Comic Books

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Comic Books

In the early years of comic books, African Americans sometimes appeared as minor characters, usually in the demeaning guise of familiar stereotypes. Not until the 1960s did blacks begin to appear as important figures in mass-circulation comic books. African-American artists and writers, meanwhile, did not gain a significant presence in the comic book industry until the 1970s, and their numbers have remained very small.

In important respects, comic books have always reflected tendencies in other popular genres, including comic strips, radio shows, movies, and television. Thus, the depictions of black Americans in comic books have often reflected established popular cultural norms. In the 1940s, for example, Will Eisner's series The Spirit included a black sidekick named Ebony White. Reflecting the transition between traditional racial stereotypes and an incipient realism during that decade of World War II, Eisner drew Ebony with some stereotypical features, such as exaggerated lips, but also portrayed him as a sympathetic character, no more the butt of low humor than The Spirit 's other characters.

In the 1960s such television shows as I Spy and Julia began to incorporate black characters as educated middle-class professionals—for example, as intelligence agents and nurses. Correspondingly, the Spiderman comic book introduced Joe Robertson as city editor at the Daily Bugle, the newspaper where Spiderman's alter ego, Peter Parker, worked as a freelance photographer. This trend continued in the 1970s, especially in the Marvel Comics universe. For example, Silver Surfer #5 (1969) featured a black scientist named Al B. Harper who used his technical skills and ultimately sacrificed his life to help the Silver Surfer save humanity from extermination by the Stranger, an intergalactic misanthrope.

Marvel also introduced the first major black superhero, the Black Panther, in 1966. The ruler of a fictional African nation called Wakanda, T'Challa, the Black Panther, wore a skintight black costume that invoked his namesake and personal totem. Though he lacked true superpowers, the Panther possessed the enhanced strength, quickness, and agility that his name suggested. Wakanda maintained a combination of traditional culture and advanced technology; reflecting this cosmopolitanism, the Black Panther often traveled to America, becoming involved with superhero groups. He first appeared in The Fantastic Four No. 52 and eventually became a regular member of The Avengers. He gained his own series, titled Jungle Action, beginning in 1973.

Marvel's first and most successful black title, however, was Luke Cage, Superhero for Hire (1972). In an accident involving a combination of electric shock and immersion in chemicals, Cage acquired impenetrable skin and greatly magnified strength (though not "superhuman" power on the scale of Marvel's the Hulk or DC Comics' Superman). A comic book equivalent of popular "blaxploitation" movie heroes, Cage lived in Harlem and fought various criminals, usually working on a "for hire" basis. Later in the 1970s, as the popularity of martial-arts films began to eclipse blaxploitation, Marvel teamed Luke Cage with a martial-arts superhero, Iron Fist. The Luke Cage series was significant as the first major black feature to be drawn by a black artist, Billy Graham. Graham also drew some issues of the Black Panther series.

Subsequent black characters in Marvel Comics have included Black Goliath, who briefly had his own title; Storm, an African woman who joined the New X-Men, a group of mutant superheroes; and the Falcon, who became the partner of Captain America in the 1970s. There have been fewer black characters in DC comics, and nearly all have been minor figures. These have included John Stewart, who occasionally appeared in Green Lantern, and Mal, a sidekick of the Teen Titans. In the 1970s a special DC collectors' series included a duel between Superman and Muhammad Ali. In the 1980s DC introduced Cloak and Dagger, a pair of symbiotically linked superheroes. Cloak is a black man, Dagger a white woman.

Also worthy of note is Sabre, a series produced by Eclipse Publications, a small comics company. Created by Don MacGregor, who wrote the Black Panther series for Marvel, Sabre features a protagonist modeled visually on the rock guitarist Jimi Hendrix. This is not a superhero comic. Rather, it is a philosophical, postnuclear holocaust fiction, somewhat like the Mad Max movies. Sabre's adventures are secondary to his meditations, and, despite his appearance, his blackness has no ethnic content. The series originally appeared in an extended, black-and-white graphic-novel format, drawn by Paul Gulacy, in 1978. Subsequent issues have been in conventional full-color comic format, drawn by Billy Graham.

In the 1980s the proliferation of specialty comic book stores and other economic factors led to fundamental changes in the comics industry. The creation of new outlets undermined the power wielded by the major companies through their control of newsstand space. New comics companies developed, marketing their titles through specialty stores, often to more mature and selective clienteles than traditional comic books had targeted. This created opportunities for people with special genre interests (social realism, fantasy, science fiction, horror, etc.),

Black Superheroes

The names Storm, Black Panther, and Luke Cage may not invoke the same connotations as Superman, Batman, and Spiderman, but that is changing as black superheroes become more prevalent in mainstream comics and take on further starring roles. The first recurring black comic character was Ebony White, created by Will Eisner as a sidekick for Spirit, a crime-fighting detective. Ebony White was a poor taxi driver with overly large lips and exaggerated saucer-like eyes. Black superheroes have come a long way since this stereotypical sidekick.

Possibly the most famous black superhero is The Black Panther, created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby in 1966 for Marvel Comics. The Black Panther is known as T'Challa, king of the imaginary African nation, Wakanda. He is a scientist as well as a superhero and wears a suit of all black. He first started as an adversary to the Fantastic Four and moved on to eventually become one of The Avengers. In 1973 he finally got his own series. The Black Panther is not a character defined by his skin color, but his adventures often do involve conflict between ancient and modern nations, racial issues, and ecological issues.

Since the emergence of The Black Panther, there have been many other black superheroes and characters in comics. Luke Cage (otherwise known as Power Man) was a street thug until he was framed and went to prison where he volunteered to be experimented on. The experiment left him with super strength and super powers. He showed up in Marvel Comics in 1972 as a "hero for hire." In 1977, DC Comics introduced its first black superhero, Black Lightning. Created by Tony Isabella, Jefferson Pierce (a.k.a. Black Lightning) was an Olympic athlete who returns to his old school to teach and decides to crusade against the school's rampant drug problem.

Other characters include Blade, a vampire hunter. Bishop and Storm, both members of the famed X-Men, Todd McFarlane's Spawn, and Battalion, part of Stormwatch. The Falcon is a street-level crime fighter who eventually teams up with Captain America. Cyborg is a member of the Teen Titans, a child genius named Victor Stone whose parents worked as scientists causing a freak accident and turning him into a cyborg. There are scores of black superheroes, both male and female represented in comics today. Instead of the stereotypical representations of the past, such as a grammatically challenged character used for comic relief, these action heroes are diverse and heroic.

women, ethnic minorities, and others to produce and consume a greater variety of comics than ever before. Even the major companies began to produce graphic novels and other special projects, designed for this new comic book market. In the early 1990s some independently produced black comic books have appeared, such as Brotherman by David, Jason and Guy Sims, and Black Thunder by Ernest Gibbs, Jr. African Americans currently working for the major companies include the writer Dwayne McDuffie and Marcus McLaurin, an editor at Marvel. These exceptions notwithstanding, black people remain underrepresented in the world of comic books, both as subject matter and as producers.

See also Comic Strips; Popular Culture