This is just an idea that’s been kicking around my head for a few days, but I’d like to get everyone’s early take on it. Let me begin by listing reasons a POC-centric geek gathering should happen:

• Because we’ve already seen Geek Girl Con and and Bent-Con step up for communities typically marginalized or exploited by genre-related industries.

• Because Christina Xu’s GGC wrap-up raises questions that still need to be addressed:

in an age when superstar rapper Nicki Minaj name-checks Street Fighter characters and streetwear brands team up with comic-book companies like Marvel and DC, who exactly is the geek referred to in GeekGirlCon? To be a geek, do you have to prefer filk over bounce? Is it a self-identification?

I ask these questions because I’m legitimately curious; if fandom is the uniting factor, then the increasingly diverse audiences for all of our favorite geek media (video games, sci-fi, comics, etc.) should be offered a place at conventions like GGC. If, in fact, geekdom here is actually defined by a set of social norms and practices (or the lack thereof) that just happens to coincide with fandom, then geek communities need to have some serious internal conversations and own up to that.

• Because, while San Diego Comic-Con and other conventions featured race-positive programming this year, that still doesn’t make them safe spaces.

• Because you can still say the same about any number of fandoms.

• Because in spite of this fact, there’s still members of fandom – consumers, creators and executives alike – who still won’t own up to the fact that there’s geeks out there who react with hostility whenever somebody points out a problematic portrayal of race.

• Because not only are there POC writers, artists and editors doing good work, there’s cosplayers, bloggers, cartoonists, and filmmakers on the scene

• Because there’s got to be creators and aspiring creators of color out there who need a place in which to meet and network outside of the “general population.”

• Because executives still think diversity is “contrived.”

• Because, while it was great to read about DC Comics getting called out on the carpet at SDCC with regards to gender issues, I shouldn’t have to doubt that raising the same questions about race would get half as much discussion outside of sites like this one or Racebending.

• Because the Akira adaptation is still happening, proving Hollywood didn’t get the message about The Last Airbender.

• Because this might be the best way left to get those same industry forces to listen to our concerns, in a place where we can set the terms of discussion.

Again, this is just a kernel of a concept right now, but … what do you think, Racializens? Would you be up for a full-scale gathering?

By Guest Contributor Cheryl Lynn Eaton, cross-posted from Digital Femme

Comics, completely consumed by superheroes, has only two active fandoms—Marvel and DC. Given that my budget allows for only one ongoing series and I don’t feel right illegally downloading comics, I’ll have to pick one fandom in which to participate.

I’ve chosen my comic. It’s Wonder Woman. I’ve chose my fandom. It’s DC.

I feel horrible. I feel like I’ve just chosen my gender over my race.

I picked Wonder Woman because the preview pages I read intrigued me. I’ve never been a big fan of Wonder Woman, but I have been a huge fan of ancient Greek myths since I was a child. The way that Azzarello and Chiang have handled the Greek pantheon has drawn me to the book. Also, quite a few people whose opinions on comics I hold in high regard have spoken fondly about the comic. Last, but certainly not least, a new universe allows me to get in on the “ground floor” of Diana’s life. All three of these elements were necessary in Wonder Woman being the series for me. That new universe free of any history to untangle is what led me to pick Wonder Woman over Wolverine and the X-Men (which also appears to be a quality book given the previews provided).

But Idie. Oh, how I love Idie. Each snippet from Scans Daily I read featuring this character makes me want to crawl into a comic for the sole purpose of buying her toys and ice cream. The awkward and uneasy interaction between Wolverine and Oya is wonderful. (Wolverine buys the child her first doll ever and it’s white with long, straight hair? How lovably stupid. I can’t wait for Cecelia to call him on it.)

And though I haven’t been interested in the Amanda Waller role Marvel has foisted upon Misty Knight, I adore the character of Misty Knight and hold out hope that she will return to her Daughters of the Dragon incarnation in her next series—or perhaps something even more interesting. I’d gladly drop Wonder Woman for a comic featuring Misty Knight as the lead character in a female-focused series.

DC? DC doesn’t have a Misty Knight. DC does not have an Oya. Moreover, it seems as though they have no interest in developing one. And that’s why I’ve regretfully chosen gender over race. DC’s development of its female characters of color is abysmal. Though can it be abysmal if there is no development?

Unlike Marvel, black women in the DC universe are merely window dressing—objects for the actual hero(ine) of importance to struggle against or deliver a quip to. Agent Fallon, not the animalistic Voodoo, is the competent, no-nonsense heroine of Voodoo. Skitter is the unattractive, unpleasant monster who’ll skulk around Wonder Girl’s pedestal in Teen Titans. Amanda Waller is merely a supporting character providing intense action for others to engage in. The character’s role could easily be fulfilled by one panel of a Suicide Squad member listening to orders on an iPod. And though Vixen is in a better position than her peers, I certainly don’t hold out hope for the character. Look at her promotion compared to characters such as Cyborg, Batwing, Mr. Terrific, Static, and Green Lantern. If Vixen wants to be a major player in the DCU she’d better start on hormone therapy and seek out a quality surgeon.

And this goes beyond just black women. Where’s Cassandra Cain? Where’s Talia al Ghul? Where’s Rainmaker? Does anyone really believe Katana will receive the same promotion and panel time as Black Canary or Poison Ivy? Does anyone believe that Element Woman will receive the same attention as Wonder Woman or even Mera? I certainly don’t. And I don’t believe they’ll receive the same attention as the Atom, Robin, or Blue Beetle either. For all the extolling of DC’s female-led ongoing books and all the talk concerning DC’s female-friendliness compared to Marvel, no one is talking about how that friendliness only extends to certain women.

So, one weighs the pros and cons and makes the best choice from what’s available. DC offers a lower price, a fresh start, an active fandom, and a quality creative team. Marvel offers an active fandom, a quality creative team, and female characters of color that play an important role in the Marvel universe. Four beats three and I opt for DC.

Yet, I can’t help but want it all.

Stumbling through Tumblr, I found this gem from comedian and vlogger Hari Kondabolu breaking white liberal guilt all the way down.

Transcript after the jump.

So, I went to a prestigious small liberal arts college in Maine. Like many other people of color who’ve gone to prestigious institutions of higher learning, I had a lot of white liberal friends. And I am sick of some these white liberal friends telling me how guilty they feel all the time, how their whiteness makes them feel bad: “I feel bad. I have so much white guilt.”

You know, I’m not impressed! Because, if I had the choice between white guilt and racism, I’d take the white guilt every time. White guilt sounds great! Are you kidding me?!?

Imagine this: you’re on a line, right? You’re about to board an airplane. All of a sudden security shows up. They pull a sikh man with a beard and turban off. They’re search his bag again. And you’re watching, and what do you think to yourself?

“Oh, this is terrible. I feel terrible. This again? Racial profiling? That man’s done nothing wrong. How about they search me? They should search me. I’m a white man. I could be the next Timothy McVeigh. They don’t know that. Why don’t they search my bag? Because I’m white. I feel terrible. I feel so terrible—I mean, I’m still going to board the plane—but I’m gonna feel bad about it. I’m gonna sit in my chair and feel—oh! I’ll write Rachel Maddow an email! That’s what I’ll do! I’ll tell Terry Gross. And I’ll read bell hooks on the plane! Then everything…everything will be better! I’ll feel better. I’m a good white liberal…I’m a good white liberal…I’m a good white liberal…OK.”

So, by any chance, if there are any white liberals watching this video, remember this: your white guilt is a part of your white privilege. Enjoy it…while it lasts.

By Special Correspondent Fatemeh Fakhraie

Sir Richard Burton is most famous for sexing up The 1,001 Arabian Nights. Two centuries later, Craig Thompson has graciously provided some accompanying imagery.

I feel like I have no choice but to hate Thompson’s latest graphic novel, Habibi. I’ll admit that it was beautifully drawn, though some of the panels seem needlessly garnished with alchemy symbols or random Arabic letters. But I’ll let Robyn Creswell’s review for The New York Times handle the fact that Thompson clutters his story—my beef with Thompson is about his staggering Orientalism, which I’ll get to shortly.

Themes of longing and survival permeate Habibi. The protagonists, Zam and Dodola, long for each other, likening this to a yearning for the Divine – Middle Eastern poets have done this for centuries. Zam and Dodola endure horrible events in the name of survival, perhaps tying in with Thompson’s conservationist theme by implying that our disregard for the earth is tantamount to rape and castration of the planet. These themes, however, are often drowned out—no matter how much Thompson underlines them—by the towering gaffes of his misrepresentation. The country of Wanatolia may be fiction, but the cultures it mimics and clumsily muddles together are real.

When one opens Habibi, one might assume that it takes place a long time ago, in a fictional, far-away land that happens to look and feel just like Disney’s Agrabah. But, lo! Wanatolia has steam punk-themed palace guards and high-rise condo construction that flies in the face of a village’s pollution and resulting poverty and famine. Is it to represent the “Global South,” as Thompson claims in a Guernica interview?

No. It’s simply an Orientalist reimaging of a modern Arabia—Thompson needs modern machinery to further his conservationist theme, but he still wants his pre-modern harems full of odalisques with no cell phones and his pre-modern camel caravans crossing a desert that his very same construction companies would build roads through.

Thompson admitted to Guernica that he drew inspiration for Habibi from the Orientalist art movement. Orientalist paintings are a primary example of Orientalism as a racist point of view because they are Western depictions of Arab lands based on preconceptions of the painters (who often had never been to the region they were depicting). Thompson traps himself by not realizing that his magical land full of djinns and harems is exactly the kind of fantastical interpretation that many Middle Eastern people and Muslims have had enough of.

