# Help me catalog black superheroes (and villains) prior to the 1960s **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [October 24, 2004, 9:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-catalog-black-superheroes-and-villains-prior-to-the-1960s/270936 "2004-10-24T21:24:59Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![caveman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/caveman/32/7242_2.png) [@caveman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/caveman)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2004, 9:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-catalog-black-superheroes-and-villains-prior-to-the-1960s/270936/41 "2004-10-25T21:17:34Z")
I don’t imagine Lois Lane’s brief experience as a minority counts, does it? ---
**Author:** ![Fenris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fenris/32/498_2.png) [@Fenris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fenris)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2004, 10:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-catalog-black-superheroes-and-villains-prior-to-the-1960s/270936/42 "2004-10-25T22:16:20Z")
> [@Askia](#): > > And “Asika?” Hell, that’s worse’n “Expando!” Sorry 'bout that–it was really early. > [@](#): > > Easy. You forget – the super soldier serum doesn’t bestow superpowers: it maximizes human potential and creates physically perfect specimens. The subjects come out faster, stronger, more agile, flexible, better fighters – but they can’t fly, aren’t bulletproof and-- in are selected from among the poor. They are seen as tractable, manipulable, easily extorted. The problem is that what it’s done has been waaaaaay inconsistant-there are stories featuring a super-powered Captain America where he’s strong enough to throw cars around. His power-level post-Silver Age was pretty consistant but (IIRC) Golden Age was all over the place. While they probably have a good idea what the serum _might_ do, I think they’d be scared to death of having an accident create a Sub-Mariner II, and worse, a black one, who’d be pissed off at them. (What’s that Eddie Murhpy line “I’m your worst nightmare–a n\*gger with a badge”?) > [@](#): > > Think of it this way: they wanted human guinea pigs but they needed hundreds of test subjects, most of whom would likely be killed outright. Given that scenario, at that America is at war and the reality that any white subjects would face an extremely high mortality rate, would you pick people just like you — white soldiers – or would you select second-class people you’d just consider conveniently human enough to establish a working formula? Well, first, _I_ wouldn’t be involved if they weren’t all volunteers! 🙂 But that aside, if I was _was_ a racist, and I _was_ unethical, I’d still go for whites only for a super-soldier formula—I wouldn’t want the risk of giving my “inferiors” a loaded weapon of super-powers that they could point at me. Cap’s power levels, especially in the Golden Age were so variable that who _knows_ what they thought the formula might do. If it was testing VD or something that _couldn’t_ give super-powers, point taken. Fenris ---
**Author:** ![mbh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a6a055/32.png) [@mbh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mbh)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2004, 10:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-catalog-black-superheroes-and-villains-prior-to-the-1960s/270936/43 "2004-10-25T22:21:51Z")
**War Machine**. [http://www.marveldirectory.com/individuals/w/warmachinei.htm](http://www.marveldirectory.com/individuals/w/warmachinei.htm) In his backstory, he first meets Tony Stark in Vietnam, shortly after Stark and Professor Yinsen invented the first Iron Man armor. ---
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2004, 11:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-catalog-black-superheroes-and-villains-prior-to-the-1960s/270936/44 "2004-10-25T23:38:15Z")
> [@caveman](#): > > I don’t imagine Lois Lane’s brief experience as a minority counts, does it? You can get that story in TPB format. Good story. Pre-Crisis produced great stuff. Silver Age wasn’t just “goofy stuff”. ---
**Author:** ![dangergene](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@dangergene](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dangergene)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2004, 2:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-catalog-black-superheroes-and-villains-prior-to-the-1960s/270936/45 "2004-10-26T02:05:22Z")
> [@Bosda Di'Chi of Tricor](#): > > You can get that story in TPB format. **Bosda** , which TPB is that in? ---
**Author:** ![Papermache\_Prince](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/f05b48/32.png) [@Papermache\_Prince](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Papermache_Prince)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2004, 2:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-catalog-black-superheroes-and-villains-prior-to-the-1960s/270936/46 "2004-10-26T02:25:48Z")
A: When his skin color kept him from the front lines in World War II, he broke into the Pentagon to demonstrate his espionage skills. Q: Who was Ulysses Hazard - [Codename: Gravedigger](http://www.blacksuperhero.com/exhibithtml/exh-dc-codenameg.html)? He appeared in DC’s **Men of War** in the late '70s. ---
