History Main / SuddenlyEthnicity

* ''ComicBook/YoungAvengers'' did this in the third issue. Patriot's original costume covered his entire body, head and all. When the kids are questioned by the adult Avengers, Eli takes off his mask and reveals that he's not only black, but the grandson of Isaiah Bradley, hero of the graphic novel ''Truth: Red, White, and Black'' and the second Captain America. Why yes, you ''should'' go read it.

In these melting-pot days in western countries (particularly America), it is on the way to being a DiscreditedTrope. However, many non-western countries remain near-ethnostates and such a reveal may still be rare and shocking. Compare SamusIsAGirl and GenderMisdirection. Contrast ButNotTooForeign where a seemingly foreign character is revealed to be at least partially a member of the target audience's nationality. Compare ''and'' contrast HalfHumanHybrids, where a "human" character is revealed to be partially an animal or a mythical creature.

Can overlap with InformedJudaism (especially in a HanukkahEpisode) and YouKnowImBlackRight.

In these melting-pot days in western countries (particularly [[WeAllLiveInAmerica America]]), it is on the way to being a DiscreditedTrope. However, many non-western countries remain near-ethnostates and such a reveal may still be rare and shocking. Compare SamusIsAGirl and GenderMisdirection. Contrast ButNotTooForeign where a seemingly foreign character is revealed to be at least partially a member of the target audience's nationality. Compare ''and'' contrast HalfHumanHybrids, where a "human" character is revealed to be partially an animal or a mythical creature.

* Early in ''ComicBook/LegionOfX'' ForgetMeNot is introduced with the first name "Xabi." While it hasn't been gone into with any detail, this means that he might be the first mutant of Basque descent.

->''"What can I do for you, Father O'Mally'O'Connel'O'Carrol'O'Reilly'O'Brian'O'Sullivan...who is also Italian?"''

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[[folder:Newspaper Comics]]
* Very few people got it that the character of Asok, in Scott Addams' ''ComicStrip/{{Dilbert}}'', was meant to be Asian (or American-Asian) as this was not readily apparent in the black-and-white strip cartoons. When this was made obvious as colour was added to the strip, many readers were surprised, and some even wrote to Addams, asking if a mistake had been made by the colourist.

[[folder:Newspaper Comics]]
* Very few people got it that the character of Asok, in Scott Addams' ''ComicStrip/{{Dilbert}}'', was meant to be Asian (or American-Asian) as this was not readily apparent in the black-and-white strip cartoons. When this was made obvious as colour was added to the strip, many readers were surprised, and some even wrote to Addams, asking if a mistake had been made by the colourist.
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[[quoteright:231:[[ComicBook/BlackManta https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/black_manta_unmasked.png]]]]

[[folder:Film]]

* ''WesternAnimation/FrozenII'' reveals that Anna and Elsa's mother, Queen Iduna, was ethnically Northuldra ([[FantasyCounterpartCulture who are based on the Sámi people]]), but she was light-skinned enough to pass for Arendellian ([[FantasyCounterpartCulture majority white Europeans/Viking Norwegians]]). She concealed her true heritage from everyone except her husband because of her people's associations with magic, which Arendelle greatly fears.

* In the ChristmasEpisode of ''WesternAnimation/{{Arthur}}'', it's suddenly revealed that several of the characters (who are all presented as animals, so none of them really have a visible ethnicity) are actually from different ethnic backgrounds (The Brain is African-American, Francine and her family are Jewish, etc.). Francine seems to get it the hardest, as during the episode Muffy invites her to a Christmas party and gets really mad when she turns her down, thus giving the episode an excuse to talk about Hanukkah. Another episode has her trying to get through the Yom Kippur fast.

* ''WesternAnimation/StevenUniverse'': [[DarkSkinnedRedhead Lars']] ethnicity was unspecified for most of the show, and the only detail any of the crew gave was that he wasn't white. Lars was eventually implied by various details[[labelnote:note]]"The New Lars" shows his father is tanned-skinned and named "Dante", while his mother is lighter-skinned and where he got his orange hair. In "The Good Lars", he has a family recipe for [[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ube_halaya ube]]. "Dewey Wins" reveals his surname is "Barriga".[[/labelnote]] to be mixed raced and of Filipino heritage on his father's side.

* ''Lavernius'' Tucker of ''Machinima/RedVsBlue'' is Black. Probably. You wouldn't know, because he's wearing a helmet and has a Mexican voice-actor.

