Captain South Africa, the superheroine who faces inequalities rather than criminals

Black superheroine, natural hair and bandana in the colors of the South African flag: 80 years after the creation of Captain America, here is her female and "non-violent" competitor, Captain South Africa. "She's a political, non-violent, diplomatic superheroine: she doesn't hit on criminals," her creator, Bill Masuku, told AFP on Thursday during the Cape Town version of the comics and comics festival. animation, Comic-Con.

His character's hobbyhorses? Poverty, inequality, poor housing. "A modern exploration of what South Africa could be", with a gloomy economic and social climate, sums up Bill Masuku, a 30-year-old Zimbabwean who lives torn between his country and South Africa. “I was inspired by the people I studied with at university, by those movements that called for political change without inciting violence. And the women who inspired me pushed me to write their story in my own way, in comics,” he continues.

A wave of student protests against rising tuition fees shook South Africa from 2015. Bill Masuku was then on the benches of Rhodes University in Grahamstown (south-east), one of the epicenters of the protest. Imagined in 2018 as a South African version of the superhero evolving in the Marvel universe, Captain South Africa, the heroine of his comics was initially represented in a blue and red costume. But "people were much more hooked on her second outfit," whose black and white patterns reflect her "Xhosa heritage," one of South Africa's ethnicities. Ten volumes and nearly 5,000 copies later, the heroine is part of a nascent genre “proudly African. »

Disguised as Valkyrie, the warrior from the movie Thor played by Tessa Thompson, 23-year-old student Abigail Backman-Daniels says she grew up "never seeing characters that looked like her". "It's amazing to see this happening and the adaptations to the different contexts of African countries," she says delighted. Bill Masuku is convinced that Captain South Africa could become "a springboard" for young authors and illustrators from the continent. A dozen candidates have already responded to his call to collaborate on the next volume of the adventures of his heroine. According to Loyiso Mkize, creator of the first South African superhero Kwezi in 2014, “there is a growing demand for this kind of content. We are at the dawn of a golden age where we are starting to show what South African comics are, ”he predicts.