HOME | DD

Raven — Description

Raven always struck me like someone dropped an entire Gothic horror novels worth of ideas into the middle of a superhero comic and ran with it.
Created by the incomparable partnership of Marv Wolfman and George Pérez, Rachel Roth entered the DC Universe not as the sarcastic, eye-rolling goth icon modern audiences probably often picture,
but as somethin' a wee bit stranger, quieter and more unsettling: a solemn empath cloaked in mystery, burdened with the impossible knowledge that she was destined to usher in the arrival of her father, the demonic conqueror Trigon,
a being whose ambitions make Satan seem almost parochial by comparison.
If Starfire is the Titans' innocent heart, Raven is their haunted soul - a walking horror story forced to superhero mold, forever fearing that the monster everyone dreads is not lurking under the bed but quietly waiting behind her own eyes.
Her powers are a fun mixed bag, empathic abilities mean she experiences the emotions of those around her as her own, the "soul-self" projection, teleportation, telekinesis, sorcery, dimensional manipulation and reality-bending magic -
a real smorgasbord of superpowers. She has all the ingredients of a horror protagonist and a horror villain simultaneously - The demonic bloodline, the whispers of dark destiny, a terrifying power that grows stronger the closer she comes to losing control -
the poetry of her character is in the language of possession films, of cursed children, of cosmic nightmares where the greatest act of heroism is simply refusing to become what fate calls you to be.
And yet, Raven's greatest triumph has never been defeating Trigon, spectacular though those victories have been. It has been the quiet, relentless act of choosing her own humanity over destiny, friendship over isolation, and her found-family again and again in defiance of a fate that would see them damned, or worse. The later embrace of the gothic aesthetic - the black bob, the sardonic wit, the dry humour and morbid sensibilities - only sharpened what was already there, turning her into an icon for a
new generations of readers who recognised that darkness and decency are not mutually exclusive.