Justice League of America #236

[iamrman]

Writer: Gerry Conway

Pencils: Chuck Patton

Inks: Rick Magyar

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The focus falls upon the girl whose name is a slur.

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Cynthia and Dale head out to help.

Cynthia arrives just in time to help in the big fight.

Apologies, the quality of my digital copy of this issue is all over the place.

Comments

[cainofdreaming]

That's an unfortunate color change for the bottom half of one of Vibe's vibrations.

[scorntx]

When you've heard as many villains claim to be responsible for every historical wrong as J'onn, you learn to recognise BS quickly.
(Just once if someone would call Savage on his crap.)

And so the day was saved thanks to... Slur Word's latent bisexuality?


I get the feeling that when it says 'deadly symphony' that does not mean the JLA is going to be attacked by a villainous orchestra.
Shame.

[iamrman]

You are partially right about the villainous orchestra, actually.

[full_metal_ox]

When you've heard as many villains claim to be responsible for every historical wrong as J'onn, you learn to recognise BS quickly.
(Just once if someone would call Savage on his crap.)

You probably don’t want to know about Torquemada from 2000 AD…

[beyondthefringe]

Why the heck they chose to make this character a white runaway from the suburbs instead of actual Romani (or even one of the equivalent other ethnic groups like Irish Traveler) I'll never know. At least if she was Romani and using the name ironically because of how outsiders always treated her/her family that would be something.

A quote from the co-creator states ""Gypsy came about in the same way except we wanted a ninja-like character but more exotic, and some how the subject of gypsies came up. Being from Detroit, I’ve seen encounters with a few Romany people (aka gypsies), who came into our neighborhood up from the South, and they always carried a certain cultural mystique I thought would be interesting to portray other than the usual cliché. So I suggested her powers were camouflage stealth abilities and Gerry liked that and dubbed her Gypsy.""

So... why not make her one of those -actual- people? (Keeping in mind it was the '80s, let's move on from the "we wanted something more exotic than a ninja" bit. Though.. I'm not sure who actually established her civilian identity as Cynthia Reynolds. It might have been J.M. Dematteis by that point, who wasn't her creator.

[full_metal_ox]

Being from Detroit, I’ve seen encounters with a few Romany people (aka gypsies), who came into our neighborhood up from the South, and they always carried a certain cultural mystique I thought would be interesting to portray other than the usual cliché.

Patton does know that thieving—human trafficking as well as petty street theft—IS an integral part of “the usual cliché”, and one of the thousand and three excuses given for persecuting Romani?

[beyondthefringe]

Well, this was the 80’s. We’ll leave it at that.

[zylly]

I’ve always liked Cindy, from JL Task Force and other more “modern” appearances, but this is rough. Not to mention the slur name.

I’ve said this before, but I think “Runaway” would make a good name update for her.

[full_metal_ox]

Maybe her shaggy ragamuffin aesthetic could be adjusted in the direction of (a nostalgic interpretation of) the band of that name?