Category: Activism

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This Land is Our Land: A Blue Beetle Story


By Julio Anta, Jacoby Salcedo, Francesco Segala, Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: ?978-1-77952-282-5 (TPB/Digital edition)

¡Hola! Feliz Cinco de Mayo. And a happy Early May Bank Holiday to the rest of us too…

Published by Fox Comics and cover-dated August 1939, The Blue Beetle first appeared in Mystery Men Comics #1. The character was mostly created by Charles Nicholas (AKA Charles Wojtkowski, in the collaborative shop environment of that era) as a pulp-style mystery man, but clearly had adaptability, evolution and change hardwired into his chain-mailed manly torso. He was also a born survivor and habitual nomad. Over years and crafted by a Who’s Who of creators, the Beetle was inexplicably popular and hard to kill: surviving the collapse of numerous publishers before ending up as a Charlton Comics property in the mid-1950s.

After a few issues sporadically published over years, the changing tastes and his latest company shelved him until the superhero revival of the early 1960s when Joe Gill, Roy Thomas, Bill Fraccio & Tony Tallarico revised and revived the character in a 10-issue run (June 1964-February 1966). Cop-turned-adventurer Dan Garrett was reinvented becoming an archaeologist, educator and scientist who gained superpowers whenever he activated a magic scarab and uttered the trigger phrase “Khaji Da!” (Those stories are slated to be reprinted in August of this year in a DC Finest TPB collection and you’ll get my verdict pretty soon after that)…

Months later, Steve Ditko (with scripter Gary Friedrich) utterly reimagined Blue Beetle. Ted Kord was an earnest and brilliant researcher who’d been a student and friend of Professor Garrett. When his mentor seemingly died in action, Kord trained himself to replace his hero: acting as a purely human inventor/combat acrobat, bolstered by advanced technology. This version joined DC’s pantheon in 1985 during Crisis on Infinite Earths, winning a solo series before gaining quirky immortality after partnering with Booster Gold in Justice League International and beyond…

When Kord was murdered in the run up to Infinite Crisis, it heralded all-out war across realities and at the height of the linked catastrophes El Paso high schooler Jaime Reyes found a weird blue jewel shaped like a bug. That night, as he slept, it crawled inside him, turning him into a bizarre insectoid warrior. Suddenly, shockingly granted incredible powers, his perilous Hero’s Journey revealed how some are remade, not born – especially when a sentient scarab jewel affixes itself to your spine to transform you into an armoured bio-weapon and fifth column for alien invaders. Almost instantly, Jaime was swept up in the chaos, joining Batman and other super stars in a climactic space battle to save Earth.

When inexplicably returned home, Jaime revealed his secret to his family and tried to do some good in his hometown, but had to rapidly adjust to huge changes. Best bud Paco had joined a gang of super-powered freaks, the hero learned the local crime mastermind was the foster-mom of his other best bud Brenda, and scary military dude named Christopher Smith (The Peacemaker) started hanging around. He claimed the thing in Jaime was malfunctioning alien tech, not life-affirming Egyptian magic…

That led to a secret war against an alien collective of colonizing conquerors called the Reach whose shady dealings and defeat have been covered in Blue Beetle: Jaime Reyes volumes 1 & 2. You should get those. They’re very good.

Here however, we’re exploring a fresh permutation of the unfolding legend, incorporating much of the Reyes/Latinx flavoured iteration (as well as the recent movie), whilst very much going its own way: exploring contemporary themes of pressing immediacy and toxic nature, not just in America but across the entire planet.

In El Paso, high schooler Jaime Reyes is a dutiful son deeply concerned about the growing hostility facing his family, people and culture. Unlike his fiery friend and classmate Brenda he’s no firebrand, just an astronomy geek who would far rather spend his time watching the skies than defending the streets and fighting for his community’s rights. However, once the President closes the border and very publicly scapegoats refugees and immigrants – and by inference non-whites – for the nation’s woes, tensions rise across the city. All over the usual troublemakers exploit the situation to target anyone they don’t consider to be “Real Americans”. As they are so fond of screaming “This Land is Our Land!!”…

Opportunistic trouble seekers apparently have particular problems with the local native American and Hispanic peoples whose cultures predate the coming of the white colonisers, rather than the immigrants they purportedly protest against…

Distracted from his true passion – following a fascinating asteroid that behaves in ways no stellar object should – Jaime is increasingly burdened by the difficulties the border closure causes his father’s auto repair business and rise of hate-speak, vandalism and intolerance all around him. When an old pal from elementary school returns to the area and joins his high school class Jaime’s initial joy gradually sours once he learns former BFF Riley is being radicalised by online hate groups. Brenda and Paco are all for confrontation and direct action, but Reyes just can’t believe his old friend is truly beyond redemption…

Just when everything seems utterly unbearable Jaime’s situation overloads after a strange bug fossil he finds in an alley is revealed as alien and intelligent when it attaches itself to his spine and starts talking to him. The scarab is a means for the mighty Reach and their unctuous Ambassador to prepare Earth for first contact and what comes after, but every conversation with Jaime feels more dubious and untrustworthy to the troubled teen…

However, Reyes and the power-bestowing bug itself – which calls itself Khaji Da – quickly form a close bond. The scarab is meant to make Jaime an intermediary and agent of the extraterrestrials rapidly approaching Earth: the face of their promise to fix all humanity’s problems. Only, Jaime’s suspicions cannot equate all the facts. After all, if their intentions are honourable, beneficial and peaceful why are all their gifts deadly weapons?

