Indigeneity and Canadian Appropriation

In “We the North: Interrogating Indigenous Appropriation as Canadian Identity in Mainstream American Comics,” scholar Brenna Clarke Gray argues that the incorporation (or appropriation) of Indigenous markers became a key selling point of “Canadian-ness” to US comics readers. 1/5

“Indigenous characters – as appropriated by primarily white mainstream comics artists – are often coded as markers of Canadian Identity in mainstream American comics in a larger echo of Canada’s own corporate, institutional, and governmental practice.” 2/5

“In many ways, American mainstream superhero comics (and the scholarship written about them) are merely repeating a cycle of convenient and ahistorical appropriation that has been central to the branding of Canada, especially to a global audience.” 3/5

Gray traces this phenomenon through figures such as “Shaman” from Alpha Flight, creating a trajectory that leads to more recent comics such as Brian K. Vaughan and Steve Skroce’s “We Stand on Guard,” both of which frame “Indigenous” as a Canadian identity marker. 4/5

For Gray, the end results of such portrayals are comics that can be seen to “serve a national mythology in denial of its deeply colonial roots.” 5/5