Batwing Unmasked: An African Super Hero Documentary Review – Celebrating a Forgotten DC Character

Before anyone complains about the headline, no – Batwing Unmasked: An African Super Hero isn’t about Luke Fox, who suits up as Batwing in the comics and the Batwoman TV show. This is all about the first Batwing, David Zavimbe, who was the Congolese representative of Batman Incorporated and created by Grant Morrison and Chris Burnham.

Produced by Joachim Landau, Batwing Unmasked explores the legacy of Batwing, as well as the cultural relevance and importance of representation of an African superhero. The documentary isn’t only a history lesson on the character, though, as it also ventures into the influence he’s had on creatives around the continent. Further to this, Batwing Unmasked isn’t afraid to get into the disappointment of when Zavimbe’s run came to a halt and he was replaced by Luke as the new Batwing, discussing how it can be seen as a setback for African storytelling.

Representing the creative team who worked on the Batwing run centered on Zavimbe is writer Judd Winick. Since Winick isn’t a regular at DC Comics anymore, he provides a non-corporate but fair assessment into the decisions behind the creation of Zavimbe’s Batwing as well as the book’s cancellation. For those wondering, yes, Winick takes the opportunity to address the elephant in the room – a white guy from America working on a book about an African character from Tinasha.

South African artist Loyiso Mkize also reveals how he boarded a Batwing book, thinking it would be about Zavimbe only to realize it was the story of Luke Fox. As one of South Africa’s main voices in the documentary, Mkize provides a nuanced and insightful perspective both on the complexity and importance of Zavimbe’s Batwing and superheroes from an African perspective. In a panel following the screening of the documentary at the Joburg Film Festival, Mkize spoke about superheroes and their influence on his own work in Supa Strikas and Kwezi. The story about Supa Strikas, especially how it leveraged corporate sponsorship from Caltex to become a reality and find itself into the hands of kids, is worthy of a documentary itself.

From Nairobi to New York, there’s a wealth of diverse commentary, as everyone from Zebra Comics to Chukwudi Iwuji unpack all things Batwing. Iwuji, who has a relationship with James Gunn having worked with the filmmaker on Guardians of the Galaxy and Peacemaker, urges the DC Studios co-CEO to pay attention to the story of David Zavimbe. It’s not an outrageous request, and knowing Gunn’s fondness for lesser-known characters in the DC Universe, it has more possibility of happening now than before.

Much like the character himself, Batwing Unmasked gets in and out efficiently, not wasting much of its hour-long runtime. Having said that, there’s one nitpick I have with the documentary: It’s obvious that there are one or two commentators who are not comic book fans at all. Everybody has the right to an opinion, sure, but since this is about a comic book character and the influence of comics on the continent, wouldn’t it have been better to hear from people who adore the medium as a whole rather than someone who has only watched a few MCU films? I could easily listen to the likes of Mkize and Njoka Suyru receive more screentime to provide their expert commentary instead.

This minor gripe aside, Batwing Unmasked: An African Super Hero is the type of documentary that you’d like to see produced more often. Seriously, how many ones have Superman and Batman had over the years? Let’s change this and showcase some of the more underrated and underappreciated superheroes as well. David Zavimbe might not feature in DC Comics right now, but his legacy burns bright among those whose lives he changed with his remarkable story.

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