Even though I adore the Rucka/Thompson portrayal of Barbara Minerva, I can't help thinking that there's a version of the original George Pérez Barbara—the privileged archaeologist plundering sacred cultural sites and stealing the magic of gods and people not her own—that could vibe with wider conversations around colonialism, white supremacy, cultural theft etc.
It could even provide a solution to the ickiness of the white Barbara gaining her powers from a vile misogynistic African god who hates and torments her because she's not a virgin.
What if the form her powers take and/or the torments inflicted on her were because she got the ritual wrong? And not because of a lack of chastity: because she's stealing a magic that doesn't belong to her, because she's working with an outsider's knowledge, because she disdains the understandings of the culture she's exploiting in favour of her (naturally superior) white western university education.
She thinks she knows better than the culture that birthed this power. She thinks, even if she doesn't say it, that she's more deserving of it than them. That she could do more with it than them. But it's not hers to take and it won't bend to what she wants.
Urzkartaga is a plant god, and plant gods are traditionally thought of as benevolent, providers, bringers of the harvest. Still, they can be angered, and when they are, they'll show their thorns.
Instead of being a monster torturing her for not being virginal enough, he's a furious god trying to wrest back what was stolen from his people.
Or, hell, another option—make it a goddess. Urtzkartaga’s bride, the Cheetah spirit, her essence trapped within Barbara’s veins and straining against her.
