Opinions on johnstantines ex king shark?
I have a lot of feelings about King Shark! He's a character all on his own who shouldn't be defined by his connection to John Constantine.
This isn't directed at you, but something I find ironic about the Hellblazer fandom at large is that they get understandably upset at how most people's knowledge of John comes from a vague pop culture idea of the character being a "slutty bisexual disaster wizard" but then turn around and give that exact shallow treatment to Nanaue based on watching him in James Gunn's The Suicide Squad. He's not "just an animal" or "basically a child", he's a Hawaiian demigod. And then they go off to make racist, ableist and anti-monsterboinker assumptions about Nanaue based on that shallow assumption.
I don't like how King Shark has become a punching bag for people's frustrations over how John Constantine's sexuality has been treated under modern DC. Just because he and Nanaue hooked up in one DC animated movie (and are implied to have history on the Harley Quinn show), doesn't mean the fictional character Nanaue is the sole source of John's flanderization. Blame the writers guys.
Also can we not see how unfair it is to Nanaue that he gets to be canonized as a queer character in service of confirming a white man's sexuality in animated adaptation? The crew of the animated universe snuck that in to show that while John has relationships with women in this universe, they didn't forget his bisexuality. Imagine finding out your favorite obscure character of color is canonically queer because they hooked up with Harley Quinn one time.
But there's a catch 22 with Nanaue. Because while he is a character whose origin and name are appropriated directly from Hawaiian myth and belief, he is also the encapsulation of every post-Jaws anti-shark stereotype there is. He's defined by his animalistic hunger and bloodlust, he's a hyper masculine (sometimes sexist) brute, he's always described as a "killing machine", he's sometimes a crime boss, he is often set against shipwrecks and ominous "blood in the water" imagery. The only unique thing he has going for him is his roots in indigenous culture (since most shark representation is centered towards white people's interactions with them), and even that part of him is being whitewashed over time!
Shout out to Teen Titans Go for designing King Shark with native tattoos! But he's still not voiced by a Hawaiian actor. As far as I know, Nanaue has never been voiced by a Hawaiian actor in any of his cross-media adaptations.
If Nanaue is going to break out of the Jaws stereotype and become a genuinely unique character, he needs to return to his cultural roots. Treating him as a queer indigenous demigod would deconstruct not just everything we're used to seeing in shark representation, but also everything we're used to seeing in indigenous representation. Let Nanaue shapeshift like he does in mythology to explain why he's a hammerhead shark sometimes. Maybe even give Nanaue a Prince-Sidon-esque human form so people can stop forgetting he's part native man. Develop his queerness OUTSIDE of relationships with white people and a western context. Let him embrace the mahu community.
As for his material in the comics, I think Nanaue can be re-worked as a deity who brings out humanity in others.
I love King Shark's unlikely friendship with Arthur Joseph Curry. There's a moment in Suicide Squad: King Shark where Nanaue calls out that his time with Amanda Waller gave her the opportunity to parent and protect something. And that leads to another really strong theme that could be reworked into Nanaue based on what exists in canon:
That his time being used as a weapon under the Suicide Squad/Task Force X represents the abuse and exploitation the American government enacts upon indigenous cultures. They took this shark, an ancient indigenous queer protector and appropriated him into the American born image of a killing machine.
So those are my big feelings about King Shark! I know there's a lot of talk in comic spaces about "Potential Men", a character overhyped by fandom because of the character's imagined potential over how canonically well written they are. And I think that's a very limiting way to look at fandom creativity. I don't limit my enjoyment of these characters to pointing at canon and saying "that's good", I like using them to explore themes canon won't ever do.
And when it comes to how rare Pasifika representation is in a white-dominant company like DC, sometimes "Potential Men" are all underrepresented communities have to work with (outside of native-beaming non-native characters). Keep in mind that whenever DC does AAPI anthologies, they're only ever filled with Asian characters. I think it's about time Nanaue got the cultural care he deserves.
🦈🦈 ANYWAY READ MY LIL 5 PAGE KING SHARK COMIC 🦈🦈
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