As the interstellar voyagers draw closer and steer Reyes through early attempts to master his new abilities, the bug in his back switches sides. Unaware – and probably uncaring – of the potential doom from the skies, human-on-human tensions escalate and erupt into more violence. Concerned citizens Brenda, Paco and Jaime lead a street protest where locals hope to confront the race hate instigators, who have converged from all over America to make their own “statement”. As a bloodbath seems inevitable in the streets, disaster is abruptly forestalled by the appearance of a mighty bug-winged figure seeking to separate the rioting parties, but can even he be enough when that struggle is interrupted by the spectacular arrival of the Reach…?

Cherry picking the very best elements of traditional continuity to reinforce a timely tale affecting All Americans right now, This Land is Our Land is a powerful, sensitive, brave remarkably even-handed and desperately needed exploration of big issues aimed at readers of 13 and up that could teach most adults a better way to deal with hostility, aggression and intolerance. Blending important issues with compelling characters and a surprising degree of fun, author Julio Anta (Frontera, Si, Se Puede) and illustrator Jacoby Salcedo (Frontera, It’s Only Teenage Wasteland, Legion of Bloom, Young Men in Love) – along with colourist Francesco Segala, and letterer Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou have crafted a must-read modern classic.

This glorious celebration of youthful passion and growing agency is supplemented by an extract from edgy sister release, The Strange Case of Harleen & Harley by Melissa Marr & Jenn St-Onge.
© 2024 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Diary of a FEMEN


By Michel Dufranne & Severine Lefebvre, translated by Allison M. Charette (Europe Comics)
No ISBN digital-only edition ASIN B0C1JG2L7L

Women everywhere have been deprived of functional equality in all areas of their own lives for millennia: eternally reduced to prized-but-dehumanised sectional aspects by males even when they profess to be onside and supportive. Female human beings are conditioned to be commodities with a mild, non-argumentative disposition, perhaps a degree of money-making potential or just being good at housekeeping. For most of that time, whether males have instituted liberal or repressive socio-cultural diktats regarding nudity, the ruling gender have always enjoyed looking at their tits and bums.

Countries like Great Britain have long mastered the art of exploiting both wickedly wrong and socially nice naked bodies in our mass entertainments…

In 2008 a group of Ukrainian activists weaponised and utilised that male proclivity for glimpsing a bit of skin by forming the FEMEN movement. The initial thrust was to irresistibly capture male media attention and focus it on the nation’s reputation for sexual exploitation and human trafficking.

These “radical feminists” declared war on the Patriarchy and “dictatorship of religion”, especially targeting the sex industry, Pro-Life groups, Marriage Agencies (selling “mail order brides” abroad), FGM, Sharia Law and all opposition to gay marriage. Their official website mission statement read “FEMEN – is sextremism serving to protect women’s rights, democracy watchdogs attacking patriarchy, in all its forms: the dictatorship, the church, the sex industry”.

They really started making waves and getting airtime across all media (and arrested) after instituting the policy of protesting topless…

Ukraine back then was one of those repressive states that reacted hard to public female nudity and repeated rounds of protests and arrests led to FEMEN co-founder Inna Shevchenko being deported. With the movement very visibly swelling and taking hold internationally, she sought asylum elsewhere, eventually setting up shop in France where the movement’s exploits and activities enthralled many.

Among the avid followers were open-minded bande dessinée creators Michel Dufranne (Dracula L’Immortel, O.D.E.S.S.A.) & Severine Lefebvre (Les Aventures de Huckelberry Finn, L’Ami colocataire) who were moved to craft a fictionalised account of one young woman who joined that ever-growing movement. The result of that collaboration was first published in 2014 as Journal d’une Femen and, as Belgian-born writer Dufranne explains in his Foreword, is designed to explore what the term FEMEN and the international movement it defines really means to individual women navigating a world where the enemy has all the power – hard, soft, political, financial and emotional…

Following the 2016 Wikipedia definition of what FEMEN is, our tale begins with Appoline enduring the daily gauntlet of unwanted male attention as she rushes to work. Late again, and alternately ignored, gaslit and sidelined (by colleagues and superiors) all day, the nadir comes when the boss orders her to show a little cleavage for a client and afterwards rebukes her for not buttoning up fast enough once he’s left…

