Whistle

 

Whistle

A New Gotham City Hero

by E Lockhart

art by Manuel Preitano

DC Comics

2021

 

 

A few years ago, one of my coworkers showed me some new Raven and Beast Boy graphic novels she was excited about, that had been announced by DC. Sometime after that, I read the truly excellent Superman Smashes the Klan without realizing it was part of the same series. Between then and now, it seems like DC has put out with about a thousand of these standalone YA comics! I decided to check out a few of them. First up is Whistle.

 

This one has a pretty good set-up, but I think it sacrifices a proper ending for the chance to imagine the lead character maybe having ongoing adventures. It confronts her with a difficult moral choice, but then seems to let her eat her cake and still have it too. And honestly, it might've been more satisfying without her getting powers or putting on a costume.

 

Willow is a poor Jewish kid in an underserved neighborhood in Gotham. She's kind of an activist, showing up at demonstrations with signs to demand better funding for her school. She's very motivated, very hard working, maybe not very popular - a Tracy Flick or Rory Gilmore type character. She makes friends with the new kid at school, an African immigrant, who seems to be a version of Beast Boy, although without any powers (yet?) 

 

Willow's single mom is sick with cancer - and she can't work, doesn't have insurance, can't afford her treatment, and is falling behind on her rent. Willow takes a part-time overnight job cleaning an animal shelter to help out, but you can't imagine it pays enough.

 

Also the neighborhood has a problem of someone making plants grow to cover up buildings and make them unusable, especially churches and community centers.

 

Willow gets a message from her mom's old friend (or boyfriend?), the Riddler. I mean, Willow doesn't know that, but the audience does. He hosts biweekly underground poker games, needs a new event planner because Killer Croc murdered the old one, and he heard Willow's mom was sick, and thought he could help out his old friend who cut off all contact with him by offering her daughter a secret, high-paying, illegal, possibly dangerous job...

 

Willow takes the job, makes friends with Poison Ivy who is a regular at the games, gets a glamorous new wardrobe, gets enough money to pay the rent and cover her mom's hospital bills, starts ignoring her friends and schoolwork, stops having time for activism, starts to feel enchanted by her connection to this cool rich secret poker club. 

 

Willow's mom and friend Garfield (aka Beast Boy) tell her that she's changing and they're worried about her. She slowly realizes that Riddler and Poison Ivy are the ones behind the plant attacks. They're trying to buy up cheap real-estate and gentrify it. It will be good for "the neighborhood," but most people living there now will have to move away.

 

And then Willow gets mauled by Killer Croc. She's with a shelter dog when she's attacked, and for unclear reasons, gains dog-like hearing and sense of smell, the ability to talk to dogs generally, and the ability to understand the one shelter dog. 

 

More importantly, while she's healing, she gets some time to think about what she's doing and who she wants to be. She needs the money her illegal job gives her, but doesn't want to let Riddler and Poison Ivy succeed at their plan. 

 

So this is the important moral choice Willow faces. She wants to be a good person, to protect her neighborhood, but also to keep taking care of her mother. I feel like she tries to have it both ways, and that the book lets her, while acting as though she's made a wholly righteous decision.

 

Willow gets herself in shape and makes a very CW-ready costume, and shows up to stop Poison Ivy from making plants take over the next building on her hit list. They fight, neither Ivy nor Riddler recognize her, Ivy nearly kills Willow with her poison kiss, but then some shelter dogs come to her rescue. Riddler gets away, Ivy gets arrested and released, and Willow congratulates herself for saving the building without doing more than throwing a few punches.

 

She does not however, like, tell anyone the Riddler's plan. Or stop working for him. Or tell him that she thinks what he's doing is wrong. Or stop being friends with him and Ivy. I think she sees herself as a spy in his organization? But she also helps her mom start reconciling with the guy, so like, that's a very deep cover. It's implied that Willow will continue being both a costumed crime fighter ... and a paid member of the Riddler's criminal gang.

 

As I said, I think that trying to single-handedly thwart gentrification by becoming a superhero is the wrong ending for the story Lockhart set up. I recognize this is a superhero comic, so the genre more or less requires it, but Lockhart wrote a character and built up a scenario where it's kind of disappointing that that's how Willow decides to take action.

 

I'd have rather seen Willow stand up to Riddler as herself, and try to get journalists and other activists to oppose him in the press and on the streets. The Willow we saw early on appeared to have real moral courage, enough to do what's right even at some cost to herself. 

 

Keeping her new job and her new friends, avoiding any financial sacrifices or uncomfortable conversations, then getting to feel good about herself by inconveniencing the bad guys without doing more to really stop them - that just feels like wish fulfillment rather than Willow actually doing what's right. I wish she'd been allowed to do better.