Cyborg was omitted 'cuz 1980 comes after 1977, Bryan. Also, no Storm, Bishop, Steel or Spawn.
I really shoulda never put Black Lightning on the damn list… razzen frazzen friggin fracken…Black Vulcan is a clear rip-off, so, no go.
Hey! I just noticed – weren’t there ANY black female superheroes and supervillains prior to 1977?
I, of course, realized that only after posting, which was clumsy of me.
Expando - the little known Herculean Comic Gestation produced five issues of Expando: the Bubble Gum Man in 1983-4. Expando was the descendant of slaves on Salt Cay, one of the specks that make up the Turks and Caicos islands in the West Indies. His parents were prisoners on the chicle plantations of the evil Viscount John Bullington, who had virtual totalitarian powers in the early 1900s as the representative of the British, who administered the islands as a Crown Colony.
During the worst hurricane ever to hit the island, the young Expando was fused with the spirit of the Mimusops globosa or bully tree that produces chicle. As a result he found himself able to chew gobs of the raw chicle to blow giant bubbles that gave him the ability to fly. The bubbles also were impervious to bullets and could be blown around living people to protect them. After taking an oath to use the power of the bully to suppress them, when he grew older he fought against The Viscount Bullington to try to free his people.
By the fourth issue, the Haitian-Incan writer/creator Sapota Zapotilla moved the action to Grand Turk island, Columbus’ landing site, and its capital Cockburn Town and turned the Viscount into a religious-themed supervillain named The Bully, who hypnotized the masses from his pulpit. This move lowered already low sales in the south and the comic was canceled with the fifth issue.
It’s Exapno, dammit!
Uh… I’m dyslexic? I’m tired? I need new glasses? I’ve managed to misread your name every instance in every thread we’ve ever shared over the last three years? It reads “Exapno” on my browser… what about yours? There was an earthquake. A flood! Locusts! It wasn’t my faaaaAAAAuuuult!!!
(Scurries off)
(Scurries back)
Likedyoursarcasticsynopisisitwasfunny --BYE.
(recurs scurry)
I could be wrong, but I thought Astro City’s Black Badge was supposed to be a '70s hero, not the '50s…?
And in that vein, I think the original (Astro City) Jack-In-The-Box qualifies – you never saw his skin while in costume, but his skin color was a pivotal part of his origin.
Does Black Manta count?
I mean, although we never get to see his skin, he does have “Black” in his name, and all.
Manta’s skin (and all his groovy blackness - can you dig it?) was revealed in Adventure Comics #452 (July-August 1977).
The character’s first appearance was in Aquaman #35, (October 1967).
Before I do my main posting bit, how about Deathlok?
Wasn’t he black?
…and now, may I posit a slight hijack here about Asiatic superheroes/villains? (with all apologies to Askia). I fully accept this probably deserves its own thread, but being related, I’ll post it here until someone tells me to bugger off.
So, can folks help create a similar list of comic book heroes and villains of asian extraction?
Can we avoid the generic Fu Manchu characters that seemed to be so generic during the 40’s, and representations of the Japanese during WW2. Those were racial steretypes, not characters.
My own recollection, albeit small, doesn’t come up with a very long list, and most of them are Xmen related.
Sunfire - Japanese
Lady Mariko - Japanese
(technically not a supercharacter, but part of the Wolverine mythos, as is Ojin)
Silver Samurai - Japanese
Lady Deathstrike - Japanese
Psylocke II - Japanese
(sort of, cos she’s an englishwoman body-swapped and-
ooh… my head hurts!
Anyway, it was after the whole Seige Perilous episode).
Jubliee - Chinese-American
(or is it Japanese-American?)
Shang Chi -master of kung fu - Chinese
Wong, Dr Strange’s manservant - Chinese (?)
Godzilla (hah hah, I am soooo funny) - Japanese
Tom Kalmaku - Innuit
(from Green Lantern. Are the innuit people believed to have asian origins?
Please, forgive my ignorance in such matters)
Doctor Light II - Japanese
(first appeared in Crisis on Infinite Earth -1985, yes?).
All of these are relatively recent characters, I don’t really have dates, but I assume Tom Kalmaku is mid/late 60’s. Sunfire was Giant-Sized Xmen #1, in 1975.
