BLACK DEFENDER

A DEI promoter turns vigilante in Washington’s debut graphic novel.

A rash of kidnappings has rocked Dale City, and Dr. Chris Withers has noticed a double standard when it comes to working the cases: When the missing girl is white, the city often gets superheroes involved to bring them home safely, but when the missing girl is Black or brown, the police handle it themselves—which usually means not handling it at all. Chris, a former special forces soldier turned social psychologist, operates a lucrative consulting firm and gives presentations about the effects of privilege in the justice system. When his wife, a reporter who’s been investigating the police’s handling of the disappearances, is found dead of a supposed drug overdose in the neighborhood where several girls have gone missing, he knows someone murdered her to shut her up. A skilled martial artist with plenty of resources at his disposal—including the lab of his friend, science prodigy and weapons manufacturer Dr. Alicia Johnson—Chris takes to the street to find answers. He may not be an enhanced human like most of the superheroes, but his need to avenge his wife is enough to fuel his new alter ego: Black Defender. But does this vigilante really have what it takes to go up against the trafficking syndicate responsible for the kidnappings and his wife’s murder—a syndicate led by a shadowy figure known only as the Overlord? Washington succeeds in revising the classic superhero formula to highlight inequities in the justice system. (Chris complains about Hammer Jack, a superhero who was put in jail because “he selectively patrolled Black and brown communities, and operated with a sense of impunity.”) There’s nothing subtle or arch about Washington’s treatment of the topic, which actually works in the book’s favor; by the time Black Defender squares off with a clueless white superhero who has just reflexively rescued a crooked cop, the reader has totally bought in. Paired with excellent illustrations by Tasbolatov, this graphic novel more than delivers on the promise of its premise.

A social justice–minded superhero for the Black Lives Matter era.