I find it curious that many iconic villains, particularly Disney ones, are now in their “redemption era”. These once big bads have evolved from being depicted as sheer evil to more being classified as misunderstood in contemporary times.
Certainly, when I think about this style of narrative, we can go back in time as far as Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein in the 1800s — but I’d assert that the landmark modernist retelling that set the bar for what we’re experiencing now (AKA rooting for the former villain) was Wicked: The Life and Times of Wicked Witch of the West (1995). From the 2000s onwards, we’ve only see this “villains reclaiming their stories” phenomenon rev up in pop culture. Tonally, it feels like the bad guys are finally stepping out of the shadows and making declarations like, “wait!’ I know you saw it from the POV of the so-called ‘hero’ but you misunderstand! I was cast-out, scrutinized, rejected, unfairly judged…so… now at last, here’s my POV. Now that you have all the facts, you can make a more informed assessment.”
And personally for me, while it is a slight brain-scramble (you know, challenging the longstanding trope fairy tales have hammered into us since childhood where “good triumphs over evil”), as an adult, I now say bring on the baddies. Real life is never lived in black and white, but rather the grays. It’s messy, more nuanced, and I believe that’s the kind of wisdom these stories wish to impart. Additionally, I know y’all (okay maybe it’s just me) love a reformed baddie. The story already oozes that cool factor because these characters have an infamous reputation that precedes them.
Dynamite
In any case, the formula of flipping the script seems to be faring particularly well for Disney as a marketing strategy; since they released the film Maleficent in 2014, it was followed up in 2023 with the first Disney Villains series published by Dynamite Entertainment, aptly entitled Maleficent #1, written and illustrated by Soo Lee.
Now Ursula is getting her glimmering spotlight, albeit in the deep blue seas. Sherri L. Smith is on writing duties and Gabriele Bagnoli is spearheading the art. In this tale, we learn that long before Ariel and her desire to be where the people are (apologies if you’re now humming the tune, I couldn’t help myself), Ursula was actually revered and she had a symbiotic kinship with her underwater kingdom + subjects as one of the Seven Sea Witches. She and her royal siblings, Capricia, Scylla, Charybdis, Melusine, Tiamat, and Vodyanoy ruled the ocean with much prosperity and peace. But then we learn that this delicate flow is suddenly disrupted when Ursula discovers that one of her siblings, Scylla, has been attacked and stripped of her powers.
In issue #2, the plot thickens. Ursula uses her wit and wisdom to figure out who is creating all this chaos. She seeks out her eldest sister Charybdis for help all while trying to keep the precarious balance of her kingdom in a state of contentment. In a twist (which you could feel coming, if I’m being honest), in the final pages, we learn that Triton is the trifling trigger-point. Cue gasps.
A few standout things to note here: I appreciate how Smith shows us how and why Ursula is beloved vis-a-vis her demeanor (there’s wisps of her original sassiness in-tact but it’s now been tempered and she is depicted in a more compassionate light) along with her royal duties and what this entails. I feel this was so important to provide character/context enrichment and micro world-building in this established realm. Disney has also always had a historical predilection of showing villains in a haze of lime green and deep aubergines so I really loved how Bagnoli is using these exact same colors but now reclaiming them in this deep sea tale. Last but not least, the element that first captured my heart was actually Mirka Andolfo’s black-and-white variant cover. I’ve always been a fan of her whimsical manga-esque aesthetic and seeing that is what first drew me to pick up and read comic book.
Overall, this was wholly entertaining with the dramatic overtures and slightest wisps of a campy soap opera. Making a deep-dive (pun intended) into these familiar characters but giving them grace and a redemption arc definitely activated my childhood nostalgia but in the same vein, made me don my big girl pants and think more critically about human nature (okay, she’s a tentacled sea creature, but stay with me here): nothing is static…fluidity in terms of growth, critical thinking, and accountability is a wonderful thing and they’ve capture that ethos here.
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