Jamie: Talk to us about Misty [Knight]’s self-image. There is a scene where she is trying on a dress with spaghetti straps and feels self conscious about her bionic arm. What was the motivation behind this scene? And do you feel like Misty is constantly grappling with coming to terms with her disability?
Jeremy: I think for the most part that comics view disability as a thing to be fixed. If a person is injured, their parts can be swapped out for cybernetic ones or they can be magically healed and everything is better. The reality of living with a disability is much different.
While her cybernetic arm makes her super strong, it is also bound to have effects on her life. Self-image is just one of those things. No matter how cool and confident you are when you have a picture in your head of how something is going to look (like a dress) and it doesn’t look that way because of a thing that is different about you, it hurts. And this was supposed to be THE dress, you know? The one that was gonna knock Danny dead when he showed up at the restaurant and she just can’t get it to look the way she needs it to because of her arm.
It was also very important to me that in the last page Misty does not have her arm. She is having an intimate night with her husband, getting her hair done, and snuggling up to go to sleep. First off we’re talking about a large, bulky, metal arm. Secondly, the thing has a lot of moving parts and is sure to make noise. I think the visual of a superheroic woman of color with her arm missing is very powerful.
From: Misty Knight and Danny Rand’s Secret Love -- Black Girl Nerds interviews author Jeremy Whitley