand into the world of comic books. Their company launched with a series of titles with Indian heroes and South Asian mythology as part of their Shakti line, which “mines the great traditions and mythologies of India and re-ignites them in the form of cool and dynamic character branded comics.” In fact, one of their two major areas of development, according to the Virgin Comics Web site is, “The creation of original stories and character properties that tap into The vast library of mythology and re-invent the rich indigenous narratives of Asia in a unique, compelling, and entertaining way.”

With the likes of spiritual guru Deepak Chopra in the forefront of the company, the company also offers a different way of doing things. The creators take a more spiritual approach and infuse this into their works. It’s a very eastern way of doing things. Said Chopra in his Virgin Comics Q & A, ” I have always felt that a culture is sustained and nurtured by its myths. Mythical themes influence our behavior and even our habits of consumption. Myth encapsulates the collective imagination, the collective dream, the collective aspirations of society. We are in need of new myths as we move into a global culture. The super heroes of tomorrow will be cross-cultural and transcend nationalistic boundaries. They will provide the raw material for a new imagination that will take us across the seas of space, time, and beyond. I am excited about participating in the creative aspects of the comic project because I see an opportunity to bring to our society a message that goes beyond the narrow boundaries of nationalism, and invites them to a domain of awareness where we experience our universality and hopefully, go beyond racism, ethnocentrism, bigotry, prejudice, and hatred. The new super heroes will be hybrids of all cultures helping us dream infinite possibilities and actualize our highest potential.”

The product is definitely impressive, with visionaries such as Chopra, filmmakers Shekhar Kapur and John Woo and boasting creators such as Jeevan Kang, Garth Ennis, Mukesh Singh, Alex Ross, Yoshitaka Amano, Zeb Wells, Michael Gaydos, and others. And, coming out of the gate, the company seems to be doing well. According to Voice of America, sales have been good. Comic book storeowner Jim Bernekon told Voice of America, “We sold out. We and other retailers across the country had trouble getting more copies from the distributor.”

Virgin Comics hopes to create a similar kind of cultural impact that Japanese manga has in the United States and around the world. According to a July ASIAN POP column by Jeff Yang, “Kapur has even gone on record as saying that ‘the potential in India [for comics] is no less than manga in Japan,’ and that Virgin’s aim is to use ‘the base of existing Indian mythology and art [to create] a unique product that has international appeal, just like manga did.’”

Yang also notes that the challenges, however, are greater for Virgin because manga is such a part of Japanese culture. Chopra tells Yang, “”In Japan, comic books are a part of the cultural heritage — they’ve been embedded there for generations. So it’s sort of presumptuous for us to say that we’re headed for that. It’s more something we can aspire to.”

And, hopefully, these aspirations will one day become a reality.

The Little Books That Could

In November, a relatively unheard of book called American Born Chinese written and drawn by Gene Yang became the first graphic novel to be nominated for a National Book Award, the literature world’s version of an Academy Award. While Yang ended up tying for second, it was an important moment not only for sequential art, but for Asian Americans as well. American Born Chinese addresses issues faced by Asian Americans in an entertaining way, from assimilation to stereotypes to traditions.

M.T. Anderson, author of The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Vol. 1: The Pox Party, the winner of the Young People’s Literature category in which American Born Chinese was also nominated, even began his acceptance speech by mentioning Yang. According to the Washington Post, “In his acceptance speech, Anderson made a point of noting that Gene Luen Yang’s American Born Chinese was the first graphic novel nominated for a National Book Award. ‘There is a lot of dithering in the blogosphere,’ he said, about whether graphic novels are worthy. This can now be laid to rest.”

Jeff Yang, in his December ASIAN POP column, wrote, “That said, the biggest indie laureate this year wasn’t in the film biz at all; that designation belongs to Gene Yang, whom as you recall wrote and drew the masterful and hilarious graphic novel American Born Chinese. Long before it was nominated for the National Book Award or was picked up by First Second Books for reprint, it was self-published by Yang as a handful of black-and-white, hand-stapled photocopies — proof positive that you can’t judge a book by its cover.”

