Vixen: NYC is a webcomic starring the comic character Mari Jiwe/Vixen. Written by Jasmine Walls and artist Manou Azum, it is the second webcomic by DC Comics (after Batman: Wayne Family Adventures) to be released via Webtoon.
The webcomic is set in a version of The DCU. Just as she starts college in New York, Ghanaian-American teenager Mari Jiwe is gifted a mysterious necklace that has been passed down in her family for generations. Allegedly, it was empowered by the god Anansi, and gave her ancestor the strength to protect his village.
Mari is initially too busy adjusting to university to think too hard about it, but when young women who resemble her begin to go missing around the city, she must understand the full extent of her newfound abilities. And why do animals seem to follow her around?
The webcomic debuted its first eight chaptersnote on Webtoon
on May 26, 2022.
Tropes in this webcomic:
- Adaptational Backstory Change:
- Comics Mari was the daughter of the President of the small African nation of Zambesi; she fled to America when her father was killed. This version of Mari is a Ghanaian-American teenager whose normal parents both live in North Carolina.
- Karen Beecher's origin involved her secretly developing a size-shifting supersuit to help her boyfriend, Mal Duncan. Here she does it to help her roommate Mari.
- Adaptational Name Change: Vixen went by Mari McCabe (or Mari Jiwe McCabe) in the comics, adopting "McCabe" after fleeing to the United States. Since this version of her is American, there was no need to take on a new name, so she is named Mari Jiwe.
- Adaptational Nationality: In the original comics, Mari is from the fictional nation of Zambesi. In this series, she is Ghanian-American.
- A Form You Are Comfortable With: Anansi tells Mari that even though he can take a human form, he's not bound to a single form or even gender, and only does so out of convenience.
- Age Lift: Vixen is traditionally contemporary with the Justice League. Here she's of an age with the Teen Titans (Beast Boy and Bumblebee are her schoolmates) and similarly-aged characters like Grace Choi and Anissa Pierce, who are traditionally the League's sidekicks and younger colleagues.
- Arbitrary Skepticism:
- Mari is reluctant to believe that her necklace is a magical totem despite living in a world where superheroes are common and having had animals behave strangely around her since she came to New York.
- Subverted by Karen, who's skeptical of Anansi's claim to be a god. She's willing to believe that an African trickster god might be real, she's simply aware that there are many ways that someone with superpowers could pretend to be a god via illusions or other trickery.
- Big Damn Heroes:
- Batman takes out one of the thugs who attack Mari in episode 2, though he states Mari probably could have handled both of them herself.
- Grace Choi comes to Mari's rescue when two of the villains try to abduct her and Karen. Mari is saved but the kidnappers escape with Karen.
- The Big Rotten Apple: Mari's idealistic view of New York sours quickly when she realizes it's dirtier, louder, more cramped, and more dangerous than she expected.
- Bland-Name Product: Bruce Wayne is in New York to host FNL, not SNL, in this universe.
- By the Power of Grayskull!: Mari has to say the name of the animal whose abilities she is mimicking.
- Crash-Into Hello: In the first chapter, Mari walks right into a green-skinned young man (eventually confirmed to be Garfield Logan/Beast Boy) on a footbridge. She is too weirded out by him to make introductions, however.
- The Dragon: Aku Kwesi is the main enforcer of General Mustapha Maksai.
- Drives Like Crazy: Beast Boy is clearly not very good at driving Nightwing's car, as Raven snarkily points out.
- Evil Poacher: Not only is he a kidnapper and en enforcer of Maksai, Aku Kwesi is also a former poacher who caused Jeanne-Mari Jiwe's paralysis.
- Evil Uncle: Mustapha Maksai is Mari's uncle and has no problem threatening to kill her parents in order to get her to give the totem.
- Exactly What I Aimed At: Grace throws a catwalk at the wall next to Kwesi to make him back off. Kwesi then shows off his own Super-Strength by grabbing the catwalk and throwing it back, seemingly missing until Grace realizes he was aiming it at the escaping prisoners. Thankfully, she intercepts it.
- Good Cop/Bad Cop: When interrogating Sai for information about the missing girls, Mari tries to keep Grace from getting rough with him.
