14 | OCTOBER 28 • 2021 

names were Segalovich and 
Shusterowich, respectively. 
Prolific comic artist Gil Kane 
was Eli Katz. Batman co-creator 
Bob Kane was Robert Kahn. 
“It goes on and on and on,
” 
Schwartz says. 

JEWISH CHARACTERS
In the earlier days, comic book 
characters did not state their 
religious or ethnic identities. 
That started to change in the 
1970s, Lockhart says. 
“The very first ever explicitly 
Jewish comic was in 1948 with 
Funnyman, who was invented 
by Siegel and Shuster. He was 
kind of a flop, kind of a Danny 
Kaye-type clown,
” Lockhart 
said. “But in the ’70s, you start-
ed to see a number of openly 
Jewish heroes and villains 
emerging into the comic book 
world.
” 
It was at that time that 
Ragman, Seraph, Magneto and 
other characters started coming 
into the fold with Jewish identi-
ties and characteristics. 
Seraph, originally from Israel, 
was gifted by divine powers 
with the strength of Samson, 
the Ring of Solomon, the Staff 
of Moses and the Mantle of 
Elijah. 

HOLOCAUST IMAGES
Ragman’s powers are related 
to the Holocaust, believed to 
be channeling power from 
the souls of Jews killed in the 
Holocaust and throughout his-
tory by antisemites.
Magneto, who had been a 
villain until recent years, is a 
Holocaust survivor, and much 
of how he got his powers 
are because of what he went 
through. The Holocaust shaped 
Magneto’s outlook and influ-
enced his extreme methods to 
protect his own mutant-kind 

from suffering a similar fate at 
the hands of a world that fears 
and persecutes them. 
“Basically, these Jewish char-
acters were explicitly linked 
either to the trauma of the 
Holocaust or to the specifical-
ly religious artifacts that gave 
them power,
” Lockhart says. 
“That was how it went until 
recently when we get Jewish 
characters who are just Jewish. 
Some of them are retrofitted as 
Jewish, like Green Lantern. New 
writers came on and identified 
them as Jewish, or they were 
declared to have been Jewish all 
along, but we just didn’t know, 
like The Thing.
”
The Thing, one of the 
members of Marvel Comics’ 
superhero team The Fantastic 
Four, was an autobiographical 
creation of Jack Kirby.
The Thing wasn’t revealed 
to be Jewish for 40 years until 
2002, when he recited “Shema 
Yisrael” to save a dying friend, 
possessed a Star of David and 
celebrated his bar mitzvah.
Harley Quinn was clearly 

Jewish from the get-go. Quinn’s 
Jewish heritage was officially 
canonized in 2010 when it 
was revealed she comes from 
a mixed Jewish and Catholic 
family. Quinn is also based on a 
real Jewish comedian.
In the early 1990s, Batman: 
The Animated Series co-creator 
Paul Dini was developing the 
supporting crew for the Batman 
villain the Joker. For the Joker’s 
No. 1 gal, Dini was inspired by 
Jewish actress, comedian and 
screenwriter Arleen Sorkin. 
Sorkin’s snappy, wisecracking 
personality, as well as her man-
nerisms, were incorporated into 
what would become Harley 
Quinn. Sorkin herself would 
go on to act as the character’s 
signature voice actress for 20 
years. 
In recording Harley Quinn’s 
voice, Sorkin spoke in her nor-
mal Brooklyn accent while put-
ting in a “little Yiddish sound,
” 
another influence from Sorkin. 
Quinn often uttered Yiddish 
words such as “oy” and “plotz” 
in the comics.

NEW CHARACTER 
FOR A NEW 
GENERATION
Unlike other char-
acters, Whistle, the 
main heroine in E. 
Lockhart’s latest book Whistle: A 
New Gotham City Hero, is Jewish 
as a character and explicitly 
Jewish in the book’s canon.
Lockhart is the author of the 
No. 1 New York Times bestseller 
We Were Liars and many other 
novels. She also writes books 
for young readers under the 
name Emily Jenkins. Whistle is 
her first graphic novel.
“DC invited me to create 
a superhero for them after 
reading a novel of mine called 
Genuine Fraud, which has a lot 
of superhero content buried 
inside of it,
” Lockhart says.
DC gave Lockhart leeway to 
create anything she wanted, so 
she created Whistle. 
Lockhart, who is Jewish, 
gained inspiration for Whistle’s 
background from her own, par-
ticularly relating to New York 
City. Lockhart’s great-grand-
parents were immigrants from 
Russia and Poland, which was 
the beginning of her family’s 
strong roots to the city. 
Lockhart’s dad lived near the 
Lower East Side (LES), a his-

OUR COMMUNITY

continued from page 13

Prolific comic artist Gil Kane 
was Eli Katz. Batman co-creator 

“It goes on and on and on,
” 

In the earlier days, comic book 

That started to change in the 

“The very first ever explicitly 

Jewish comic was in 1948 with 
Funnyman, who was invented 
by Siegel and Shuster. He was 
kind of a flop, kind of a Danny 

 COMMUNITY

Scenes from the graphic novel 
Whistle: A New Gotham City Hero

COURTESY OF DC COMICS

continued om page 16