Vixen: Return Of The Lion

Vixen: Return of the Lion #1-5

by G. Willow Wilson

On a mission against the mega-mobsters of Intergang, the Justice League makes a stunning discovery revealing the truth behind the death of Vixen's mother. Long ago, poachers were fingered in her murder, but stunning proof arrives exposing the identity of her real killer! And the man responsible is still alive, making a vicious play for power in the homeland Vixen left years ago.

This groundbreaking 5-issue miniseries by rising stars G. Willow Wilson ( AQUAMAN/METAMORPHO, CAIRO, AIR) and Cafu (Black Panther) plunges the League's animal-powered warrior into a deeply spiritual, but instantly deadly, quest for vengeance - and draws the League itself into the newest chapter of Intergang's ever-expanding race for domination.

Genres: Comics, Graphic Novels, Dc Comics, Superheroes, Comic Book, Fantasy, Graphic Novels Comics

128 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2009

About the author

Hugo, World Fantasy and American Book Award-winning author of novels and comics, including THE BIRD KING, INVISIBLE KINGDOM, and ALIF THE UNSEEN. Co-creator of Ms Marvel. Honorary doctor of letters, Rutgers University. I accidentally started a dutch baby baking cult during quarantine. Not very active on here right now, but often found on Twitter.

Reviews

[Sam Quixote]

Superhero and Justice League member Mari Jiwe/Vixen discovers her mother’s killer is still alive and sets off to Zambesi for revenge.

Yup, it’s just that straightforward for this relatively unknown DC character but I think it’s a good idea to not get too kerazy plot-wise when you’ve only got five issues to tell a story. But who the Final Crisis is Vixen? Her power is that she can say the name of an animal and temporarily gain its characteristics. Kinda like Animal Man. Exactly like Animal Man. I guess calling her “Animal Woman” was too derivative?

Anyways, I’m a huge G. Willow Wilson fan after reading her fantastic Ms Marvel comics so I picked this up hoping for more brilliance... but unfortunately it wasn’t as inspired. You can tell it’s early in Wilson’s career as it’s very rough around the edges with lots of clumsy exposition (Mari calling, helpful characters answering) and nearly all of the characters are one-dimensional. The worst part was a cringe-worthy after-school-special-type scene when Mari meets the archetypical old wise man who teaches her that the power was always within her, all she had to do was believe in herself. Bleeurghhh!

Still, you can see Wilson circling the themes that will be brilliantly realised in her Ms Marvel run: the importance of remembering and honouring your racial and cultural background and finding strength in them to forge your own identity.

The Justice League follow Mari to Africa as they’re tracking a crime syndicate called Intergang that Mari’s mother’s killer is conveniently a part of, and their scenes in this book weren’t bad. Wilson writes a decent Superman and the battle scenes were more-or-less believable in how they played out even if temporarily turning Superman against the League was another eye-rolling moment (it’s a cliché at this point). Also, “Whisper A’Daire” might be the worst supervillain name ever!

Cafu’s art though is very pretty – he depicts the beauty of the African savannah so well and you get a strong sense of its primal nature and massive space within the panels. Vixen: Return of the Lion is really a two-star story but the art definitely deserves another star.

I suppose this is a decent introduction to Vixen if you want to learn about the character though I can see why DC haven’t done much with her recently – she’s just not that interesting. Definitely not a must-read even if you’re a G. Willow Wilson fan but worth a look if you see it in the library.

[Subham]

This was such a fun read!

So Mari comes to know from Superman about what Intergang did to her village Zambesi and well how it maybe connected to her Mother's death and then we see her go there and confront the man "Kwesi" and we see what he is doing and all and like typical stories she loses at first and then through the course of the story you find her learning from an old man who rescues her about this village and her heritage and powers and the typical protagonist-rising type of story. And I love the way the writer also includes the JLA here and does fun stuff with them plus the return of Whisper A'daire which was fun and an awesome moment for Mari!

I really liked this story and it reads way fast and maybe that's a good thing, you come to know a little about Mari and her heritage and all and its a fun read showing the return to home and how they set things right after their return. Its fast-paced like I said and gives the art breathing room lets say and allows it to shine and its perfect because of that. I also like how it has that element of teamwork here and how far Mari will go to save is also well explored here so do check it out, its an amazing read!

[Chelsea 🏳️‍🌈]

This wasn't super interesting.