* Jim Valentino's ''ComicBook/{{Shadowhawk}}'' remained masked during his first arc. Midway through his second arc, he encountered a white-supremacist named Hawk's Shadow, [[EvilCounterpart who modeled himself after Shadowhawk]]. When Shadowhawk encountered Hawk's Shadow, who bragged that he viciously killed black people, the infuriated Shadowhawk removed his mask and shouted, [[BerserkButton "You mean like ME?"]]

* This is the entire premise of ''ComicBook/BlueMarvel'', a [[SupermanSubstitute Superman expy]] active as a hero in the 1960's, until one day his mask was accidently ripped during a battle, and it was revealed to the world that he was Black. Because this occurred at the height of the UsefulNotes/CivilRightsMovement, it predictably exploded and enflamed racial tensions. White people started hating and fearing him for being [[DeliberatevaluesDissonance "Colored"]] and having powers [[UngratefulBastard even when he was saving them]], while Black people began labeling him a [[CategoryTraitor "Race Traitor"]] for not using his powers for their cause, especially those with more extremist views. Eventually, Blue Marvel was forced to permanently retire from superheroing by the Executive Order of the US President in order to prevent things from becoming chaotic. He then promptly disappeared to live a secret civilian life for the next several decades, until the modern day when Iron Man and the Avengers asked for his help in dealing with the return of his ArchEnemy [[EvilCounterpart Anti-Man]].

* This is the entire premise of ''ComicBook/BlueMarvel'', a [[SupermanSubstitute Superman]] style hero active in the 1960's, until one day his mask was accidently ripped during a battle, and it was revealed to the world that he was Black. Because this occurred at the height of the UsefulNotes/CivilRightsMovement, it predictably exploded and enflamed racial tensions. White people started hating and fearing him for being "Colored" and having powers, while Black people began labeling him a [[CategoryTraitor "Race Traitor"]] for not using his powers for their cause. Eventually, Blue Marvel was forced to permanently retire from superheroing by the Executive Order of the US President in order to prevent things from becoming chaotic. He then promptly disappeared to live a secret civilian life for the next several decades, until Iron Man and the Avengers asked for his help in dealing with the return of his ArchEnemy Anti-Man.

* This is the entire premise of ''ComicBook/BlueMarvel'', a [[SupermanSubstitute Superman]] style hero active in the 1960's, until one day his mask was accidently ripped during a battle, and it was revealed to the world that he was Black. Because this occurred at the height of the UsefulNotes/CivilRightsMovement, it predictably exploded and enflamed racial tensions. White people started hating and fearing him for being "Colored" and having powers, while Black people began labeling him a [[CategoryTraitor "Race Traitor"]] for not using his powers for their cause. Eventually, Blue Marvel was forced to permanently retire from superheroing by the Executive Order of the US President. He then promtly disappeared to live a secret civilian life for the next several decades, until Iron Man and the Avengers asked for his help in dealing with the return of his ArchEnemy Anti-Man.

* This is the entire premise of ''ComicBook/BlueMarvel'', a [[SupermanSubstitute Superman]] style hero active in the 1960's, until one day his mask was accidently ripped during a battle, and it was revealed to the world that he was Black. Because this occurred at the height of the UsefulNotes/CivilRightsMovement, it predictably exploded and enflamed racial tensions. White people started fearing him for being black and having powers, while Black people began labeling him a [[CategoryTraitor "Race Traitor"]] for not using his powers for their cause. Eventually, Blue Marvel was forced to permanently retire from superheoring by the Executive Order of the US President. He then promtly disappeared to live a secret civilian life for the next several decades, until Iron Man and the Avengers asked for his help in dealing with the return of his ArchEnemy Anti-Man.

* This is the entire premise of ''ComicBook/BlueMarvel'', a [[SupermanSubstitute Superman]] style hero active in the 1960's, until one day his mask was accidently ripped during a battle, and it was revealed to the world that he was Black. Because this occurred at the height of the UsefulNotes/CivilRightsMovement, it predictably exploded and enflamed racial tensions. White people started fearing him for being black and having powers, while black people began labeling him a [[CategoryTraitor "Race Traitor"]] for not using his powers for their cause. Eventually, Blue Marvel was forced to permanently retire from superheoring at the request of the US government. He then promtly disappeared to live a secret civilian life for the next several decades, until Iron Man and the Avengers asked for his help in dealing with the return of his ArchEnemy Anti-Man.

In these melting-pot days in western countries, it is on the way to being a DiscreditedTrope. However, many non-western countries remain near-ethnostates and such a reveal may still be rare and shocking. Compare SamusIsAGirl and GenderMisdirection. Contrast ButNotTooForeign where a seemingly foreign character is revealed to be at least partially a member of the target audience's nationality. Compare ''and'' contrast HalfHumanHybrids, where a "human" character is revealed to be partially an animal or a mythical creature.