And then we come to the other huge problem: its portrayal of women and the sexualizing of rape. The female protagonist, Dodola, is raped constantly: as a child, by her first husband; as a child and teen, by men in the caravans she tried to steal food from; by the sultan whose harem she lived in. Dodola’s history is a history of rape, also falling into the Orientalist trope of brutal male savages and their oppressed women. And once Zam (or Habibi, the male protagonist) witnesses one of these rapes, both his consciousness and his dreams are plagued by sensual reenactments of her rape. Do I really have to make the point here that sexualizing rape is dangerous and unacceptable?

Tasnim at Muslimah Media Watch highlights the tired savage men/oppressed women dichotomy that Thompson’s novel rehashes: “Dodola’s narrative in particular features an endless array of savage men victimizing sexualized women, with hardly a page passing without nudity or brutality.” Every other page, Dodola was naked for one reason or another: being raped, bathing, birthing. The way Thompson portrays the female form is little more than a screen on which to project his Orientalist, new-agey crap. And with the current lack of female representation in comic books and graphic novels, you’d think he’d try a little harder to make his female protagonist more than a naked body.

I genuinely appreciated Thompson’s attempt to include the Qur’an in a positive way, which is why I wanted to like this novel. G. Willow Wilson, who has a foot in both worlds because she is both Muslim and a graphic novelist, tried similarly, writing, “the sheer dearth of sympathetic Muslim characters in western literature (and the fiercely secular world of comics and graphic novels in particular) makes me want to forgive a few small sins of inauthenticity.” And the beautiful drawings almost sway me before I realize that just because it’s beautiful doesn’t mean it’s okay.

But mixing Middle Eastern fairy tales with Qur’anic passages, new-age-y alchemist references, and a constantly naked female protagonist-turned-odalisque makes it apparent that Habibi is Thompson’s attempt to write his own Arabian Nights.

By Arturo R. García

In Akira, a corrupt government courted disaster with little regard for leaving well enough alone, only to be undone by its’ avarice. At least it looks like Warner Brothers’ adaptation is getting that right.

As reported by Racebending and other outlets late last week, WB is officially moving ahead with a live-action adaptation of the classic manga series.

At this point, though, you would think the company should have noticed the law of Diminishing Returns kicking in with this production. The project has been scorned by fans of the original manga since it was originally announced three years ago, and that vitriol hasn’t stopped – especially after word got out that this new Akira would be Americanized/whitewashed, and moved to the New York area.

As of last week’s reports, Garrett Hedlund was being mentioned as the front-runner to play reluctant hero Kaneda. You might remember Hedlund failing to light up the screen with charisma last year in Tron: Legacy, alongside Jeff Bridges and, in this clip, Olivia Wilde as Quorra, the Manic Pixelated Dream Girl.

Granted, Hedlund and Wilde were hamstrung by a cowardly “feel-good” script that bungled what should have been a slam-dunk piece of sci-fi. But maybe Hedlund’s biggest advantage is a willingness to work cheap. The project’s budget was originally rumored to be in the $300 million range, but that’s not going to happen. Instead, when shooting begins early next year, new director Jaume Collet-Serra will have a comparatively meager $90 million available to somehow make his take on Akira not suck.

Casting calls have also gone up online for two other characters: Tetsuo and Ky (known as Kai in the previous versions of the story). Here’s how they were described:

• Tetsuo: Male; any ethnicity, 20-25 years old; strung out, intense, street rat. (LEAD)
• Ky: Female; 20-30 years old; any ethnicity; tough, sexy, strong willed, street savvy. (LEAD)

The “any ethnicity” clause for both characters is worth noting; it’s possible WB would try to mollify some of the PR damage associated with this project by casting POCs in these roles (while making sure that Ky/Kai is still “sexy,” of course). Or we could end up seeing someone like Misfits’ Robert Sheehan playing Tetsuo with some sort of “New Yawk accent.”

By Arturo R. García

DC Comics has added to the buzz surrounding its’ relaunch with the announcement that Teen Titans will feature a gay POC character starting with the series’ third issue.

On one hand, this is something to be happy for, and Titans artist Brett Booth has already expressed his support for gay marriage and gay rights in discussing the new character, Miguel Jose Barragan, a.k.a. Bunker. But, as Booth wrote on his blog, he’s aware that he and series writer Scott Lobdell are wading into a complicated issue.

We wanted to show an interesting character who’s [sic] homosexuality is part of him, not something that’s hidden. Sure they are gay people who you wouldn’t know are gay right off the bat, but there are others who are a more flamboyant, and we thought it would be nice to actually see them portrayed in comics. Did we go over the top, I don’t think so. I wanted you to know he might be gay as soon as you see him. Our TT is partly about diversity of ANY kind, its about all kinds of teens getting together to help each other. It is a very difficult line to walk, will he be as I’ve read in some of the comments ‘fruity’? Not that I’m aware of. Will he be more effeminate than what we’ve seen before, the ‘typical’ gay male comic character, yes. Does it scare the shit out of me that I might inadvertently piss off the group I want to reflect in a positive way, you’re damn straight (pun intended!)

Booth also described other gay superheroes as looking and acting “like regular heterosexuals … they just happen to have sex with people of their own gender, under the covers and in the dark.” He did not specify which characters he was observing, but Booth’s view of what constitutes “regular” behavior is problematic, as The Mary Sue’s Christopher Holden points out:

Booth starts out his quote by implying that out “gay people who you wouldn’t know are gay right off the bat” are “hiding” their sexuality, without acknowledging that we live in a society that assumes straight until proven gay, where the attempts of gay men and women to only bring up their sexuality when it is actually relevant to a conversation, as when talking about significant others, and not when it isn’t, as when buying a shirt (a luxury enjoyed by all straight people), is interpreted as “hiding” by those they interact with. Perhaps Booth is self-consciously as worried as he needs to be.

Booth is also not accounting for one of comics’ big limitations as a medium: everything is rendered in still frames, so, while we can see heroes like Obsidian, Batwoman, Renee Montoya, Apollo and The Midnighter, we don’t get their voices and body language. So there’s nothing marking their sexuality other than what the creative team chooses to show us. It’s far trickier to use different kind of characterization techniques – vocal inflection, gestures, etc. – in a comic than in, say, a cartoon or a live-action setting.

Bunker will not be DC’s first “out” gay hero. In 1988, the company introduced Extraño, a character who would refer to himself as “auntie” and was played for laughs more often than not. The character was even infected with HIV by an “AIDS vampire” before his series, The New Guardians, was canceled.

It will also be interesting to see how Bunker’s backstory is addressed. On his blog, Booth mentioned this description from Lobdell:

He was raised in a very small Mexican village called El Chilar. He was very loved by his family and the village as well — and they were as accepting of his homosexuality as they were to his super powers when they first manifested. To that end he grew up in an angst-free environment. He was born out of the closet and so he has a very refreshing outlook on life.

Given that description, it’s possible that Bunker’s powers – as yet unnamed, but which seem to involve Miguel being able to create protective, brick-like shells not unlike Marvel Comics’ Armor – might factor into his acceptance in the kind of community that, as several commenters at sites like Bleeding Cool have mentioned, is usually highly religious and homophobic.

That kind of intolerance was highlighted in a study released last year by Mexico’s National Council to Prevent Discrimination, which was created in 2003 to enforce a national anti-discrimination law passed by the National Congress that same year.

According to the report, which is accessible as a PDF in both English and Spanish, 52 percent of all lesbian, gay or bisexual respondents reported discrimination as the main problem for their community. Spread across the socio-economic spectrum, more than half of respondents who identified their status as “low” or “very low” – no income levels were provided – said discrimination was still their primary obstacle. The police was cited as the primary source of that discrimination, followed by members of respondents’ church or congregations, which underscores concerns that, even for a comic-book character, Miguel’s background might be too fantastical.

But on the other hand, as blogger Son of Baldwin said in an e-mail interview with Racialicious Monday, such a portrayal could also be a nice change of pace for readers.

“As a gay person of color, I actually don’t have a problem with the backstory,” he wrote. “The aspect that would seem cliche to me is if he was the typical gay teen who endured homophobia in his home and community. Besides, it would function as a nice bit of wish fulfillment for all of those gay teens out there. And it opens up a LOT of story potential for the character to encounter homophobia in his new community as a gay teen who never imagined he should feel shame about who he is.”

Titans writer Scott Lobdell was the creator who outed Marvel Comics’ Jean-Paul Baubier, aka Northstar in Alpha Flight (Vol. 1) #106, published in 1992. Writer/artist John Byrne, who created Alpha Flight, has said that he had always conceived of the character as a gay male, but was not allowed to mention it openly by both the Comics Code Authority and the company’s Editor-in-Chief, Jim Shooter.

In July 2007, Lobdell told Comic Book Resources that he linked the revelation of Northstar’s sexuality to his characterization up to that point – an arrogant speedster with a short fuse:

While I certainly don’t think all closeted gay men are angry, I’m speaking specifically about Jean Paul. He used his anger to keep people away from him, from getting close, from discovering who he was. If you disliked him for being an arrogant prick, then you were not going to be able to get close enough to learn who he really was. If you didn’t like him for who he pretended to be, then you wouldn’t be able to judge him for who he was.

However, while praising Northstar’s coming out, AfterElton said Lobdell’s story – where Jean-Paul defends his adopted daughter, who is infected with HIV, from the bereaved superhuman father of an AIDS victim – “falls into so-bad-it’s-good territory.” It also pointed out that Lobdell left Alpha Flight before the story was even published. Lobdell told CBR Northstar’s sexuality was not behind his departure, instead citing “distinctly different views” between himself and incoming editor Rob Tokar.