Any more? Any earlier?
(sorry for the hijacking, but it’s related, really it is).
Chinese. Full name Jubilation Lee.
American only? Because Brian Bolland created a black superhero called Powerman for a Nigerian comic {sorry, don’t know the name} back in the 70’s , before his work on Judge Dredd for 2000 AD. Mike McMahon, incidentally, admits to drawing Judge Dredd as black in the early days of the strip: it went unnoticed because all you ever saw of him was the bottom half of his face, there were so many different artists on the strip, and the print quality was so awful anyway.
How super do they have to be? 2000 AD had a string of black heroes in the 70’s: most of the Harlem Heroes, headed up by Giant Clay, were black - and Giant Clay’s son became Judge Clay, one-time rookie and later colleague of Judge Dredd. And HIS illegitimate son, born of an illegal liasion with a citizen, also became a Judge.
Then there was Blackhawk, Nubian slave turned gladiator turned Roman centurion in the comic Tornado, which was later merged with 2000 AD, whereupon he was abducted by aliens and forced to fight as a gladiator again. Then he was kidnapped by space pirates, had his soul stolen by a demon, got it back, and finally voyaged into a black hole in a spaceship made of sticks lashed together {you think I’m making this up, don’t you?}.
Hope this helps - I’ve a nagging feeling that there are more I’m missing…
Storm, of the X-Men. Didn’t the “new team” appear in the late 70’s?
The second Captain Marvel, the female one.
Sunfire was Uncanny X-Men #64 or 65, not Giant-Size X-Men #1 and The Falcon came just after Black Panther, long before Luke Cage–like 1967 or so.
I don’t think that Deathlock was black when he first appeared, but he’s been drawn more black since. In any case, he never operated before 1975 or so.
Asika—since you’re allowing '70s characters, there was Mal Duncan from Teen Titans who didn’t really have powers, pre-early '70s, IIRC–he was more of a…not sidekick, he was more active than that…a hanger-on? He later got several lame powers (magic ram’s horn, techno-sonic horn, some deal where he had powers, but if he EVER lost a fight, he’d die, the Guardian’s old costume (but not his powers), etc) but that was post-'70, IIRC.
There’s Karen…uh…Someone, (Mal’s girlfriend) who became The Bumblebee in one of the worst costumes ever, but again, early to mid '70s (Poor Mal, not only did his girlfriend have better powers (think “The Wasp” without the shrinking) AND not only did he have a worse costume (in one iteration): baby-blue pajamas with a hood and bell-bottoms) he also had (one of his iterations) had a worse name “The Hornblower” (which provided no end of teen-age Beavis-n-Butthead style humor to my pals)).
Tyroc from the Legion showed up around '74 or so…unfortunately for your timelin though, that should be 2974! (and while he might have visited the mid-to-late '70s once (maybe in KARATE KID) I wouldn’t count him. Even if he did show up in the '70s, I assume you’re not counting time travel stories where a black character goes into the past. )
Blade appeared around '72 or so.
Thunderball was first appeared in an early issue of Defenders–so that would have been '74-'75. (And another bad name—“I am Thunderball! Give me all your money!” / Bank Teller: “Did you say your name was Thunderballs? TMI, guy. I mean, I’m hung, but you don’t hear me calling myself Mighty Dick, do you?” 
Never underestimate the power of a 13 year old to find a way to make something sound dirty.)
There was a black supervillianess in Captain America–ummm…Nightshade, I think…very Blaxpoitation look and manner circa 1972. IIRC, no powers, she was a criminal mastermind type, and showed lotsa skin. I think she was actually the first black supervillianess.
And actually, the first recurring black character in a Marvel comic was Gabe Someone (Jones?) from SGT FURY AND HIS HOWLING COMMANDOS–certainly a hero, if not a super-hero.
Regarding THE TRUTH, the major sticking point with me was that I can’t possibly imagine a scenario where racists would ever risk giving super-powers to black people, especially in the context of the early '40s Marvel Universe.
