The history of black masculinities in comicdom

Union News Daily covered a recent conference that was held at Vauxhall Library about black masculinity in comics history. And along the way, perhaps unsurprisingly, some problematic parts come up:

Black superheroes began showing up in comic strips and comic books as early as the mid-1930s. However, in mainstream comic publishing the depictions of Black people were inaccurate.

Recently, at Vauxhall Library, the community gathered to watch the film “White Scripts and Black Supermen: Black Masculinities in American Comic Books” (2012), directed by Jonathan Gayles. The 54-minute documentary examined 40 years of changing representations of Black masculinity in American comic books, focusing on characters from the late 1960s to the late 1970s. The movie featured scholars, artists and cultural critics analyzing how Black superheroes have been burdened by stereotypes and how these images shifted to reflect changing times. [...]

Black Panther made his Marvel debut in 1966 and Gayles said he saw himself reflected as a hero. “Everyone in the comic book was Black,” he said in the film.

John Stewart was DC’s first Black superhero, introduced in the 1970s.

Dr. William H. Foster III is a renowned comic book historian, scholar and collector. He’s recognized as a leading authority on the portrayal of African Americans and minorities in American comic books and comic strips. In the film he said, “John Stewart came in with heavy attitude. He caused the death of a planet. He dated aliens. He was the first Black superhero who stepped out of a small town and into the universe.”

Stop right there for a moment. Unmentioned is that the Cosmic Odyssey miniseries is where John led to the slaughter of a planet, and they don't find that the least bit repellent he'd have such a setup forced upon him? The omission of any critical or objective view of that monstrosity of a tale is head-shaking. As for aliens, yes, he certainly dated one such lady, Katma Tui, but I don't think it can be said he dated busloads, and as mentioned before, Katma was executed in the repulsive Green Lantern entries in Action Comics Weekly.

Oh, and if they're talking about BP's debut in Fantastic Four 52, not everyone in the issue was black. There was also the FF team themselves, who were white, unless you count the Thing being orange per Ben Grimm's transformation from the cosmic radiation that was part of the premise for the team coming to be in 1961. And what about Ulysses Klaw, the evil scientist who changed himself into a living sound creature, though that was left for a later issue? This is a very awkward article, proving again why many mainstream newspapers are unreliable on history.

Luke Cage, Hero for Hire, was a Marvel superhero in 1972. He wore a yellow disco shirt, a metal headband and a chain around his waist. He goes to jail for crimes he didn’t commit and a racist guard tries to kill him. Luke was supposed to be urban, but came across as corny. His sayings didn’t reflect real Black language.

Tyroc was a minor DC Comics character in 1976 and showed how diversity was handled badly. He was a character 1,000 years in the future, where Black people were escaped slaves living on an island.

Regarding Luke, it could be argued his dialogue, including exclamations like "sweet Christmas", was meant to be surreal, and in a sci-fi setting, that's par for the course. Regarding Tyroc's residence, I think the premise in the mid-1970s was that the black inhabitants of the island of Marzal were descendants of 18th century slaves who'd revolted upon a ship and then reached the island, where they lived as isolationists. So it's not accurate to say the inhabitants of Marzal several centuries later were slaves, though there's a valid arguemnt to make that Tyroc's introduction was sadly very questionable, yet that was no excuse for artist Mike Grell insulting the character by drawing him a costume that looked almost like a bustier.

A key takeaway from the film is that white heroes such as Spider-Man were portrayed as normal and relatable. Black heroes were hyper-masculine and spectacularly different, therefore hindering identification for Black readers.

Depending how you see this, if the masculinity of black men was respected at the time, wasn't that a good thing? But, if what they're concerned about is whether the black protagonists have flaws, moral or otherwise, applied to their character, then what about Cyborg from New Teen Titans, in example? Why doesn't he come up? Even the Falcon could serve as a good example.

And if masculinity's important, then were black women ever portrayed as hyper-feminine? I've looked over various comics from the Golden Age till the turn of the century, and I noticed that in the Golden Age, there were at least a few examples where black women were depicted as short-haired tomboys, and as a result, made to look far less hot than the white women were, if at all. By the late 1960s early 1970s, this was beginning to change, although some portrayals of black women at the time only gave them round Afro-hairstyles that were anything but long, and Misty Knight and 2nd Captain Marvel Monica Rambeau were at least 2 examples during the Bronze Age. Storm in X-Men was one black woman who did have a longer mane of hair, even if it was colored white by contrast. To be sure, since then there have been some black women whose hairstyles were longer, illustrated as both curly and straight. But a real absurdity would have to be Brian Bendis' creation of Riri Williams, who was portrayed with the round Afro-hairstyle long past the time it was common, though much worse is that she was not created as her own agency; she was created as part of the social justice pandering of the past decade, and almost put to use for replacing Tony Stark as Iron Man, as if it weren't bad enough Kieron Gillen forcibly retconned Tony's background. Some of the SJW-pandering creations of the past 2 decades have been forgotten at this point, although the Muslim Ms. Marvel, perhaps unshockingly, is still being foisted on the MCU, no matter how awful the political structure of her creation makes it, but some sadly still remains, and DC/Marvel have been climbing some high trees while keeping them around.

The articles does say there are indie creators who've come up with their own creations, and that's good, but the point that really needs to be made is that, based on the collapse of coherency and morality in Marvel/DC, that's why we all have to stop relying almost entirely upon them to deliver entertainment value, and the time's come to focus on creator-owned stories instead. But till this day, nobody in the press seems to want to write an op-ed making such a point, nor why, if Marvel/DC are to be considered worth reading again someday, they can't continue under a conglomerate ownership.