Batman, a billionaire, loses his parents at a young age and longs for the chance to go back and prevent their tragic death. Captain America awakens decades into the future and longs for a past he never lived. Heroes! Just like us! Superman is basically the strongest man in the universe but longs for a home he has never known. They are dysfunctional and distracted in relationships. And in general, superheroes are a morose lot. The newly-minted superheroes gain powers and grapple with what it means to be superhuman, to be both part of and apart from humanity. That trauma and the ensuing suffering become ennobling.

Most superhero origin stories involve trauma. I often have uncharitable thoughts about superheroes. All that is changing, however slowly, and I was excited to be a small part of that change. Rarely were people of color written into superhero narratives and rarely were women of color or queer women written into these narratives and rarely were women of color or queer women actually writing these narratives. Comics are a genre that was long considered the domain of white men. Though I was overwhelmed and intimidated by the prospect of writing a comic, something entirely new and different, I was also thrilled. Though I had no room in my schedule, I absolutely said yes because, as I rationalized to a friend, this way we could maybe get tickets to the premiere of Thor: Ragnorak and meet Thor himself. Archie comics, though, are very different from the stuff of superheroes.

Even when I set the Archie comics down, my imagination ran wild, continuing to imagine what would happen next in the stories I had just read, envisioning different lives for these characters. I loved Riverdale and the adventures of Archie and Jughead and Betty and Veronica.

Now, I am not a comic book reader, or at the time, I wasn’t. Ta-Nehisi told me there was a possibility of creating a spinoff series with two characters from the Black Panther comic he wrote for Marvel. I love a creative challenge and surprising people with what genre I might break into next. The sender of that e-mail was Ta-Nehisi Coates and the message read, simply, “Do you have any interest in writing comic books?” That was something I had never considered but I was intrigued. In April of 2016, I received an e-mail with the subject heading: Craziest Fucking Idea Ever, so of course I opened it because I am a fan of crazy fucking ideas.

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