In these melting-pot days, it is on the way to being a DiscreditedTrope. Compare SamusIsAGirl and GenderMisdirection. Contrast ButNotTooForeign where a seemingly foreign character is revealed to be at least partially a member of the target audience's nationality. Compare ''and'' contrast HalfHumanHybrids, where a "human" character is revealed to be partially an animal or a mythical creature.

[[caption-width-right:231:...to be honest, we just assumed it was because of the [[ColorCharacter color of your costume]].[[note]]And for context, this panel is the first time DC had ever shown his face... over 10 years after his first appearance.[[/note]]]]

* In Creator/DCComics, ComicBook/BlackManta was revealed to be black in 1977, ''ten years'' after his debut. Notably, he attempts to use his race to trick people into following him by claiming his actions against Comicbook/{{Aquaman}} were in an attempt to make Atlantis a paradise for minorities all along. This is, naturally, a total lie he used to personal gain, which amusingly still leads to the aesop that all races are indeed equal: in that all of them are capable of producing jerks (further reinforced by the revelation that he suffers from a form of autism, which is played as a FreudianExcuse prompting Aquaman to later magically cure him...and the first thing Black Manta does afterwards is stab Aquaman and brag about having murdered his infant son).

* ''Comicbook/ElfQuest'' has a fantasy version of the trope. Kahvi (leader of the Go-Backs, a tribe of "pure" but magicless elves) is revealed to be a Wolfrider (a tribe of forest elves with animal heritage).

* [[Comicbook/{{Nightwing}} Dick Grayson]], the first Robin and later Nightwing of DC Comics, was revealed to be of Romani descent decades after his initial introduction. Interestingly, in one interview about ''Film/BatmanForever'' (1995), Chris O'Donnell referred to Grayson as "a gypsy lad"; many readers probably thought he was just being metaphorical.

* ''Comicbook/BatmanEndgame'', a comic that - like so many other stories featuring ComicBook/TheJoker - is wildly speculative, floats the possibility that the Joker, whose early life and background are almost completely unknown, could, under his chemical-bleached skin (which is even suggested to be makeup at one point in the narrative), be fully or part American Indian, or at least [[TheCaptivityNarrative an outsider reared in that culture from birth]] (perhaps a descendant of one of the English/Native "lost colonies" from elsewhere in America). Nothing explicit is ever spoken, but Dr. Paul Dekker, AKA Crazy Quilt, tells Batman that the Joker revealed to him that [[spoiler: he is [[Really700YearsOld actually a 400-year-old being]], rendered semi-immortal by a cell-reconstructing chemical called dionesium that he found in a cave beneath Gotham City centuries ago. Crazy Quilt even shows Batman one of his mad paintings, which depicts the Joker standing on a bluff in colonial dress, already waiting when the first European sailing ship is arriving in Gotham Harbor. Part of the story is true: dionesium is indeed real, and there is a cave beneath Gotham that contains a pool of it. But Batman doubts all the other details from the beginning - and, after questioning Uriah Boone, a resurrected assassin for the Court of Owls society and the only person confirmed to have been alive in Gotham in the 17th century, concludes from Boone's body language that his claim that the whole story is true is a lie.]] Indeed, the comic ultimately suggests that the tale is merely [[MultipleChoicePast one more colorful fabrication on the Joker's part]] - [[MaybeMagicMaybeMundane although the last two pages of the comic subtly hint otherwise]]. However, the theory that the Joker has Native ancestry is pretty plausible when you consider that the only other possible interpretation of Dekker's account is that [[HumanoidAbomination he's not human]].
* ''Comicbook/YoungAvengers'' did this in the third issue. Patriot's original costume covered his entire body, head and all. When the kids are questioned by the adult Avengers, Eli takes off his mask and reveals that he's not only black, but the grandson of Isaiah Bradley, hero of the graphic novel ''Truth: Red, White, and Black'' and the second Captain America. Why yes, you ''should'' go read it.
* Similar to Patriot, the [[AffirmativeActionLegacy new]] Comicbook/{{Nova}} was introduced as Sam Alexander, with no real indication that he was anything other than white. It wasn't until the third issue that we learned his mother is Mexican and that he's of partial Latino ancestry. In hindsight, the fact that he's AmbiguouslyBrown in ''WesternAnimation/UltimateSpiderMan'' might have been foreshadowing.

** Averted in ''ComicBook/SecretWars1984''. When [[Comicbook/FantasticFour Reed Richards]] is helping Rhodey with his armor, Rhodey comments that he must be surprised to learn that Iron Man is black. Reed basically just shrugs and says he'd never given Iron Man's race much thought one way or another.