**Author:** ![rjung](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/45deac/32.png) [@rjung](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rjung)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2004, 5:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-catalog-black-superheroes-and-villains-prior-to-the-1960s/270936/47 "2004-10-26T05:37:40Z")
> [@Askia](#): > > Black Badge, aka ex-cop, ex-prizefighter, K.O. Carson was active from an unspecified point in the 50s until his retirement in the 70s. You’re probably thinking of Astro City’s other black cop, the possibly phantagasmic and certain scum-killer, the Blue Knight. Yeah, got me there. > [@Askia](#): > > Deathlok attained that healthy ochre-splotched skin so fashionable among post-nuclear survivors, but he ain’t exactly a brother, knowhutimsayin? You’re right for the first Deathlok, but the [second Deathlok](http://www.milehighcomics.com/cgi-bin/backissue.cgi?action=fullsize&issue=23360694230%201) from the early '90s was definitely a bro. On the other hand, he wasn’t created before the '60s, so he probably doesn’t qualify. (And now I see there’s a [Deathlok movie](http://www.worldmoviemag.com/index.php?request=News&key=478) in the works. The plot synopsis sounds like it’s based on the '90s Deathlok, but no word on whether the movie version will be black, white, or grey…) ---
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2004, 12:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-catalog-black-superheroes-and-villains-prior-to-the-1960s/270936/48 "2004-10-26T12:04:09Z")
> [@dangergene](#): > > **Bosda** , which TPB is that in? [http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1563896389/qid=1098792580/sr=1-1/ref=sr\_1\_1/104-0708715-5543103?v=glance&s=books](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1563896389/qid=1098792580/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/104-0708715-5543103?v=glance&s=books) Ignore the reviews. ---
**Author:** ![Fenris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fenris/32/498_2.png) [@Fenris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fenris)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2004, 12:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-catalog-black-superheroes-and-villains-prior-to-the-1960s/270936/49 "2004-10-26T12:05:41Z")
> [@Bosda Di'Chi of Tricor](#): > > You can get that story in TPB format. > > Good story. Pre-Crisis produced great stuff. > Silver Age wasn’t just “goofy stuff”. A quibble and a disagreement The quibble—Lois Lane #107 isn’t really Silver Age–it was at the tail-end of the “relevance” craze (bah! Yuk!) and was post-Weisinger, so for DC, it was after the Silver Age, IMO. The disagreement—Lois Lane #107 is about as goofy as it gets. 1) The title of the story was “I Am Curious…Black!” played on a porn movie of the time, making one wonder how it got by the comics code. 1. Lois got into the enblackulation machine in part because she wanted an interview with a black racist (He says to a small mob of black people “Look at her brothers and sisters! She’s young and sweet and pretty. But never forget- **she’s Whitey!** …It’s okay with her if we leave these rat-infested slums! _ **IF** _ we **DON’T** move next door to her! That’s why she’s the **ENEMY!** ” (I wouldn’t want him living next to me either–he’s a fucking kook!). The character’s rant came about because Lois was walking by. He never actually _talked_ to her or anything) and he wouldn’t talk to her because she was white (plus she wanted to see the horrors of ghetto life from an insider’s perspective, which was handled in standard preachy, '70’s guilt, relevancy-fashion\*). After he was shot, she gave him a blood transfusion and he decided she was groovy after all, even after she was un-emblackulated (the last panel shows a close up of her white hand shaking his black hand–apparently in an attempt to see if there’s _any_ cliche that they couldn’t hit. ) But in addition to that, her other reason to be emblackulated was…get this…she wanted to see if Superman was a racist. Since she’d still be the same person deep down, if he didn’t want to marry the new black Lois, he was racist (despite the fact that he wasn’t willing to marry the white Lois)–this is only one step away from the episode of I LOVE LUCY where she puts on the black-haired wig and tries to see if Ricky loves her more with that “Italian wig” on for wackiness value. For what it’s worth, when Lois point-blank asked Superman if he was willing to marry her, despite the fact that she was “A black woman in a white man’s world”, he (more-or-less) says “Um. Are you on crack? You wanna talk about being a minority, I’m an _alien_ in a human world and there’s only one other of my species running around.” For those of you familiar with '60s and '70s authors, the story was by Robert Kanigher ( yuk ). 'nuff said? Fenris _I love DC, but damn Marvel handled current events better than DC did. The three-part (ground breaking) Spider-Man drug story (#94-96?) was about ten billion times more meaningful than the “relevance-y” style pablum that DC did in the Green Lantern two parter (#85-86), which reads like an Ed Wood movie. And the Spider-Man “race-issues” story (ummm…SPIDER-MAN #68? “Crisis on the Campus”) was better written, addressed the issues better and didn’t have the big, overblown “Ed Wood” Guilt dialogue_\* that DC was famous for in _it’s_ stories (Annoying old coot " “Can you tell me what you done for th’ black man?”/ Green Lantern “I…can’t” :: bursts into tears :: ) \*\*See Wood’s movie THE VIOLENT YEARS for what I mean by Ed Wood “guilt dialogue”. The judge’s speech at the end sounds _exactly_ like DC “relevance” dialogue. ---