At this point, editorial support doesn’t seem to be an issue for Bunker. DC co-publisher Dan DiDio had told The Advocate in July that the company planned to introduce a new LGBT character; of all the changes involved in DC’s revamped continuity, the sexualities of Batwoman, Apollo and The Midnighter have been left untouched; and at least one more upcoming series, Voodoo, will feature a bisexual creole protagonist, though there’s already concerns in the blogging community about how her career as a stripper will be presented.

On his blog, Booth does at least offer one positive sign for Miguel’s development: he won’t be the comic relief. But what he does become, and if he sticks around if/when DC reorganizes its’ continuity again in the figure, are still very much up in the air.

By Arturo R. García

In promoting the new Ultimate Spider-Man comic, which features a black Latino protagonist in Miles Morales, Marvel pulled out the kind of pull-quote driven advert you’d expect for a high-profile launch.

Unfortunately, the ad short-changes what proves to be a compelling, if not particularly exciting, story.

As seen above, the ad uses the first sentence in this story from ComicsBeat, which opens, “All of you folks who have been crying about diversity in comics had better be all over this!”

While the rest of the story is played straight, for Marvel to validate such blatant Othering of progressive comics fans – characterizing calls for diversity as “crying;” the Tropic Thunder-esque use of “you folks,” and the ransom-note language (“you had better be all over this!”) – is a questionable choice. Particularly since The Beat’s Editor-In-Chief, Heidi McDonald, has written more sensibly about Miles in other posts:

That panel of Miles demasking was everywhere yesterday. And the more I saw it, the more I loved it. It’s iconic (I wish the dialog were a little more iconic but so be it.) It’s a beautiful drawing full of character that draws me in. It reminds me a little of Velazquez’s portrait of Juan de Pareja, which is surely too high praise as that painting is one of the greatest of all times, but they share that sense of humanity which informs the best art.

Moving on to the story itself, McDonald’s critique of the artwork still holds up in USM #1. The tandem of Sara Pichelli (pencils) and Justin Ponsor (colors) shines best in the story’s city settings. Their Brooklyn looks lived in, and authentically, refreshingly diverse. This should be the norm by now, of course, but … well, you know. Comics.

Pichelli and Ponsor’s art also elevates writer Brian Michael Bendis’ riskiest creative choice: positioning Miles’ background as far away as possible from that of his predecessor, Peter Parker.

SPOILERS AHEAD

Set before Miles’ first appearance in Ultimate Fallout #4, Bendis spends USM #1 showing us how Miles got his powers, in an accident not unlike the one that granted Peter his abilities, and introducing us to his family. While it’s never said outright, it’s strongly suggested that Miles’ parents are having trouble making ends meet, a feeling that comes out most heavily in a sequence where the Morales clan attends the lottery for entry into a charter school.

According to former Marvel EIC Joe Quesada, the lottery scene was inspired by the documentary Waiting For Superman, and it could have veered into Poverty Porn pretty easily, but a crucial piece of direction by Bendis, along with the artists’ work, saves it: as Miles’ mother tells him, “Oh, my God, you have a chance,” we cut to a close-up on Miles’ eyes, then to two separate shots of kids whose names didn’t get called.

“It shouldn’t — all these other kids,” Miles says. “Should it be like this?” This show of empathy helps ground Miles for the readers at a crucial moment. He revisits these emotions later on, while visiting his uncle Aaron, something Miles’ dad doesn’t like – especially after Miles faints after his fateful accident, the consequences of which start to dawn on him as the story closes.

This kind of decompressed story – or “writing for the trade,” as fans often call it – might disappoint some of the new readers Bendis and Marvel want to hook with the new USM; after all, for a book selling for $3.99, it’s not unreasonable to suggest that after all the hype, it would have been nice to see Miles out “learning on the job” like we saw him doing in Ultimate Fallout.

But at this point, USM #1 accomplished what Bendis and company set out to do – show us a young hero worth getting invested in. The key now is to follow up: not just in the key details about Miles’ regular life (what are Miles’ parents’ names? What’s going on that has them so worried about their living situation?) but about the touches that will eventually make Miles his own Spider-Man; the tagline for the next issue, “Who Is Miles Morales?,” could hardly be more apropos.

Immediately, I latched onto the character of Static like the electricity for which he’s named. A Black, lower-middle-class kid, skinny and somewhat socially awkward, whose method of dealing with problems usually involved his wit rather than his fists, capable of using such terms as “Pythagorean renown” for no real reason other than they sound pretty and prone to breaking into a capella renderings of the theme to The Good, the Bad, and The Ugly at the drop of a hat? It was as if McDuffie and co-creator John Paul Leon had based the character on me. I faithfully bought every issue each month until the series ended in the late 90s.

When I was in college, I was pleased to see the character brought into the mainstream with the Static Shock animated series on the WB, happy to see Milestone’s highest-profile character get the respect and appreciation he deserved in mass-market media. It proved something I’d always maintained about the character: that Static, more so than Black Panther, Icon, or Hardware, was actually capable of appealing to all comic book readers, not just Black ones. Like Spider-Man, he was a bright young man who dealt with the problems middle-class youth have to face; like Spider-Man, he grew up in an urban environment, part of a faceless anonymous class of people in an enormous city. Like Spider-Man, he wanted to work his way up from his circumstances; like Spider-Man, he had to do it with his brains, not his body. The difference—and this was a difference large enough to ensure the character was far from derivative—was that Virgil Hawkins was Black, and lived a life according to this social experience.

In essence, Virgil Hawkins lived the kind of life Spider-Man would have lived, had he been Black.
- From “Why Virgil Hawkins Is More Significant Than Miles Morales,” on Komplicated.com

By Arturo R. García

The image above is the last page of DC Comics’ new Suicide Squad #1, which debuted yesterday. And to the chagrin of many fans thus far, the woman in the panel on the left is writer Adam Glass and penciller Marco Rudy’s “reimagined” take on Amanda Waller.

In her original incarnation, seen at right, the woman known as “The Wall” was notable not only for being a non-superpowered human with the confidence and cunning to stand up to the likes of Batman, but to be consistently presented as DC’s resident spymaster (she was frequently involved with prior incarnations of the Dirty Dozen-like Squad), but for being depicted as powerful without looking like the “superhuman ideal.”

The character has also emigrated onto other media platforms. CCH Pounder voiced an animated version of Waller in the Justice League Unlimited animated series; Pam Grier played her on television during the final season of Smallville; and earlier this year, Amanda Bassett stepped into the character for the movie Green Lantern. That said, Waller’s involvement as a “star” in the comics has primarily been restricted to espionage-type titles like Suicide Squad or Checkmate, where she was part of an ensemble. She’s never been called upon to carry a title on her own.

Which makes the decision to revamp the character – whether it was Glass and Rudy’s choice, or something dictated to them by DC head honchos Dan DiDio, Jim Lee and Geoff Johns – even more ill-considered than their decision to draw up a Suicide Girls-like character (seen at left) and call her Harley Quinn. What made Waller unique was that she really did look like a regular person – she just had enough of an iron will to maneuver herself into a position of power. For DC to seemingly transform her into one more skinny gal seems to be a particularly arbitrary choice in a company-wide relaunch that has already divided its’ existing fanbase. Or, if this move was made in order to entice new readers to give the new Squad a shot, then who does this company exactly want to attract? This guy?

Update: Glass was quoted by Bleeding Cool as saying, “Amanda Waller is not defined by her size but by her attitude and she still has plenty of that.” Which doesn’t explain the change at all, of course. Bleeding Cool also reported that Rudy has been replaced as the penciller for the series in favor of Federico Dellocchio.

DC Comics’ Deadman brought to television by the folks behind Supernatural? Makes sense, if the story holds up.

Much like SPN’s Winchester brothers, Deadman (aka ghostly acrobat Boston Brand) would give showrunner Eric Kripke another outlet for his horror/comedy stylings. Since Boston has to possess people to do anything in the physical realm, one can only hope a Deadman TV show, if it actually gets past the pilot stage, would actually feature more people who aren’t white.

But we wouldn’t bet on it.

Still, the biggest problem with Deadman is, before recent miniseries like Blackest Night and Brightest Day revived interest in him, DC played Boston as more of a “professional” guest-star, to be called upon for stories involving demons, posession and whatnot, crack wise with the core characters, then shuffle off back to the afterlife. And with DC’s “New 52″ relaunch starting tomorrow, it’s a good time to highlight characters who have come into greater prominence than Deadman over the course of the past decade, only to get passed up for bigger media opportunities.

1. Blue Beetle

Jaime Reyes is ready for prime-time right now. He’s been promoted on media platforms besides his own critically-acclaimed comic, and the test footage above, which made the viral rounds last year, showed us his extraterrestrial battlesuit can be done for the small screen – in fact it already was, even if it was for Smallville.

Besides that, DC’s animation division has already provided a blueprint for how to handle Reyes’ story arc, after featuring him on Batman: The Brave and The Bold.

In fact, there’s not that much separating Jaime from the Clark Kent we saw in Smallville: Midwestern setting? Check. Friday Night Lights proved that people will follow a series set in Texas – Jaime lives in El Paso – if the story’s up to snuff. Young hero dealing with his legacy? Check. In fact, you could do what BATB did and bring in Wil Wheaton as Jaime’s predecessor, Ted Kord, for flashback sequences or a time-travel arc. And Jaime’s trajectory is still malleable enough to open the door to the kinds of Guest Superhero appearances Smallville gorged itself on in its’ final season.

