(This is first in a series on comics I read and cartoons I watch. From that list I pretty much chose this one at random. If you’re tired of superhero movies that concentrate on amped-up violence with some human-interest story tacked on, this series is for you.)
Allison Green is in her mother’s womb when the Earth is shrouded in bizarre storms. Not that thunderstorms are unusual, but that they cover most of the Earth’s surface. The strange phenomenon begins and ends, with little apparent damage. For just over a decade, it is only a scientific curiosity.
And then the cohort of children who were at a certain stage of gestation during the storm reached puberty, and things began to happen. Many were transformed into strange forms, or developed unusual abilities. A few could become invisible, or read minds, or communicate with animals. Allison became the most famous. She developed super-strength, and near invulnerability. She is literally a Strong Female Protagonist (SFP).
So far the story is pretty standard comic book fare, covered well by Marvel, DC, and a few other publishers. And those comics do a good job of speculating on the lives of super-powered individuals, provided they were quite rare. In the SFP world, though, thousands of individuals around the world are ‘dynomorphic’, having a modified gene and sometimes very different appearance or abilities.
SPF is a comic about making better use of power. There’s still plenty of villain punching, but how we use our power – superhero, individual nerd with a computer, or nation-state – is something we all have in common.
Allison’s power is pretty much that of 1950’s Superman. Pressed into service as a teenager by a government desperate for help with the dynomorphic crisis, she was essentially a child soldier, with all the baggage that implies. By the time she goes to college she has tossed aside the protection of her secret identity and has figured out that punching the bad guys is fraught with detours and opportunities for unforeseen consequence. She is also generalizing the lesson of watching her father slowly dying from cancer, that there’s only so much good you can do in the world with your fist. To make any real change, you have to do something much harder.
So, is SFP just the Marvel and DC universe with a lot more feminism? I have no doubt some readers will think so. But the shift in perspective is completely worth the trip. Because many “radical” ideas, are simply pointing out that the status quo we all accept as normal is a pretty radical departure from justice and basic humanity. The really difficult problem is how to get back there.
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- Strong Female Protagonist starts here
- Second in this series is Dumbing of Age
- My parents told me that at about age four, I worked out that the pictures in the Sunday comics made up a story, and right then started to learn how to read. I don’t remember any of this of course, but comics have always had a special place in my heart. As an adult I found out they can carry quite serious content, which grew into a standing addiction to graphic novels and web comics.
georgewiman 