The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 587: Street Wolf #3, December 1986

Our last little look at hot, fresh, and mature. I don't think I'll ever get tired of that.

One of the things I really appreciate about this series is that the whole thing has an in media res feel to it. The Wolf has been doing what we've seen him do over the course of these three issues for quite some time, and at the end of the series we get the feeling that he'll continue to do so, though his relationship with the police becomes quite strained. We've seen treatments of child prostitution, drug abuse, and gang violence as the "main" foci of the stories, though the stories have also touched on mental illness, racial discrimination, and PTSD. One of the threads that I was particularly intrigued by that doesn't get picked up again is the criminal nature of Doreen's father, and the lack of treatment of this paints a stark picture of the difference between street crime and white collar crime. The Wolf has no power when it comes to corruption in the upper echelons. All he can do is address the violence he perceives on the streets.

The series ends with the Wolf's life being saved by two cops who descend into the subway station he's being attacked in and open fire on the gang members. When the Wolf asks the police afterward about the slaughter, he is told that the killing was justified, and that none of the men involved deserved any mercy. To which the Wolf reacts by punching one of the cops and walking away. More so than the beatings he suffers in this issue, this moment is particularly destructive for someone who, though not an official officer of the law, respects the institution of the law.

There are intimations throughout the series that Harris intended to continue the Wolf's story, but for whatever reason, this never happened. It's a pity, as the series tackles some difficult issues, and features people of colour as lead characters, demonstrating that the format can deal with societal problems and tell an entertaining story at the same time.

Sooo.... back to the Smurfs tomorrow, perhaps. Onward.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 586: Street Wolf #2, September 1986

I did say a few days ago that I was going to keep reading Smurfs, didn't I? Street Wolf is really about as far from Smurfs as it is possible to be.

The inside cover editorial in this issue demonstrates the heavy-handedness that many overtly socially relevant comics fall into. While the message is essentially laudatory (stay away from crack), it buys into the "Just Say No" rhetoric that lumps all drugs into the same category. If you use them, any of them, you will become a psychotic serial-killing gang member, and eventually die.

*sigh* (Thanks so much, Nancy Reagan.)

This story, as far as dealing with social issues, was not quite as adept as the previous issue. There was nuance in the previous issue, but here it seems the creators heaped problem upon problem onto the one major antagonist, Ed Graves. Even after the villain's death, after being depicted as a drug addict, as a sociopath, as victim of childhood abuses, as attempting to kill his own brother, even after all this, in the final caption box dealing with the character, he's also revealed to have been a necrophiliac. This adds no real depth to the story, but makes the antagonist just that much more despicable. It was a bit much, I thought.

But the really interesting thing about this comic, and something that Harris notes in his editorial at the back, is that Nathan Blackhorse plays only a tangential role in the story. Harris lets us know that the series isn't just about the Wolf, but about the people with whom he interacts, even if only briefly. It's an excellent set-up for a series, and one that Mr. Harris seems to anticipate in the editorial (promising that the character will not be solely relegated to these three issues), but, unfortunately, does not seem to have come to fruition.

We'll finish this series off tomorrow, and then perhaps move back to the Smurfs. I've a feeling I'll need to after whatever transpires in Street Wolf #3. Onward!

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 585: Street Wolf #1, July 1986

*sigh* Before I begin talking about Street Wolf, which is a very serious comic, can we all just take a moment and dwell on that tag line. "It's Hot, it's Fresh, and it's Mature." That is one hundred percent the tag line for a porn site now, I'm sure. But Street Wolf is 30 years old this year, and exists in a simpler, Internet-free time.

Alright, enough nostalgia. remember a few months back when Ta-Nehisi Coates' Black Panther dropped, and the rhetoric of representation was fierce? Well, the creators of Street Wolf were well ahead of the curve. This comic features, in the three main roles, three people of colour - two African-American characters and the titular character, Nathan Blackhorse, a Native American. And, quite wonderfully, their particular ethnic backgrounds don't matter one bit to the story. There's even an exchange in which Joyce Prescott evinces shock that Nathan doesn't know which Native American nation he belongs to, to which he replies that he's American, and does she know which African country her descendants are from. It's a bit heavy-handed, but makes a point that can easily be applied to our contemporary moment, the thought that what you look like doesn't necessarily equate to some kind of national or ethnic fidelity.

Issues of race are always hard to talk about, but should be (both hard and talked about, that is). What's quite lovely about this comic is that it only very briefly addresses the ethnicities of the characters, and then moves on to the story - this one involving runaway children and child prostitution. I did mention that Street Wolf is a very serious comic, right? Mark Wayne Harris and Dennis Francis handle this awful and delicate subject with some real skill and tact. I'll admit that when I picked the comic up, I was fully expecting some overblown, hyperbolic 80s comics storytelling, but what I got instead was an affecting, moving, and disturbing piece of storytelling. The comic is old enough that there is still fallout in the American consciousness from Vietnam (I'm currently reading Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried - you should go and read it), which is addressed in the comic, but it's also dealing with a problem that's frighteningly contemporary. Comics dealing with social issues are always a dodgy prospect, but Street Wolf, and its creators, manage it quite nicely.

Onward.