Green Arrow comic to feature HIV-positive sidekick (CBC)

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LOS ANGELES - Green Arrow comic to feature HIV-positive sidekick

In addition to fighting evil villains, one comic book heroine will now have to battle her personal struggle against HIV. In the latest issue of Green Arrow, released Wednesday, the titular hero's sidekick, Mia, discovers she is HIV-positive.

The character, a former teenage runaway, picked up the virus during her time on the street as a prostitute.

Green Arrow is considered the first major comic book to deal with HIV.

Writer Judd Winick said the storyline is a way to explore socially conscious themes while also provoking the character to become more active in her world.

"We've been hinting all along the way that she's interested in taking up the mantle, being a sidekick, getting out there in the streets and helping out," Winick told the Associated Press.

Though Green Arrow initially disagrees, he eventually gives in and "allows her to slap on a costume and become his sidekick, which has the silly name of Speedy," Winick said.

"It's not as a death wish, but she can't fool around anymore. This isn't about an abbreviated life span. It is about life having focus," he said.

Winick drew from his experiences with the MTV reality show The Real World in the early 1990s – one of the other participants died the following year, after a public battle with AIDS – and from friends who have contracted the deadly virus.

It's important for comics to reflect real-world matters, Winick said.

"Comics have a long history of telling lessons," he said. "They tell stories through metaphor, but sometimes I feel we don't need the metaphor. Why should it be that Mia contracts some alien virus?"

As Speedy, Mia is also scheduled to join a popular youth series, DC Comics' Teen Titans.