In December, Time Magazine named Alison Bechdel’s autobiographical graphic novel Fun Home as the number one book in its picks for best books (not just comic books or graphic novels) for 2006. Said Time of its pick, “The unlikeliest literary success of 2006 is a stunning memoir about a girl growing up in a small town with her cryptic, perfectionist dad and slowly realizing that a) she is gay and b) he is too. Oh, and it’s a comic book: Bechdel’s breathtakingly smart commentary duets with eloquent line drawings. Forget genre and sexual orientation: this is a masterpiece about two people who live in the same house but different worlds, and their mysterious debts to each other.”

According to Ohio’s Gay People’s Chronicle, Bechdel was surprised by Time’s pick. She said, “”I don’t know quite what to say about the Time magazine thing. I guess I’m a bit speechless. I’m very happy about it, obviously. It’s a great thing for queer stories, and for graphic novels, to get that kind of mainstream recognition.”"

A Prism Comics news item said, “Bechdel, already an LGBT icon and Lambda Literary Award winner for her nationally syndicated comic strip Dykes to Watch Out For, has gone far beyond breaking into the mainstream, racking up kudos all year long from a multitude of publications such as The New York Times, Entertainment Weekly, and The London Times as an important graphic literary milestone.”

When fanbases attack (and WIN!)

Two books, both with female protagonists (or, if I’m going to talk in “regular” English — women heroes), seemed to escape cancellation this year. This was due in no small part to loud and loyal fanbases for both of the books.

Spider-Girl was supposed to end at issue 100, but Marvel announced that Mayday Parker would make a return in a new series — The Amazing Spider-Girl. SaveSpider-Girl.Com happily rejoiced, “After seven hard months of letter-writing, flier-posting, radio boasting, banner-making, and ad-placing, original run of Spider-Girl has come to an end and yet this October, be ready for her triumphal return in her brand new title The Amazing Spider-Girl!” They also reported that, “Tom Breevort, senior editor at Marvel, has said that no other character fan-base is as vocal or – more importantly – as active as the Spider-Girl fans.”

A similar fate was to happen to DC’s Manhunter with number 25 being its last issue. But, Manhunter also got a last minute reprieve with an extension of five more issues. The five issues, however, contains a story arc important to the cannon of the DC Universe in an effort to get more readers to buy the book. DC Executive Editor Dan DiDio told Newsarama, “I’ve cancelled a lot of books in my day, but the thing that struck me the most about Manhunter was that this was the most vocal and organized response that we’ve gotten to any of our cancellations since I’ve been here. It actually made me pause for a moment, because Manhunter is a favorite of mine, and when I had to cancel it, it was really against my own personal choices. But when I saw the fan response ramp up, it was enough to make me think it might be worth it to go back, and give this book another shot.”

In fact, DC seems to be making an effort to build a bigger fanbase for Kate Spencer (Manhunter’s alias), including this story arc as well as bringing her into Birds of Prey.

Black Lightning joins the Justice League

The Justice League of America has seen many members in its time and it almost seemed like every superhero in the DC Universe was a member, honorary member, reserve member or other kind of member at one time or another. SAVE ONE! Black Lightning. Many Black Lightning fans remember the cover of Justice League of America #173 (volume one, that is) where Superman says, “We want you on the team, Black Lightning.” To which Black Lightning replies, “With that jive bunch of turkeys in the JLA? Forget it!!” It seems odd that a character with such historical importance to the DCU, being the first (and, still, one of the few) black characters to have his own title, would not have joined. But, Black Lightning wanted to remain on the street level where he felt he could do the most job.

In August, Justice League of America (volume two, this time) writer Brad Meltzer sat down with Brian Michael Bendis for an interview for Wizard Universe. On Black Lightning being a member of the team, Meltzer said, “There’s going to be someone out there going, ‘Black Lightning should never be there.’ And that’s the beauty of it. You realize that you can only do what you think is best. But we are trying to achieve a better story. And there is someone who is going to say, ‘Black Lightning? If this were an SAT analogy question, it would be, ‘Black Lightning is to Vibe, as X is to…’ And that’s just what they’re going to see. But that character has been around for 20 years dealing with the Justice League, dating all the way back to that original ridiculous “Jive Turkey” cover. It’s rarely been taken seriously–and to me, there’s a great, untapped character with great potential.”