* Parodied in a Creator/MarvelComics spoof ''Comicbook/WhatIf...'' story, where Comicbook/TheAvengers of an alternate universe are shocked when their new African member ComicBook/BlackPanther takes off his mask to reveal ... he's a white South African. When the Avengers protest that he joined under false pretenses, he points out that having a name with "Black..." in it doesn't indicate your ethnicity (Comicbook/BlackWidow is white) and declares "You don't care about real diversity! This is nothing but ... but ''tokenism''!"

* Creator/JuddWinick, the writer who established Ice's Romani heritage, previously declared that [[Franchise/GreenLantern Kyle Rayner's]] father was a Mexican-American named Gabriel Vasquez rather than an Irish-American named Aaron Rayner, with Aaron retconned into being an alias he used while undercover. This was further solidified after the ''Comicbook/{{New 52}}'' reboot, which established that Kyle was aware of his Latino ancestry from the very beginning, with ''Comicbook/OmegaMen'' even depicting him as a fluent Spanish speaker. This is a far cry from Kyle's early appearances, which instead placed a great deal of emphasis on his Irish heritage, with him and his mother Maura sometimes speaking in Gaelic to each other.
* Mister Bones, a former DC villain turned government operative (head of the Department of Extranormal Operations), has among his powers transparent skin and organs, leaving him looking to all the world like a skeleton. Eventually, it turns out that he's ethnically black, and can appear so through use of make-up. At one point, Comicbook/{{Manhunter}} (Kate Spencer) tries to guilt-trip him into getting involved in a border dispute by claiming he has "forgotten what his skin color is". Bones predictably chews her out and ends the conversation.

* Jim Valentino's ''Comicbook/{{Shadowhawk}}'' remained masked during his first arc. Midway through his second arc, he encountered a white-supremacist named Hawk's Shadow, [[EvilCounterpart who modeled himself after Shadowhawk]]. When Shadowhawk encountered Hawk's Shadow, who bragged that he viciously killed black people, the infuriated Shadowhawk removed his mask and shouted, [[BerserkButton "You mean like ME?"]]

* Done deliberately in an issue of Creator/MarkWaid's ''Comicbook/{{Daredevil}}''. The hero finds out that the NYPD has been infiltrated by members of the white supremacist group the Sons of Serpent, and thus realizes [[ParanoiaFuel that any of the cops in the courthouse with him could be one of them]]. One of the officers is a young woman in a pair of CoolShades, who eventually removes them [[TheReveal to reveal]] that she's Asian-American. This then assures the reader that there's no way she could be one of the Serpents.

* The Golden Age heroine Miss Patriot had the real name Mary Morgan. In a 2015 ''Comicbook/AntMan'' issue, it was revealed that her real name was Mary Morgenstern (a Jewish last name) and that her family had changed it back in the 1930s to avoid the antisemitism that was rampant back then.

* In ''[[Comicbook/XMen X-Treme X-Men]]'', Bishop, who had previously been assumed to be African American, is revealed to be a descendant of the Aboriginal Australian Gateway.

* There was a mild uproar in the Literature/HarryPotter fandom when extremely minor character Blaise Zabini was revealed to be a black male in the sixth book. Prior to this, Blaise had been a popular OCStandIn for people who wanted sympathetic Slytherin characters; {{Fanon}} generally depicted the character as a redheaded [[GenderBlenderName girl]] or a swarthy Italian boy.

* [[Series/BlackLightning Black Lightning's]] ArchEnemy Tobias Whale initially seems to be a racist white man serving as a foil to the black hero, but after a few episodes it's revealed that he's in fact a black albino who is afflicted with [[BoomerangBigot Boomerang Bigotry]] due to feeling that the black community never accepted him because of his condition.

[[folder:Web Comics]]

* In ''WebComic/{{Homestuck}}'', [[spoiler: once Jane enters [[WithGreatPowerComesGreatInsanity "Trickster Mode"]], her skin goes from just being generic white (like all the other characters) to very obviously Caucasian. This was played for laughs by Jane declaring that she felt so… "CAUCASIAN!", but it was retconned to "PEACHY!" shortly afterwards because a number of dickwads decided to use it as an excuse to be dicks to POC fans.]]

-->'''Blinkin:''' [[{{Mondegreen}} A Jew]]? Here?

** There are some ethnic reveals in the Simpson family history. Homer reveals to Lisa that they have a Native American ancestor (much to her chagrin, as she had made up being part Indian for a report and then confessed that she wasn't). Another reveal is Lisa finding out she's 1/64 black descended from a runaway slave (which Grandpa knew all along but lied about because he's Suddenly Racist).