Naomi is a 2019 6-issue comic book miniseries written by Brian Michael Bendis & David Walker and drawn by Jamal Campbell. The book was established as the flagship title of Bendis' own Wonder Comics sub-imprint within DC Universe.
Nothing Exciting Ever Happens Here. That's what pretty much everyone says about the place where Naomi lives. Including the people who live there.
So one day, when Superman crashes through the center of the town fighting Mongul for roughly seventeen seconds, it gets everyone talking for some time. Especially when he returns the next day to help clean up.
Beyond her own series, Naomi would find herself being a member of the revived Young Justice. Furthermore, even with her next series (and Wonder Comics in general) in a lull, Naomi would get a promotion and be a member of the Justice League when Bendis took over the Justice League comic, effective March 2021.
A television adaptation of the comics co-produced by Ava DuVernay premiered on January 11, 2022.
Tropes in Naomi include:
- Adoption Angst: Naomi starts obsessing over a conspiracy regarding her town when Superman shows up one day and no media outlets report on it. Naomi's psychiatrist rationalizes that this obsession is driven by the fact that she's adopted like Superman, yet there's seemingly nothing special about her whereas Superman came from another planet and is a hero beloved around the globe.
- Alternate Universe: Naomi comes from one of these.
- Bait-and-Switch: Naomi finds a picture of Dee the mechanic with a woman that looks like her, after she suspects that he might be her biological father. As it turns out, not only is Dee not her biological father, but her actual parents are both from an Alternate Universe.
- Big Bad: Zumbado.
- But for Me, It Was Tuesday: The fight between Superman and Mongul that changed Naomi's life? It was just a random fight as Superman dealt with the strange actions Leviathan was pulling in the Superman: Leviathan Rising special.
- Cardboard Prison: Lampshaded in Issue #2 between Naomi and her girlfriend.Naomi: [Iron Heights]'s a super villain prison where they put the super villains. It's one of those places weirdos are constantly escaping from.
- Everytown, America: Naomi's hometown Port Oswego is located in Oregon and is a sleepy little town. Nothing Exciting Ever Happens Here is what pretty much everyone says about the place. Including the people who live there.
- Expendable Alternate Universe: Naomi was born in an alternate universe where a Mass Super-Empowering Event affected at least 29 individuals — most importantly Zumbado, a mass murderer who was about to be executed when he gained his superpowers. He proceeded to conquer his Earth, and by the time Naomi visits her homeworld for the first time in seventeen years, it's in a post-apocalyptic state, and Zumbado is interested in invading the main DC Universe. That said, Naomi expresses a desire to rebuild her homeworld. Indeed, Brian Michael Bendis claimed that one of his goals is to establish an intriguing new world for future writers to write stories about
, citing Jack Kirby's Fourth World as an example. - Given Name Reveal: When the first issue of Naomi was solicited, it merely refers to the titular heroine as "Naomi (last name?)". Indeed, her surname is not brought up at all until ending of the sixth and last issue of her series, when her adopted mother tells her, "I'm insanely proud of you, Naomi McDuffie."
- Happily Adopted: Naomi has known for probably her whole life that she's adopted, and neither she or her parents really care.
- How Do I Shot Web?: When she learns that she does have superpowers, Naomi has almost no idea how to use them.
- Human Aliens: Naomi's father and Dee, the town mechanic, are both aliens. You wouldn't know it looking at them.
- Nothing Exciting Ever Happens Here: As everyone notes, this is the case with the town. And when the Arch-Enemy of Naomi's birth parents arrives at the end of Issue #5, after she awakens her powers, the second part of that might happen very soon...
- Offscreen Teleportation: In Issue #5, this is lampshaded and actually made a plot point - Naomi realizes at the end of the issue that she has no idea how she got across town so quickly, and she's fairly sure she didn't fly.
- Shout-Out: Naomi derives her last name from the late Dwayne McDuffie, creator of Static Shock and co-founder of Milestone Comics.
- Spin-Off: Pointedly averted with the DC Comics character Naomi. As creator Brian Michael Bendis noted in this interview, he considers her story too special to have her introduced in a book that isn't hers and spun off from there, necessitating her own self-contained limited series exploring her character and how she became a superhero before she makes her debut within the greater DC Universe in Action Comics #1015.
- There Are No Therapists: Averted. Naomi, who doesn't even have any PTSD or issues from a superhero's life (at least, yet...) is shown talking to a therapist in Issue #1.
- Token Minority: Naomi's the only non-white person in town. And her father and Dee the mechanic both technically count as minorities, since they're the only nonhumans in town.