2. Static Shock
Before there was Jaime, there was Virgil Hawkins, who has gone from being the most-popular character from the dearly-departed Milestone Universe to his own eponymous solo series in the DC relaunch. And in between, he was exposed to a whole other fanbase in a critically-acclaimed animated series, where he was written to stand alongside – and stand up to – some of DC Animated’s bigger guns:

Virgil’s best friend Richie – aka Gear, the kid in the glasses in the clip above – could add another dimension to a Static show. Static’s creator, the late Dwayne McDuffie, said he considered Richie to be gay, even if he couldn’t acknowledge it on a kids’ show. But that relationship could be explored on a show skewing toward the crowd that’s grown up in the years since the cartoon aired.

3. The Question
The unlikely success and subsequent renewal of Nikita should make DC take notice: there is still a market for female-driven action stories outside of basic cable. A series following Renee Montoya’s adventures could provide The CW with a good complement to Maggie Q’s show.

Not only can Renee explore the seamier side of Gotham police procedural-style (or anywhere, really,if you must get her away from the Bat-brand), working with or against former police colleagues, but DC elements like Intergang and the Religion of Crime open the door for creators to do stories that won’t encroach on Nikita’s spy-vs-spy setting.

4. Mister Terrific

Leverage showrunner John Rogers has coined the phrase Competence Porn to describe his show. You could also apply the label to programs like Burn Notice and White Collar, where it’s generally accepted that the leads are 1) good at what they do; 2) not prone to doing something dumb for the sake of “conflict.” And a character like Michael Holt – in DC canon, the third-smartest man in the world – fits that description to a tee, according to Eric Wallace, who will be writing Holt’s solo adventures in the upcoming series Mister Terrific.

“He’s a brilliant scientist with a whole bunch of degrees,” Wallace told Buddy TV. “He spreads his science knowledge all over the world, and at the same time his job is insuring our future. His job is keeping an eye on science gone mad, so that we still have a future. That’s what he does as a superhero, so you have a setup — it’s very clear — but then it’s off to the races.”

Wallace already has experience writing brainy do-gooders from his work on Eureka, which gives him a leg up on charting Holt’s course. Hopefully, if the new series takes off in the midst of the hype, it could give Mister T some consideration for greener media pastures.

5. Vixen

The ranking “veteran” of this group, Mari McCabe was introduced in the comics way back in 1981, and has gone on to be written into various incarnations of the Justice League of America. But as with Static and Blue Beetle, it was her inclusion in DC’s animated universe that enabled creators to give her a bigger showcase.

As she was written on Justice League Unlimited, Vixen was able to reconcile her glamorous side with her superheroics, and entered a relationship with Green Lantern without being scripted to be The Other Woman. Beyond that, though, the hook should be a gimme: she’s a model who saves the world. As lead-ins go, America’s Next Top Model could do far, far worse.

And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Characters like Ryan Choi, Cassandra Cain, Swift and The Engineer, Orpheus and Onyx, to name just a few, are, at this point, sitting around unused. If DC’s Chief Creative Officer, Geoff Johns, is serious about changing the game for his company, he needs to accept that characters from the Silver Age are not the only valuable properties he can steer outside of comics into other media. In fact, he would do well to remember that it wasn’t Spider-Man or the X-Men or even Iron Man that made Marvel Comics properties palatable for the movies – it was Blade. Is Johns willing to believe in nostalgia that might not necessarily be his own? Let’s hope so.

But we’re not betting on it.

Cartoonist Keith Knight had a busy time at this year’s San Diego Comic-Con: he was part of The Black Panel, hosted his own panel, Nappy Hour, and promoted his own work, Too Small To Fail, the latest collection of work from (th)ink, his one-shot cartoon published in alternative newspapers around the country.

Too Small breezes through a host of topics, sometimes with sensibility, as in the case of a series of informational posts about Black History Month, and other times slinging barbs at targets both political:

and social:

As a result, the compilation can go from funny to affecting to edifying within just a few pages, making it a good introduction to Knight’s work for those who can’t read it in their own local papers. Meanwhile, at Comic-Con, Knight has been using a similar rapid-fire strategy for “Nappy Hour,” which he brought back this year with a panel that included “Black Panel” host Michael Davis, Bad Azz Mofo head honcho David Walker, and writer/performer Pam Noles.

I caught up to Knight at the convention to talk about the panel, his memories of McDuffie, and his impressions on fandom and race. The clip and a full transcript are under the cut.

Keith Knight: Hey, Racialicious, I am Keith Knight. I am creator of The Knight Life, and the K Chronicles, and Think, which I have a new book collection of. Check it out at Kchronicles.com.

Arturo: So how’s your con going so far?
KK: So far, so good. Today’s been gangbusters, actually, Saturday. Which actually in the past couple of years has been the slow day, ’cause everybody usually goes up to check out the movie panels. But, maybe that’s to do with the drop in movie studios coming here this year, ’cause it’s been less than last year. But it’s much busier today.
AG: For the second year [in a row] now, you’ve done Nappy Hour. You said you created that panel as a way to bring some of the conversations you’ve had with other black creators … take some of those conversations and put them into a con setting.
KK: Yeah, yeah. Nappy Hour originally was this thing where we met up in a dive bar just off the beaten path in the Gaslamp District. But, as everything has gotten busier and they did the baseball stadium, that little dive bar is no longer the empty place anymore, so I said, “this is good timing to try and make this happen inside the con.” So I got a great line-up last year with Dwayne McDuffie, Ned Cato and C. Spike Trotman, and an egg timer, which is the key to making a good, quick fast-paced panel. And it was a real big hit, so this year we did it again.
AG: And this year you had Michael Davis from The Black Panel on. There seemed to be a bit of synergy between Nappy Hour and the Black Panel in that both of them were tributes to Dwayne McDuffie … could you give us a quick memory of Dwayne for our readers?
KK: Yeah, Dwayne … he was … it’s funny, ’cause everyone has the same story about Dwayne, about how this guy, who was so busy, who did so much, who accomplished so much in the industry, would take so much time to talk with you. And he was a real big supporter of me – especially me being a newspaper cartoonist, among all the superhero stuff, he was always there, and picked up every piece of work I did. And, it was just really nice, that he supported me so much, and it was a conversation with him that really got me to bring Nappy Hour inside. It was nice of him to be on the panel. Just, after he passed, was hearing everybody’s similar stories, just how smart he was and how she shared so much with other people. Great guy, great person, and one to emulate.

Twenty years ago, it used to be 40-year-old white guys in the audience. That audience has changed, but it’s still 40-year-old white guys in the comics.

AG: Talk about your experience hosting a panel. ‘Cause it’s different from just having a conversation with your buddies at the bar. The timer’s a great aide, but what else have you had to adapt to pull this off?
KK: I was a little loose yesterday. I let Michael talk a little bit, because I was a half-hour late to his panel, so he could pretty much do whatever he wanted. But, you want people to make their points, have their points made, but one thing … I let it go a little but I wanted to make sure our panel’s constructed without a lot of complaining, and I think there was a little bit too much complaining, but you gotta reel that in, because there’s so much positive stuff that we can talk about, and so many things that we can accomplish in a positive way … A con isn’t a con without a little bit of complaining, right? Isn’t con the short version of convention? Pros and con, negative connotation?
AG: How do you see conversations about diversity – not just at this convention, but in fandom in general – how do you see those evolving over the past couple of years?
KK: Evolving? Well, I really liked David Walker’s point [during the panel]: the convention crowd has become so diverse – I mean, just look around. I’m looking around right now at people who walk by, there’ve been like Six brown people, two white people just walked by. There’s a white guy. Black girl. White guy. Kids. Two brown kids. You know, it’s very diverse. Age-wise, sex-wise, it’s great to see, and Dave Walker was saying, let’s see that reflected in the comic-books now. Twenty years ago, it used to be 40-year-old white guys in the audience. That audience has changed, but it’s still 40-year-old white guys in the comics.
AG: One of the points made in the panel was, we’re responsible for our own stories. Having the internet now is a great equalizer now, I’ve found, ’cause we have more outlets. I’ll ask you what I asked the panel yesterday: why is there still so much of a blind spot around fandom when it comes to race in particular, even among those who would normally define themselves as kind of progressive?
KK: Well, it’s one of those things where people need to be dragged kicking and screaming into the future, and a lot of folks may not admit to their own biases or what they’re used to all these years. Making that transition may be hard. They may be forced to do that transition. I’ll tell you this: I’ve had more than a few people, after the panel, come down and say, “I just want to tell you, I wasn’t there for your panel, I was there for the panel after – I was squatting – but your panel was, like, the best panel I’ve seen at the con. You guys touched on a lot of issues that we just don’t hear in some of the other panels.” So those folks were tricked into hearing it, you know … sometimes people need to be tricked into learning about that stuff. I tell you, I always talk about the Ken Burns documentaries on PBS, because many of his documentaries have a lot to do with race in America – the Civil War, baseball, jazz, even the national parks, how they talked about the Buffalo Soldiers, who were the first park rangers, and a lot of people were being told for the first time, “You can’t do that in this park,” by black people. Those aren’t Black History specials, they’re Ken Burns documentaries, but people learn about black history through those documentaries.
AG: They get snuck in there.
KK: They’ll see something during black history month, like a Black History Month special, and a lot of white people won’t watch that, you know?
AG: But everybody likes baseball.
KK: Either you like or hate it. Still, even if you don’t like the game, that documentary was great. The biggest thing, though, was … what’s his name? … the guy who was the Negro League player who became a big -
AG: Buck O’Neill?
KK: Yeah, Buck O’Neill! He didn’t make it to the Hall of Fame when he was alive. These writers wouldn’t get him in the Hall of Fame in his last year, and then when he passed, they put him into the Hall of Fame. That’s something that bugged the hell out of me. But just for his performance in that documentary, being the star of that documentary was worth him getting into the Hall of Fame.

