Darkseid's Origin is a Sexist Cliché DC Should Have Dropped
Warning: Spoilers for Justice League Incarnate #5 ahead!
The immeasurably evil DC Comics supervillain Darkseid has a surprisingly sexist origin story, and instead of doing away with this tired trope the new Infinite Frontier era actually doubled down on blaming his mother for his vile nature. Darkseid is pure evil, and while his mother Heggra is certainly a terrible mother, it is ridiculous to claim that her terribleness is what originated his dark soul. Darkseid's origin story that frames him as being the result of bad mothering, further perpetuates negative stereotypes around motherhood, and inappropriately places the blame solely on Heggra's back.
First introduced in 1970's Superman's Pal Jimmy Olsen #134 by Jack Kirby, Darkseid is the chosen name of Prince Uxas, second-in-line to the throne of Apokolips and one of the New Gods. From childhood Darkseid had dark and untrustworthy ambitions, murdering his older brother Drax to claim the fabled Omega Force and pushing himself to the front of the line for the throne. Eventually Darkseid met and fell in love with the Apokoliptan sorceress and scientist Suli, who became his wife and mother to their son Kalibak, before his mother Heggra commanded Desaad to poison Suli to death, because she thought that Suli was making Darkseid weak. Discussing this sexist origin is not trying to forgive Heggra for what she did but instead it is asking, "Why did DC need to keep this origin?"
This origin story, using an overdone "bad mother" cliché, has not been referenced in years, making the Infinite Frontier era the perfect chance for DC Comics to adjust Darkseid's history and reduce the overwhelming "mother blame" that is present. Not only does the publisher not do this, but in Justice League Incarnate #5 - written by Joshua Williamson and Dennis Culver with art by Hi Fi, Jesús Merino, and Andrei Bressan - Darkseid uses the memory of his wife's murder as fuel for his fight against The Great Darkness. In Darkseid's origin story, as it is presented by DC, his mother Heggra is literally the cause of his descent into becoming a closed-off, loveless, rage-filled evil being, when in reality it is clear that he was always destined to become the God of Evil, tyrant of Apokolips.
In a study titled "The dead and the abhorred: Mindhunter and the persistence of mother-blame," authors Michele Byers and Rachael Collins discuss how "mother-blame remains a central motif of mainstream cultural narratives about violent masculinity" and that it is "used to validate the authorial authenticity of the male serial killer and his ways of knowing and being in the world." In a vacuum Darkseid's origin story might not be sexist, but taking into context the decades of shaming mothers have endured as the ones seemingly responsible for their son's descents into evil, this story definitely perpetuates sexist tropes and ideas about motherhood. Fathers are rarely blamed for how their children turn out, and mothers have been blamed for the creation of serial killers (like Jerry Brudo, Edmund Kemper, Ed Gein) for decades, with the media assuming that mothers weren't "warm enough" or didn't provide "enough loving," leading their children to become psychotic killers.
DC Comics had the opportunity to retcon away Darkseid's sexist origin story, simply by making his wife Suli the target of an assassination attempt on his life instead of a murder by his mother, which could have had the same emotional impact without blaming a mother for the creation of the literal God of Evil. Origins are retconned all the time by DC Comics, and Infinite Frontier introduced the Darkseid of Prime Earth continuity as an amalgam of all past Darkseid's in this universe, meaning DC could have highlighted a different origin story for this "Ultimate Darkseid." Heggra was clearly a terrible mother, and there is way that DC Comics could have included her awfulness in a way that didn't frame her as the direct cause of Darkseid's evil nature, pitting her against Suli as the one who wanted him to "unmask Uxas," and inadvertently continuing the harmful trope of the "bad mother" origin in the Infinite Frontier era.
Source: SagePub