saw a youtube video with a date of 20 years ago and i thought "surely this is a glitch, youtube wasnt even around 20 years ago" and then i watched as my hands shriveled and fell to dust before my very eyes
A re-imagining of two Hawaiian characters from Superboy's original run. I did as much research as I could, but I know I'm not going to have the authenticity to cover their story like a Native Hawaiian artist would be able to. Nonetheless, I hope I could give these characters more dignity then they're often treated to under DC.
Thank you so much for the warm response to this comic!! I hope this shows just how much characters like these deserve a chance to be reimagined outside of the restrictive racist caricatures they're limited to in canon. As is tradition, I'd like to share some of my King Shark/Tana Moon homework for this comic, below!
King Shark debuted in Superboy #9. Here we get Kesel's take on the character from Hawaiian mythology.
Nanaue is a demigod created by the monsterboinking between a Shark God and Kaikea, a human woman. Their son, Nanaue, would turn out to be an animalistic killer and re-occurring Superboy rogue. It's not a great adaptation of the mythology, and just adds to the overall racist lens in which 90's Superboy orientalizes Hawai'i. Nanaue would later be prominently adapted by Gail Simone for Secret Six and eventually the Harley Quinn show where he's grown more characterization and human-level intelligence but -other than his name- his native origins have been put to the side in modern takes.
So when revisiting the original text to expand on these characters, I found this one scene I wanted to remix.
It's a scene where Nanaue's mom is swimming among sharks. When Nanaue shows up she's not scared. He also makes this :0 face, which, 10/10 youtube thumbnail worthy stuff.
Next we have the ever controversial Tana Moon, Kon's first love interest. She first appeared in Reign of Supermen, but we discover she's Hawaiian once Superboy's solo starts.
What Tana and Nanaue have in common is that in the popular conscious, they orbit and are criticized in relation to their white guy love interests. Nanaue is criticized for being a demeaning choice of a queer joke love interest to John Constantine, meanwhile Tana can't escape the limiting racist characterization Kesel tokenized her with in relation to her creepy predatory relationship to Superboy.
So this little comic aims to give the two their own a space to breathe together, away from all that, as their own characters. DC's never gonna realize they struck gold by making Nanaue a queer Native demigod, so here I am digging into that! The anti-colonial potential of that is too good to pass up as a response to 90's Superboy.
Okay let's talk queer allegory
As an Our Dreams At Dusk stan, I really enjoy the use of water and fish swimming around as imagery for getting lost in one's own thoughts. The interpretation for this imagery is really nebulous in the manga, but I like to see it as a space for queer wondering and wandering.
Looking into the original mythology of Nanaue- his dad, Kāmohoaliʻi the shark god, is said to have guided lost ships home. I took this concept and combined it with Life of Pi and the Little Mermaid. For Pi, I really enjoy the idea of being stuck out at sea with a dangerous creature. For the Little Mermaid, I pulled the idea of interacting with the Divine and their curiosity for mortal beings. Also they both involve a ship accident. Considering the Little Mermaid's a queer allegory, that's just bonus points for me.
The first panel is a loose callback to this shot from Spirited Away. I love this portrayal of a vague memory and meeting with a spirit, but I wanted to expand it to that feeling of meeting with a queer figure from one's culture. Realizing the divine is like you, despite what colonialism tries to erase.
For the redesign of Nanaue, we had him wear Kapa, fabric made from tree fiber. The art of creating Kapa is something that's currently being reclaimed by Hawaiians, so I felt the inclusion of it made sense for the feeling of a pre-colonial ancient being. Also the process of making Kapa involves a shark tooth at some point, which I find delightfully relevant haha. I pulled the design of the Kapa from this documentary about it. They were designed in honor of the queen of Hawai'i. I shaped the Kapa into something between what male and female dancers wear. Nanaue's tattoo-like markings consist of more Kapa motif, I generally kept it to the geometric patterns you'd see in some Hawaiian tattoos.
For his overall look, of course I had to make Nanaue a bear. He's got pre-colonial idealized fat. It is necessary. It was really helpful to look at so much furry art of sharks. Like damn. It inspired me to give Nanaue a tail he doesn't usually have in canon.
The song Nanaue sings is Na Puuwai Haokila. I found the lyric translation here.
Once we get back to the present we have the rest of the Superboy supporting cast. There's more than just these two I've remixed, but for the sake of this story we have:
Roxy Leech (re-imagined as Roxy Lewis), the other half of Superboy's creepy love triangle, and Simon Valentine, Superboy's Jimmy Olsen in his later Smallville-set solo in 2011.
The comic ends with a mix of queer and diaspora longing. The disconnect to be away from where Taonui feels more true to himself.
I've said this many times before, but my personal distinction between a re-interpretation of an established character vs "that's basically an oc" is how much that take engages with its source material. People tend think this literally means "stay in character". But in the case of Superhero characters getting constantly re-worked, I find that outlook limiting. "Engaging with the material" can mean subverting it, flipping it, or deconstructing it. It's not just about "staying true" and "in character".
Tana Moon is a challenging character to remix, because we're only provided with one take on her. That take is a white man's sexually orientalist fantasy of a predatory brown woman, and that's all fans know her for. I'm fully aware when I'm reading 90's Superboy that I'm looking at a caricature not meant for anyone like me in mind. She's not granted the characterization similarly controversial characters like Roxy and Knockout are afforded (who are white women), so she only exists to re-affirm the white biases of readers. The white man's tricks at work.
My take on Tana is a deconstruction of not just canon Tana Moon, but the gentrification of Hawai'i that exists at the very premise of 90's Superboy. What would it be like if Superboy's love interest reflected his distance from his source culture? How does "truth, justice and the American way" work when Superboy's lover comes from indigenous land annexed by the United States? What would it look like to see Tana Moon outside of what a white man told you to see?
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