By Arturo R. García

For me, the aura around Marvel’s X-Men franchise took a hit this year, thanks to the raceFAIL that derailed the otherwise enjoyable X-Men: First Class. After all, playing up a group of heroes as surrogates for the marginalized when they’re almost entirely white, cis-hetero folks was more far-fetched than any bit of sci-fi on the screen.

There’s something similarly problematic undercutting this year’s big story in the X-Men comic books, Schism. Much like First Class, Schism isn’t a bad superhero story so far, per se, but its’ focus on the team’s internal politics only highlights how Marvel’s creative process has done “too good” of a job of marginalizing mutantkind, both as a collection of characters and as any kind of representation of diversity.

Spoilers for Schism and other X-stories under the cut.

As Schism #3 hits stores today, here’s where we stand: bad stuff is happening, and mutants are getting blamed for it. Again. This time around, it’s an attack on a peace conference by Kid Omega, previously left brain-dead but now reconstituted and looking like the telepathic, telekinetic lovechild of Alfred E. Newman and John Lydon. Of course, there’s outside forces manipulating the conflict, and in issue #2 last month, we saw the X-Men attempting to defuse some of the chaos, protecting a world that hates and fears them, as usual.

But the Kid and the crisis are just window dressing; the actual hook for the story is, this is The One Where The X-Men Take A Break. Like, split up – at least for the next big story arc – into camps led by Cyclops and Wolverine. The problem is, where the team goes, now seemingly all of mutantkind goes with it.

Part of that problem came about via canon: in the conclusion to the House of M crossover six years ago, the Scarlet Witch cast a spell that drained the powers of millions of mutants, leaving just 198 mutants at the time worldwide. In the years since, most of that remaining population has followed the X-Men to the San Francisco area.

But Marvel as a company has to be held responsible for the other part of this issue. Even before House of M, when mutants were flourishing, the company’s desire or ability to present many compelling mutant characters – good or bad – outside of the X-circle was, at best, severely lacking.

Aside from Peter David’s success with X-Factor and past miniseries like NYX and District X, most mutant involvement outside of the team’s old home in Westchester County has been limited to supporting roles in other superhero books: The Beast and Sub-Mariner have been part of various Avengers squads over the years; in the 1980s, most of the original X-Men briefly found their way into teams like the original X-Factor or the Defenders; and Marvel, it turns out, gave us a Lady Gaga-like character 30 years too early, when Dazzler had her own solo series. (Why was she able to put on such a great light show at her concerts? Baby, she was born that way!)

But we never met, say, a relatively-super-fast courier in the New York depicted in Amazing Spider-Man. Matt Murdock and Foggy Nelson never hired a legal assistant with an extra-eidetic memory in Daredevil. Mutants have been part of Marvel’s world, but never really in it, unless they were either engaging in terrorism against “normal” humans, or part of anti-terrorism factions. And what should have been a pivotal moment – Storm’s becoming Queen of Wakanda when she married the Black Panther – has been all but completely de-emphasized. How, exactly, is an internationally-recognized diplomat not even a write-in candidate for leadership of the X-Men, not to mention one who once kicked Cyclops’ ass for the job?

Meanwhile, even if the X-Men have, in canon, been mostly welcomed in San Francisco, we still haven’t actually seen any of the other 190-plus mutants who joined them out west do … well, much of anything. There’s no mutants shown running for office, or covering the team for a local paper or television station, running a business, or even dating a member of the team. Cyclops, we’re told, is leading them, but we don’t know anything about them.

Instead, Schism will eventually ask us to care whether Cyclops or Wolverine represent them in front of the world. It’s an easy call to make: neither one should – they’re professional superheroes, and they’re enjoyable, believable characters in those roles. But, as no character in Schism has much bothered to point out, neither of them is a diplomat or statesman like the team’s original leader, Charles Xavier. And though Xavier is sure to show up in Schism before it’s all said and done, Marvel hasn’t given readers a figure to succeed him, or even emerge as a positive voice for mutants who would rather spend their time not fighting in spandex. That level of editorial neglect is galling, even if it benefits the X-Men “brand.”

It can’t be enough for “some of our favorite characters” to be mutants; at some point, Marvel needs to start letting its’ mutants be actual characters. First Class should have reaffirmed to Marvel that centering a story around Civil Rights Era terminology carries much more weight than any of Stan Lee’s good-natured fanfare. And though Schism can still be a decent superhero story, it’s probably missed its’ chance to be anything more than that; in fact, having to “choose” between two white guys’ as the Leader of the Oppressed threatens to make it look just as dated as the movie, without the excuse of being a period piece.

By Arturo R. García

At one point during this year’s Black Panel, artist Denys Cowan said what maybe everybody in the room was thinking: “It’s strange being here without him.”

Though the trademark sardonic humor of host Michael Davis still emerged on occasion (“I guess this don’t happen at the White Panel,” he said when he experienced some tech difficulties) this time around, Davis led Cowan and the other panelists in sharing their memories of the late Dwayne McDuffie – not just as one of the men behind Milestone Media, or as a prolific comics and television writer, but as a friend, colleague, and more.

“Dwayne was my writing mentor, my best friend, he was the godfather to my kid,” said Matt Wayne, a frequent collaborator of McDuffie’s. “Milestone was the best time of my life.”

Fittingly, Milestone had a heavy presence on the panel: Davis and Cowan were partners in the company with McDuffie, as was Black Enterprise Magazine Editor-In-Chief Derrick Dingle, who appeared via Skype. Also contributing via Skype was director Reginald Hudlin, who urged any budding creators in the audience to honor McDuffie by using technology to use technology to help their own stories see the light of day.

Meanwhile, actor/comedian Wayne Brady, sent in a short testimonial from the set of the new version of Let’s Make A Deal:

Also on the panel were cartoonist Keith Knight, voice actor Phil LaMarr, multimedia artist Tatiana EL-Khouri, and writer Keith David, who said he felt that creatively, McDuffie, who passed away in February, just after the release of All-Star Superman, an animated film adaptation he wrote.

“I was stunned when he passed,” David said. “I had been e-mailing with him the day before. All we can do as creators is to aspire to the leap he took.”

Some of the other panelists traded anecdotes about McDuffie’s intelligence – “Dwayne got it,” Lamarr said. “And by it, I mean everything.” – and generosity: Knight noted that McDuffie always took the time to talk to you about your work; Davis, who called McDuffie his inspiration for creating the Black Panel in the first place, teared up while discussing an occasion when McDuffie gave him notes on some of Davis’ own character designs.

Other accounts surfaced during the audience participation portion of the panel: one fan said a submission he sent to McDuffie led to a four-hour script critique session, and subsequently to a job for him writing on McDuffie’s television show Ben 10. And writer Brandon M. Easton told the panel that it was advice from McDuffie that led to him getting a writing job on the new Thundercats animated series.

Those testimonials underscored McDuffie’s legacy to both of the industries he worked in – one Cowan exhorted the audience to continue on his behalf.

“Bury the man, but not the plan,” Cowan said. “The revolution goes on.”

By Arturo R. García

Nope, that’s not Peter Parker in the picture above. Which makes this Vote With Your Wallet time again for Marvel Comics fans. The appearance of this new web-slinger isn’t just a potential turning point for the comics business, but it’s the biggest in a series of moves over the years by Marvel to build more diversity into its’ highly-lucrative Spider-brand. Spoilers under the cut.

As you might expect, there’s a caveat to throw out there right off the bat: this Spider-Man is not part of “regular” Marvel continuity; he’s part of the more “contemporary,” more diverse Ultimate Marvel Universe. This is where the bulk of the characterizations for Marvel’s film canon have come from – most notably, Nick Fury being played by Samuel L. Jackson.

As USA Today reported on Tuesday, today’s issue of Ultimate Fallout will feature Miles Morales, a half-black, half-Latino teenager out to fill Peter Parker’s shoes. Parker died after fending off several of his enemies in Ultimate Spider-Man #160 two months ago.

Brian Michael Bendis, who wrote both Peter’s death and Mile’s debut, told the paper Morales’ “casting” was inspired by actor Donald Glover’s social-media campaign to play Spider-Man in the upcoming film series reboot, a role that ultimately went to Andrew Garfield, a white Englishman.

“It’s certainly long overdue,” said Bendis, who also orchestrated Luke Cage’s rise to prominence and co-wrote Takio, which centered around a multi-racial adoptive family. “Even though there’s some amazing African-American and risnority characters bouncing around in all the superhero universes, it’s still crazy lopsided.”

On a slightly more disconcerting note, Ultimate artist Sara Pichelli was also quoted as saying, “Maybe sooner or later a black or gay — or both — hero will be considered something absolutely normal,” which, as David Brothers points out, doesn’t do Marvel any favors:

What she says works directly against Marvel’s marketing. (Spider-Man is black now!) She’s saying that this sort of thing should be par for the course, rather than an aberration. I like that she slipped that in there, whether my understanding of her statement is what she intended or not. The big deal about Nightrunner, the new Aqualad, and… who am I forgetting? Batwing? Blue Beetle? The big deal about all those guys should’ve been no big deal to us. I don’t get hype when an ill new black character shows up in One Piece (word to sleepy old Admiral Kuzan) or in a new movie. Why should I when it happens in the comics I’ve been reading since I was a child? If anything, these books should be the ones blazing trails like they used to do.

