My daughter Katherine grew up with (and still watches, on DVD), DC’s Justice League and Justice League Unlimited cartoons. They were, for her (and presumably a lot of other kids), the canonical takes on those heroes and villains.
Which is why, when she sees comic books and comic book videos today, five years after JLU left the air, she still asks, “Why do they keep showing that Green Lantern?” Or, “Why don’t they have Hawkgirl in the Justice League?”
A black Green Lantern and a female Hawk-person were her normal. So what happened?
Well, sorry, kid. John Stewart has rarely been more than an anomalous second fiddle Green Lantern in the comic book DCU. So, despite 91 animated episodes over several years, if they were going to do a big budget GL movie, it was certainly going to be Hal Jordan (and certainly not going to include — it would be confusing, don’tchaknow? — fellow GL John Stewart, or white guys Guy Gardner or Kyle Raynor). Ditto, of course, for the last couple of Green Lantern straight-to-DVD movies DC’s done. Or various Justice League video efforts. Or pretty much anything else that DC has put out since the JLU cartoon folded its tent. And, of course, we know who The GL is who’s in the new rebooted JL comic this fall …
As for Hawkgirl — well, she’s usually been second fiddle to Hawkman anyway, aside from some brief moments about a decade ago. And now she’s dead. Again. But this time she’s been severed from the whole Hawkman/Hawkgirl eternal love thing, so there’s no indication she’ll be back any time soon. Someone had to die in the Final Night Crisis Big Cross-Over Thing DC just did, so apparently Hawkman was considered better for retention than Hawkgirl. And Hawkman is, of course, who’s now getting his own book in the DCnU reboot.
So the highly visible GL is a white dude again. And the only surviving Hawk-person is a guy.
But I hope Katherine keeps asking the questions. Even if she’s less likely to read those comics.
(Note: I’m not suggesting that Hawkman, or Hal Jordan, aren’t fine characters. But DC seems more than willing to throw away a pair of gender/racially diverse characters — even with some non-canonical riffs to them — that had a built-in audience who were used to seeing them. And that’s a shame.)
Agreed. DC’s Vertigo series several years ago made some attempts an unconventional characters (Sandman’s Death and Black Orchid). Alas.
Well, it’s certainly not a new problem, by any means, but it seems, in some ways, to be getting worse.