Bekka
74 years ago - Bekka's father Himon leaves New Genesis, building his hidden sanctuary among the Lowlies of Apokolips, teaching it's people how to foster hope.
52 years ago - Bekka's mother is killed by Kalibak. She leaves New Genesis, joining her father Himon on Apokolips, her powers helping to keep them hidden.
20 years ago - Bekka takes care of Orion while he recuperates after his attack on Apokolips. She helps hide him as he frees his mother Tigra, with distraction by Lightray. When Himon sends them back to New Genesis, he tells her to go with them, as she clearly belongs with Orion.
16 years ago - Bekka helps sooth Orion's rage after his mother Tigra is killed by Kalibak. He asks her to marry him. Himon travels to New Genesis to give his blessing for the marriage, which is performed by Highfather.
6 years ago - Bekka and the Gods of New Genesis descend from Supertown to assist the Justice League in freeing the Bugs from the minions of Glorious Godfrey. They attend the wedding of Scott Free & Big Barda.
4 years ago - Bekka and the Gods of New Genesis, alerted to the Parademon wave invasion by Jimmy Olsen, travel to Earth to extend their pact to include Earth.
Bekka presents an interesting conundrum, because the character as she now exists is the result of several redesigns, the most successful if which happened completely outside of regular continuity. This does happen sometimes, when a version of a character works so well that the mainstream DC canon has to work backward to try to catch up, but to my knowledge that hasn't actually happened here. This new take on Bekka hasn't actually made an appearance in the core DC continuity, which means we get to make some decisions about how we want to depict her in our own timeline.
Bekka's Comic HistoryBekka, the wife of Orion, debuted in the story Hunger Dogs in issue #4 of a book called DC Graphic Novel. This was Jack Kirby returning to the Fourth World in 1983, well after his original time with DC was over. It's a really interesting story for fans of the New Gods as it shows a version of the resolution of the conflict between Orion and Darkseid, in that Orion chooses to abandon their animosity and leave Darseid to his impotent rage. Part of what allows Orion to do this is that he finds love with Bekka, the daughter of Himon. While this is an interesting take on this story, I don't know if it's actually considered to be canon. Later series don't really reference it that much, returning to the mythic conflict between New Genesis and Apokolips without much interruption, although there could have been a story connecting this to the regular timeline that I've missed.
More importantly, Bekka didn't really show up again after this story. The mythology of the New Gods would continue to be explored in various stories, but the idea that Orion was married never seemed to come up, at least until a very strange story called Torment in the pages of Superman/Batman in 2007. In it, we meet a drastically redesigned Bekka, who is feeling neglected by Orion and has a brief affair with Batman as they attempt to free Superman from Darkseid's control. This version of Bekka would appear again in the Batman Beyond digital comic, establishing that, for a brief time, this was canon. |
After the full continuity reset of the New 52, Bekka appeared again in several of the Green Lantern series in 2014 in a storyline called Godhead. In it, the New Gods (or at least, what passed for the New Gods in the new continuity) were tasked with collecting rings from each of the multicolor lantern corps, with Bekka (who was now inexplicably a sword-wielding warrior with a terrible design) tasked with collecting a Sinestro Corp ring. This is technically how she currently stands in regular DC continuity.
Then in 2015, Bruce Timm created the animated movie Justice League: Gods and Monsters, a story featuring an alternate take on the world of DC with new characters becoming Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman. Here it's Bekka of the New Gods who becomes Earth's Wonder Woman, and we get a NEW new redesign of the character, this one actually looking pretty fantastic. Since animated movies take a while to make, I actually assume that the prior Bekka, the one from the Green Lantern story, must have been an attempt to set up this character that was just done badly? In any case, we're left with sort of an interesting choice here. Truthfully, Bekka's original role in the story was to be Orion's salvation, giving him the means to choose NOT to fight... but she also has this really cool warrior role that feels like it also deserves to be part of her story. |
Our Bekka StoryThe main question that needs to be answered is CAN these versions of Bekka co-exist? We do want to adapt a version of the events of Hunger Dogs; having Orion attempt to assault Apokolips (specifically to try to free his mother) is a very useful element to include. It lets us build out his story, as well as the stories of Lightray, Himon and Tigra. With this in place we can absolutely include Bekka and Orion falling in love with each other, and her accompanying him back to New Genesis. We also added another story beat, where Orion loses his mother not long afterward, and Bekka helps him process his rage. This is meant to make it clear they are absolutely meant to be together, that he is a better person for having her in his life.
But of course we don't want to ignore the Gods and Monsters version of Bekka. The idea really is simply that she is more than just someone who stays behind while the warriors of New Genesis venture out to defend their home. She doesn't have to be someone who lives and dies by the sword to take one up; she spent years with her father on Apokolips, she is a more than capable warrior and can fight alongside her husband. |