Raising Dion Will Lift Your Spirits

[quote_simple]”Have you ever wondered what it’s like to raise a superhero?​”[/quote_simple] That’s the question posed at the beginning of the trailer for Raising Dion. What seems like a peek at some new Marvel property or WB show is actually an ad for a new comic book with a twist on an old tale. Author Dennis Liu and artist Jason Piperberg give readers the story of super-powered adolescent Dion, as seen through the eyes of his single mother Nicole, an actual Black widow (no relation). The trailer introduces us to the pair, and to the chaotic and mundane life of a woman raising a young boy after the death of his father. We see morning routines filled with Dion levitating milk out of his cereal bowl and letting it splash down onto the table, teleporting from under a towel and into another room as Nicole tries to dry him off. Though “super,” Dion manages the same kind of mischief that the parent of any seven-year-old will quickly recognize.

While the trailer (which looks good enough to be its own live action series) shows off Dion’s power and youthful sense of wonder (at one point asking “How come my poop isn’t invisible?”), the narration is all Nicole. As she says in the first pages of Issue #1, “This is my story.” The scenes in the trailer mirror the first pages of the comic by showing off Dion’s abilities, but after those first pages it is Nicole’s story, and she goes back seven years to introduce us to Mark, the man who would be ‘bae,’ and father of the titular Dion. Thi…