Last Updated on April 6, 2020
A new DC comic is to feature Batman and the Joker as 16-year-old high-schoolers turning some of the storyline on its head, as Marvel recently introduced its mocked characters “Snowflake” and “Safespace.”
In the comic, ‘Gotham High,’ Batman will be depicted as being an American-Chinese Instagram superstar, inheriting his large fortune from his mother’s–not father’s–efforts.
The Joker will be repurposed, not as a full-on villain, but as an allegedly bisexual class clown anti-capitalist, anti-fascist by the name, Jack Napier. The Joker’s anti-capitalism is where he derives his heroism in the new comic.
Selena Kyle acts as the queen of the high school, in a comic designed to attack “toxic masculinity,” which comic books allegedly promote.
The trio–Bruce Wayne, Jack Napier, and Selena Kyle–were hinted to be engaged in a steamy love triangle, culminating in a raunchy polyamorous relationship involving a possible orgy.
Batman and The Joker also reportedly “abandon their sexuality in a moment of heat.”
Alfred, the butler, will be openly gay in the comic–which Melissa de la Cruz, the author, describes as “a ‘mix between Batman and Gossip Girl‘ but only more ‘LGBTQ friendly,” according to Sausage Roll.
On the Batman, Joker, Catwoman love triangle, she says: “It came out of trying to figure out all their desires. What does Jack bring to Selina that’s different from what Bruce brings to Selina? Ultimately you don’t know who she’s going to pick. You root for both of them, and there’s a surprise in the end.”
De la Cruz also suggested wanting to abolish “heteronormativity” from comics, which appear to seep through into her work.
Bounding Into Comics reported that De la Cruz said: “I pitched a kind of Gossip Girl Batman, and in my mind I wanted to reinvent Chuck Bass. He’s still Bruce Wayne, it’s not the Great Gatsby, so he’s still brooding, he’s still a loner, he still has all that iconic Batman personality.”
She then added: “But making him Chinese was a no-brainer — everyone was on board from the beginning.”
Bounding Into Comics continued:
De La Cruz then revealed she plans on destroying more characters.
“I would love to play a little more. We have minor characters that we can get to know a bit more, like Poison Ivy and Harvey. And I don’t think it’s the last we’ll see of Selina, Jack, and Bruce either. I’m hoping to do more of Jack’s story in the second book.”
She even adds, “And we barely even saw Robin!”
The Bounding Into Comics article finished with a harsh mini-review of: “Circling the drain might be an understatement, this book deserves to be immediately shredded and then flushed down the toilet.”
On March 18, National File reported on some new Marvel characters met with derision by social media for their supposedly defiant names “Snowflake” and “Safespace.”
Via National File:
Marvel has revealed its 2020 new warriors, pandering to social justice, by naming two of them “Snowflake” and “Safespace” to the amusement of the wider internet.
These two characters captured social media attention and became subject of ample derision.According to Comicsbeat:
SNOWFLAKE AND SAFESPACE: As psychic twins, Snowflake, a cryokinetic, can materialize snowflake-shaped shuriken projectiles for throwing. Safespace can materialize pink forcefields, but he can’t inhabit them himself, the reflex only works if he’s protecting others. They’re hyper aware of modern culture and optics, and they see their Super Heroics as “a post-ironic meditation on using violence to combat bullying.”
“[Snowflake and Safespace] are very similar to Screentime; it’s this idea that these are terms that get thrown around on the internet that they don’t see as derogatory. [They] take those words and kind of wear them as badges of honor…Snowflake is the person who has the more offensive power, and Safespace is the person who has the more defensive power. The idea is that they would mirror each other and complement each other.”