Mari is a pretty interesting character so I wish this story was more interesting. Vixen takes on the traits of any animal and that's fascinating. I will say, they utilize that pretty well here. The problem was, I wasn't super interested in the plot. I loved the flashback to her childhood with Abiesa. The relationship she forms with Sia was okay. I just would've rather seen how she is with the Justice League. The relationship between her and Supes was so interesting. I would love to see how she is with Dinah as well. This was definitely not a great book for me to start with.

The art is pretty okay. A few shots that weren't necessary, as usual. I did like that the African characters are drawn with African features instead of being drawn with Caucasian features and dark coloring, the way Storm is sometimes drawn.

It's a recommend if you're curious about Vixen but I wasn't super impressed.

[Quentin Wallace]

3.5 Stars

Solo adventure starring Vixen as she returns to Africa to save the village of her youth from criminals. The JLA does eventually show up as well.

I thought this was good and I liked the art as well. Nothing really groundbreaking but still a good read.

[Nnedi]

:-). yeah, was cool. highly recommended. want more of her. loved a lot of the cover art, too. my fav was the one with the gazelle.

[Stewart Tame]

This was quite good, and I really was hoping to rate it higher, but there are aspects of the ending ... Call it three and half stars. It's certainly better than one would expect a Vixen miniseries to be.

On the face of it, it's a revenge tale. Vixen returns to Africa to punish the man who killed her mother. She's only able to do this by coming to terms with her identity and gaining more depth of knowledge about her powers. We've seen variations on this story many times over the years. It's a fairly standard way of breathing fresh life into an old character. G. Willow Wilson brings a sincerity and matter-of-factness to this approach that makes it seem fresh and exciting. There is believable depth to her characters. When the Justice League shows up, they seem like people rather than superheroes. It works well.

I'm not sure about this business of having Vixen call out the name of an animal before assuming its powers. As best I can recall, that's never been an aspect of her powers before, and I suspect it has more to do with Wilson not wanting to use thought balloons or explanatory captions than anything else. It reminds me of nothing so much as countless anime series where everyone yells out the name of their attack before executing it. Silly.

And there's a moment on the last page of the book, where a character shows up--either morphing from a lion or superimposed over it--and I have no idea who they are. They haven't appeared previously in the book, and I'm not up enough on recent events in the DC Universe to have a clue as to their identity. Their appearance obviously means something with regards to Vixen's past, at least, if not also possible future events. Basically, it means that this entire miniseries is no longer self-contained. If you're not a rabid DC fan, well, sucks to be you then. It's highly annoying, and is largely the reason why this book is getting three rather than four stars.

[John Yelverton]

As much as I love the character, I found the book to be incredibly dull and boring. Really not worth your time.

[Debbie is on Storygraph]

I realized I had a huge backlog of graphic novels that I've bought and never read, so I am going to try getting through them.

Vixen is one of the lesser known superheroes of the DC universe, and it always surprises me that she isn't more popular because she is so kick-ass. I was really excited to see that G. Willow Wilson had written a mini-series featuring Mari and picked it up a while back when it was on sale.

This was great! The plot was a bit on the cliched side but it was really nice to see Vixen/Mari as the main character and letting her shine. I really enjoyed how the flashbacks of her old life were incorporated into the plot. I'm not sure if those who are unfamiliar with the character would be able to follow all the backstory, though, since much of it was covered in throwaway comments.

The art was absolutely gorgeous. Just amazing.

I really hope that DC does more with this character in the future. She has so much potential and they let her languish as a C-string superhero.

[Júlio Gabriel]

Uma aventura bem divertida, é o tipo de apresentação de personagem que dá certo: Colocando ela já em ação com personagens que já conhecemos pra dar o ar de familiaridade, contando seu passado e motivações sem necessariamente mostrar mas os fazendo relevantes ao momento atual, além de deixar com vontade de saber mais sobre os personagens que ali aparecem.

[Brian]

I had a chance to meet the writer of this story last week, G Willow Wilson is becoming a Big Name in the world of comic books. She has always been a good, solid writer. Today she's getting lots of attention for her new MS. MARVEL series from Marvel. It's a very good series and you should check it out.
But, getting back to this book, VIXEN: Return of the Lion, originally published in 2008-2009 is a good, solid story about Mari McCabe. A character that has been around for over 30 years but has never really been a top tier character, never been in the spotlight.
This story does a good job on changing that. I really like the characterization of her here, the interaction she has with a few Leaguers is really good. Her relationship with Clark is great.
The are is some of the best I have seen in quite a while... I'm really liking the style of CAFU and I think that the coloring helped out a lot on this.
Overall, this is not an earth shattering story, but it's a well told tale.... and if you have the chance to meet the creator, well then, that gives it a few extra points.
Check it out from your library... and if you love it, then go and buy it from your local comic book shop.