- Good Parents: Mari's parents Richard and Jeanne-Mari are very loving and supportive of her. They even accept her heroic escapades.
- High School AU: College AU variation. The webcomic is set in an alternate version of The DCU where Mari McCabe and Karen Beecher are university students rather than the established career women they are in comic canon (businesswoman/model and scientist, respectively). Neither have gotten their respective comic powersets at the start of the comic either.
- How Do I Shot Web?: Once Mari figures out she can take up properties of animals, she also finds out she has no control over them yet, as she crashes into a pile of garbage trying to stop her cheetah speed and has to repress the urge to eat garbage as a raccoon.
- Hunting the Most Dangerous Game: Kwesi is a black market poacher who was hired to track down Mari for Maksai. He seems to enjoy hunting people as much as animals.
- The Knights Who Say "Squee!": Mari is absolutely giddy when she meets Batman for the first time.
- Masculine–Feminine Gay Couple: Friendly, cheerful, and dress-wearing Anissa Pierce is more feminine than her tough-talking, muscular bruiser girlfriend Grace Choi.
- Mugging the Monster:
- In episode 2, Mari is accosted by two thugs in alley who want her purse. She manifests the claws and fangs of a rat which scares one of them off while the other is dealt with by Batman.
- The villains have been abducting black girls all across the city in hopes of finding Mari. One of the girls they take is Anissa Pierce, who unbeknownst to them is the daughter of Black Lightning and has powers of her own. Once Grace and Mari locate where the girls are being held, it is only a matter of Grace giving the signal before the three heroines start tearing the place up and kicking the villains' asses.
- Mythology Gag:
- Mari gets a hand modeling gig, a nod to her comics counterpart (who is a model).
- When Karen takes notice of Bruce Wayne being on "FNL", she questions if he finally bought a sense of humor, which Superman once infamously told Batman to do in Superman/Batman: Public Enemies
- Myth Prologue: The comic begins with Mari telling the story of how the trickster god Anansi empowered the totem that would then be passed down through her family. She then inherits it and the comic is about her learning to use its power.
- Oh, No... Not Again!: Anissa muses that one of her father's foes might have kidnapped her again.
- Police Pig: Maksai gains the ability to change his minions into animal men. He turns a cop who stumbles onto his hideout into a pig-man, lampshading it as an appropriate transformation.
- Significant White Hair, Dark Skin: Anansi is a Hot God with long white dreadlocks and dark skin.
- Squee: Mari squeals in excitement when she realizes Batman has rescued her.
- Stab the Picture: Kwesi's introduction has him throwing a knife at a picture of Mari as a little girl that is pinned to the wall by another knife.
- Stealth Hi/Bye: Mari turns to ask Batman a question after he rescues her, but he's quickly and quietly vanished.Mari: Probably should have expected that.
- Take That!: While showing Mari her alternate lives, Anansi takes her to what is implied to be the real world where the alternate Mari is part of a human rights protest (while wearing a mask because of Covid). He proclaims its one of his least favourite realities.
- That Came Out Wrong: When Beast Boy first meets Mari, he asks her if she's "really into animals". He realizes how that sounds and tries to rephrase the question by asking if she has a "special bond with animals". Neither he nor Mari find this version any better.
- The Team Benefactor: Not exactly a team yet, but Stella Maxwell serves as Mari and Karen's mentor and the one who provides them with their suits, training and missions.
- This Is Going to Suck: Sai's reaction mixed with Oh, Crap! when he sees Grace works at the same LGBTQ Community Center he's staying at.
- Tomboy with a Girly Streak: Grace might be most of the time a butch, but she wears a girly pink gown when Mari visits her and Anissa's appartment.
- Training from Hell: Mari receives this type of training from Grace Choi. It consisted on not holding back when fighting her and throwing her into the ocean so she channels the power of a marine animal.
- Violently Protective Girlfriend:
- Grace Choi is certainly this, hauling herself out to find Anissa when she goes silent and getting herself involved in the hunt for her.
- Anissa turns out to be this as well, finally suiting up in defiance of her promise to her father that she wouldn't go caping until after getting her degree when she finds out that Grace has been forced to go back into underground cage fights by a villainous group.
- Walking Shirtless Scene: Kwesi wears an unzipped jacket which shows off his scarred, bare torso.
