Briar

Barry and Bruce cowboys ♡

the flash (1987) #200; final crisis #4; dc universe rebirth; the flash: rebirth; titans (2016) #1; new history of the dc universe #4; heroes in crisis #6; unused cover of heroes in crisis #4; the flash: knight terrors #2; the flash (2016) #793, annual 2

As of today, it's been 1203 days (approximately 3 years and 3 1/2 months) since DC published an ongoing comic book centering a Black character in its mainline continuity. I'm using this poll to bring awareness to some Black characters who I think could use some love. Fem edition.

The way this from Aphrodite in Absolute Wonder Woman #19 engages with the fact that we cannot get a Diana appearance in a Valentine’s anthology that is about anything other than friendship and people crushing on her, that Diana has women obsessed with her in the text in ways she cannot fully return (see Barbara Minerva’s entire history and particularly Rucka’s explanations of how he sees Cheetah’s emotions towards Diana, see main universe Circe, etc etc).

It’s playing with a fundamental Doylist problem with Diana where she’s simultaneously always been an icon of women loving women (all the way back to exactly how the William Marston origins function) and yet she’s also simultaneously expected to be written as almost above the messiness of romantic attachments much of the time, particularly to women.

Diana’s been cursed/blessed to inspire and compel love from others, and like Aphrodite, because that love is induced she cannot fully tell whether it’s something she deserves or is involved in.

Now, she will never know whether someone loves her because they love her, or because they have no choice.