So with my own heritage, I have found I'm too white to not feel imposter syndrome about claiming my native ancestry... but also native enough to feel fucking weird about portrayals in media. Like... I really, REALLY disliked Echo for reasons I will touch on but this isn't that post.
But its the thing where if you have a native hero, they can't just be oh hey here's a native kid who got bit by a spider or struck by lightning? It always has to be, and here's how this is tied directly into their culture and ancestry. Like... we don't need to fucking bring in ancestral spirits into everything? Like, there's plenty of terrible stuff for black heroes too but natives don't even have the "Black Electricity Heroes" thing where its like huh that's a weird stereotype thats come about... Because we are still back in the superfriends era where everyone has to be a fucking shaman?
So let's talk about Hawkeye for the new Ultimates line. This is a cover that's dropped, the issue isn't out so I can't say how well this is done but this is... Look I like parts of this? I saw this and immediately went hey it's Hawkeye, its still recognizable. (I am side-eyeing those feathers fucking hard) But it also feels fucking weird to go, Hey we want a native hero, who should we update? Oh, the one with the bow and arrows! It's too close to the whole thing around Iron Fist and SEA folks talking about how much it sucks that the only heroes they get are the martial artists.
Like, in issue one of this new series they introduced their version of Ant-Man and Wasp, both of whom are still white, which is totally fine... But I honestly think I would have preferred one of them be updated? Culture and heritage are really important but it's also fucking weird where we have to flatten these characters down and that's ALL they can be. They can't just be government experiments or people who have sworn vengeance for their parents' murders... it always has to tie back. It reduces them into this monolithic thing, where nothing else can exist. This is where I gesture to Echo who was a villain turned hero whose ability was that she could copy people's movements and fighting styles, the same power set as Taskmaster. The creator of the show that those powers were lame and they couldn't do anything with it(which shows a huge lack of imagination) and I was curious okay what are they going to do... and they then introduced her powers which is... her ancestors. She can use the skills of any of her female ancestors...
sigh
THAT'S THE SAME POWER. IT'S CLONING SOMETHING SOMEONE ELSE HAS DONE. ALL YOU'VE DONE NOW IS MAKE IT MORE STEREOTYPICALLY NATIVE.
More than that but instead of keeping things inside the narrative where we see a character in a fight or sequence and cloning something we've seen earlier in the story... we instead have to cut away to a new ancestor... introduce the and show their skills so Echo can get out of it. Killing any momentum to inorganically introduce what is needed? Okay, okay. I'm done talking about that fucking show.
Look, there could be some really cool things about this Hawkeye. The new Ultimate Universe is really interesting and the United States fell awhile back and was replaced. So Cap has come back to a world where America doesn't fucking exist. And so I am REALLY curious of what the Native experience is like in this world? What happened when this even worse state took over after America, did the reservations just get erased? I am excited to see what worldbuilding is going to happen here and glad we get this lens in the story. I even think Hawkeye is an interesting choice because he and Cap have always butted heads and having a Cap who recalls America as a fallen state that could have been great and a native Hawkeye who remembers its sins clearly could be a good dynamic.
I have really been enjoying this line so far and I'm sure this won't be terrible but it is one of those things that just annoys me, ya know?