As I prepare to deal with a rush of hatemail and commentary, I want to spell out my stance for these upcoming articles.
With the DC Reboot and I’ll say the Marvel Ultimate Universe as well, you have a chance where you could retcon the races of characters to add more diversity. As it has been seen so far, the only non-white member of the Justice League is Cyborg and my god is he a horribly token character. How token? – the DC Direct Justice League figures didn’t include him. He is replacing J’onn Jo’nzz, the alien-y alien on the classic team line up.
The thing is for most characters, their race is never an issue except in really really awkward moments. Race is something that is still important in the world and it is something people forget about but most comic characters have no racial definition. This isn’t bad. Looking at British TV (since I marathoned Doctor Who) I noticed they had black characters without it being an issue, without stereotypes who were just characters where race never came up. Valve does a good job creating characters without stereotypes or the normal stereotypes at least. The thing is, if this is the case, I believe we could have more minority superheroes replacing all of the white ones without it being important or it could be used for more racial definition.
I did feel like I needed to set a set of rules for this as well.
Rules –
This can’t be a title passed down often commonly (i.e. more than once). For example – Robin, Doctor Fate, The Flash
Must be able to make sense historically. For example – Captain America would not be black due to still shaky stance of African Americans during WW2.
It must racially make sense – For example – having Black Panther be a white guy wouldn’t make sense.
It can’t be tied directly to mythology. For example – avoiding the Heimdall scenario in Thor and Thor: The Mighty Avenger.
No teams. For example Green Lantern, X-men. They will naturally have at least 1 non-white member.
Ant Man/Hank Pym – Hank Pym, when it comes down to it, is a scientist with stress problems and mental issues and he is a pretty liberal and nonviolent person. He makes bad choices, uses his powers for selfish reasons. He doesn’t care as much about class and really believes in making the world a better place. Race has no place in his identity so perhaps making him Arabic which might make some of his background more interesting. When he makes Ultron that would raise more doubts about trusting him more than I think they ever did in Ultimates.
Spider-man – Spider-man is a kid with spider powers who believes that with great power comes great responsibility. He gets picked on for being nerdy, smaller and being really un-atheletic. Making him black for example would make the character have the cultural issues added in, an aunt and uncle who would have most likely been involved in the civil rights movement and it would be an opportunity for Don Glover to be Spider-man.
Superman – Superman was lucky that Kryptonians look human. And white. I mean imagine in a black kid came from a space ship. Or an insectioid. Or if he wasn’t as attractive as he is. If Superman weren’t white he’d have a harder battle for trust (because for the average American, they just think everyone besides Lex Luthor loves Superman). Were he not white it would be nowhere as easy.
Aquaman – Loosely scientifically speaking if Aquaman lived underwater, it wouldn’t make sense for his skin to be white. Considering that in the water his skin would stick out it makes even less sense and this race has been around for thousands of years. That is time for evolution to occur. It would make sense for more blue skin and sure you could argue his curse made him look more white but why not make him another color, to have another culture. Oh, an his mom was Inuit so that would also make his skin a different color. Bam!
Give the characters a new starting point by adding diversity, a way to make heroes appeal more. Right now there isn’t much of that and it may be part of the American culture but it doesn’t need to be that way.
Join next time for 4 Comic Characters Not Defined By Gender
Note: Also on the list I came up with but not fleshed out – Catwoman, Rorschach, Zatanna, Dr Strange, Constantine and The Punisher.
Can you think of others? Comment below? Am I missing out on some majorly important racial storyline? Comment below.