Brothers is right when he notes that overall, Marvel’s efforts to be more diverse have reached a bit farther than those of its’ competitor, DC Comics. In fact, Morales is the third Latino to adopt the mantle of the Spider.

In 1992, Marvel attempted a sort-of Beta version of the Ultimate line, with the Marvel 2099 comics, originally set in the far-flung future of “present-day” continuity. The first book in the line was, of course, Spider-Man 2099, which featured a light-skinned biracial hero, Miguel O’Hara. Like the original Peter Parker, Miguel’s scientific prowess was remarkable, but Miguel had a cynical streak that initially underscored his black costuming.

More recently, the company introduced Anya Corazon in 2005, first under the name Arana, later graduating her into the role of Spider-Girl, with her own series. And, while O’Hara had his own crossover with the first Spider-Man, Anya not only interacted with Spidey, she also got his endorsement to continue on as Spider-Girl, and was even name-checked by him in his own title.

Unfortunately, both Anya and Miguel’s series would end up cancelled. And that spectre is already hanging over the gamble to introduce a POC in one of Marvel’s most marketable characters, even if it is an alt-universe variant. Hopefully, the same-day digital release for Miles’ adventures in Ultimate Spider-Man will attract readers and retailers who won’t either live up to the most vile stereotypes of comic-book fans, or just won’t follow a hero of color because they don’t find him or her “relatable.” But, what kind of sales numbers – digital and hard-copy – will it take for Morales’ book to continue its’ run? And if it does end up cancelled, will Marvel keep Miles in the mask, or hot-shot a resurrection of Ultimate Pete for the sake of “tradition”?

The program for this year’s San Diego Comic-Con will include a group of tributes to famed comic-book and cartoon writer Dwayne McDuffie, who passed away earlier this year. But Matt Wayne’s tribute piece will not be included, and Wayne, a frequent collaborator of the Milestone Media co-founder, took to the internet to publish it instead.

Wayne posted his intended tribute piece on the forums of McDuffie’s website late last week, saying he wrote it after being approached by SDCC to do so, and McDuffie’s wife had “dubbed it ‘perfect.’” But, Wayne said he was asked to change it, an option he declined.

“I decided to just let it go.,” he wrote. “I’m worried that Dwayne is going to be the industry’s “proof” that we’re all post-racial and chummy, now that they can’t be embarrassed into hiring him anymore. And I don’t want to contribute to that absurd but inevitable narrative.”

SDCC marketing and public relations director David Glanzer confirmed that Wayne was asked to change his submission, not because of any specific content, but because it didn’t match the more celebratory tone of other tribute pieces written for the program.

Glanzer also said that in light of what happened with Wayne’s piece, the editorial process for the program will be “opened up” in the future.

Besides the tributes to McDuffie planned for the SDCC program, which is given to all attendees of the four-day convention, it has been announced that “The Black Panel,” scheduled for July 22 at 10 a.m. in Room 5AB, will celebrate the Milestone co-founder’s life, featuring his other partners in the company, Derrick Dingle, Denys Cowan, and Michael Davis.

A transcript of Wayne’s original tribute piece is under the cut.

I miss Dwayne every day. It’s still inconceivable that he isn’t around to appreciate the world with me.

When my son gets another baby tooth, or I see a new episode of Doctor Who, I still have the urge to call him. Given the chance, I’ll talk about my late friend for hours at a time. I find myself making lists of McDuffie facts—not wanting to forget any more than I already have. And one of the things I’ve thought about most while mourning him was his long struggle for recognition from the comics industry.

Dwayne loved comics, both the superhero and non-superhero varieties, long before he made them for a living, and he continued to love them till the end. Our last conversation was about the Masterpiece Comics collection I’d given him for his birthday, which includes a pastiche of his beloved Little Lulu.

That said, I don’t know that the comics business loved him back.

Here’s a trivia question for you: Aside from the titles he published himself, what was Dwayne’s first monthly comics writing assignment? Believe it or not, that was Justice League of America in 2007. “But what about Deathlok,” you ask? Sorry, that was co-written with the redoubtable Greg Wright. “Fantastic Four?” Nope, it wasn’t open-ended. Dwayne knew that was a finite assignment when he took it. “X-O Manowar?” “Firestorm?” Same deal.

The majors never appreciated Dwayne’s writing enough to grant him a steady job of it. Not until there had been a Static cartoon, and the Justice League cartoon. And Beyond! And Fantastic Four. And Milestone, of course. By the time he landed that regular monthly, Dwayne was already in the history books of two media.

Now, naming no names, think of how many not-so-good writers you’ve seen blunder from one long-term monthly comic assignment to another. (And sure, who qualifies as a hack is subjective. You and I might not be thinking of the same names.) Each of those writers got more of a shot than Dwayne did.

We all know how good he was. And again, what Dwayne made of such opportunity as he did get is now a matter of history. He always counted a great number of People Who Oughtta Know among his fans, including Comic-Con International, the ones who give out Inkpot Awards.

Still, there’s no question in my mind that, given the finite length of Dwayne’s career, he would have been better off both financially and creatively to have never worked in comics at all, and gone straight into animation instead.

But that’s not how love works, is it?

– Matt Wayne

If you saw Part I yesterday, you saw that the Black Panel, traditionally held on Saturdays, had made its’ way to the Friday morning line-up. Luckily, more panels have stepped up to fill the POC void on Saturday, and Sunday looks to be book-ended by some interesting stuff. Not that we’re too biased. The line-up is under the cut.

SATURDAY

11:00 a.m. – Noon: Spotlight on Ernie Chan. A celebration of the nearly 30-year career of Chan, who broke into the industry with DC Comics, where he got to work on various Batman comics before moving to Marvel, where he worked on characters ranging from Dr. Strange to Luke Cage to Conan. Room 4.

11:00 a.m. – Noon: Avatar: The Last Airbender Fan Gathering. Enjoy the company of fellow fans and discuss the original series, upcoming Dark Horse comics, and the future Legend of Korra. Moderator Avatar_Mom chats with MC Victor Sgroi (Cabbage Merchant), Michael Kirkpatrick (Props), Kevin Coppa(Puppetbenders), fan artist Kim Miranda (Isaia), writer John O’Bryan (Avatar the Last Airbender), and storyboard artist Ian B. Graham (Avatar the Last Airbender). Come for the conversation and stay for the cosplay contest. Santa Rosa Room, Marriott Marquis & Marina

12:30-1:30 p.m.: Diversity in Young Adult Works. Cindy Pon (Fury of the Phoenix) and Gene Luen Yang (Level Up) will be among the panelists looking at genres and characters in YA fiction that are, thankfully, not sparkly vampires or the werewolves they’re feuding against. Malinda Lo (Huntress) will serve as the moderator. Room 8.

Celeb Sightings: Donald Glover, Yvette Nicole Brown, Danny Pudi and Ken Jeong bring the lulz at the Community panel in the Hilton San Diego Bayfront’s Indigo Ballroom, starting at 1 p.m. At 2:15 p.m., though, Pudi is slated to be at Hall H for the Knights of Badassdom panel. Bonus points to anybody who can film Pudi’s mad dash from one room to the other.

1:30 – 2:30 p.m.: Spotlight on Tsuneo Goda.
So what the heck is Domo-kun? Goda probably won’t spill the beans, but he probably will share some of the origin of his signature creation, as well as talk about new projects. Room 5AB.

2:00 – 3:00 p.m.: Spotlight on Jamal Igle. Igle and actor/writer/moderator Keith Dallas will discuss Igle’s rise from an internship at DC Comics to his current status as one of the company’s Executive Artists. Room 4.

2:00-3:30 p.m. Comics Arts Conference Session #12 — Poster Session. Want to go in depth with a comics scholar? Or a whole room of comics scholars? Rather than presenting from the stage, the Poster Session scholars will be ranged around the room to discuss their presentations in small-group and one-on-one discussions. Real-World Consequences Poster Group: Kalani Largusa (School of the Art Institute of Chicago) explores the significance of Kato in his role as the Green Hornet’s sidekick and the shaping of Asian identity; Nathan Wilson(The Comics Journal) looks at the real-world consequences of the representation of Native Americans in comics. Room 26AB.

Queer Poster Group: Courtney Schneider (School of the Art Institute of Chicago) compares the treatment of homosexuality in mainstream and non-mainstream serialized media; Ashley Pitcock (Henderson State University) asks whether Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s movement into bisexuality was a sign of the times or a gimmick to sell Season Eight comics;Michael Harrison (Monmouth College) investigates how Spanish comics authors La Penya in Mondo Lirondo and Ivan Garcia in Capitan Eclipse use fantasy in distinct ways to communicate a 21st century queer Spanish identity. Room 26AB.

2:30 – 5:00 p.m.: Comic-Con How-To — Mixing Color with Felipe Echevarria. Artists looking for a more in-depth workshop should give this a shot, as Echevarria, a registered teacher at the Michael Wilcox School of Color, demonstrates the school’s Wilcox Bias Color Wheel system, recommended for artists of any skill level with any pigmented media (watercolors, oils, acrylics, printer’s inks, gouache, etc). Room 28DE.

4:00 – 5:00 p.m.: Bent Comix — The Next Wave of Gay Cartooning. A year after expanding their creative community into Bent Con, the world’s first queer comics show, the people behind the Bent movement (note: link contains NSFW cartoons) discuss where their distribution network goes from here. Room 4.

