Since the beginning of comics, the industry has as a genre not been very diverse in terms of race and ethnicity. Even in the crowds and background of comics the characters were all white, so the chance portray racial stereotypes wasn’t there. Comics began introducing different races slowly starting with having them in the background, and then they began including them as sidekicks. After they were included as sidekicks, there was in 1965, published by Dell Comics, the first black main character of a comic book in Lobo. Although this was a western hero story and only lasted 2 issues, this was significant because of what this said about black characters. The industry could tell by the amount of issues that it lasted that the readers of this time weren’t ready or interested in black characters as a leading role in comics. Taking this into account Marvel Comics decided to introduce a character that they had tried several variations of several times in the past, The New Black Panther. But instead of jumping to give Black Panther his own comic book they put him in a supporting role in Fantastic Four #52 in 1966. But the interesting thing about Black Panther is that his black costume covered his entire body, leaving no skin revealed. Another interesting choice that Marvel made with this character was making him from Africa instead of American. Then after this Marvel introduced another supporting character in 1969 in the Captain America #117, Falcon. Finally in 1972 Marvel Comics introduced the first black superhero with his own series, Luke Cage in Hero For Hire #1. With this character came the stereotype of black people being angry in the 1970s this can be seen by just looking at the cover of the first issue where he is standing in a sort of crouched stance with his fists balled and gritting his teeth.
A blog for and about the intersection of comic books and American history.
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