Coagula
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| Coagula | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Publication information | |
| Publisher | DC Comics |
| First appearance | "The Laughing Game" Doom Patrol, no. 70 (September 1993). |
| Created by | Rachel Pollack |
| In-story information | |
| Alter ego | Kate Godwin |
| Team affiliations | Doom Patrol |
| Abilities | Alchemy |
Coagula (Kate Godwin) is a character from DC Comics' Doom Patrol series, the first transgender superhero by the publisher. Created by Rachel Pollack in response to other poorly written trans comic characters, the lesbian Coagula obtained her powers—to coagulate and dissolve material—from having sex with Doom Patrol member, Rebis. An actively-written character from September 1993 through February 1995, Coagula cameoed in other comics until her resurrection in 2024.
Character
[edit]Description
[edit]Coagula is a transgender lesbian, former prostitute and programmer.[1] After having sex with former Doom Patrol member Rebis ("an alchemical hermaphrodite"), Coagula gained[2] "alchemical powers[1] […] the power to dissolve things on the one hand and coagulate them on the other hand".[2] She tried to join the Justice League, but "it's implied that she was rejected in part for being an out transgender lesbian activist"; she instead joined the Doom Patrol.[3]
History
[edit]Coagula first appears in issue 70—"The Laughing Game"—defeating The Codpiece, a spurned man-turned-villain with a multifunctional, mechanical codpiece. After her introduction in the next few issues, Coagula takes center stage in "The Teiresias Wars", a five-part story combining "Greek mythology with [Pollack's] twisted retelling of the Tower of Babel". The character last featured in "Imagine Ari's Friend (Part Four of Four: A Cry for the Great Face)" Doom Patrol, no. 87 (February 1, 1995).[3] She was abruptly killed off in a flashback, a decision that was controversial with her fans, and an example of the women in refrigerators trope.[4]
In DC Pride 2022, Coagula cameoed in the stories "Super Pride"[5] and "Up at Bat".[6]
In 2024, DC published a 96-page one-shot tribute to Pollack under the DC Pride banner: DC Pride: A Celebration of Rachel Pollack.[4] It was scheduled for Pride Month 2024.[7] Its first story, "Shining Through the Wreckage", depicts Robotman and Will Magnus bringing Coagula back to life.[4]
Development
[edit]After creating the trans character Wanda Mann for The Sandman, Neil Gaiman solicited feedback from his friend, Rachel Pollack. She felt Gaiman had poorly written Mann, and said "she would remedy that by putting her own trans character, Coagula, into Doom Patrol"; in 2023, Gaiman admitted he would write Mann differently if creating the comic contemporaneously.[8] Coagula became comics' first transgender superheroine.[8]
Pollack desceibed the Doom Paytrol series as being "all about people that had problems with their bodies", outsiders even among the superpowered beings of the DC comics universe. Pollack wanted to add a trans woman to that universe, not as token inclusionism, but in a way that "[h]er transness and experiences informed the story." She based Coagula partly on her own trans experiences, inspired by another trans woman friend—Chelsea Goodwin—simply asking, "Oh, can I be a character? I’ve always wanted to be a character in a comic book." Pollack derived Coagula's real name (Kate Godwin) from activist and theorist Kate Bornstein and her friend's surname.[9]
The synergy of Coagula's name and powers are derived from the Latin phrase solve et coagula.[2] Pollack wrote Coagula's past to include prostitution and programming because those were the most common professions for trans women in the early-to-mid 1990s.[1]
Legacy
[edit]The Coagula character allowed Pollack to expose readers to transgender topics before being killed off,[10] garnering positive feedback from readers who finally saw themselves represented in the pages of comics.[3] Contemporary fans of Coagula wrote letters to DC, with Pollack remembering "including one or two letters from people who quite simply said their lives were saved by this. [That] it kept them from killing themselves, this character."[9]
In 2022, Polygon's Jessica Crets called Coagula "among the deepest portrayals of the trans experience in mainstream superhero comics".[9]
See also
[edit]- Lord Fanny – Comic book character
- Nia Nal – Fictional superhero from the TV series Supergirl
References
[edit]- ^ a b c Pollack, Rachel (December 15, 2013). "Interview with Rachel Pollack". The Heroines of My Life (Interview). Interviewed by Monika Kowalska. Archived from the original on September 18, 2019. Retrieved March 29, 2024.
