Manitou Dawn
1024 BCE - Dawn is born in modern day Colorado among the Oshara Tradition.
1007 BCE - 17-year-old Dawn is sold to a village elder, and fights him when he tries to take advantage of her. She is saved by Manitou Raven, who takes her for his wife.
7 years ago - 26-year-old Dawn & Raven return from the Stony Path, helping Kent Nelson & Diana Prince free Billy Batson from Circe's control during the Godwar.
5 years ago - 28-year-old Dawn blames Raven for Diana Prince's death when he empowers her to battle Ares & free Artemis.
2 year ago - 31-year-old Dawn assists Raven in crafting the spells to hold the Red together while Gar Logan, Buddy Baker, and Mari McCabe fight Aku Kwesi to stop him from absorbing it entirely. To prevent the spells from collapsing Raven unlocks her mind, giving up his life to empower her to become the new Manitou Shaman.
1 year ago - 32-year-old Dawn helps Tye Longshadow contact the spirit of Standing Bear through a fragment of the Manitou Stone. She accepts a request from Jefferson Pierce to join the Justice League Task Force for the American government.
Dawn is a character that seemed loaded with potential. She suffered from being sexualized rather than characterized a few times, but she was developed by a creative team that seemed to have a vested interest in making her read like a real person, and they basically handed her off to DC as a complete package, ready to be used almost anywhere. Unfortunately, it was a time when DC was dense with crossovers that made individual character stories basically impossible.
Which is a real shame. Native American characters, or just characters of color at all, really aren't common enough, let alone characters for whom their ethnicity feels legitimately celebrated. I have to imagine that, as long as she was written thoughtfully with some consciousness toward representation, that Manitou Dawn would be an absolute breakout of a character.
Which is a real shame. Native American characters, or just characters of color at all, really aren't common enough, let alone characters for whom their ethnicity feels legitimately celebrated. I have to imagine that, as long as she was written thoughtfully with some consciousness toward representation, that Manitou Dawn would be an absolute breakout of a character.
Dawn's Comic HistoryDawn first appeared in JLA #75, the final issue of the Obsidian Age story arc that writer Joe Kelly used to introduce the character Manitou Raven to his decidedly different take on the Justice League. Dawn was his wife, a woman who had followed him from the distant past and who was committed to supporting him in a relationship that seemed rooted in ancient traditions but was, at its core, a loving one. Dawn could barely speak English at first, but slowly learned (largely through lessons with Ronnie Raymond), and was basically a pretty well fleshed out supporting character that served to make Raven more complex and interesting, which is basically what supporting characters are for. She was also a distinctly Native American character, and while there were times when certain artists seemed to draw her in a slightly exploitive way, generally it was all pretty respectful toward the culture they represented. If that was all she was, we would probably still be including her, if for no reason other than that she did a great job of enhancing the story of Manitou Raven.
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After Kelly & Mahnke's run on Justice League completed, they went on to create their own spinoff book that built on themes established both in that book, and back in Kelly's run in Action Comics where he created the Elite in issue #775, one of the best single comics I've ever read. This new book was Justice League Elite, which could easily have been just another 'edgy' spinoff book like Extreme Justice or Marvel's Forceworks, but the particular synergy between Kelly & Mahnke made it a really interesting read.
In it, both Raven and Dawn were evolved slightly; they were both clearly more comfortable in the modern world, regularly depicted in contemporary clothing and with Dawn having basically mastered English, serving as the assistant to her husband's work with magic. It also got more nuanced with their relationship, showing the strain that his work and emotional unavailability took on Dawn. Of course, this is comics, so this drove her into the arms of another man; namely DC's resident Mr. Steal-Your-Girl, Oliver Queen. I wish this part of the story was more fun to read, but Green Arrow was just not a likeable character anymore, and it basically devolved into a low-stakes soap opera, even as the underlying superhero drama in the book remained stellar |
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There was some intrigue in this part of the series, as Kelly managed to make the relationships between most of the characters really complex and interesting... other than Green Arrow, who just read as selfish. Raven and Dawn, however, underwent a pretty complex emotional journey right up until Raven sacrifices himself to save everyone, and Dawn has her mind unlocked to become, as the series ended, the new Manitou Shaman. Again, this WAS a compelling read, if only because of the specific voices of the creators.