[Brandt]

One of the problems with superhero team books is striking a balance between the team membership, especially when certain members of the team also anchor their own titles. The original purpose of the team book was to push sales of the individual members book, as could be seen with the Justice Society of America in All Star Comics back in the 1940s. Very rarely did the JSA actually "team up." Instead the members went their individual ways and came back for the conclusion of the story, the only part that was an actual team up. This became more refined with the Silver Age of comics, which brought along the Justice League of America and the Avengers. In the beginning both teams featured the gold standard of the publisher rosters, but in the pages of The Avengers, Stan Lee effectively pulled a bait and switch with the team make-up, removing the likes of Iron Man, Thor and Captain America in favor of heroes who couldn't anchor their own titles. Eventually the Justice League followed suit and as character continuity became more important, the likes of Superman had so much going on in his own books that keeping that in line with what was going on with the JLA became too difficult to manage.

I bring this up because Vixen is one of those characters that got on the Justice League roster thanks to the big guns (Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman for the most part) not being available. I first met the character as part of a Legends crossover that portended the end of the Justice League of America title. At the time I was ambivalent to the character--she had animal powers and for a publisher who had Animal Man, B'wana Beast and Changeling among others, the ability to do animal stuff wasn't that special. But writers had attempted to do things with Vixen over the years, and when I found out that G. Willow Wilson was one of them, I wanted to check it out.

I was surprised to find out that Wonder Woman was not Wilson's first rodeo at DC, as this series pre-dates Wilson's work on the brilliant Ms. Marvel at Marvel Comics. What also surprised me is that it seems that Wilson does her best work when starting from scratch with a character like she did with Kamala Khan. I noted in my review for Wonder Woman: The Just War that Wilson appears to be a writer attempting to get her sea legs with an established character. There is a lot of this with Vixen: Return of the Lion as well, but I wonder if the reason here is that Vixen is Wilson's first foray into superhero books. To this point in her career she had written Cairo and Air, both of which were published under the Vertigo imprint. I must admit at this point that I have read neither of these, but I am familiar with the sort of material Vertigo published and I think for some writers, when the superhero trappings are removed from the story, the work can really excel (think Art Spiegelman on Maus.) The next time Wilson would handle superhero fare was on Ms. Marvel and we all know how that turned out.

Ultimately, my problem with Vixen is that there isn't much that distinguishes it from other superhero fare, and for the most part it feels very much like Christopher Priest's run on Black Panther which preceded this series by about a decade. I don't think Wilson was ripping off Priest, but given the background of both characters the parallels were likely to happen. But unlike Priest, Wilson is only given four issues to make a splash here, and ultimately it's a tiny one.

[Ronan The Librarian]

I’d give this about a 3.75.

An underrated story for an underserved (or under-read on my part) character. Vixen is a hero I haven’t seen a whole lot of, but I really liked Mari in this! This was a story about coming back to your roots when you begin to question who you are, meaningfully disguised as a revenge tale. It’s also about dispelling imposter syndrome when you are accompanied by a pantheon of gods. As solo (-ish) short-stories go, this was definitely a charming introduction.

There were a few too many hard-to-believe plot devices for me to give it a full 4th star, like:finding a kind heart in a ruthless militia who abandons his learned evils in an instant and risks everything for someone he just met or Mari becoming a chemist and whipping up an antidote in seconds. I also think upping the ante at the very end, and resolving it just as quickly in the way Wilson did was a bit forced. Roy Harper’s dialogue was carelessly written too, but these are pretty minor/forgivable gripes imo. Seeing it play out was fun enough that I enjoyed it all.

The buttery smooth art by Cafu was sweet to look at every issue. Heavily stylized but it really works, especially for Mari herself. The visualization of her powers was great, and the atypical environment always looked good.

Sidenote: does anyone know what that last page was about? Does this story continue somewhere else? Because I was not expecting a Satan/Mephisto/demon cameo at all lol

Overall I would recommend checking this out, I didn’t regret it.

