Politics in Media - The Good, the Bad, and the Preachy

That would be quite an interesting idea to work with actually, and I also would imagine it would piss of many alt-reichers.

I do recall their being a black Bat family member but don't remember his name as he is rarely used.

Luke Fox, son of Lucius Fox. Alias: Batwing.

He's also not the original Batwing. That would be David Zavimbe.

Yes, but the problem with his character was...well, he wasn't anywhere near Gotham City.

I also like Telltale gave Lucius Fox's daughter the Bat-Wing identity.

Black Batman was also the premise of the SUPREME POWER comics where Nighthawk is a black man from a family of billionaires. This just got his parents murdered in a random hate crime so he hunts down and kills or cripples racists. He's genuinely confused when Hyperion decides to befriend him (because he's been raised on comic books and thinks he should be friends with Batman). Oddly, it encourages Nighthawk to become a genuine hero and help more society as a whole—until it all goes to hell.

Icon was the original "black Superman" concept, though he was actually more like the Martian Manhunter to be honest (and making Jonn black in his human identity was a good idea, IMHO).

Edited by CharlesPhipps on Feb 7th 2019 at 5:07:44 AM

We already have a perfectly good Black Superman in Steel. Pity he seems to be getting sidelined lately.

Steel is a great character.

Oddly, he was sidelined for Natasha Irons which you think would make an even better character except:

• Natasha Irons is an annoying shit.
• Steel has a heavy burden about the fact he designed weapons for the US government that ended up on the streets as military surplus, killing black kids.

He's also one of the few current inventor characters at DC.

If the DCEU ever gets it shit together, I'd be sooooooo down for a Steel adaptation.

Seriously, the guy is one of the best things to come out of the Superman mythos, besides only the Big Blue Boy Scout himself and Lois Lane.

And considering the comic's been running for nearly a full century nonstop now, that is high praise.

Edited by HailMuffins on Feb 7th 2019 at 9:57:19 AM

Always liked Martian Manhunter. I wonder if we will get a Kamala Khan movie

Steel's more like DC's black Iron Man. Not to be confused with Marvel's black Iron Man which is War Machine.

Yeah, Steel may have originated from Superman comics and is meant to be an in-universe legacy/tribute/successor to the original Man of Steel, but he isn't a black Superman. Not by a long shot.

Black Lightning used to be considered something of an embarrassment but they've redone him well and I love his TV show.

He works better as an older father figure, I think.

Edited by CharlesPhipps on Feb 8th 2019 at 4:18:10 AM

I'm guessing he was part of the D-List of DC, right?

He's a morally upstanding Paragon who took up the mantle to keep Sperman's legacy.

There is a reason why his was the most popular of the four: the character captures the spirit of what Superman represents better than anyone else in the Boy Scout's supporting cast, and alongside Nightwing the character I want the most to lead the DCEU after they kill off Superman for good.

So yeah, he might not literally be Black Superman, but he can easily fill the role of the moral compass of the DCEU.

x3 I disagree: aside from the nature of their abilities, there is no similarity whatsoever between the two: Steel is a ordinary black man from a humble birth who was inspired to become a hero; Iron Man is the white rich heir of a giant empire who became a hero to atone for his own mistakes.

Steel is someone whose arc is about living up to the heroic legacy he chose to uphold; Iron Man is about a deeply flawed man trying realizing how much damage he made to the world and becoming a better person to make up for that.

Edited by HailMuffins on Feb 8th 2019 at 9:50:48 AM

Actually, John's origin is not that dissimilar from Iron Man's. Like Tony, John was a weapons engineer whose weapons ended up being used to kill innocent people. He quit working for his company after he found out and was motivated to become a hero after having his life saved by Superman and later on witnessing his death. Which is not unlike how Ho Yinsen's sacrifice motivated Tony become a hero.

As mentioned, Icon is a much better candidate for black Superman given their similar origins and power sets. However, Icon lacks the privilege that Superman is often afforded.

Edited by windleopard on Feb 8th 2019 at 6:12:39 AM

Yeah, there are similarities (sorry, I exagerated) but the two characters are just too different in my mind to really be counterparts of each other.

Also, I don't know much about Icon, is he from the DC lineup?

DC made a subprint called Milestone in the 90s that was basically designed to test and market black superheroes (also a couple of gay ones back when this was a radical decision). It was noticeably more adult and caused some people to question whether its gangs, teen pregnancy, and drug plots were unintentionally racist (notably, mainstream DC got that way too).

It didn't fail but it didn't quite succeed either.

Icon was a 100+ year old shapeshifting alien who came to Earth and was adopted as an antebellum South slave's person. He managed to build his way up to becoming a highly successful lawyer when he was challenged for not doing enough by a young woman who broke into his house (and became his sidekick). So becomes a superhero who is a bit too conservative for the city's youth.

I really enjoyed the comics but he is a transparent Superman substitute.

Static (From Static Shock) was the most successful result of the setting.

Edited by CharlesPhipps on Feb 8th 2019 at 6:30:35 AM

Oh, that's where he's from! No wonder I never found anything with him back when I was young. Loved that cartoon!

Anyway, the racist accusation seems...weird. Superhero comics reflect society, ever since Stan Lee got to work with them. It's part of how they managed to survive to this day.

Black communities are in the US are notoriusly harder to live in than the average, because American society constantly pushes it's own black citzens down. Wouldn't it be merely natural, then, for comics designed to appeal to black readers to reflect that? To show black heroes struggling and overcoming problems so similar to the ones they themselves face and witness?

At least, that's how I think the logic goes.

Edited by HailMuffins on Feb 8th 2019 at 11:48:29 AM

Well the authors were all black themselves and trying to write relevant socially conscious stories. It's just that there was always an element of escapism to superheroes that many questioned making all the new prominent superheroes related to darker subject matter hurt it.

Either way, they were really-really good.

(The current Black Lightning series is very similar to Milestone at its height)

Famously, one of the left leaning writers was horrified to discover Clarence Thomas loved Icon and read him between cases.

:)

Edited by CharlesPhipps on Feb 8th 2019 at 6:51:27 AM

Normally you would think that someone would feel good about that but then I remember that USA Politics are...USA Politics.

Uh.

Well, like the Hitman once said:"You can't choose who's going to believe in you."

I don't normally like Garth Ennis, but he does have some pretty good quotes.

Edited by HailMuffins on Feb 8th 2019 at 11:54:00 AM

I've heard of Icon somewhere else, one of his charms wasn't that he was pretty much a relatively sympathetic satire of Black conservatives?

Oh, so a Poe's Law situation, then?

Even more from what I heard. Like, Icon before more Left even if he never fully left his original conservative views.

Aka. Not even Poe's Law, but a relatively sympathetic way to say people as him to be better (which always means be more Left apparently).

Actually no. Milestone had authors of multiple backgrounds including a white transwoman. Not all the writers were black.

But it was founded by a coalition of black writers, so the overral point still stands.

Personally, I don't think them writing about such harder topics diminishes the escapism element, but enhances it, as escapism is all about characters doing what we wish we could but for any number of reasons cannot. How dark or light a story is doesn't really enter into it.

Granted it can be a little dificult because it present particular challanges on is own, like how they interact with others, the tone and so othetr things in general.