4:00 – 5:00 p.m. Finally! Nickelodeon: The Last Airbender: Legend of Korra — Exclusive First Look. The team behind Avatar reconvenes to discuss the next chapter in the saga, which Ay-leen the Peacemaker first alerted us to back in January. Room 6BC.

Creator Alert: At 4:30 p.m., DC Entertainment co-publisher Jim Lee gets a solo spotlight in his own “DC Focus” session, where he’ll no doubt dish on the company’s September relaunch and his work on the DC Universe MMO game. Room 6DE.

5:30 – 7:00 p.m.: Gays in Comics: Year 24! Prism Comics hosts its’ annual celebration of LGBT characters in the comics realm, with this year’s guest-list including Dan Parent, who created Archie Comics’ first gay character, Kevin Keller, Prism Queer Press grant recipient Jon Macy, writer Greg Pak (Incredible Hulks, Herc, Alpha Flight) and a video appearance from Batwoman artist/co-writer J.H. Williams III. After the panel, Prism will hold a mixer and silent auction. Room 6A.

Celeb Sighting: Maggie Q’s Nikita is still around? Well go fig. Get the scoop on the show’s second season at 6 p.m. in Room 6BCF.

8:00 – 9:00 p.m.: Mushroom Clouds and Mushroom Men — Ishiro Honda. If you ever saw the original Japanese version of Godzilla, you know that it’s a genuinely scary piece of work, and Honda was the man who made that vision come to the screen. In this session, Peter H. Brothers, author of the Honda biography Mushroom Clouds and Mushroom Men: The Fantastic Cinema of Ishiro Honda, revisits the director’s career. Room 9.

SUNDAY

10:00-11:00 a.m.: Diversity and Fandom 102: How You Can Make a Difference. We talked about this Monday morning – Racebending and The R come together to discuss what we can do as fans and consumers to make our voices matter in an increasingly fragmented geek media spectrum. Racebending’s Mike Le will serve as moderator, with the panel featuring actor Dante Basco (Hook, Avatar: The Last Airbender); showrunner/writer Javier Grillo-Marxuach (The Middleman); author Malinda Lo; blogger and event promoter Phil Yu (AngryAsianMan.com); USC Professor Henry Jenkins and yours truly. Room 24ABC.

10 -11 a.m.: Teen Comics Workshop. Gene Luen Yang and Thien Pham, the team behind Level Up, will be among the panelists in this workshop for teenagers looking to tell their stories in a comic-book format. Room 30CDE.

Creator Alerts: At 11:15 a.m., writer Marjorie Liu will be part of Marvel Comics’ “Women of Marvel” panel in Room 5AB; you can catch her Marvel colleagues Greg Pak and Axel Alonso discussing the company’s Fear Itself crossover at 12:30 p.m. in Room 6DE. That afternoon at 2 p.m., Buffy the Vampire Slayer cover artist Jo Chen joins Chan in Room 25ABC for “Cover Story: The Art of the Cover;” and DC’s Jim Lee hosts a How-To panel for fans of his artwork in Room 28DE, starting at 3 p.m.

12:00 – 1:00 p.m.: The Philippine Invasion. A look at the Filipino artists who broke into the American comic-book scene in the 1970s, including Ernie Chan, Tony DeZuniga, and Alex Niño, as well as one of their successors, Gerry Alanguilan, hosted by writer/editor Mark Waid. Room 4.

12:00 – 1:30 p.m.: Comics Arts Conference Session #14 — Manga Censorship. What sets Japanese comic-books apart from their American cousins, from a regulatory standpoint? How do these differences play out in the legal arena? And what role did the 1960s magazine Garo play in developing manga as a vehicle for social criticism? Room 26AB.

1:30 – 2:30 p.m.: Comics Arts Conference Session #15: The Comic Book Project — Creativity, Comics, and Academic Success in the Imperial Valley. Over the past three years, students in grades K-12 from Imperial County, California, have been creating comics in their social studies, science, English, and math classrooms as part of a U.S. Department of Education grant. They are using the Comic Book Project to boost academic skills, test scores, and individual success. This presentation features the work of participating students alongside demos from students, teachers, and coordinators. Lori Campos (Imperial County Office of Education), Anthony Arevalo (Imperial County Office of Education), Imperial County student Hallie Campos, and Shaila Mulholland (San Diego State University) will introduce the process and products of this unique educational model and provide tools and strategies for replication in any other school. Michael Bitz (Center for Educational Pathways), founder of the Comic Book Project, will be present to introduce the program and describe the successes and challenges of comics in school classrooms. Room 26AB.

3:45 – 4:45 p.m.: The Holocaust Through the Eyes of a Child, Animated by a Child. Bill Plympton (two-time Oscar-nominated animator, Idiots and Angels), 11-year-old prodigy animator and child film critic Perry Chen, his mother Dr. Zhu Shen (producer), Karina Bessoudo (Toon Boom Animation, vice president of marketing and communications), and Kevin Sean Michaels (director) share insight and a sneak preview of the film “Ingrid Pitt: Beyond The Forest” and the cross-generational collaboration that was formed to create it. The short animated film illustrates the miraculous true story of the late actress Ingrid Pitt (Where Eagles Dare) who, in 1945, escaped at age 8 from a Nazi concentration camp in Poland to later become one of the UK’s biggest movie stars. Also screening will be a trailer for the new documentary on animator Bill Plympton, “Adventures in Plymptoons!” Moderated by Pat Swinney Kaufman (executive director for the New York State Governor’s Office for Motion Picture & Television Development) and Lloyd Kaufman (president/co-founder of Troma Entertainment, author of Sell Your Own Damn Movie). Room 5AB

The San Diego Comic-Con’s growth shows no signs of slowing down, even before its’ host venue, the San Diego Convention Center, begins its’ own expansion. As things stand, however, you can expect virtually all of downtown San Diego to be awash in SDCC-related events of their own. With that in mind, this year’s guide will run in two installments, while also covering some of the extracurricular festivities and celeb sightings.

Case in point: if you’re a Whedonista getting into town before Preview Night on July 20, you should go see singer Jane Lui in a stage adaptation of TEH JOSS’ Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog. The show premieres July 17 and runs thru July 30 at the Tenth Avenue Theatre. Tickets are available here, and you can see Lui talk about her transition to acting here:

With that in mind, click under the cut for a look at the POC-centric stuff going on and around SDCC. Highlighted panels will include the full description from the SDCC program.

THURSDAY

12:00-1:00 p.m.: Spotlight on Jo Chen. Speaking of TEH JOSS, no matter how you feel about the Buffy The Vampire Slayer Season 8 comic, you can’t knock Chen’s covers for that series, as well as Serenity adaptations like “Better Days,” and her other works. Dark Horse editor Scott Allie, who also worked on the Buffy book, will serve as moderator. Room 7AB

12:00-1:00 Comics Arts Conference Session #2: Graphic Representations of Otherness
Authors such as Scott McCloud and W. J. T. Mitchell have argued for the ways in which graphic narratives manipulate ideas through both image and language, highlighting the way that these elements may work cooperatively or in disjunction to present robust depictions of subjectivity. Anne Cong-Huyen (University of California, Santa Barbara),Caroline Kyungah Hong (Queens College), Kim Knight (University of Texas at Dallas),Amanda Phillips (University of California, Santa Barbara), Melissa Stevenson (Stanford University), Elizabeth Swanstrom (Florida Atlantic University), and Candace West(University of California, Santa Cruz) examine representations of Otherness in graphic media, including comics, television, and video games, focusing on the ways in which representations of otherness in graphic narratives and other media can either solidify stereotypes or undermine cultural assumptions — or both. The roundtable will consider a variety of forms of “Otherness” including gender, race, and sexuality, as well as metaphors of Otherness, including the animal, the monstrous, and the heroic. Room 26AB

1:00-2:00 p.m.: Stan Lee, Yoshiki, and Todd McFarlane. Four years after reuniting with metal legends X Japan, singer Yoshiki goes for a really freaky team-up: the guy who bought Barry Bonds’ balls and the Father Christmas of geekdom. The trio will come together to discuss their joint creation, Blood Red Dragon. Indigo Ballroom, Hilton San Diego Bayfront.

2:00-3:00 p.m.: Love and Rockets. The Hernandez brothers discuss their seminal series, recently reprinted in its’ entirety by Fantagraphics Comics. Room 9.

Celeb Sightings: Psych’s James Roday and Dulé Hill will anchor the show’s panel from 12:30 – 1:30 p.m. in Ballroom 20. Jason Momoa discusses the politics of Khal Drogo, and possibly the hair care, at the Game of Thrones panel, moderated by writer George R.R. Martin from 3-4 p.m. in Ballroom 20; Aisha Tyler will be part of the Archer panel at the Indigo Ballroom in the Hilton San Diego Bayfront Hotel, 4:15-5:15 p.m.

4:00-5:00 p.m.: Kodansha Comics. Japan’s biggest manga publisher discusses its’ upcoming publishing schedule, including Love Hina, Bloody Sunday and – remember her? – Sailor Moon. Room 23ABC.

Creator Alert: Greg Pak (Incredible Hulks) will be part of Marvel Comics’ “Next Big Thing” panel in Room 6DE, 4:30-5:30 p.m. At the same time, a href=”http://geneyang.com”>Gene Luen Yang (Level Up, American Born Chinese) will be on the Comics for Teens panel in Room 26AB.

