Some heroes get Luthor, the Kingpin, Deathstroke or Thanos

[icon_uk]

Some other heroes are not so lucky!




Warning for both ableist and racist language and some perhaps not terribly sensitive handling of Native American culture. (I say this as the whitest of white folks, so do not feel qualified to properly judge such things, I may be judging too harshly)





This is Silver Deer, a Cherokee woman who actually has an interesting motivation. When they were kids, her twin brother was bitten by a snake, and when their father tried to take him to hospital and pushed past a nurse in his hurry a bigoted guard shot him, and her father and brother both died, and the guard was never prosecuted. (I'd like to say that 31 years after this issue came out we live in a more enlightened society, but let's be honest here, though I am actually quite impressed that it was even included as a plot point). According to family tradition her brother would have been trained in the use of magic, but with his death, she was given the training instead. As a result of all this, she has a deep loathing of whie people.

After the above scene, she goes to see a High School teacher named John Ravenhair who had turned his back on his own Native American heritage (his tribe was never mentioned) and changed his name from Black-Cloud-in-Morning. His grandfather, Bison-Black-as-Midnight-Sky had been a very, very powerful sorceror, who was more than a little pissed off that his son, and grandson, had moved off the reservation, rejected their heritage (and in his view, duties) and, when he died, passed his spirit into a family coup-stick which then basically took possession of John's body to become Black Bison, a mystically empowered being who had a violent opposition to anything that he saw as being cultural appropriation.

Black Bison fought Firestorm some time before this story, and eventually John managed to shake off his grandfathers power and drop the coup-stick, losing the elemental powers of weather, and telekinetic animation, that it had given him, and returns to his former life.

However Silver Deer has her own pitch to make. It should be noted her own powers are impressive, she's can alter her appearance, shift shape into animal forms, manipulate any game of chance and can hypnotise anyone completely almost instantly. Based on the first three panels she also makes DYNAMITE shadow puppets!


Suffice to say, she forces the issue and Black Bison lives again.

Now, these two could be quite a fascinating pair, just as Poison Ivy's ecological motivation has a certain sympathetic resonance, two Native American's being motivated by the perceived destruction of their society has a lot going for it. Their powers are impressive and challenging without being too omnipotent. Sadly their primary opponent is Firestorm, and this iteration has, aside from energy blasts and a nifty fire topped harido, the power to comlpetely transmute and reshape any inanimate material nearby and has the intellect of a brilliant partical phsicist as part of his shared mind. There really is no limit to what he can do when he thinks things through and that means that their powers, like the powers of many, many Firestorm villains are sort of ineffectual in the greater scheme of things. (You want more examples? See here)

Which means that some of the cliffhangers are not quite as impressive as one imagines the writers intended them to be... Case in point...





Original death traps? Maybe. GOOD death traps, maybe not so much.

Comments

[dcbanacek]

Leaving aside many, many things about this, I have to wonder what possessed Silver Deer to choose THAT as a costume? I'm all for people taking pride in their heritage but I'm pretty sure that wearing the bottom half of Zatanna's costume isn't the way to do it.

[raspberryrain]

I agree. Nothing about her costume below the waist makes intuitive sense to me. In one scene, it seems like the fishnets and pumps are not really part of her costume, but part of a semi-disguise with the coat. But in another scene, she's wearing the same outfit with a cape.

[thezmage]

I feel that it might be a disco thing, as the top half feels very disco to me, but I can't be certain.

[trooper924]

"Manipulate any game of chance"? So she has gambling superpowers?

[icon_uk]

Well, probablity manipulation in games of chances (As any decent avatar of a trickster spirit should be), I think there's a sort of implied reference to casinos on Native American Reservations (It might be more blatant in other appearances she might have made)

See also Hazard of Injustice Unlimited... ooh, yeah, maybe I'll post her debut in Infinity Inc if I can find them

[trooper924]

Yeah, that's what I thought. I'm not entirely sure if that could be considered offensive or not....

[icon_uk]

Did a bit more digging and it seems it's a little more complex and not quite what I thought.

She says she is descended from Ûñtiguhï', known as "Brass" a Gambler Spirit.

Her major plan involved using the occasion of a big diplomatic affair in Washington which was going to have a casino theme, and use her connection with gambling to enthrall all the Washington diplomats and political bigwigs who would be in attendence (Presumably if they gambled it would make them susceptible to Brass' influence and her hypnotic powers) and use this control to have them return all seized Native American lands and then kill themselves so the US Government would be in too much turmoil to change things back.

Has some more info

[silverhammerman]

I like that the writers were trying to engage with real world issues, but saddling Silver Deer with "hates white people" as part of her gimmick feels like an attempt to strawman her and keep the story from being too challenging.

[locuatico]

It's the "anger of the oppressed is the same as the hatred of the oppressor" pitfall some writers fall into and a lot of people use as a defense. the logic being that "hate spread hate" or "you become just as racist" when, in reality, racism towards white people can't really exist (discrimination and predjudice CAN, but not Racism itself) beause there is no systematic oppression of white people anywhere in the world.

[halloweenjack]

That's not Pat Broderick on the art; per the cover, it's Rafael Kayanan. Also, while I'm sure Conway's intentions were good, this is redolent with both the Magical Native American and Braids, Beads and Buckskins tropes.

[icon_uk]

I stand corrected on the art thank you (Should have recognised it wasn't him)

Good intentions in this era (and indeed many other eras) are often accompanied by somewhat winceworthy results, that it's hard to actually dislike too much as they MEANT well, but...

[zapbiffpow]

> "Live, you that were never alive!"

Be stupid, you that were not stupid!

I also had something about the Fabric Softener Bear, but I'd rather just sit now and wait for the next part of this. Good post.

[icon_uk]

I confess I'm not sure there's going to be a next part, I just chanced upon the images on tumblr and thought I'd share "That time Firestorm faced Death by Care Bear knockoff"

[skjam]

Also, ableist language. Tch.

[icon_uk]

Drat, you mean I didn't flag for that?

Sigh... getting old...

[thedocyoshi]

This wouldn't be out of place on an episode of The Brave and the Bold.

The bringing toys to life part anyway.