Ethnic Super Heroes

[Earth 2 Chris]

I think the new X-Men was Stan Lee and Roy Thomas and Len Wein kicking around the idea of a diverse group of super heroes from different nationalities. They combined that with several characters Dave Cockrum had designed for LOSH but never used, and grafted it on to the X-Men, figuring it may go over better in an established venue.

The ethnic SF characters seemed more shoehorned in. I've always liked Apache Chief and Samurai, and Black Vulcan is okay. El Dorado seemed like a total deus ex machina that had whatever power was needed at the moment. A cipher with an accent.

Chris

[kryptosmaster]

The Global Guardians were pc on steroids.

[StrangeVisitor]

Do you ever notice with ethnic superheroes (especially African-American heroes)
That a hero is either:
1. Named black _____. (or)

It's like they are afraid to waste the blackness.

Several characters first appearances and early influences - Luke Cage (June 1972), Black Goliath (April 1975), Black Lightning (April 1977), Brother Voodoo (Sept. 1973) - are clearly comic's "reflection" of blaxploitation movies of the time - Black Caesar (1973), Black Samson (1974),Blacula (1973), Shaft (1971) and Slaughter (1972).

[johnnystorm]

I don't believe the New X-Men or The Global Guardians were "pc" creations. Political Correctness wasn't so much a hot button issue in the mid-'70s as it was in the mid-'80s on. Both groups were created by utilizing heroes specific to a country, in an attempt to create a global version of the team. Therefore, it's natural that an American hero would be a Native American, just as Storm being black reflected nothing more than the fact she was from Kenya. In the Global Guardians, Rising Sun was from Japan, Fire was from Brazil, etc.

The H-B Super Friends were created SPECIFICALLY with the intent to diversify the group, just as DC Comics has recently done with the new Atom, Firestorm, etc. The intent was completely different.

As far as how the characters are discussed, I can't say I've ever really heard anything negative about the characters themselves. They just weren't popular characters compared to Batman & Superman. I wouldn't say Black Vulcan or Apache Chief were treated poorly based on appearing on Harvey Birdman...they did the same treatment to other H-B characters, includng the Flintstones, Jetsons, Yogi Bear, etc.

And Black Vulcan was, as was stated, a direct change to avoid paying Tony Isabela for use of Black Lightning.

[kingdom warrior]

I always disliked Hispanic superheroes in comics Except Luchadores Santo,Blue Demon and Mil Mascaras etc.....

For the most part they were horrible and stereotyped......example Don Fideo "I fight for my people in El barrio Oh sheeeet meng I am the Aztec Tortuga"....LOL! LameO!!! CrapO

I'll Take my Masked Luchadores fighting Mummy's and Vampires any day than american latin superheroes

[huedell]

None of that, even makes Him cool ...., He still sucks and will forever suck, because of his Lame-O Scripts on Super Friends.

To me, personally, the upswing of this obvious deficiency early on,
is that it seems that since the time the "SF add-ons" became a "nostalgic" part of being a 70s/80s superhero fan, writers on JLU, in the comics, etc....have gone out of their way to make them more interesting and dareIsay "serious" characters in the DCU (This includes THE WONDER TWINS
and other such "created for TV" characters as well.).

[thunderbolt]

There was a deficiency of chicks on Superfriends, too. That never got fixed.

[megowgsh]

I guess my point is that every time these heroes are discussed, they are referred to as, or thought of as, the "ethnic" super heroes. BUT, we NEVER think of Storm or Thunderbird or Colossus as the "ethnic" superheroes.

Why? Why is that "stigma" not also on Marvel's attempt at diversity and only on HB?

PS and don't tell me PC or quotas were not alive and well in the 1970s. Go look at Avengers 181 (1978) when they paired down to 7 members and made sure the Falcon was included because the US Government demanded "diversity".

[The Toyroom]

I guess my point is that every time these heroes are discussed, they are referred to as, or thought of as, the "ethnic" super heroes. BUT, we NEVER think of Storm or Thunderbird or Colossus as the "ethnic" superheroes.

Why? Why is that "stigma" not also on Marvel's attempt at diversity and only on HB?

That's probably because over the years those X-Men characters you mentioned were given personalities and backstories that made them viable characters regardless of their ethnic heritage.

Whereas those HB characters were simply created as a graft-on attempt to be more PC....they were never fleshed out beyond the ethnic stereotypes. Which may have to do with the media in which they were created. With only a handful of Challenge of the Super Friends episodes, coupled with a cast of 13 villains and 11 heroes, there was no room for exposition or a scene or two to expand these characters personalities beyond the obvious. In comparision look how many X-Men books there have been over the last 30 years.

[The Toyroom]

There was a deficiency of chicks on Superfriends, too. That never got fixed.

Right, Wonder Woman, Jayna, Wendy and Rima the Jungle Girl....Would it have killed them to have had Hawkgirl or Black Canary or Huntress (since the latter two were optioned for the Superhero Challenge/Roast also produced by H-B)

[megowgsh]

That's probably because over the years those X-Men characters you mentioned were given personalities and backstories that made them viable characters regardless of their ethnic heritage.

Whereas those HB characters were simply created as a graft-on attempt to be more PC....they were never fleshed out beyond the ethnic stereotypes. Which may have to do with the media in which they were created. With only a handful of Challenge of the Super Friends episodes, coupled with a cast of 13 villains and 11 heroes, there was no room for exposition or a scene or two to expand these characters personalities beyond the obvious. In comparision look how many X-Men books there have been over the last 30 years.

