I recently got feedback on Ages of Heroes, Eras of Men from a prospective publisher. It a tough process, getting feedback from someone who doesn't know all the work you have put into something. It is honest feedback and I will take it and make sure the final product answer the editor's questions. We have done a lot of great work on the book, but publishers are a cold and objective bunch slow to hand out praise (and contracts). As I scramble to reply to the press, I realize I have not done much with one of the chapters I am writing for the book. My chapter looks at the introduction of African-American superheroes to the Marvel Universe in the 1960s and 1970s. The decision to introduce minority characters to a fictional universe may seem petty compared to the titanic struggles occurring over Civil Rights during the 1960s, but those struggles drove the decision to incorporate minorities into comics. The question for me is what does the Marvel Comic experience integrating person of color into the superhero community tells us about the broader struggle to accepted the end of segregation in contemporary society? My belief is that it tells us a lot. If you consider the first black superhero, the Black Panther you can see both the hopes associated with Civil Rights and the problems.
While both Sgt. Fury and His Howling Commandos (1963) and the Amazing Spider-Man (1963) had black supporting characters, the first black superhero did not debut in Marvel Comics until 1966. T’ Challa, Black Panther, debuted in Fantastic Four volume 1 issue 52. T’Challa was the king of Wakanda and leader of the dominate religion, the Panther Cult. The Black Panther was an African royal educated in the West and more concerned with protecting his homeland from outside threats than battling crime. Indeed, his costume was not a costume; it was the traditional tribal dress of the Panther Cult’s leader. In his debut he invites the Fantastic Four to his home to test them before asking for their help against Klaw, a mercenary responsible for both the death of T’ Challa’s father and attempts to steal Wakanda’s natural resources. Created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, the Black Panther leads a technologically advanced African nation that was never conquered by European powers. The Black Panther has the intelligence, resources, and ideas to act as a hero, yet his most striking trait, his race, is not mentioned. Indeed, the Panther’s African origins, wealth, and motivation represent a subtle acknowledgement that white colonial experience had a negative effect on African development. The Black Panther represented a mythologized black self that might have been achieved if whites had not come to Africa. Thus, the Fantastic Four’s assistance in repelling a white invader has a cultural symmetry rooted in the contemporary race debate, but it is never explicitly racialized for the audience. The Black Panther offered a commentary on race without facing the problems associated with racism in the United States. The fact that T'Challa is not an American, that his people have no experience with slavery, that he lives in a wealthy African country untouched by colonialism seperate the character's experience from race issues of the day. Yet, from the perspective of Marvel creators, the decision to create a black superhero pushed the boundaries of societal acceptance. The presence of a black hero, even one that is not overtly concerned about racial injustice highlighted the assertion of common humanity so central to the Civil Right Movement's public message between 1955 and 1965. I believe this period represents the essential "Golden Age" of modern Civil Rights Movement. At this point, the argument in favor of Civil Rights were framed by white and black Civil Right leaders as a struggle to end de jure segregation--specific laws barring African-American participation in normal society. These laws existed in direct violation of African-American legal right to participate in normal activities such a working, owning a home, or traveling freely. The key to the Civil Rights Movement's success between 1955 and 1965 was the leadership's ability to garner sufficient public support from the white majority to reject these restrictive policies. At some basic level, they did this by getting a sizable part of the white population to accept the idea that southerners violence refusal to accept African-American attempts to vote, eat in public restaurants, and ride public transportation was unreasonable(and un-American). In that vein, Marvel Comic's decision to create black heroes, not supporting characters, but heroes, worked as an affirmation. If the heroes in comics could be black, then the message that acknowledging African-American rights in the real world was good and right was inescapable. The reality was, of course, much harder for Americans to realize.
Rejecting blatant racism like that found in Alabama or Mississippi was not the same as acknowledge that deep rooted prejudice created a de facto segregation that limited opportunity, enhanced economic inequality, added to political and social disadvantage while not being codified into specific laws. The power of de facto discrimination to effect minority participation was as great or perhaps greater in the minds of Civil Rights advocates, but not as easily seen or accepted by the mainstream white public. The battle over Sonia Sotomayor's nomination to the Supreme Court will once again brings this argument to the forefront of public debate. Judge Sotomayor has written again and again of her belief that her background and identity allows her to have different perspective on issues. Critics argue she may be unable to be fair because she bias in favor of Hispanic rights. While a similar argument is never leveled against a white man, neither is her argument always dismissed. The assertion that Judge Sotomayor has made is the same one made by white women advocating for affirmative action policy for more than thirty years. The problem seems to be that an assertion that racial identity provides a unique perspective is a problem when the person is not white. The fear that minorities assert greater power when allowed to participate, the reality is that discrimination against minority persists. If my article comes together as I hope, my exploration of the African-American characters introduced to the Marvel Universe after the Black Panther will highlight the rising tension over de jure and de facto segregation as presented in superhero comics. While this might not get to the core of the problem, it will add to our understanding of the development of racial thinking in the United States.
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