Planetary Brigade by Keith Giffen, J.M. DeMatteis, and various artists is a superhero comic, published in two miniseries in the mid-2000s. It's about a superhero team, mostly a Justice League analogue (there are obvious analogues to Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman and Green Arrow, while other characters are not such obvious analogues of DC or Marvel characters). It's mostly funny, with some serious bits. (Giffen and DeMatteis are best known for their comedic run on Justice League International in the 1980s-90s.)
I mention it here because one of the main characters is trans. I'll give some details about them after availability information and some spoiler space.
The 2007 trade paperback Planetary Brigade is out of print, but used copies are available on abebooks and Amazon and probably other comics-specific sites. Both miniseries were also reprinted, along with the various related Hero Squared miniseries, in the Hero Squared Omnibus (just released a couple of weeks ago from Boom! Studios).
More about the trans character after spoiler space:
.
.
.
.
;
.
.
.
.
;
.
.
.
.
;
.
.
.
.
;
.
.
.
.
;
.
.
.
.
;
Purring Pussycat appears fairly shallow in the first two-issue miniseries; she seems to be in the hero business for the money and sex. The second miniseries reveals her backstory and continues her story after the first series. She's a reformed supervillain and a trans woman. She was rescued from an abusive father by the supervillain Mister Master, who helped her transition and develop her powers, and treated her as his daughter. When she realized Mister Master was going off the rails (to the extent he was on the rails to begin with), she defected to the heroes and served with them for some years (including the adventure shown in the first miniseries) before they found out she was trans. Some of them (the Superman and Batman analogues) reacted badly, and they pressured the others into throwing her out of the Brigade. She went back to Mister Master for a while before returning to the Planetary Brigade when Mister Master was betrayed by another villain he had allied with.
I'm somewhat ambivalent about the portrayal of Purring Pussycat. I mostly like her portrayal in the second miniseries, but I'm annoyed by the way she appears in the first miniseries; it would be bad to portray the only female character that way, but since she's one of at least three female characters with diverse personalities, it's less annoying. It becomes more so when you realize she's the only trans character. But she's definitely better than most portrayals of trans characters by older cis male authors.
Comments
I'm going to say it...
I wouldn't be so ambivalent. I no longer have patience for any lesser evils in my life. Not when there are actual GOOD things available instead. We should be critical of this author for portraying his only trans character in this way. The good news here is that being critical of even worse depictions DOES appear to be working: as you said, it isn't as bad is it has been.
I mean, certainly, there are likely trans folks who are mercenary in their dealings and shallow. The problem is that this is a stereotype of all trans folks. There's no stereotype of this nature about white cis hetero males. Instead, they're stereotypically heroic paragons of virtue for virtues sake. Sometimes they are "troubled", but their troubles merely serve to underscore how much MORE heroically they are such paragons of virtue. Blegh.
Abigail Drew.
All the characters are flawed
I may have given a wrong impression by talking only about Purring Pussycat. All the major characters in this series are seriously flawed. Grim Knight, the Batman analogue, is a sociopath (and transphobic). Mr. Brilliant, the inventor type, is lazy and cowardly (but stands up to Grim Knight and Captain Valor about their transphobia). Mauve Visitor, the alien telepath, is arrogant and snobbish. I could go on, but Purring Pussycat isn't portrayed as uniquely bad; if anything, she's one of the most sympathetic, complex characters in the series. I would recommend this despite its flaws. But not perhaps as much as Giffen & DeMatteis' run on Justice League in the 1980s-90s, which was probably better overall (but has no trans characters).
---
http://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/trismegistusshandy
http://shifti.org/wiki/User:Trismegistus_Shandy
It isn't that she's flawed...
It isn't that she's flawed that is the problem, it's that they went with a common stereotype about trans women for her flaws. These stereotypes are hugely detrimental and the only way they're going to go away is if we keep pressuring cis folks who choose to write about us to stop writing about us this way.
Also, I may have given the wrong impression myself by talking about how the only stereotypes about the guys are positive... I didn't mean to imply that it was likely this particular instance had stereotypes for the other characters at all... Though that makes the fact that Purring Pussycat is one even worse. If they were ALL stereotypes, they'd at least not be singling her out to be the only stereotype!
Abigail Drew.