This is the part that's kind of frustrating, because the introduction of Dawn as Manitou Dawn should have opened her up as a potential new character to appear in DC at large, and in another era she would have been grabbed up and used somewhere cool, but this was right before the Infinite Crisis crossover. DC as a whole just seemed to struggle to find footing for the next few years, and a character who really should have been a no-brainer to develop into something innovative was essentially left on the vine. She appeared in the seemingly deliberately-boring final story arc of the JLA series, and while she's made a few background appearances since, that's all we've ever gotten of her. |
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Our Manitou Dawn StoryThe core of who Manitou Raven & Dawn are is essentially the same, we're just using them in different stories that, hopefully, keep their central characterizations intact. They are of course characters from the distant, prehistoric past, but are drawn into the modern day (it's not time travel when you go FORWARD) in order to play their part in the Godwar story arc. This leads to them both serving as supporting characters for Wonder Woman, right up until the death of Manitou Raven, and the unlocking of Dawn's potential to become the new Manitou Shaman. We're ignoring the idea of the love triangle from the pages of Justice League Elite; it really is an albatross on the whole idea of these characters and they are wildly better without it.
Once she becomes the new Manitou Shaman, this is really where Dawn comes into her own. Raven was a powerful magical entity, but he wasn't really operating as a superhero. That should come more from Dawn, who has a more youthful energy, has a deeper connection with the modern time she lives in, and more complex relationships with the people around her. She's very much a person born of two different times, and that's going to be really interesting as she takes the magics taught to her by her late husband, and wields them as a unique hero in her own right. |
Manitou Dawn's CostumeOne of the things I really enjoyed about the appearance of Raven and Dawn in Justice League Elite is the way their looks evolved. When they were on the Justice League they basically always wore period clothing, marking them as bizarre outsiders. A few years later in the JLE, however, they seem much more comfortably dressed, and this just does such an amazing job of making these two seem more complex and relatable. Especially when, while practicing their magics, they are covered in tattoos and skulls and all sorts of cool imagery.
In fact, this might be the biggest missed opportunity with Raven's costume once she becomes the new Manitou Shaman. It's a cool look, there's no mistaking that, but it's pretty reliant on the fact that she's wearing what looks like doeskin and has an exposed midriff; that the focus is on making her look sexy, rather than make her scary and powerful. She's lacking the real wild, horror-movie details of Raven's headdress, or the web of glowing tattoos all over his body. So I would actually like it if, while superheroing, Dawn dresses in something more like what Raven wore late in his career, but let her actual body get creepy and tattooed and scary when she needs to. |
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Manitou Dawn's FutureWe want Dawn to be a powerful character with a strong role to play. We connected her to Longshadow, helping him access his own connection to his legacy that stretched back hundreds of years, and the magic she's using is known to be unique and vital to the world. She's not going to be as powerful a Shaman as Raven; I think that's a necessary balance to strike if we want her to also be out there really working as a member of the world of superheroes. It's a choice she's actively making, wanting to be a part of that world and explore her own potential as a member of the Justice League Task Force.
It's established that while there are both magic-users and superheroes in the world, very few people can do both; there's Zatanna, but almost everyone else who tries to fill both roles winds up paying some kind of price. We want Manitou Dawn to be one of the characters that succeeds at doing both. There's just so much possibility for what Dawn could be if used right. She's a young woman with such a complex history, she's survived so much, she has so much potential to grow and learn and create amazing stories, I just want to see what comes next for her. |
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