I have a dream
That one day all of Zod’s children, Black ones and white ones….
Oh wait all Kryptonians are white.
First , I feel like I need to preface this .
.
This is one man’s opinion (me) and I admit I could be wrong or I may not have all the information. I admit my thirty plus years reading comics and my over ten years in the industry may have “colored” my beliefs and my words (Pun 100% intended).
Moreover, all you DC fan boys , I’m going to take a shot at your sacred characters and creators. Yes I’m going to kick the Justice league in its super-balls but the argument I’m making here I really can’t make the same one for Marvel. Marvel has always been more progressive and yes it has its issues (Luke Cage’s first costume) it also has many black faces on its covers and in its shows.
Second I think it’ll come to no ones surprise who knows me or my work or who I’ve spoken too in chat that I’m black…African American…or whatever you kids are calling it these days. I’m a man of color and so that in itself may be part of the reason why I’m writing this.
So let’s get down to business.
The Justice League, The Justice Society , my beloved Legion of superheroes, the Teen Titans and just about everything DC comics does is very , very Caucasian
. 26% of Americans are non-white.. That means that 2 out of every 10 members of every DC comic superhero team should be a person of color. That dosen’t mean 2 out of every 10 comic books should star a black character. I understand for a comic-company it’s about sales and that being the case unless your Spawn (Who is Black only by word of mouth) minority starring comics like comics starring females tend to fail or at best not do well. And the issues falls on a lack of outreach by both DC and Marvel towards minority and female readers.
But lets get back to DC….
The reason I brought this up today is MLK day and the fact last night I was watching Young Justice , loving the show then….the League shows up with some twenty members and only one black guy, no other minority and at this point I have to say..ALIENS DO NOT COUNT!. unless said alien appears as a person of normal Earth human color.
I saw the Justice League of America and I said, That’s not America, that’s someone’s messed up idea of America..” It was at that point that I took back everything I ever said about the minority leaguers (Black Vulcan, Apache Chief, Samurai and El Dorado) from the old “Super Friends”, show. If they where there it would have looked like America and maybe a little like the Village People.
But let’s not ask the question why the League looks like a meeting of the Tea-Party plus one yet. But ask the question would having say 5 minority characters change anything? Would it alter the group dynamics? Would it mean minority heroes have broken through the Kryptonians ceiling? And could we actually have five heroes of colors that better match American demographics, It Two Black, Two Hispanic and one Asian? Would you the reader and watcher think any different?
Now lets look at who they could have picked.
Black is easy: John Stewart, Black Lightning and Steel Or We can go more diverse with Vixen, Icon and Bronze Tiger…. Or we could have tossed Hal Jordan, used the Black version of Captain Marvel (Yes there was one in DC).
Hispanics are a harder. Fire , Kyle Rayner (Half Hispanic) or Blue Beatle, or for fun Extrano (Gay Hispanic DC character)
Asian: Atom or Doctor Light.
Yes DC could have dome this, but didn’t and I want to know why. Why are we still haven tokenism, the one Black character instead of just being diverse? I mean lets look at the Teen Titan comics. Static is a member, He sees its him a green chick and a bunch of white kids. Stack knows two dozen super powered teen heroes of color. At no point would that not be a “Thing” with him.
Personally, I’m not claiming I can fix this, or you can…..
But I think with this being the 25th anniversary of MLK day its something to think about. Could you accept a more diverse league? Could the world?
Personally I think if we, the creator of comics have to not only show minority kids heroes but show white kids minority heroes. We learn a lot from comics growing up and more diversity can only help make the world a better place.
In addition, we should start with the most famous (Sorry Avengers) comic team of all time. In fact in a perfect world the league would be 25% minority and 50% female.
However, that perfect world isn’t here….But I do have a dream.
Now let the bashing begin!