I admit that I'm writing this mini-review several months after having read the comic and that starting at the second issue probably doesn't help matters, but I don't remember being blown away by Super Sikh. I asked my friend about the first one (she's Sikh, and her younger brother apparently likes the series) and our conclusion that it Super Sikh is overall pretty "meh."

Don't get me wrong, the art is beautiful. The dialogue, however, is lackluster and the plot relies on a few trope and stereotypes, which is ironic because Super Sikh is one of those comics with an underlying political message. It seeks to change people's opinions of Sikh people.  Unfortunately, while in the process of exonerating Sikh people, the comic throws Muslims under the bus. Not Cool. Muslims are cast as the terrorists who are out to destroy America or American ideals or something like that, and because Deep is the superhero of the story, America's enemies become his enemies. Super Sikh quickly devolved into an "us versus them" (America versus Muslims, or Sikh versus Muslims) story.

I don't think I need to list examples of Islamophobia in America (or in European countries) here, but I will mention the existing tension between Sikhs and Muslims. I'm going to be general with my following explanation and I know not everything I say is applicable to everyone,  but I don't want to get into a long, complicated discussion in this blog post.

For some reason, a rather large portion of Sikh Americans (and Sikh Canadians) detest Muslim Americans and Muslim Canadians. I think the sentiment has to do with the partition of India. Sikhs see themselves as fundamentally Indian (with some choosing to elevate their Punjabi heritage) while Muslims, especially South Asian Muslims, are seen as traitors. According to the Sikh haters, Muslims dared to abandon India and go to Pakistan. This is obviously not true of all Muslims. Not every Muslims is South Asian, and there were Indian Muslims who decided to stay in India during the partition. Still, although Sikhs are fighting to end discrimination against their people in the Americas, some turn a blind eye to discrimination and violence against Muslims when we should all be fighting on the same side. The end goal is religious tolerance and the end of discrimination against all racialized people.

Anyway, Super Sikh's art was nice, but it wasn't nice enough for me to forgive the perpetuation of an unnecessary feud.