Raising Dion: A Comic Book Imagines A Black Single Mom Parenting Her Superhero Son

Single Black moms are heroic—that’s no secret. But imagine if one mom in particular were raising a second-grade Black boy with superpowers? How would her parenting—indeed, the love, nurturing and tender care she pours into raising him—contribute to the kind of superhero he’d turn out to be? It’s an interesting question posed by the new comic book Raising Dion, and MyBrownBaby is so here for it!

Raising Dion, written by Dennis Liu and illustrated by Jason Piperberg, is about the travails of Nicole, a widowed mom whose 7-year-old son, Dion, has the gift of invisibility, plasma powers and telekinesis. Keeping an adorably precocious little boy from mischievousness is tough enough, but when he can disappear while you’re helping him get dressed, make his cereal float in the air when he’s supposed to be eating it, and make small fires in the parquet floors while pretend playing, parenting alone can be a whole ‘nother level of challenging. But things become even more complicated for Nicole when she notices mysterious men trailing her and her baby, and with Dion’s developing abilities constantly changing and becoming more powerful and possibly evil, Nicole has to find the courage to not only protect her son, but employ her human will and heart to steer her son toward being a hero and far away from being a villain. 

What a stellar send up to the heroic job that everyday single moms navigate as they raise their children, all-too-often sans the support, pay or respect they deserve. What’s most delicious about Raising Dion? The protagonist and her superhero son are African American, the rarest of finds in the mostly lily-white world of comic books.

Check out the trailer up top; it’s so amazeballs I’m ready for Raising Dion to be a movie already. Hello HBO? Netflix? Amazon Instant Video? Disney? THIS is the kind of flick that would make folks RUN in droves to the theaters to see something original, interesting, smart and a huge departure from the superhero flops piling up in a heap on film house floors.

In the meantime, while we anxiously await the film, we’re happy to support the Raising Dion comic book, available for FREE as a digital download on www.raisingdion.com. I’ll be copping the hard copy for Totally Lila, a comic book and superhero fan who was totally turned out by the Raising Dion trailer and wants more, more, more of this spectacular series. Liu notes that hard copy sales will go toward continuing the series; support him and this incredible storyline by buying a copy for your babies.

Download a digital copy of Raising Dion here.
Purchase the hard copy of Raising Dion here.
Join the Raising Dion Facebook page here.