**Author:** ![Fenris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fenris/32/498_2.png) [@Fenris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fenris)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2004, 12:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-catalog-black-superheroes-and-villains-prior-to-the-1960s/270936/50 "2004-10-26T12:09:19Z")
Quibble with my own post–it’s Lois Lane #10 **6**. ---
**Author:** ![Fenris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fenris/32/498_2.png) [@Fenris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fenris)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2004, 12:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-catalog-black-superheroes-and-villains-prior-to-the-1960s/270936/51 "2004-10-26T12:10:38Z")
Quibble #2–it was published in 1970, so it wasn’t at the tail end of the relevancy craze. More like the middle. Note to self: No more posting before coffee. ---
**Author:** ![Spoke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2004, 1:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-catalog-black-superheroes-and-villains-prior-to-the-1960s/270936/52 "2004-10-26T13:49:30Z")
> [@rjung](#): > > And now I see there’s a [Deathlok movie](http://www.worldmoviemag.com/index.php?request=News&key=478) in the works. I thought we’d already _had_ a Deathlok movie. It was called **Robocop**. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2004, 2:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-catalog-black-superheroes-and-villains-prior-to-the-1960s/270936/53 "2004-10-26T14:43:32Z")
**Fenris** are you _sure_ that Lois Lane story didn’t come out of a Jack Chick tract? ---
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2004, 3:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-catalog-black-superheroes-and-villains-prior-to-the-1960s/270936/54 "2004-10-26T15:36:12Z")
> [@Annie-Xmas](#): > > **Fenris** are you _sure_ that Lois Lane story didn’t come out of a Jack Chick tract? NOPE! And [HERE’S](http://www.studioalaska.com/caputoland/Pages/lois.html) some images of Lois Lane as a Soul Sister. ---
**Author:** ![Askia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/96bed5/32.png) [@Askia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Askia)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2004, 10:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-catalog-black-superheroes-and-villains-prior-to-the-1960s/270936/55 "2004-10-26T22:39:41Z")
Okay – some changes and updates. First I updated EVERYTHING based on your suggestions. Whenever possible I added characters’ super-identities and the comic book companies they belong to, and the year they debuted or were active. (I did not do this for the John Henry character in DC: NEW FRONTIER: I just can’t remember it.) However I decided to drop the “first-debut” dates of all characters in the 1970s, because I am truly, mostly, and honestly really interested in comic strip black hero characters from the 1960s and _even earlier_, regardless of whether they’re mainstream or independent or British or American or whatever. So any suggested characters that make that cut get a debut date – but characters introduced as contemporaneous heroes in real life in the 1970s and (or active from 1970-1977 in a fictional timeline) gets their slot in the 1970s section. Though introduced in the 1970s, 2000 AD’s ‘Harlem Heroes’ and related characters was set in the 21st century, so I’m gonna pass on it for the purposes of this compilation. Same with Marvel Comics’ then-futuristic Deathlok and DC’s Tyroc and Invisible Lad of the Legion. Though introduced in the early 1970s (or late 60s? I forget), Jim Rhodes didn’t become Iron Man nor War Machine until the 1980s. Nigerian superhero **Powerman** and Marvel Comics’ **Luke Cage, Power Man** have no connection I’m aware of. Soul sister **Lois Lane** – aw, hell, nah. (I am curious my black _ass.)_ REVISITED REVISED LIST **Dr. Mist** (DC) pre-history **En Sabah Nur, Apocolypse** (Marvel) ancient Egypt, 5,000BC **Teth-Adam, Black Adam** (Fawcett) dynastic Egypt, 3,000BC **N’Kantu, the Living Mummy** (Marvel) dynastic Egypt and sub-Sahara Africa, 1000BC \*\*Reno Jones of the Gunhawks \*\* (Marvel) late 1800’s, American West **Ebony White, partner to The Spirit** (syndicated) 1940s **Isaiah Bradley, “Black Cap,”** Captain America’s precursor (Marvel) 1940s-WWII **Will Everett, Amazing Man** (DC) 1940s-WWII **Ulysses Hazard, Gravedigger** (DC) 1940s-WWII **David Mitchell, Human Top** (Marvel) 1940s-WWII **T’Chaka, the Black Panther** (Marvel) 1944 **K.O. Carson, the Black Badge** (Image, Homage/ASTRO CITY) 1950s **John Henry** (DC) three months in 1959 **T’Challa, the Black Panther** (Marvel) 1966 **Sam Wilson, the Falcon** (Marvel) 1969 SEVENTIES SOUL 'SPLOSION **Nubia** (DC) **Luke Cage, Power Man** (Marvel) **John Stewart, Green Lantern** (DC) **Blade, Vampire Hunter** (Marvel) **Jim Foster, Black Goliath** (Marvel) **Ororo Monroe, Storm** (Marvel) **Jefferson Pierce, Black Lightning** (DC) \*\*Mal Duncan, Hornblower \*\* (DC) **Dr. Eliot Franklin, Thunderball** (Marvel) **Gabriel Jones of S.H.I.E.L.D.** (Marvel) **Karen Beecher, the Bumblebee** (DC) **Willie Walker is Death, the Black Racer** (DC) **Vikyn The Black** (DC) **August Durant of the Secret Six** (aka **Mockingbird** ) (DC) **(Identity Unknown) Black Manta** (DC) **(Identity Unverified) Blue Knight** (Image, Homage/ASTRO CITY) Now: any errors? I miss anything? Let me know! ---