[Riley Pilgrim]

This was honestly a pretty solid Vixen story. I've always enjoyed Vixen from the DC cartoons, and the occasional comic appearances she's had in other books. It's unfortunate that she hasn't had a ton of standalone success, and even then it seems short-lived. G. Willow Wilson does a pretty solid job with this miniseries, but it's still missing something in my opinion.

While I think Mari is great, she's sexy, charming, fun, and cool. Outside of that, this story is pretty one note, and not a lot is going on. Because this is only 5 issues you don't have a ton of page time to truly explore the interesting aspects of her story/history. There are moments of greatness, but then it gets bogged down with the Justice League having to be part of this story. The only reason they're in this story was to help sell this comic. It looked like DC didn't trust that Vixen could hold up on her own without Batman or Superman showing up..... I also think a revenge story isn't exactly the most interesting thing to do.

I'm excited for the new Stephanie Williams Vixen series later this year. I hope that is more focused on her, her powers and actually fleshes out Mari much more. I hope we see a supporting cast from her, and villains she can call her own. This comic leaves some story threads open, which is unfortunate that there was never a follow up story. If you like Vixen I recommend at least checking this comic out.

[MatiBracchitta]

Este cómic me decepcionó muchísimo. Sé que ha sido culpa mía, pues tenía muchas esperanzas puestas en la guionista y justamente el guion es lo más flojo del cómic. Aunque los lápices de Cafu me gustaron (y sorprendieron) mucho, la historia apenas se sostiene por si misma.
En un cómic que parece buscar ser el redescubrimiento de un personaje, hay demasiados personajes invitados y la protagonista solo tiene tres peleas (dos contra el mismo hombre y una contra un león) nada interesantes y nada emocionantes.
El trasfondo social que toca la historia es mínimo, rozando lo nulo. El plan de los antagonistas está demasiado agarrado de los pelos y depende mucho de factores que, si no fuera por el guion, serían imposibles de cumplir en otra situación.
No recomendaría a nadie leer este cómic, pero si hay algún fan del personaje o de los autores que lo quieran leer, tampoco es una obra imposible de disfrutar. Puede que los fans de DC encentren guiños o aspectos más interesantes que por mi desconocimiento del universo DC se me escapen, no lo sé. Lo que sí, si desean darle una oportunidad a esta obra, tomense unos segundos para apreciar los dibujos de Cafu que son verdaderamente excelentes.

[Danielle Booey]

Vixen is a character that I first came to enjoy in the Justice League Unlimited series and then through the main Justice League title for a time in the early 2000s. I am also a huge fan of G. Willow Wison and when I learned that almost a decade ago she had written a miniseries for DC I was automatically intrigued.

This story takes place in a time when Vixen's confidence in herself and her powers is incredibly shaken. It is a story about how you can never really go home, but also how the pain of learning that can help you find yourself again.

I loved Vixen and Superman's friendship in this book. I love how he offers to step on the bad guy for her. I love Anasi's appearance, he is such a fun trickster character and I am all for gods interacting with their avatars and totem bearers. It was also fun to see Black Lightning in action. The art in the book by Cafu is really quite stunning in places as well.

If you are a fan of Vixen or the Justice League I definitely recommend this book.

[Nate Deprey]

I wanted to read this graphic novel from the moment I knew it existed and it didn't disappoint. While I appreciate the grittiness of a title like Batwing and respond to some of the utopian elements in early Black Panther G willow Wilson threads the needle between the two expertly in Vixen. While I knew I was going to like this collection when the primary villain says to Vixen, "So this is the uncircumcised slut who thinks she can insult me." I knew we were stepping into something very real from a genre that is often anything but. With that awful utterance I was reminded of what Ms. Marvel readers are so happily aware of, that Wilson is willing to inject real world stakes into a cartoon world and with one sentence we learn everything she escaped even as she fights for her countrymen.
While Wilson is running the show here I'd also like to say that Cafu is a near magical artist and his illustrations are just beautiful.

[Zen]

I loved this story. I just wish there was more, Marie Jiwe is such an interesting character with an interesting power set. I wish the comic explored her day to day life( she's literally a supermodel) and how she juggles that with being a Justice league member, a superhero who doesn't wear a mask, her relationship with people in her life jl members or civilians.

This story explores more on her family lineage and the death of her parents and what happened to her village after she left as a child, the people she left behind and what she can do to help her village from the intergang and a glimpse of her relationship with her team mates. I'm definitely a mirco minority of people that ship her with superman :).

