Today’s exercise for the reader is an answer to the question ‘Where is Onyx?’
However, for many readers, particularly those who aren’t interested in the Bat-books or Green Arrow, this should be prefaced by ‘Who is Onyx?’
This is she:
Onyx
Onyx used to be in the League of Assassins, but she reformed. I love this origin. No rape, no child abuse, no special woman!reason to fight crime just a straight story of evil she’s done and a personal quest for redemption. Sometimes she reforms by beating the crap out of criminals and monsters, and sometimes she reforms by sitting in an ashram and meditating. I think the monastery thing is why she’s bald, but it’s also a good way of ensuring that at least no one will fuck up her hair.
Onyx is funny, bold, and very, very good at her job. She’s sparred with Shiva (and survived) and she held off both Batman and Batgirl for whole minutes it was a trick fight, designed to make her look dangerous, but she is dangerous, and she made it look real. (Afterwards, Batgirl asked if they could fight again sometime ‘just for fun’.) She’s aware of the wrong she’s done, but she’s not paralysed by it. She takes a certain delight in hurting those who deserve hurting, but she won’t kill again.
And she’s a black, female martial artist. That’s important, because non-powered, non-white-or-Asian heroes who will just kick your teeth through your skull are very rare in the DCU. Vixen (whose name is Vixen, guys, come on) has spirit-of-animal powers. Empress has voodoo (and where is she these days?). Steel has powered armour. John Stewart/Green Lantern has a fancy ring. They’re all great characters who have done fantastic work addressing and exploding stereotypes, but they’re all powered-up in some way.
Black people should also be represented by Bat/Arrow-style heroes, who don’t have superhuman powers, just guts and ability and a mission. The only non-powered black hero who easily comes to mind is Mister Terrific, and he’s chiefly known for being the ‘third smartest man in the world’ and those spiffy holographic spheres. And I can’t think of a single black woman in the DCU who keeps pace with the best of them armed with nothing but fists and feet and consummate skill.
Other, that is, than Onyx.
So she’s totally awesome, whenever we see her. But we don’t see nearly enough of her. Post-ashram, she worked as Orpheus’ bodyguard for a while, then after he died in War Games she worked independently in Gotham the only independent vigilante Batman allows in his town. She had a run-in with Jason Todd and then… she disappeared.
(Orpheus, being a man uninvolved in misogyny, would normally be somewhat outside the scope of this column, but his mission is relevant and thus I summarise:
Batman: ‘Who is this new man in town, with his fancy stealth suit and support from a mysterious organisation?’
Orpheus: ‘I am Orpheus. Note my jaw, which is uncovered, and decidedly dark. Batman, you do not represent my people.’
Batman: ‘Hmph! I protect everyone! You are an amateur! This is my town! Etcetera!’
Orpheus: ‘But you cannot inspire my people as I can. African-American people need visible heroes! I want to show the black kids of Gotham and implicitly those reading that they can be part of the solution and make a difference. My forthcoming adventures will include pointed meditations on the value of role models and the art of storytelling in inspiring a better future. Also, I am not an amateur, but a professional dancer turned producer who learned martial arts as well, thereby combating stereotypes of straight black masculinity.’
Batman: ‘My dour Bat!mien wavers in the face of your unassailable truth and undoubted ability. Let me help you set up as a Gotham gang leader, the plan being to reform or destroy the gangs from within.’
Orpheus: ‘Sure.’
{brief interlude while stuff happens and then War Games begins:}
Black Mask: slits Orpheus’s throat from behind, like unto slaughterhouse pig, just before he tortures Stephanie Brown to death
Readers: ‘Wow. I guess visibly African-American heroes can’t be part of the solution or make a difference after all.’
~Fin~
There, now you’re all caught up.)
Orpheus is tragically, stupidly dead, but at last glance, Onyx was still alive, and still with the Batman’s approval to operate independently in Gotham. She could still be there, inspiring those African-American kids Orpheus grieved over. Or she could be doing something else. But we don’t know, because we don’t see her, and we so easily could.
For example! Re-reading recent Birds of Prey issues, I was struck by how easily Onyx could have taken Judomaster’s position in the prison break storyline. Judomaster did nothing in that story but kick people in the head and make Mega-rod jokes; these are both activities of which I highly approve, but Onyx could have done them too, and added some ethnic diversity to the roster of heroes*. It’s just a thought, but one worth thinking.
People often sneer at the idea of creating deliberate diversity in comics, and I can’t fathom why. Making a conscious choice to include ethnic and other diversity in the cast of a universe as sprawling as DC’s is not tokenism; it’s a way for DC to fix a broken universe that’s excluded (often unconsciously, often unmaliciously) many types of people for far too long.
Orpheus was right. People need heroes who look like them, to show them that they can be part of the solution and make a difference. People need heroes who don’t look like them, to teach them that the world is wide and competence is not attached to appearance.
We need Onyx.
So where is she?
- –
Comment on this column here. - –
- Because I know this will come up: by my count, so far, there has been one woman of colour as a Bird of Prey Vixen, as an operative for one mission. Judomaster may be of colour, but not so as you can tell under her mask, Gypsy is Romani-descended, but is usually drawn as white (like Nightwing) and Shiva wasn’t a real Bird of Prey. I’m sorry, I know that last is an arbitrary judgement and your mileage may vary. But in my book, when you sub in for the Black Canary instead of being chosen by Oracle, and everyone on the mission hates you, and you abandon it partway through to go kidnap a child, and you’re still actually a ruthless assassin-for-hire, you aren’t a hero and you don’t get to officially be on that roster.