Her return home is just as filled with scary, entitled intruders encroaching on her peace of mind and when she meets the family for an event, her mother is right on her for letting her looks go, not having a boyfriend, better job or kids like her perfect “Stepford Wives” sister. Fully fed up Appoline retaliates with a lie: telling the grandchild-hungry maternally bullying bigot that she’s birthed a lesbian…

Fuming and isolated, Appoline retreats to watch some late night TV, catching a late report about bare-chested women arrested outside an embassy. She’d heard of them before but thought they were fools. Now she starts to really listen and thinks again. After more days just like or worse than the first, Apolline goes online and downloads a membership application…

What follows is a fascinating tale of awakening, renewal and acceptance of personal power. She joins the French group, undergoing the rigorous training necessary to stand in front of screaming dangerous men and equally vituperative women whilst non-violently making your voice heard and/or your point seen…

Illustrated in a stylish, fashion-conscious line with a restricted colour palette and vivid verve, this clever rite of passage tale gouges deep into societal hypocrisies to expose how giving men what they think they want can work to actually get some attention and make real changes, whilst also showing that the dangers of Fighting the Power never go away and can have lasting effects, consequences… and repercussions.
© 2016 – LE LOMBARD – by Dufranne & Lefebvre. All rights reserved.

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Incognegro: A Graphic Mystery (10th Anniversary edition)


By Mat Johnson & Warren Pleece, with Clem Robbins (Berger Books/Dark Horse)
ISBN: 978-1-50670-564-4 (HB) eISBN: 978-1-50670-591-0

What’s prejudice? How does bigotry and unthinking fear and hatred of otherness work? What happens when haters can’t tell the difference between “us” and “them”?

Those are frankly disturbing and astonishing questions first asked in 2008 in an Original Graphic Novel released by DC’s Vertigo imprint which made a lot of noise and changed some lives. The book won acclaim and awards and its subject matter started conversations in exactly the right places: classrooms where it became a selected text for high schools and colleges. The questions have not gone away and the issues have not been resolved but the book and its sequel remain to carry on asking them.

This 10th Anniversary edition reprints the original tale in all its moody monochrome glory, backed up by a contextualising Author’s Note (‘I grew up a black boy who looked white’) and Afterword plus a copious sketchbook section featuring designs by Warren Pleece and ‘Reading Group Guide/Questions & Topics for Discussion’.

The tale itself is set in the segregationist South of the early 1930s and opens at a social gathering in Tuscaloosa with families all cheerfully gathering to see a black boy strung up. As the attendees patiently queue for a picture with the “strange fruit”, a newcomer takes their names and addresses. It’s only when the commemorational photographer denies hiring him that Zane Pinchback of (New York City’s African American newspaper) The New Holland Herald realises that he’s pushed his luck and needs to run for his life now.

Sadly, however, not before a visiting bigwig from the Ku Klux Klan gets a good look at him and starts wondering…

Safely back north of the Mason-Dixon Line, Pinchback’s latest headline grabber upsets liberals and shames the perpetrators, but the journalist is still unhappy. His exposés change nothing and he feels a fraud: a proud black man who makes a living pretending to be white. He can’t even use his own name – hence his byline “Incognegro” – or face on his widely syndicated columns: that would instantly negate the genetic advantage of a negro who can “pass” for white. Things are liberal enough in Manhattan that he and his debonair wastrel pal Carl can intermingle with most folk and go drinking in swish clubs, but Zane knows things can go bad easily enough and resolves to quit and go legit…

His editor staunchly refuses to accept, instead offering him a deal: one more undercover assignment. He’s certain Zane will accept. The negro jailed in Tupelo, Mississippi accused of killing a white woman is someone he’s known his entire life. Heading off in a hurry and readying himself to play the high stakes game of his life, Zane has no idea how complex and convoluted this job will be, or that blithely incautious Carl has invited himself along to a place where his kind of playful idiocy has lethal consequences…

Author Mat Johnson took inspiration from his own childhood and exploits and activities of Walter White (ultimately Chief Exec of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) who began his career investigating lynchings because of the same genetic quirk as Zane Pinchback.

Still available in hardcover, trade paperback, digital editions and even in the original DC/Vertigo edition, Incognegro is smart, funny where it can be and devastatingly effective whenever it needs to be. As well as the racial injustice so savagely skewered here, this is a cunning and engrossing murder mystery with plenty of twists, which even finds room to have a stab at the still largely unaddressed problems of women’s independence and transgender acceptance. If you love great storytelling underpinned by real-world issues, this is something you must see.
Incognegro ™ & © 2008, 2018 Mat Johnson and Warren Pleece. All rights reserved.