If the powers had been an unexpected side-effect of some other experiment, no problem with belief whatsoever, but the idea was todeliberately give them powers and that’s where my suspension of disbelief fails. I don’t buy it in a real-world context–it would be like kidnappers giving their mistreated, captive prisoners new, powerful, dangerous loaded weapons to test, and I especially don’t buy it in a Marvel Universe context–people in the MU in the early '40s were traumatized by super-types: the idea of possibly creating another Sub-Mariner would have been unthinkable and if their opinion of black people was so low that they’d use them as lab-rats that’s exactly what they would have thought they were doing…
Fenris
Any relation to the Luke Cage Power Man who appeared in 1972?
The Mandrill was born of black parents. Didn’t he have a sister who was an albino, her powers fed on hate? I can picture her clear as day, can’t quite get the name. Nekra…? Hung around with Simon Williams’ dead brother for a while.
One half of Hammer and Anvil was black but I can’t remember which was which.
Any ideas why Marvel seems to have a MUCH higher percentage of “BlacK” characters than DC? I mean looking at the history link, it’s no contest. Not only are there more, but they seem to be of a higher caliber as well.
Is it just a matter of marketing and bean counting or something a bit more…unseemly? Was Marvel really THAT more progressive?
Oh and Mandrill’s parents were White, Nekra’s were Black…Mandrills power was to make women “love” him, while Nekra used Hate to augment her strength. Why do I know this…?
Maybe it’s because most of DC’s heroes were originally conceived during the Golden Age, where 98.35% of all comic-book characters were white and male. 
In contrast, the bulk of Marvel’s characters were created in the '60s and '70s, where racial diversity was a bit more flexible than what DC had at the time.
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.
The first Jack in the Box was active from the mid-60s in Astro City history, so that definitely precedes Marvel’s fictional history for the Black Panther’s debut.
Yup, yup. Manta makes the cut.
Deathlok attained that healthy ochre-splotched skin so fashionable among post-nuclear survivors, but he ain’t exactly a brother, knowhutimsayin?
The African Powerman. Sure, yeah. I think Dave Gibbons did some work on that title, too. If he fits the pre-1977 criteria, sure.
Not by choice, I assure you. And “Asika?” Hell, that’s worse’n “Expando!”
All your choices are probably in, once I double check the dates.
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.
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?
Keep in mind that the surviving black super-soldiers in the experiment were under heavy armed guard at all times or deployed behind enemy lines in Nazi Germany, where they weren’t expected to blend in or be rescued.
A couple more:
Vykin the Black, from Forever People, 1971
There was a Black member of the Secret Six, circa 1968
Storm actually makes the cut-off since she debuted with the “original” New X-Men in 1975.
In the eqrly 1970s (circa '72?), Wonder Woman had a black counterpart called Nubia. She was completely forgotten abouot even BEFORE the “Crisis” events, and hence hasn’t been seen since, but there is a black Amazon Phillipus (who I think succeeded the late Hyppolyta as nominal “queen” of Themiscyra) nowadays. She can be counted as a retroactive character, since she was with the Amazons when they arrived on Paradise Island in the pre-Christian era.
Just a nitpick, but “Black Goliath” received super-powers in 1975, but was actually a pre-existing supporting character in the pages of “the Avengers.” He was Jim Foster, Dr. Pym’s (Ant-Man, Giant-Man, Goliath, etc.) lab assistant since at least issue #28.
And if you’re adding supporting characters, don’t forget Robbie Robertson (J. Jonah’s level-headed assistant) and Gloria Grant (who succeeded Betty Brant as J. Jonah’s secretary in the late 60s.)
Also, one of the Gunkawks was a Black man. 1972. They had goofy names like “Reno Smith and Nevada Jones” or something, but the series ended with the Black partner accused of the white partner’s murder. Kinda like “Power Man and Iron Fist” about fifteen years later, but it was a Western.
And don’t forget Gabe Jones of the Howling Commandos. He appeared at least two years before Black Panther, but sprang from the same creative team, and was a SHIELD agent later on.
Oh, and speaking of Asian heroes: Jimmy Woo, the SHIELD agent, started out in the 50s as the hero of the Yellow Claw comic. Yep, the Yellow Claw had his own comic at least a decade and a half earlier than Dr. Doom, the Joker, Kobra or Tomb of Dracula.