**Author:** ![Papermache\_Prince](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/f05b48/32.png) [@Papermache\_Prince](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Papermache_Prince)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2004, 11:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-catalog-black-superheroes-and-villains-prior-to-the-1960s/270936/56 "2004-10-26T23:08:31Z")
Two additional heroic black characters from comic strips: In 1934, Lee Falk created [Mandrake the Magician](http://www.toonopedia.com/mandrake.htm). I think Lothar was present from the begining. > [@](#): > > Mandrake is joined in his adventures by Lothar, American comics’ first seriously-treated black character. Although he is by birth an African prince, Lothar prefers his position as Mandrake’s valet and bodyguard. As years went by and America’s consciousness was raised, Lothar lost most of his accent and became more a friend and companion than a valet — but right from the start, he was treated as an intelligent man and a valuable ally. [Friday Foster](http://www.toonopedia.com/friday.htm) > [@](#): > > which debuted on January 18, 1970, was the first mainstream syndicated comic strip to star a black woman. In fact, other than a handful of broadly stereotyped caricatures from the industry’s very early days (such as Pore Li’l Mose, by Yellow Kid creator Richard F. Outcault) and a few series aimed solely at black newspapers (such as Jackie Ormes’s pioneering Torchy Brown), no American comic strip had ever borne the name of a black lead character. Ted Shearer’s Quincy arrived later the same year, and Brumsic Brandon Jr.'s Luther a year later, but Friday Foster was the first. Info from Don Markstein’s [Toonopedia](http://www.toonopedia.com/). ---
**Author:** ![Fenris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fenris/32/498_2.png) [@Fenris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fenris)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2004, 1:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-catalog-black-superheroes-and-villains-prior-to-the-1960s/270936/57 "2004-10-27T01:01:54Z")
Mistake: Gabe Jones belongs in the '60s by first debut date and in the '40s 'cause he was a Howling Commando with Nick Fury in WWII. ---
**Author:** ![Askia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/96bed5/32.png) [@Askia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Askia)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2004, 3:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-catalog-black-superheroes-and-villains-prior-to-the-1960s/270936/58 "2004-10-27T03:26:34Z")
**Papermache Prince.** **Lothar** , yes. **Friday Foster** , nah. **Fenris.** Gabe Jones presents something of a curveball, being a war comic vet. I put him on the strength of his 60s S.H.I.E.L.D. service – Marvel’s superspy agency. Without that connection – Howling Commando or no – he’s an just an unimpressive WWII black vet, one improbably integrated in a mostly white combat unit. Now, **Ulysses “Gravedigger” Hazard** on the other hand. WOW. Firstly, his name rocks hard as hell. Secondly, he headlined DCs MEN AT WAR anthology title in all 26 issues before it was cancelled. He’s a physically stunning specimen, billed as a One Man Commando – -- sorta an OMAC, with a tan. He overcame childhood polio. When he was segregated in the army and assigned to gravedigging duty he went AWOL and broke into the freaking Pentagon and basically made his superiors use him in combat. In his final appearance, he assumed command of Easy Company when Sgt. Rock was wounded and led the company to complete their mission. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2004, 3:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-catalog-black-superheroes-and-villains-prior-to-the-1960s/270936/59 "2004-10-27T03:47:53Z")
Ebony White never had any superpowers that I remember. How is he different from other black comic sidekicks of the day that puts him on the list? ---
**Author:** ![Askia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/96bed5/32.png) [@Askia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Askia)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2004, 4:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-catalog-black-superheroes-and-villains-prior-to-the-1960s/270936/60 "2004-10-27T04:00:56Z")
Ebony White is funnier than Doiby Dickles, more loyal than Etta Candy, at least as mechanically handy as Pieface and less annoying than than Jimmy Olsen. He can drive the aero-car, track suspects, co-conspire with the Spirit, confound commissioner Dolan and keep Denny Colt’s secrets. Plus he knws EVERYBODY worth knowing in Central City. Plus I own the first 9 volumes of the collected Spirit Archives. And it’s _my_ list. Neener, neener, neener. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-catalog-black-superheroes-and-villains-prior-to-the-1960s/270936.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-catalog-black-superheroes-and-villains-prior-to-the-1960s/270936.md?page=4)