Naomi: Season One Review

Writer: Brian Michael Bendis, David F. Walker / Artist: Jamal Campbell / DC Comics

“None like us, so none like us”- Wale

Since the announcement of Naomi, DC kept saying who she was would shake up the DC Universe. Writers Brian Michael Bendis and David F. Walker, along with artist Jamal Campbell, surely made good on all that hype. Naomi’s journey and origin take a classic tale and turn shit all the way upside down. There’s so much focus on Superman and how he came to be in the series, his beginnings feel like a blueprint for Naomi’s. However, that blueprint gets a reinvention for a more modern time that truly puts Naomi on a different set of starting blocks from other heroes’ humble beginnings. The biggest concept that runs throughout the first season of Naomi, which is issues #1-#6, is the theme of family and belonging. Naomi is a young black girl in a predominately white town, adopted by two loving white parents, with no inkling to who she is or where she comes from. She has a home but still feels like an outsider. As she discovers not only where and who she comes from, as well as where her adoptive parents come from, that’s the heart of the story. Walker and Bendis truly explore all aspects of the phrase “You can’t choose your family” but also what happens when a family chooses you.

Bendis and Walker take the scale of Naomi’s story from small scale to universal scale with their world-building. What I like about the cast is that it extends outside of Naomi’s immediate f…