As a result of longtime Marvel Comics workhorse Brian Michael Bendis leaving the company for DC, many Marvel titles are now left without a standout storyteller. One of Bendis' most popular books of the last two years is Invincible Iron Man, starring its Black female lead, Riri Williams. Despite its success, Bendis (and Marvel, more generally) has received a mass of criticism in the last few years for their disappointing handling of characters from historically marginalized backgrounds. Chief among critics concerns is that while Marvel has increased the number of racially and sexually diverse characters, the effort has yet to reach the writer's room--leaving many would-be fans with stories that hardly sound natural or lived-in at all. 

There are very few scholars writing and dreaming as largely as Eve L. Ewing. A native Chicagoan, Ewing's vital sociological work--which sits at the intersection of public policy, racism, and social inequality--answers to the many intellectual and creative concerns facing the city today. Ewing leaves no one behind, with far-reaching insights that, despite her academic pedigree as a Postdoctoral Scholar at the University of Chicago, do not neglect celebrating the neighborhood that awakened her creative mind. 

One need not look too far for reasons why Ewing is the perfect fit for Riri's evolving character. Her latest book, Electric Arches, is a wonderfully considerate trip through Chicago filled with poems, stories, and Ewing's own visual art acting as guided tour. But even more, Ewing captures the feel of Black girlhood in a city's whose representation has never quite fit its real character. Her narrative versatility leaps from ruminating on Black people's unanswerable questions of survival in an anti-Black world to flexing her memory muscles retelling first engagements: with Prince or a steadily gentrifying Chi-town; all written in striking detail.

Finally, Ewing is uniquely prepared to take on this challenge; she's a disciple in the craft of graphic narrative, following in the footsteps of adroit storytellers like Scott McCloud, Lynda Barry, and Will Eisner. But to bring it even closer to home, her father penned a weekly comic strip when she was young, making her an inheritor of the comic book nerd gene. The honor and investment she's placed in the genre goes beyond "diversity" pushes, it's in her blood.

Ewing's rising name in the writerly world--with 100K followers on Twitter and another book dropping next fall--make this an opportune time for Marvel to ride the Ewing wave before it cascades over the literary world--trust and believe, having her mind and creative chops behind one of Marvel's most intriguing characters is a no-brainer. 

#IronHeartEve