These Last Times of Rebellion

Last night, I was reading online comments about Social Justice Warriors and Marvel's Avengers. It's interesting that some posters resent black, brown, female or LGBTI characters adopting the roles of Captain America, Thor et al. The annoyance and confusion reminds me of my own position re: the new Doctor Who. Nonetheless, I have been posting about the idea that diversity ( read: female or queer characters) have "killed" sales in comics.

In this post, I want to turn my attention to DC. 2016's last hurrah for the Batgirl of Burnside, the Grant Morrison Wonder Woman graphic novel and the Supergirl tv series reinforced DC's position as home of the most iconic super-heroines in comic culture. This time, however, I want to shine the spotlight on two series which are revivals of off-beat Seventies properties...

Shade the Changing Girl is one of the Young Animal titles curated by rock star Gerald Way. One way to think of Young Animal might be that it's a line which is to sci-fi what Vertigo was to horror and the macabre.

Shade the Changing Man was originally a late 70s DC comic by Steve Ditko and Michael Fleisher, where the protagonist was a fugitive from an other-dimensional world. I know next to nothing about the 90s Vertigo version but I have seen a more recent version ,blending old and new in Justice League Dark.

Cecil Castelucci and Marley Zarcone are the Canadian partnership delivering this psychedelic skewering of the high school system which feels like The Man Who Fell to Earth blended with Twin Peaks.  Avian alien Loma steals the Madness Coat and animates the comatose body of toxic teen bully, Megan Boyer. Loma's hallucinatory discovery of Megan's sociopathic behaviour and the cynicism  of the teenage experience reminds me also of Juno Dawson's YA ghost story Say Her Name. The strong language and sexual references mean this isn't an all-ages title but I think the YA audience would relate to it.

While the David Lynch influence is strong, there 's also a touch of Gene Roddenberry in the back-up strips: vignettes of obscure DC curiosities such as Space Ranger, Element Girl and my favourites from the spring of 1978-79, the Heroes of Lallor and the Wanderers from 60s Adventure Comics ( It's only Ornitho and the Original Beast Boy but...it's Ornitho and the original Beast Boy!! I discovered them on the text page of a giant-sized Legion of Super-Heroes.)

In a future post, I'll look at Cave Carson, the haunting, Lovecraftian adventures of a spelunking family of adventurers- literally an underground comic take on the Fantastic Four.

Prez was the brainchild of Captain America co -creator, Joe Simon, who brought back Golden Age weirdness -in the form of the Outsiders- to DC forty years ago. I bought all the issues of the original Prez ( "First Teen president")  for my friend Jason when he became the youngest captain of his local bowling club team.

Mark Russell and Ben Caldwell's Prez is Beth Ross ( hee!), a fast-food worker in 2036 whose viral internet celebrity accidentally leads to her presidency. The dystopian themes of the series chime with 70s movies like Logan's Run and Soylent Green as the series mercilessly lampoons gun culture, reality television and  intellectual property rights.

Although the regular series ended over a year ago, there was an ignominious twelve-page finale in last autumn's Catwoman Election Night special. With its blend of horror and hilarity, this is an uncompromising satire that deserved a wider readership.

So: two titles where the white male leads have been replaced by young female characters. Are these successful reinventions, invigorating failed concepts? Most definitely. In future posts, look out for Ms. Marvel, America and the Bionic Woman...

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