[Brandon]

This book reads a bit like Grant Morrison's Animal Man, but without all the meta-story that people remember and celebrate Animal Man for. Vixen returns to her home to track down her mother's killer and question who she is and what her powers are. G. Willow Wilson is able to expand more on who she is and where she's going, while kind of rebalancing her powers and motivation. CAFU's art is pretty and matches the combination of spirituality and superheroism well. Honestly I'm just happy to see more Vixen, I like her and her powers can have some creative applications I'd love to see more of.

[Gregory]

Aside from the slugfests, the story is about discovering the real power within us all which we human beings sometimes forget and addressing the issue of exploitation in Africa which is still a problem in our modern and often ignored in today's headline news as a result of Racism and Slavery from both within the continent and the Western nations who have financially benefited from it. It is still a great story and Vixen takes center stage.

Black superheroes and other characters of color are enjoying a renaissance in recent years. The high profile success and popularity of The Luke Cage series on Netflix and the Black Panther series written by author Ta-Neishi Coates as well as the current Ms. Marvel Kamala Khan, The Rookie Green Lanterns Simon Baz and Jessica Cruz in their own book, and Cyborg from DC Comics are bringing their own voices that was lacking in the past.

Vixen will becoming a part of the Justice League in a upcoming series titled Justice League of America as a result of the upcoming crossover with the Justice League and Suicide Squad. She has her own animated series online that debuted last season and will also be on the 2nd season of DC's Legends of Tommorrow on The CW. This is a great book and I strongly recommend it.

[Jean]

Vixen: Return of The Lion is one of the most exciting origin stories I've read this year.
In this volume we see how Mari returns to her village where she will discover that her powers have no limits and some things about her past.
It has an incredible character development I would have liked to see much more of this series.
The art of this graphic novel is beautiful, from now on I will follow Cafu's work.

[Sean]

Vixen deserves a good story about her and unfortunately this isn't it. G. Willow Wilson tells a Justice League story that shoehorns Vixen into. It retcons her parent's fate for no reason. Mari goes to Africa and what follows was generic, cliched, and boring. Added to that was a Batman villain that showed up for no reason (and never again). Cafu's art was fine but sparse and he did next to nothing to illustrate Vixen's powers. Overall, this never had a chance and will be soon forgotten.

[Rylan]

I’ve loved Vixen ever since I watched JLU as a kid so it was to see her finally get a book of her own. The story is nice and very character driven, I liked seeing Vixen return home and rediscover who she is. The art in here is insanely good. Overall I enjoyed this a lot, Vixen is a criminally underrated character who deserves more solo outings like this.

[Kelsey]

I really like Vixen despite the bulk of my knowledge coming from her appearance on Legends of Tomorrow. Her powers and backstory are just awesome. So this comic really worked for me, probably would have rated it lower if I was more familiar. Art was beautiful, very clean lines.

[Laura]

really enjoyed the character and the theme of -owning yourself.

[Eujean2]

It was ok and the art was pretty. I liked learning a little bit more about Vixen, though there are things I didn’t understand because I don’t have background in the DC/ Justice League universe.

[Zachariah]

3.5. I knew nothing about this DC character, but G Willow Wilson was writing so I was down. Got to say, super fun. I just wanted more. I think Wilson does best with longer.

[ArtRogueMel]

Enjoyed the art. And the story was good too.

[T Holland]

Loved it! I hope to read more.

[Sesana]

I haven't encountered the comic book version of Vixen (as opposed to the CW version) a few times, and what I know about her can basically be summed up as, "Well, she looks kind of cool." And... that's about it. So I wasn't here for her, I was here for G. Willow Wilson. Note that this is fairly early in her comics career, so this isn't nearly as polished and confident as her incredible work on Ms. Marvel. But there are moments where I could see the writer she would become. It's in the books focus on a character's roots, and on the occasional bit of humor. I don't know enough about Vixen to say whether or not Wilson was writing her accurately, but that also means that it doesn't particularly matter to me right now. I liked her, and I understood her motivations, and that was enough for me. The characters that I'm more familiar with are handled well, especially Superman. As for the story... Well, it's nothing particularly exciting. It's a slightly better than average series by a writer who will become much better. Nothing that I would suggest going out of my way to read, mind you, but certainly not a waste of time.

[Chris]

This was such a phenomenal read! G. Willow Wilson is one of the best writers in comics and Cafu does some amazing art.