Riki/ The Befuddled Dumbass

Two characters (veterans from The morally gray and gay team) in separate occasions tell another character who's wronged Jay that he's in the right and they're in the wrong. Plain and simple.

Catman even out right says that people like him, that means Jay, aren't villains just because they do things the JL considers evil, like killing. Mind you this is a man who got scolded for saving a child from human traffickers because Nightwing didn't want villains in the city.

The story tells you, more than once, that Jay is right, and it tells you through subtext and plain text that he's not a villain. Maines' writing couldn't be more straight forward, even in her other comics like Bad Dream, so the only way that anyone interprets this as Jay's villain arc is if they refused to see anyone's side except for Jon. A lot of people take Secret Six as an offense to Jon's character and not the challenging of it, and it shows in the way they talk about Jay's arc here.

To be clear, I am on team "it's complicated" here. Nia didn't feel like she had much choice: her family was threatened. And she's right to say "I didn't want to do this, and I wouldn't have if my family wasn't at stake." Nonetheless, she committed a massive violent betrayal, both colonial and personal, against Jay and never really apologized for it, and he's right to hate her for it. I wouldn't forgive her either, in his place. And Jon... okay Jon's just kind of generally traumatized and clinging to anyone who's ever treated him like a friend and not like Superman's son.

People with more experience than I have a lot more relevant thoughts about why Jay has every right to feel furious about being colonized and why it's heartbreaking that nobody else seems to comprehend the weight of what he's lost. And I think it's fairly obvious why Jon has no sense of how bad the colonization is. But Nia, I think, has something a little more complex going on.

Because Nia's whole life has been a struggle between human and alien. If you're homo sapiens on this planet, you are privileged, you belong here, you make all the rules and have all the power. And if you are any other type of sapient being, you don't have any of that going for you, and have no choice but to hide, or submit, or fight back.

I wonder if, on some subconscious level that Nia isn't clearly aware of, she doesn't think of Jay as being a vulnerable minority. Specifically because he is human. So she apologizes to Jon. The alien she wronged. The one who, in her subconscious, is more vulnerable than Jay. And doesn't apologize to Jay, because she still thinks of him on some level as an oppressor.

From Ethnographic Materials ML:

Ainu culture, an indigenous group originating from Hokkaido, Sakhalin, and the Kuril Islands.

The intricate, geometric patterns on their robes are emblematic of Ainu heritage, often created through embroidery or appliqué.

Traditional Ritual: The individuals are captured performing a traditional gesture, possibly part of a ceremony like the iyomante, a ritual aimed at sending spirits back to the kamuy realm.