EXCELLENT Point!!!

Now, taking what you just said to the next level would it not have made for a cool episode when instead of the villains changing the course of events that made Green Lantern, Wonder Woman and Superman, they changed the course of events for Samurai, Apache Chief and Black Vulcan? Then we may have gotten the back story on those characters we deserved.

[Earth 2 Chris]

Hawkgirl appeared a few times, especially during the "All-New Super Friends Hour" season, with Hawkman of course. I saw a later short where they colored her helmet purple (!) and all her other colors were off too.

Darrel McNeil (who worked on SF) revealed that he almost sold HB on a Black Canary story, but it fell through.

As for backstory on the made-for-TV Super Friends, Apache Chief's origin was revealed on the episode that featured the Legion of Doom's origins. They tied it into their version of Giganta.

Chris

[The Toyroom]

And I think another problem the 3 heroes faced (sorry....I can't acknowledge El Dorado)...was the fact that they really weren't tied in to any of the LOD villains like the other SF were. As Chris points out, Apache Chief's backstory was tied in to Giganta's but everyone knew that she was really a Wonder Woman foe, contrary to the SF origin.
So again, that made them seem like add ons.

I think a way to not have them seem like characters created just to be PC would have been to use existing DC characters to fill those slots. They could have ponied up the dough to use Black Lightning outright. They could have used Super Chief or Pow Wow Smith if that wanted that Indian representation (albeit changing the name or look slightly to be more dynamic and powerful)...at least they would have been existing characters. For Samurai, I'm not sure of that Japanese Superboy foe whose name escapes me was around back then....was it Rising Sun?

[johnnystorm]

PS and don't tell me PC or quotas were not alive and well in the 1970s. Go look at Avengers 181 (1978) when they paired down to 7 members and made sure the Falcon was included because the US Government demanded "diversity".

That's true, I'd forgotten about that Avengers storyline...that actually was a PC story - but it also was somewhat of a statement against such enforced action. As I recall, the Falcon was extremely unhappy at being added for just that reason. And certainly at Marvel more than DC, there were attempts to diversify the superhero population before. Red Wolf, Black Panther, Falcon, come to mind as '60s era creations. At DC, there was still resistance to this change well into the mid-'70s when Black Lightning was created. Recall the Jericho issue in the early Teen Titans series. The only ethnic characters at DC I can think of from the 60-early 70s were Mal Duncan in TT (significantly non-powered & non-costumed) & I-Ching in Wonder Woman (we'll not bring up Egg Fu).


I'm not saying that the DC & Marvel universes couldn't stand some new additions..it's just that every time it's done it's done heavy handed by editorial and usually accompanied by a press release or qualifying statements. For instance, look at DC's press releases from the "lipstick lesbian" Batwoman reveal... which actually was a big disservice to what has become a very good character, and created a non-necessary controversy that delayed her series. They did the same in interviews concerning Atom, Blue Beetle, about how they need to add change to the DCU etc.... The one thing that these heroes have going is that their powers etc. aren't predicated on their nationality in any way...which is something the Global Guardians do suffer from. However, by removing an existing character point-blank to replace him with a diverity character was also a disservice to those new heroes. Could Ryan Choi be interesting if he wasn't The Atom but had a different source of powers & name? Yes, he was a good creation as an Alter-Ego, he just had the stigma of being the replacement Atom, a move nobody believed was forever anyway considering the Countdown storylines, and it played out that way in fact. All that work and Choi has effectively faded away (at least in the comics), so what was the point? I can't think of any character this technique has ever worked on, with maybe the exception of the female Doctor Light. Better to have introduced him into a series somewhere, given him powers at some point and spun him into his own series.

In the H-B case, those heroes were stuck whole cloth in one move into an otherwise all-white grouping. And each was a reflection of their ethnicity in powers & name. Would have maybe been better if say, Black Vulcan were just called Vulcan and he had fire-powers or Apache Chief were called Giant-Man. And as said above, in the case of the cartoons vs. the comics, there was no area of growth & history to help out. I'd say that if Thunderbird was a one-shot character in a franchise less popular than the X-men, then he would be remembered differently. Compare Thunderbird to the American Eagle, El Aguila, White Tiger.

I think that in order for the character to work, it needs to be done organically. A good example of this is Blade the Vampire Slayer. Shang-Chi was mentioned too.

[BlackKnight]

To me, personally, the upswing of this obvious deficiency early on,
is that it seems that since the time the "SF add-ons" became a "nostalgic" part of being a 70s/80s superhero fan, writers on JLU, in the comics, etc....have gone out of their way to make them more interesting and dareIsay "serious" characters in the DCU (This includes THE WONDER TWINS
and other such "created for TV" characters as well.).

I dunno what you are really saying here... it's a bit eairly for me.
But you quoted me, and I think I get the Jist of what you are saying.
I have never been all Giddy like a school girl when it comes to nostalgic stuff ..., outside of Super power's and 8inch WGSH Mego's. I will also watch some Hanna Barbara toons here and there as well. I can barely make it threw an Episode of Super Friends these days ..., and have a bunch on DVD for the Boy, well now Kids. I recently saw an Episode with this El Dorado guy in it ..., and He is probably the most Horrible Super Hero Ever ..., and it's a lot more than Seriousness of a Script. Everything that Roled outta the Dudes Mouth was Beyond Stupid, and ALL his scene's have got to be the worst in Super Friends History .