And you know what, speaking of Superboy Prime, at some point we may need to interrogate why “violent, misanthropic white man gets forgiven and praised for his growth after apologizing in a way that specifically does not invalidate his masculinity” is such a popular, quickly latched-onto narrative.
And perhaps we should interrogate who that narrative is for.
Damian has literally been sent to hell. Tara has been treated like...Tara by basically every narrative she has ever been in. To this day, people still refuse to acknowledge their growth, their nuance, or the lack of agency baked into their circumstances.
But then you get a willing, spiteful mass murderer who spends five dubious minutes posing as less of an asshole, and suddenly he is the freshest, hottest concept in comics. We simply must root for him. We must celebrate his growth. We must ignore the continuity of his crimes. And if you point out that he has, in fact, done horrific things on purpose, suddenly you’re “taking comics too seriously.”
Redemption arcs are not the problem. Growth is not the problem. Characters with blood on their hands becoming better is not the problem.
The problem is how quickly some fans recognize humanity, nuance, pain, and potential in a violent white male power fantasy, while treating characters like Damian, Talia, Tara, and plenty of others as permanently defined by their worst context, their worst writing, or their least charitable interpretation. Even Diana suffers from this and she didn't even really do anything wrong--
What could possibly cause people to project so hard into that archetype?
In this political climate?
Truly, we can only wonder...
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