For a long time, when you looked for diversity in a comic book, it was pretty much hard to find. Where the big-name comics have seemingly kept producing the same ol’ same ol’, other people have picked up the dropped ball and given comics a boost of diversity.
Writer Dennis Liu and illustrator Jason Piperberg have created the first comic book about a single mom and her superpowered son. Not only is it groundbreaking, but the comic also has its own movie trailer to go along with it.
Raising Dion is about a mother, Nicole, and her 7-year-old son, Dion. The comic’s site has this description:
Nicole, raises her 7-year-old son, Dion, who has superpowers. Life was hard enough keeping up with the bills, let alone trying to keep track of her son’s invisibility, plasma powers and telekinesis. In order to study his progress, Nicole films her son 24-7 with the help of her friend, Pat, who is an aspiring filmmaker. But when Nicole starts to notice mysterious men tailing her, and with Dion’s developing abilities constantly changing and becoming more powerful, she must find the courage deep within herself that she can raise Dion on her own.
“How do you protect him from the world?” Nicole says in the trailer for the comic book. “First, never take your eyes off of him; his powers can be unpredictable.”
Not for nothing, but the trailer has the potential to be its own series. It’s just that good.
In an interview with Fusion, Liu said he drew upon his own life and being an uncle to five nieces, and spoke with other single parents, to develop Nicole’s voice. He described Nicole as a mix of Martha Kent and Alfred Pennyworth, the adults who raised Superman and Batman.
“If these key parental figures did not raise these superheroes correctly, then who knows what Clark Kent or Bruce Wayne would have become?” Liu said. “Parents instill a value system.”
You can get the first issue of Raising Dion for free on Liu’s site.