Two writers are bringing DC superheroines to the rescue — this time to Japanese American internment camps.
“Bombshells United” is the follow-up to the “Bombshells” comic series, written by Marguerite Bennett and illustrated by Marguerite Sauvage. It takes place in an alternate 1940s World War II, where events are tweaked and reshaped, challenging history as we know it with DC superheroines at the helm.
“I didn’t want it to be a story where [the premise was] ‘oh all the men are off and away, so I guess the women will have to do something,’” Bennett told Comic Beats. “I just wanted to [start with the idea that] ‘the women were here first.’”
The first story arc of “Bombshells United” explores America’s failure to protect the 120,000 Japanese Americans who were imprisoned in internment camps by the national government during World War II.
Bennett begins the story with four teenage Japanese American girls — Donna, Cassie, Yuki, and Yuri — who are out to save their community from being taken to an internment camp. Wonder Woman acts as an ally for the girls’ cause.
Bennett was inspired to write this series because she realized the stories of Japanese American internment during World War II were being “ignored and scrubbed out of the story.”
For young girls, Bennett wanted to offer a “complete human experience” — the opportunity for these superheroines to mess up, screw up and rise up again. “Being a child and seeing these role models, I knew that I could never possibly compete or live up,” Bennett said. “These characters weren’t afforded the opportunity to fail and come back from it.”
The series launched on Aug. 25 as a digital weekly release through DC Comics. Bombshells United #1 will go on sale Sept. 6 at dccomics.com.