- ^ a b c Gaiman, Neil; Pollack, Rachel (Summer 1994). "The Gods of the Funny Books". Gnosis (Interview). Interviewed by Erik Davis. Archived from the original on May 29, 2012. Retrieved August 15, 2020.
An Interview with Neil Gaiman and Rachel Pollack
- ^ a b c Lloyd-Davies, Madeleine (November 14, 2013). "Women Out Of Refrigerators: Coagula". The Toast. Archived from the original on November 12, 2020. Retrieved March 29, 2024.
- ^ a b c Epps, Justin (June 8, 2024). "After 22 Years, DC Comics Brings Its First Trans Hero Back into Official Continuity". Screen Rant. Archived from the original on June 8, 2024. Retrieved March 18, 2025.
- ^ McCreery, Cori (June 7, 2022). "DC Round-Up: Pride & Poison Ivy spotlight DC's LGBTQ+ community". The Beat: The News Blog of Comics Culture. Archived from the original on June 8, 2022. Retrieved March 29, 2024.
DC kicks off June with their second-annual DC PRIDE anthology, and the debut of a new POISON IVY miniseries.
- ^ Axelrod, Jadzia [@planetx] (June 7, 2022). "At some point I'll do proper annotation thread of the whole story, but yes, that is indeed the great Kate Godwin standing with Lee Serrano at the Gotham Trans Wellness Conference. I like to imagine Kate as well-known in the Gotham trans community, a respected queer elder" (Tweet). Archived from the original on June 9, 2022. Retrieved March 29, 2024 – via Twitter.
- ^ Griepp, Milton (March 13, 2024). "DC Plans Pride Anthology, Rachel Pollack Tribute, Covers Collection, OGNs, Pride-Themed Variants". ICv2. Archived from the original on March 14, 2024. Retrieved March 15, 2024.
In Publishing Program for Pride Month
- ^ a b Doyle, Jude Ellison S. (September 26, 2023). "Rachel Pollack's vision of spirituality may be her greatest accomplishment". Xtra Magazine. ISSN 0829-3384. Archived from the original on January 5, 2024. Retrieved April 26, 2025.
Tarot legend and comics writer Rachel Pollack's legacy is epic
- ^ a b c Crets, Jessica (July 20, 2022). "30 years later, DC Comics' first transgender superhero is still the genre's best". Polygon. Archived from the original on April 22, 2023. Retrieved January 7, 2024.
Coagula, the Doom Patrol, and pioneering writer Rachel Pollack
- ^ Corallo, Joe (October 27, 2015). "Coagula, DC's First And Only Transgender Superhero". ComicMix. Archived from the original on October 24, 2020. Retrieved March 29, 2024.
Further reading
[edit]- Rachel Pollack (w), Scot Eaton (p), Tom Sutton (i), Tom Ziuko (col), John Workman (let), Tom Peyer & Lou Stathis (ed). "The Laughing Game" Doom Patrol, no. 70 (September 1, 1993).
- Pollack, Rachel (September 13, 2019). "A Superhero on Your Own Terms: An Interview With Rachel Pollack". The Nib (Interview). Interviewed by Annie Mok. Archived from the original on October 26, 2020. Retrieved March 6, 2021.
Talking to the Doom Patrol and Tarot Wisdom author about just going out and living your life.
- Phelan, Kevin (July 12, 2020). "DC's Weirdest Villain is So Much Crazier Than You Think". Screen Rant. Archived from the original on February 7, 2021. Retrieved April 28, 2021.
There's not [sic] shortage of bizarre villains in the DC Universe, but few rival the strangeness of when the Doom Patrol were confronted by Codpiece.