New DC Hero Featherweight, Granddaughter Of Batman Foe Ra’s Al Guhl, Revealed As Transgender
With the final issue of Cheetah and Cheshire Rob the Justice League Vol. 1 hitting shelves this week, DC has revealed that the series’ original character Featherweight, the granddaughter of Batman’s Lazarus Pit-addicted foe Ra’s Al Guhl, is transgender.
Penned by veteran DC scribe Greg Rucka (Gotham Central Vol. 1, Detective Comics Vol. 1) with art by Nicola Scott (Earth-2 Vol. 1) and colors from Annette Kwok, the six-issue mini series follows its titular villainesses as they attempt to execute a massive heist of a device called the Power Bank, a back-up of every hero’s superpower made as a contingency against future Absolute Power swap/depower situations, from the Justice League’s newly-established Watchtower.
Of course one can’t have a heist without a crew, so in service of their exceptionally bold plan, the pair, along with Cheshire and Roy Harper’s daughter Lian, recruit the help of three particular metahumans whose specific powers they believe will give them the best chance of success: the magic-wielding Klarion the Witch Boy, the probably-manipulating former Infinity Inc. enemy Hazard, and the aforementioned Featherweight, whose super-strength is proportional to her anger towards a given target.
A completely new character created by Rucka and Scott specifically for this story, the 25-year-old soon divulges to her new teammates that behind the Featherweight alias, her real name is Alya Raatko.
And far from a random moniker, the she notably shares the Raatko family name with her mother Nyssa, who herself initially received it from her mother after she was born in the complete absence of her father, Ra’s Al Guhl’s.
In other words, Featherweight’s mother is Nyssa Al Guhl, a fact she herself confirms when, after being asked by Hazard as to why her last name sounds familiar, she makes a reference to the events of Rucka’s 2003 miniseries Batman: Death and the Maidens and recalls, “My mom tried to kill Superman a while back, maybe?”
Initially believed to be a biological woman due to being depicted throughout the series with a distinctly feminine appearance, Featherweight’s transgender identity would ultimately be revealed in the closing pages of Cheetah and Cheshire Rob the Justice League‘s final issue.
As the crew part ways after successfully robbing the Justice League blind of their entire Trophy Room inventory, their initial Power Bank target being a bit of friendly-fire misdirection, an infatuated Klarion asks Alya as to what she plans to do next, to which she explains that, first and foremost, she’s “Gotta see my Mom. She’s been laying the guilt on pretty thick. ‘You never visit’ stuff.”
“Then probably Greece,” she continues. “There’s a lot of anti-LGBTQ persecution. It’s getting violent in places. Figure maybe I can help fight back, y’know?”
Pressed by the centuries-old-but-still-physically-a-teenager (specifically identified as being roughly 14-16 at the time of 2015’s Klarion Vol. 1) “Does that mean…I mean, so you’re…”, Alya confirms “B[isexual] and T[ransgender], yeah.”
Acknowledging Klarion’s burgeoning crush as she makes her exit, Alya tells the Lord of Chaos “I’m a little old for you, Klarion. Look me up in a couple years…we’ll see.”
Unfortunately for DC, rather than Alya being welcomed as a substantial win for demographic representation, her intended audience has instead rejected her as a stereotypical, transphobic caricature, with no shortage of mockery being directed at her on-the-nose, transgender pride flag color scheme.
As of writing, neither DC, Rucka, or Scott have offered any public response to the backlash.