4:45-5:45 p.m.: Robert Rodriguez’s Quick Draw Productions. What’s next for the man behind Machete? Probably not a sensitive period drama. But find out for yourself at this sneak-peek. Hall H.

5:00-6:00 p.m.: Buffy The Vampire Slayer and LGBT Comics Fandom. LGBT fans hailed the revelation in the long-running television hit that one of its main characters, Willow, had fallen in love with another female character, Tara. This groundbreaking depiction of queer love in the TV show has been built upon in the Buffy comic books published by Dark Horse Comics, and Buffy remains one of the most queer-friendly properties in pop culture. Moderator Charles “Zan” Christensen (Prism Comics president) discusses the special relationship between the Buffyverse and LGBT comic book fans with Buffy creators and actors, including Scott Allie,Andrew Chambliss, Jane Espenson, Drew Greenberg, Tom Lenk, and a special guest! Room 32AB.

6:00-7:00 p.m.: LGBTX — The X-Men’s Queer Characters, Themes, and Fans. The X-Men and their universe have always been popular with LGBT comics fans. The idea of mutants is seen as an allegory for the reality of difference and persecution, as well as community and power, experienced by lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people. The X-Men have also included compelling queer characters in their roster, including the first gay superhero, Northstar. How have these themes and characters been handled? What are the plans for the future? Moderator Chance Whitmire (Fanboys of the Universe) tries to make sense of it all with panelists Peter David (X-Factor), Phil Jimenez (Astonishing X-Men), Chuck Kim (Age of X),Marjorie Liu (Daken: Dark Wolverine), Scott Lobdell (Uncanny X-Men), and Zack Stentz (X-Men First Class). Room 32AB.

6:30-7:30 p.m.: Manga: Lost in Translation. A look at how the industry has weathered the recession, how companies are focusing on both digital and print releases, and what these things mean for freelancers looking to break into the business. Room 26AB.

FRIDAY

10:00-11:30 a.m.: The Black Panel.
This year’s panel will be a bitter yet sweet departure from the past. Help celebrate the life and work of Dwayne McDuffie, with Peter David (writer of stuff), Keith Knight (The K Chronicles, The Knight Life), Reggie Hudlin (House Party, Boomerang, Black Panther), and the reunion of the original Milestone partners, Derrick Dingle, Denys Cowan, and Michael Davis, who have not done a panel together in over an decade. It will be a joyous celebration with a surprise guest or two and some big announcements. Room 5AB.

11:00 a.m.-12:00 p.m.: JManga — Manga!? Hear it Straight from Japan! Members of the Japanese manga industry discuss where the business is going, and preview jmanga.com, a manga portal supported by the country’s Digital Comic Association, an alliance of 39 publishers. Room 25ABC.

Creator Alert: At 12 p.m., Love & Rockets co-creator Jaime Hernandez holds court in a Master Session at Room 30CDE on visual storytelling presented by the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, with the artwork created to be put up for grabs in the CBLDF Benefit Auction on Saturday; novelist and comics writer Marjorie Liu will be in Marvel’s “Year of the X-Men” panel in Room 6DE starting at 12:30 p.m.

1:00-2:00 p.m. Publishing Queer: Producing LGBT Comics and Graphic Novels. As gay characters and comics make their way into the mainstream, this panel will look at how that material, as well as LGBT creators, can be promoted outside the LGBT community. Room 9.

2:00-3:00 p.m.: Nappy Hour. The infamous cooking timer returns as Keith Knight (The Knight Life, the K Chronicles, (th)ink, MAD) brings together another lightning-fast roundtable discussion of all things nerdist, with a stellar lineup of panelists including writer/producer/illustrator Michael Davis (Milestone Media, The Black Panel), writer/performer Pam Noles (And We Shall March, Death 40 Feet Tall), and writer/director/critic David Walker (Bad Azz Mofo)! Room 23ABC.

2:30-3:15 p.m.: Adult Swim — Black Dynamite. Ready or not, Michael Jai White’s blaxploitation spoof is making the jump to the animated arena. Indigo Ballroom, Hilton San Diego Bayfront.

3:00-4:00 p.m.: Shonen Jump Panel. Editor-in-chief Hisashi Sasaki will be on hand to let you know what it takes to get a shot at Japan’s top manga magazine. Room 9.

Creator Alert: writer Eric Wallace (Mister Terrific) and artists Francis Manapul (The Flash), and Philip Tan (The Savage Hawkman) will be part of DC Comics’ “Justice League” panel in Room 6DE starting at 4:15 p.m. At 6 p.m., Marjorie Liu will be in Room 25ABC as part of the “Girls Gone Genre” panel.

5:30-6:30 p.m.: True Blood Panel and Q&A session. The cast of “Everybody Loves SOOKEH” reunites to discuss something that’ll surely give the Roundtable more to scrutinize over the next few weeks. Ballroom 20.

6:30-7:30 p.m.: The Best and Worst Manga of the Year. Bloggers David Brothers and Deb Aoki will be among the experts sharing their cheers and jeers from the manga marketplace over the past couple of years. Room 26AB.

Celeb Sightings: At 7 p.m., you can choose from seeing LL Cool J talk tech from NCIS: LA in Room 6BCF, or Tony Todd (Candyman) and Sonny Chiba (Kill Bill) discuss their latest film, Sushi Girl, in Room 25ABC.

8:30-9:30 p.m.: Showcasing the Best in Korean Comics. writer Hyun Se Lee (Armageddon) and media scholar Professor Chang Wan Han share the latest trends and best books from Korea’s manhwa scene. Room 8.

It wouldn’t be SDCC without parties, of course, and Friday night, Angry Asian Man will be co-sponsoring the Endless Summer Party on the rooftop of the 10th Avenue Theater, 930 10th Ave. It’s 18 to enter, 21 to drink, with $10 tickets for presale/guest list types, and $15 if you’re buying them at the door.

Meanwhile, yours truly will be bringing the music once again for the Geek Girls Network party, to be held at Vin de Syrah, 901 5th Avenue, starting at 7 p.m. Alas, tickets for the GGN party have already sold out. Stay tuned tomorrow for Part II, where we cover Saturday and Sunday’s events!

This year, Racialicious won’t just be covering San Diego Comic-Con, we’ll be part of the action. I’m proud to announce that The R is partnering with Racebending to present a panel of our own:

Diversity & Fandom 102: How You Can Make A Difference
In the wake of campaigns like Racebending.com’s protests and the rise of safe spaces like Racialicious.com, fans, consumers and creators from underrepresented groups have more outlets for speaking up. This panel explores how can we take those voices and add them to the conversations we need to have with geeky business interests and our own fan communities!
Where: Room 24ABC
When: Sunday, July 24, 10 – 11 a.m.

Our moderator will be Racebending’s Mike Le, who I interviewed at last year’s event:

Also, I’m honored to say I’ll be sitting on the panel along some pretty impressive company from around the media spectrum. The full line-up, and how you can participate, is under the cut.

• Also representing the online community will be Phil Yu, a.k.a. all-world blogger and friend of the site Angry Asian Man.
• Javier Grillo-Marxuach has written comic books and for TV shows like Lost, Medium, and Ghost Whisperer, among others, but he might be best-known for holding the line when it came to the tv adaptation of his comic The Middleman. ABC Family asked him to change his protagonist from white to Latina. Although Grillo-Marxuach is Cuban, he was reluctant to do so because he did not want character to become a stereotype. He cast a Latina actress, Natalie Morales, and made sure to write her in a non-stereotypical fashion.
• Author Malinda Lo’s works Ash and Huntress both feature gay women of color as their protagonists. This year’s SDCC will be Lo’s first, and she’ll also be doing an autograph signing from 2-3 p.m. Saturday, July 22.
• From the world of academia, we’ll have Henry Jenkins, a professor at the University of Southern California’s Annenberg school of Communication and Journalism, and author of Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide.
• Actor Dante Basco’s career has earned him fans in two generations of fandom – he entered the national spotlight playing Rufio in the 1991 Peter Pan film adaptation Hook, and is now also known for voicing Prinze Zuko in Avatar: The Last Airbender. Basco also works with his brothers in the musical group Fly Brown Dragons.

If you’ve got a question for our panelists, please leave it in the comments section, and we’ll get to as many of them as possible during the session. We’ll have a rundown of the rest of the Comic-Con calendar tomorrow!

Reached for comment, a spokesperson for DC Comics gave the official reason for the switch as follows:

“This fill in issue contains a lost classic, Lost Boy: A Tale of Krypto the Superdog, set shortly after Superboy died in Infinite Crisis and Superman went missing.

DC Comics determined that the previously solicited story did not work within the ‘Grounded’ storyline. However, Chris Roberson, will be back for the final two issues of Superman’s year long walk across America. As we near the conclusion, catch up with Superman next month as he makes stops in Portland and Newberg, OR.”

The statement that it “doesn’t work within ‘Grounded’” is vague enough to raise questions all by itself, because — fittingly enough for a series about Superman walking across America — that story has been all over the map in terms of tone. That’s to be expected with a story that has two writers as different as J. Michael Straczynski and Chris Roberson (and a third if you count the fill-ins G. Willow Wilson did before Straczynski’s official departure), but there’s no getting around it. In the past year’s worth of Superman comics, we’ve seen stories about Superman smugly lecturing passers-by about Thoreau, burning down drug dealers’ houses with his heat vision, helping space aliens build a factory to revitalize the economy, visiting the extradimensional headquarters of a team of Superman-inspired heroes from the future and fighting an army in Tibet with Batman.

- From “Why Did DC Cancel Superman’s Team-Up with a Muslim Hero?” by Chris Sims, June 22